Job, project-based: Zoom tech assistant. I'll be teaching a series of courses in Oct-Dec. I need someone with experience running events on Zoom to assist during each class. Familiarity with home energy efficiency, electrification, and solar would be ideal.
Do you know the fate of the home energy rebate programs that were part of the inflation reduction act? I believe a few states satisfied all of the department of energy's requirements and actually received funds prior to january twentieth. Supposedly, here in maryland we had final approval from the DOE prior to january twentieth, but no funds have ever become available here.
Just heard about a cool company called Harvest Thermal. They integrate a hot water heater and heat pump into a thermal battery. Seems like it would make a great Volts episode!
Here in NYC, the startup Aircela demonstrated their first working unit of a modular product that "uses water, air and renewable electricity" to "produce 1 gallon of gasoline per day" with "no fossil fuel inputs". They claim the gasoline is ready to be put into a car as-is. There is precious little detail I can find anywhere online about the chemistry of what they are doing. The big question I have is *how much electricity does it need to generate that gallon of gasoline*? Also, I can't find anything about up-front costs of installation (their website shows beautiful images of a suburban home with one of these units outside the garage, so in theory they think individual families could install this?).
Do you know anything about this company?
Is this tech novel at all?
Could it reach any kind of scale to make a dent in reducing carbon-intensity of the existing gasoline cars on the road (which I guess comes down to: b/w up front and electricity costs, how long would it take a purchaser to break even on using this fuel over buying at the gas station)?
Is the GOP proposal to eliminate the residential solar tax credit bad energy policy? Or just bad for residential solar companies and resi solar adoption?
I'm reminded a bit of CA's transition from NEM 2.0 to 3.0, which - though it hurt the economics of rooftop solar - seemed to make some sense from a 'clean grid management' perspective by encouraging storage pairing. Obviously entirely different situations.
David, at a recent dinner with a group of cleantech executives, we were discussing the EV charging landscape in the U.S., and a theme was the ‘flight to quality’ now happening in the space. Many agreed that several of today’s networks won’t survive the next 3–5 years without consolidation or significant capital infusions. Given that, do you think the current federal and state EV infrastructure policies — like NEVI — are inadvertently propping up unsustainable business models by prioritizing charger counts over network reliability and financial resilience? How should policy evolve to support build-out, long-term operational excellence, and viable business models in EV charging?
David, where are you on the various geo-engineering schemes these days? I know why people are skeptical of them, and share many of their concerns, but at what point to we break glass in case of emergency if it looks like we cannot stop climate change any other way or if we just need to give ourselves an extra decade for a clean energy transition?
Please do more episodes on new technology like the new geothermal heat pumps episode. I find the episodes with government involvement just too depressing to listen to at the moment. I'm not saying they're not important but it's really hard with the current climate. Also perhaps do catch up episodes on tech you've already covered. I would love to hear a follow up on Boston Metal, Form Energy, etc.
I wanted to be sure energy transition nerds are aware well in advance of SUN DAY (https://www.sunday.earth/), a hopefully massive climate & energy global day of action coming up September 20-21. It's a celebration of the fact that the sun's energy, instead of cooking us, can save us. A wake-up call to the world that we no longer need fossil fuels. We can make this transition, and fast. Involving art, music, protest, organizing, new solar installations, EV parades, and whatever else creative communities come up with, it will hopefully be among the largest global days of action for anything, ever. So I encourage you to begin thinking what SUN DAY action(s) might look like for your community, your start up, etc.
Bill McKibben is one of the prime organizers of SUN DAY, and I'm secretly hoping David will interview Bill sometime between now & September. It'll be the Ali-Foreman of energy transition nerd vs. climate activist (only nicer).
Yes. Good to be positive, proactive, etc. Lots of effort needed to fight the various forms of anti-solar, anti-wind, anti-batteries, anti-EVs, anti-HP misinformation out there. I almost feel like it's too late in the USA.
I got an email about this from 350. I think 90% of the email was still "stop FFs, keep in ground, FF companies bad bad bad, ad nauseum. I say keep it positive. Wind/solar/storage/electrification can substitute/replace/displace combustion and GHGs. And ARE doing that. Which is why FF companies made a slick gas salesman the Sec DOE.
