Greenlight America, featured on the pod Jan 8th, 2025 is hiring. Multiple positions but I wanted to highlight the post for the Midwest (aka North-Central).
Iowa is the leading state for wind energy and needs help maintaining that position
California is undergrounding lines to get around the pesky forest fire problem. I would be interested to hear about pros and cons of underground vs overhead transmission, especially around efficiency and maintenance, short term and long term.
What's the scuttlebutt on Chinese electric vehicles? It's in the news a lot with the Canada-China trade talks and Trump's tariff threats. How dominant really are Chinese EVs, and does the end of IRA provisions mean doom for American EV manufacturers amid global competition?
1) would love to hear a discussion of how to drive down costs of housing (such as making multi family more possible through removal of land development restrictions, codes “mandating” expensive/excessive requirements not supported by “outcomes-based safety evidence”, parking, coops, etc to drive out/reduce profiteers - UCLA housing leadership would be a good guest)
2) Similarly, evidence that European economies are adopting Passive House standards, at little to no cost premium (albeit much more emphasis on training/apprenticeships to facilitate). This topic could explore “total costs of living” (PH promises 90% lower utilities, and healthier interior air).. it also could include a discussion of how this could reduce cost of build (smaller, minimalist HVAC), opportunities to go net-zero more easily - becoming a potential contributor to our energy grid issues (not to mention housing problems) Leadership at Zurich housing authority, or possibly Cairn homes in Dublin would be good, and eye-opening guests.
Not to over-sell it, but reducing/eliminating need for massive subsidies is one way to build alternative means to solve community problems- without “permission” or federal support.
Thanks Samuel and David- love the work you’re doing!
Hello! I really enjoyed the podcast with Jonas Birgersson on building a distributed energy grid where microgrids interact via switches, a shared language, established power sharing rules. I understand this as a step towards a more flexible energy grid with many more DERs on the grid. How is this different in practice then a more traditional grid managed by software (like WeaveGrid) that controls when assets are charged, when they provide or pull power, etc? Is the end result essentially the same and these are two approaches to achieve the same future?
If panels are covered in snow, generation will stop given that snow is reflective. However, panel systems are designed to shed snow quickly so this isn't much of an issue.
I live in an old (115 year old) rowhome in Baltimore. Heat is gas-powered through a boiler and radiators. Are there any options to switch to electric but still use the radiators?
Hey Voltians! I write a weekly newsletter about clean energy, climate solutions, and politics. It's called Green Juice (www.greenjuice.wtf). Our fun and funny posts feature custom illustrations from an awesome doctor artist. Lately I've been writing about Ecosocialism and DSA, public power, and e-viation. Hope you'll check it out.
Hi Volts listeners! I'd like to brainstorm with other folks about how to get solar+storage deployed to power data centers instead of fossil fuels or nuclear. Background: I live in New Mexico, which is currently beset with would-be data center developers wooing local officials with promises of investments and jobs. Those same developers managed to get a legislative exemption from the state's renewable energy requirements if they bring their own (dirty) energy. As David's recent podcast shows, this is outdated thinking. New Mexico has plenty of land and plenty of sun. How can people like us could play a role in powering this and other states' future needs in a way that looks forward rather than backwards? If you are interested in such a conversation, please get in touch. I suggest reading the New York Times article on Project Jupiter (non-paywalled link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/business/boarderplex-new-mexico-data-center-mystery.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IFA.lDBJ.g2AE-v5rw2VX&smid=url-share) and listening to David's recent solar+ storage podcast ((https://www.volts.wtf/p/solarstorage-is-so-much-farther-along).
Just to preview my bias, I am currently more interested in working in and with the business world than in lobbying the legislature, while acknowledging both are essential. I am open to talking about anything that might make this part of the future greener.
Voltians! Here in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan we are addressing AGW, ES, and the local tourism-based economy by buying tracts of Boreal Hardwood Transition Forest. Currently buying 17,315 acres for $30 million. Have $19 million, need $11m more this year. How? By having like-minded people donate (small amounts) but even more importantly, SHARING OUR STORY far and wide (social media, email, in person) and ultimately that big donor/ foundation in the sky will see it and help. Seriously! It works. With your help. 3 great reasons this big sexy project attracts attention: 1. 17,315 acres 2. Protects nearly an entire watershed (!) and the spectacular and geologically significant Phoenix Cliffs (short version, they are the wall of North America’s own Rift Valley, filled by Lake Superior. Fascinating copper mining history starting 10,000 years ago and went crazy 1845-1955 ish), and 3. We are all volunteers, so every penny goes directly to land acquisition. Also it’s cheap, lots of bang for the buck under $2k per acre! Please send averyone you know to www.GratiotRiver.Watershed.org
Go for the pics if nothing else. Gorgeous up here 😊
Final fun fact: 67,500 TONS of carbon sequestered annually.
This doesn’t EXACTLY fit the Volts pod (would love to come on tho Dave!) but if anyone knows the perfect fit I’m available.
Can you help me identify the IL bill number? I'd like to share it with my representative and have been sending them information to educate themselves on the topic. I can't seem to find it.
I live in Minneapolis - thank you for highlighting ways to help. We're feeling a bit isolated here. I second the recommendation to donate to Unidos MN. Not only have they been instrumental to fighting for (and winning!) state level immigrant rights, they've also been a big part of the climate successes we've had here in Minneapolis. I've volunteered with them for a few years at this point and can say that any dollar you send them is a dollar well spent.
Finally - it may be a tough read for some, but I've been sharing this article with folks who don't live in Minneapolis and therefore aren't experiencing the on-the-ground situation:
I hesitate to mention his name in polite company, but it's recently been reported from Davos that : "For Elon Musk, the solution is solar energy, both here on earth and in space. He singles out China as the one country that gets it: “Later this year we will produce more [AI] chips than we can turn on, except for China. China’s growth of electricity is tremendous.” He rebuffs Larry Fink (Blackrock CEO) that nuclear is the solution: “Actually solar is the biggest thing in China. I believe China’s production capacity for solar is 1,500 GW a year and they’re deploying over 1,000 GW a year of solar. For continuous solar load you divide that by roughly 4 or 5, that’s around 250 GW of steady state power paired with batteries. That’s a very big number. That’s half of the average power usage in the U.S. The U.S. power usage on average is 500 GW. China – just in solar – can provide steady state power and batteries can do half of the U.S. electricity output per year”.
Three more years, and we'll be over a decade behind.
To put China’s solar deployment in perspective. They are installing around 3 GW every day, thats about 10 MILLION PANELS EVERY DAY! They realized the obvious - an energy source within infinite, free fuel and almost no maintenance will be the winner, full stop. With batteries and LDES they will pull ahead and be the next world dominant power. I don’t want that, but its clear where this is headed.
This is the stat I want nuclear boosters to reckon with: 3GW per day is like adding three nuclear plants of capacity per day. I know, I know, this is intermittent/peak power. But when it's happening at this breakneck of a pace, the downsides of solar matter less and less.
Exactly, no energy technology whose fuel is used as a WMD is going anywhere. It will always be more expensive and take longer to permit/build, AND THATS A GOOD THING! Unless it’s changed since I went to grad school (totally possible, been decades), the storage standard for spent nuclear fuel has to be garaunteed for 10,000 years. You know, just twice as long as recorded history. That will never be cheap.
Just saw an announcement that PG&E is going to promote SPAN Edge, an energy management module that connects to your home via their meter collar. Gemini says this will enable V2G. PG&E is supposedly going to almost give these away to homeowners with old 100 amp panels. Might be worth a Volts interview?
BTW: I've already installed my Brightsaver 4panel +battery system to supplement my existing solar system installed in 2016.
Thanks for all you do to make clean energy better known, more acceptable, and more affordable.
I know you have done several podcasts on several geothermal energy variants. However, maybe I haven't understood what I was listening to (I tend to listen while working out, so my attention is divided.), but this example of a 15-year-and-still-learning project (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07022026/colorado-college-geothermal-network/), and the fact that the article referenced in the two URLs below suggests that is an example of a 5th-generation district energy system is a taxonomy I don't remember hearing about. For existing, cost-effective technologies, deploy, deploy, deploy seems to be the order of the day, and this looks like a good example.
The last episode inspired me to cancel my subscription to the Atlantic, where I was often hate reading reactionary centrist articles without knowing what they were. I used that money to subscribe to Volts, 404 Media and a few other places where people are doing great work.
Thanks for featuring that comment on SMR PR getting to these Senators. I was listening to the Redefining Energy Pod with the two EU/UK investors. They referred to the US nuke industry as "powerpoint companies and lobbying companies." They noted that one of them raised $400M or so, and as a public company disclosed it had given 20% of that to "charity," which would include various think tanks etc., which produce PR/lobbying on their behalf. Contrast this to the largest wind project in the US, SunZia, which was sold to a Canadian pension fund. No $100M going to PR.
The solar and wind biz are commodity biz with tight margins. Our Colorado solar lobbying group (COSSA) was recently holding an expensive rubber chicken luncheon to raise money. And so on. Infighting between solar branches, wind getting neglected inside ACPA (wind folks, yourselves a favor and QUIT, and go back to having your own lobby), overseas companies because US investors are obsessed with high risk/high return venture investing, etc, etc.