Yes on both. First can be a tad confusing. $1.00 CAD = $0.75ish USD. Also, the "first" SMR is listed as about $6+B CAD, after adjusting for "shared infrastructure," then adjusting to $15,000/kW USD and a capital recovery of 7.5% and an O&M of about $0.02 gets us to about $0.16/kWh+ before T&D&Etc. And that existing nuke station, it sits on the shore of a big cold lake and uses direct cooling so figure most other places would add $1000/kW for a giant cooling tower.
And as far as I know it's not at all innovative. It's a design Westinghouse has been building for years. I've been at a 300 MW coal steam powerplant "module." Not very small or modular.
Here in CO, folks are agitated about retail $0.13/kWh.
My somewhat biased takeaway from Down Under. The Labor Party clearly stated a plan to stay the course with solar, wind, storage, efficiency and electrification. Closing coal and using some gas during longer VRE "droughts." They clearly pointed out the failings of the LNP nuke plan. As opposed to the Harris Dems and their capture by the vague "clean" energy narrative and "oh gee, maybe I was wrong about fracking back then."
Yes, the Aussies have more land, but still are running into all the std. conflicts caused by wind and solar and transmission development in the countryside. Helpfully, they figured out how to make rooftop solar 1/3 the price here. "Deregulate Solar!"
Maybe the folks in Connecticut will be OK paying $0.16/kWh for nuke power. Sorry, blathering on.
It came as a shock to me to learn exactly how inactive BPA has been in building transmission and approving renewable projects. It's hard to imagine that in Inslee's backyard this continued to fester (realizing it's a Federal agency). There may be no words to actually describe the feeling of frustration. Is there a solution now that the government is cutting off it's own hands? https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/12/oregon-washington-green-energy-bonneville/
Speaking of baugruppen/cohousing and David's 2015 Vox article in the mailbag: Bosque Cohousing is breaking ground next month in sunny Albuquerque, where it's cooler than Tucson and weirder than Austin. Two of our larger units (3 and 4 bedrooms) are still available, but will be spoken for soon. Bonus points for families with kids 10 or older. https://www.cohousingabq.org/
Hi there, It would be great if Volts could do a full episode deep dive on the topic of restructuring utility incentives to better align them with the interests of ratepayers and the climate. Ideally the episode wouldn't spend too much time on the obvious reforms (multi-year rate plans, decoupling) which work pretty well for routine operating expenses, but rather tackle the harder, unsolved issues like effective capital cost recovery mechanisms (since prudence reviews are often not very effective for a variety of reasons) and figuring out how to rein in ROR without triggering a downgrade in the utility's credit rating (as happened to Eversource in CT recently). Many PUC chairs are grappling with these challenging issues. Let's get the experts together and figure it out! Thanks for considering.
Are there any good resources out there that provide a comprehensive list of all VPP programs in the US, particularly programs focused on demand response? In my initial search, RMI’s VP3 flip book and the EPA’s VPP liftoff report were helpful, but seemed to just list a few examples, rather than being exhaustive.
We recently launched a new podcast series on Carbon Capture/Removal/Storage. First season is on DAC and we're planning for season 2 - open to ideas and feedback. It's at https://www.scrubbingthesky.com/#podcast
I write a blog called Green Juice (www.greenjuice.wtf) that breaks down clean energy concepts in a way that even seasoned Volts fans can appreciate. This month, we're contextualizing clean energy metrics and going deep (like, to the center of the earth) on geothermal.
I have a question about renewable electricity. I have read in multiple sources that renewable electricty is the cheapest there is. At the same time, in so many cases, renewable electricity seems associated with *higher* prices. For example, when my town (in NJ) sought to negotiate community energy aggregation using more renewable electricity, they found it was more expensive than less renewable electricity. California uses a lot of renewable electricity (my impression) and yet their electricity rates are high (again, my impression). I've heard the same thing about Germany (again, just an impression). Is it just that my impressions are wrong? (though I'm sure about the NJ energy aggregation data) Are there different explanations for different places? Is there a unified theory for what's going on? As a climate activist out here pushing electrification, the (apparent) paradox I describe above makes it harder for me to get people to electrify. Hard to push heat pumps when electricity prices are rising 20% (as they are in NJ in this year) and rates for methane gas are going down (at least for my utility, PSE&G).
Thanks. My initial take: I started listening to the California episode and found it interesting. One of the hosts (I forget which one) actually lives in NJ and applied the analysis to his own bill. It's a serious problem, it sounds like, which needs to be addressed if we're going to push for electrification.
Just wanted to post about a new podcast series Ed Whittingham (Energy vs Climate podcast) and I recently launched - a narrative podcast series that breaks down carbon capture technology for audiences. First season covers DAC (interviews with founders of Climeworks and Carbon Engineering and many more) - let us know your thoughts and ideas for season 2. You can check out the series at https://www.scrubbingthesky.com/#podcast
Just wanted to post about a new podcast series that Ed Whittingham (Energy vs Climate podcast) and I recently launched - a narrative podcast series that breaks down carbon capture technology for audiences. First season is on DAC - check it out and let us know what you think. Also welcome to ideas for a season 2 - https://www.scrubbingthesky.com/#podcast
I am a supporter of Make Polluters Pay laws and am hoping California can successfully pass a law this year similar to New York and Vermont’s already passed laws. We have been experiencing increasing damaging and expensive climate exacerbated disasters here in California and it’s appropriate that Big Oil pay for the damage their product produced.
One concern of voters is if these laws raise the price of gas at the pump. Is there any good research available or efforts underway to better understand if this is true or not?
--- CLIMATE JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES ---
Energy data nonprofit seeks a State Policy Manager! Covered on Volts in August '24.
Job posting here:
https://www.missiondata.io/about-us
Volts episode: https://www.volts.wtf/p/free-the-smart-meter-data
The federal fellowship program that got me into the industry and which I worried would be defunded is taking a new round of applications. They close June 6. https://www.zintellect.com/Opportunity/Details/DOE-EIF-CANDIDATE-2025
Job, project-based: Zoom tech assistant. I'll be teaching a series of courses in Oct-Dec. I need someone with experience running events on Zoom to assist during each class. Familiarity with home energy efficiency, electrification, and solar would be ideal.
messaged you!
--- MAILBAG QUESTIONS ---
Is it time for a transformer pod?
Everyone's favorite grain-oriented steel monopolist, Cleveland Cliffs, recently announced it won't be building that new transformer plant in WV after all - https://www.tdworld.com/utility-business/article/55289293/cleveland-cliffs-pulls-plug-on-plan-to-build-west-virginia-transformer-plant - because its "unnamed partner" pulled out. Why? Apparently the mystery company is still planning to build a plant alone?
Semi-relatedly, DG Matrix, recently raised $20M - https://chargedevs.com/newswire/dg-matrix-raises-20-million-to-commercialize-its-multi-port-solid-state-transformer-solutions/ - to commercialize its multi-port solid-state transformer solution. Is solid-state ready for primetime?
How big of a bottleneck are transformers for the energy transition? Will lead times every come down? And what about... tariffs?
Do you know the fate of the home energy rebate programs that were part of the inflation reduction act? I believe a few states satisfied all of the department of energy's requirements and actually received funds prior to january twentieth. Supposedly, here in maryland we had final approval from the DOE prior to january twentieth, but no funds have ever become available here.
Just heard about a cool company called Harvest Thermal. They integrate a hot water heater and heat pump into a thermal battery. Seems like it would make a great Volts episode!
Here in NYC, the startup Aircela demonstrated their first working unit of a modular product that "uses water, air and renewable electricity" to "produce 1 gallon of gasoline per day" with "no fossil fuel inputs". They claim the gasoline is ready to be put into a car as-is. There is precious little detail I can find anywhere online about the chemistry of what they are doing. The big question I have is *how much electricity does it need to generate that gallon of gasoline*? Also, I can't find anything about up-front costs of installation (their website shows beautiful images of a suburban home with one of these units outside the garage, so in theory they think individual families could install this?).
Do you know anything about this company?
Is this tech novel at all?
Could it reach any kind of scale to make a dent in reducing carbon-intensity of the existing gasoline cars on the road (which I guess comes down to: b/w up front and electricity costs, how long would it take a purchaser to break even on using this fuel over buying at the gas station)?
Is the GOP proposal to eliminate the residential solar tax credit bad energy policy? Or just bad for residential solar companies and resi solar adoption?
I'm reminded a bit of CA's transition from NEM 2.0 to 3.0, which - though it hurt the economics of rooftop solar - seemed to make some sense from a 'clean grid management' perspective by encouraging storage pairing. Obviously entirely different situations.
David, at a recent dinner with a group of cleantech executives, we were discussing the EV charging landscape in the U.S., and a theme was the ‘flight to quality’ now happening in the space. Many agreed that several of today’s networks won’t survive the next 3–5 years without consolidation or significant capital infusions. Given that, do you think the current federal and state EV infrastructure policies — like NEVI — are inadvertently propping up unsustainable business models by prioritizing charger counts over network reliability and financial resilience? How should policy evolve to support build-out, long-term operational excellence, and viable business models in EV charging?
David, where are you on the various geo-engineering schemes these days? I know why people are skeptical of them, and share many of their concerns, but at what point to we break glass in case of emergency if it looks like we cannot stop climate change any other way or if we just need to give ourselves an extra decade for a clean energy transition?
Please do more episodes on new technology like the new geothermal heat pumps episode. I find the episodes with government involvement just too depressing to listen to at the moment. I'm not saying they're not important but it's really hard with the current climate. Also perhaps do catch up episodes on tech you've already covered. I would love to hear a follow up on Boston Metal, Form Energy, etc.
--- CLIMATE EVENTS & MEETUPS ---
Hello Volts Community!
I wanted to be sure energy transition nerds are aware well in advance of SUN DAY (https://www.sunday.earth/), a hopefully massive climate & energy global day of action coming up September 20-21. It's a celebration of the fact that the sun's energy, instead of cooking us, can save us. A wake-up call to the world that we no longer need fossil fuels. We can make this transition, and fast. Involving art, music, protest, organizing, new solar installations, EV parades, and whatever else creative communities come up with, it will hopefully be among the largest global days of action for anything, ever. So I encourage you to begin thinking what SUN DAY action(s) might look like for your community, your start up, etc.
Bill McKibben is one of the prime organizers of SUN DAY, and I'm secretly hoping David will interview Bill sometime between now & September. It'll be the Ali-Foreman of energy transition nerd vs. climate activist (only nicer).
Yes. Good to be positive, proactive, etc. Lots of effort needed to fight the various forms of anti-solar, anti-wind, anti-batteries, anti-EVs, anti-HP misinformation out there. I almost feel like it's too late in the USA.
I got an email about this from 350. I think 90% of the email was still "stop FFs, keep in ground, FF companies bad bad bad, ad nauseum. I say keep it positive. Wind/solar/storage/electrification can substitute/replace/displace combustion and GHGs. And ARE doing that. Which is why FF companies made a slick gas salesman the Sec DOE.
--- EVERYTHING ELSE ---
+1 on the Comment of the Week. And, somewhat related, I found the Australian election results reassuring.
Yes on both. First can be a tad confusing. $1.00 CAD = $0.75ish USD. Also, the "first" SMR is listed as about $6+B CAD, after adjusting for "shared infrastructure," then adjusting to $15,000/kW USD and a capital recovery of 7.5% and an O&M of about $0.02 gets us to about $0.16/kWh+ before T&D&Etc. And that existing nuke station, it sits on the shore of a big cold lake and uses direct cooling so figure most other places would add $1000/kW for a giant cooling tower.
And as far as I know it's not at all innovative. It's a design Westinghouse has been building for years. I've been at a 300 MW coal steam powerplant "module." Not very small or modular.
Here in CO, folks are agitated about retail $0.13/kWh.
My somewhat biased takeaway from Down Under. The Labor Party clearly stated a plan to stay the course with solar, wind, storage, efficiency and electrification. Closing coal and using some gas during longer VRE "droughts." They clearly pointed out the failings of the LNP nuke plan. As opposed to the Harris Dems and their capture by the vague "clean" energy narrative and "oh gee, maybe I was wrong about fracking back then."
Yes, the Aussies have more land, but still are running into all the std. conflicts caused by wind and solar and transmission development in the countryside. Helpfully, they figured out how to make rooftop solar 1/3 the price here. "Deregulate Solar!"
Maybe the folks in Connecticut will be OK paying $0.16/kWh for nuke power. Sorry, blathering on.
xkcd is exploring heat pump technology! https://xkcd.com/3099
It came as a shock to me to learn exactly how inactive BPA has been in building transmission and approving renewable projects. It's hard to imagine that in Inslee's backyard this continued to fester (realizing it's a Federal agency). There may be no words to actually describe the feeling of frustration. Is there a solution now that the government is cutting off it's own hands? https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/12/oregon-washington-green-energy-bonneville/
Speaking of baugruppen/cohousing and David's 2015 Vox article in the mailbag: Bosque Cohousing is breaking ground next month in sunny Albuquerque, where it's cooler than Tucson and weirder than Austin. Two of our larger units (3 and 4 bedrooms) are still available, but will be spoken for soon. Bonus points for families with kids 10 or older. https://www.cohousingabq.org/
Hi there, It would be great if Volts could do a full episode deep dive on the topic of restructuring utility incentives to better align them with the interests of ratepayers and the climate. Ideally the episode wouldn't spend too much time on the obvious reforms (multi-year rate plans, decoupling) which work pretty well for routine operating expenses, but rather tackle the harder, unsolved issues like effective capital cost recovery mechanisms (since prudence reviews are often not very effective for a variety of reasons) and figuring out how to rein in ROR without triggering a downgrade in the utility's credit rating (as happened to Eversource in CT recently). Many PUC chairs are grappling with these challenging issues. Let's get the experts together and figure it out! Thanks for considering.
--- SHARE WORK, ASK FOR HELP, FIND COLLABORATORS ---
Are there any good resources out there that provide a comprehensive list of all VPP programs in the US, particularly programs focused on demand response? In my initial search, RMI’s VP3 flip book and the EPA’s VPP liftoff report were helpful, but seemed to just list a few examples, rather than being exhaustive.
@Ted Ko might know! https://www.epdiusa.org/team
We recently launched a new podcast series on Carbon Capture/Removal/Storage. First season is on DAC and we're planning for season 2 - open to ideas and feedback. It's at https://www.scrubbingthesky.com/#podcast
I write a blog called Green Juice (www.greenjuice.wtf) that breaks down clean energy concepts in a way that even seasoned Volts fans can appreciate. This month, we're contextualizing clean energy metrics and going deep (like, to the center of the earth) on geothermal.
I have a question about renewable electricity. I have read in multiple sources that renewable electricty is the cheapest there is. At the same time, in so many cases, renewable electricity seems associated with *higher* prices. For example, when my town (in NJ) sought to negotiate community energy aggregation using more renewable electricity, they found it was more expensive than less renewable electricity. California uses a lot of renewable electricity (my impression) and yet their electricity rates are high (again, my impression). I've heard the same thing about Germany (again, just an impression). Is it just that my impressions are wrong? (though I'm sure about the NJ energy aggregation data) Are there different explanations for different places? Is there a unified theory for what's going on? As a climate activist out here pushing electrification, the (apparent) paradox I describe above makes it harder for me to get people to electrify. Hard to push heat pumps when electricity prices are rising 20% (as they are in NJ in this year) and rates for methane gas are going down (at least for my utility, PSE&G).
A couple of episodes of the "Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins" podcast I found manageable:
1) How to Fix Electricity Bills in America ( June 12, 2024 )
2) How California Broke Its Electricity Bills ( June 5, 2024 )
(Assuming evidence and data actually matter in today's media landscape 😄)
Thanks. My initial take: I started listening to the California episode and found it interesting. One of the hosts (I forget which one) actually lives in NJ and applied the analysis to his own bill. It's a serious problem, it sounds like, which needs to be addressed if we're going to push for electrification.
2 different price inputs: supply & distribution.
Just wanted to post about a new podcast series Ed Whittingham (Energy vs Climate podcast) and I recently launched - a narrative podcast series that breaks down carbon capture technology for audiences. First season covers DAC (interviews with founders of Climeworks and Carbon Engineering and many more) - let us know your thoughts and ideas for season 2. You can check out the series at https://www.scrubbingthesky.com/#podcast
Just wanted to post about a new podcast series that Ed Whittingham (Energy vs Climate podcast) and I recently launched - a narrative podcast series that breaks down carbon capture technology for audiences. First season is on DAC - check it out and let us know what you think. Also welcome to ideas for a season 2 - https://www.scrubbingthesky.com/#podcast
May I suggest an interview with John Pettigrew of England's National Grid? https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/business/energy-environment/britain-clean-energy-national-grid.html
I am a supporter of Make Polluters Pay laws and am hoping California can successfully pass a law this year similar to New York and Vermont’s already passed laws. We have been experiencing increasing damaging and expensive climate exacerbated disasters here in California and it’s appropriate that Big Oil pay for the damage their product produced.
One concern of voters is if these laws raise the price of gas at the pump. Is there any good research available or efforts underway to better understand if this is true or not?