The WA article is strange. Can WA do better and get more projects built? Sure. But our grid is already 80% clean/renewable and only 20% dirty/fossil. So what if our rate of growth in renewables is 50th in the country, we’re starting near the top and the last 20% is always going to be the hardest.
Washington was exporting more decarbonized electricity until hydro production dropped in the past few years. State consumption has been flat despite data center construction, which I've always thought was a trade with aluminum smelter shutdowns. Also effective state EE policies.
Not only that, while indeed small compared to other states, fossil fuel electric generation has increased (from 15 to 20 GWh/yr, though coal drops while gas increases) along with that drop in exports. Hydro indeed was typically 75 GWh/yr, but dropped to 60 in 2023 & 2024. Interesting whether this persists.
More wind seems to make sense, particularly given CA's solar "surplus" but needs in winter, so for a while they can buy it at higher costs than WA is willing to pay. At some point, I guess we hope enough FF heat and driving switches to electric to bump up demand, with much in the winter, while materially decreasing FF use in cars, trucks, boilers and furnaces. In both states.
CO and WA have one problem in common. Incumbent generation is cheaper than new renewables w/o tax credits. In WA, it's the hydro power. In CO our gas and coal are both relatively cheap, though gas is volatile in the extreme. It's hard to argue that new wind, solar, nukes, maybe geo, whatever would decrease rates w/o the Feds chipping in big subsidies. Y'all went through this with WPPSS and nuke plans.
CO is just getting down to 50% FF generation, so maybe I'm "projecting." Lots of churning in political circles about how to get to a 100% target by 2040, which distracts folks about just marching forward with a hundred turbines or a hundred acres of solar here and there and adding storage and, and, and... maybe we never get to 100%, but maybe that's OK if we get close and decarbonize the other sectors cheaply.
Something hit me about VPPs, I'm hoping someone can clarify.
David keeps talking about how the data center dudes need to get "already available" energy by providing heatpumps and the like to residences, and then sucking up the newly available leftover electrons.
This ONLY works for those moving to heat pumps from electric resistance heating, right? Moving from gas to heat pumps will INCREASE electrical demand, not lower it. Overall it's a good move, but it doesn't free up electrons.
IF the territory is a summer-peaking utility, and IF the high performance heat pumps have significantly better AC efficiency, that would actually free up grid capacity, even though not energy. And I think there are still a lot of homes out there with leaky ducts in hot attics, and other leaks that could be fixed.
BUT, there may be more peak load savings available from converting old single-stage HPs w/strip heat backup, that resistance electric typically handling 100% below sometimes 40 or 45F, to modern, modulating, HPs with less, or even no backup, some maybe cold climate, because a lot of these homes are in the south and south-ish parts of the country.
A panel of manufacturers discussed this on the Heat Pump Pod. They would love to just ban AC only. And have higher nationwide standards w/o loopholes so they could reduce the number of variations they need to make, test, document, stock, sell....
You’re partially correct. Just remember, there are many other components to VPPs (or whatever you want to call them). Probably the best example is solar and storage. For the cost of retrofitting a house with an old electric furnace to a modern heat pump (roughly $30K), you could cover the roof with panels and install batteries. From personal experience, my home solar offset 20-25 MWh/year of electricity consumption and that does not include my fossil fuel conversions (i.e. gas furnace, gas water heater, gas dryer, gas vehicles). My hunch is solar is so cheap now that it is the best bang for the buck for the “data center dudes.” If only we had Australia’s regulatory and interconnection frameworks, it’d be even better.
To defend democracy, I recommend doing two things simultaneously: First, show up and speak out in organized protests as the people in Minneapolis and other parts of the country are doing. Two, get engaged in doing democracy with a specific goal. By "doing democracy," I mean making it work for you at the local or state level through climate change projects, education projects, health care projects, and other ways to improve the structures and substance of our government. By doing projects that change ordinances and laws or strengthen non-governmental organizations, you are helping to weave the institutional fabric of self-government and not only improving lives but making it much harder for the autocrats to wield power. So, keep participating in protests of the unaccountable, thuggish acts of the ICE and Border Patrol brown shirts, but also join with other to make democracy work for all. (And become a paid member of Volts.)
David often says that using the spare capacity on the grid, e.g., via VPPs, is the quickest way to get new power. This has a great deal of surface plausibility, but in other contexts we bemoan the multiplication of soft costs, the challenges of customer acquisition, and the difficulty of scaling anything involving millions of individual decision-makers. How do you reconcile this conflict, and is there any proof of concept showing that it really *can* be done quickly?
The recent podcast about the emerging market for DERs led me to propose a business model for our local electric co-op. So thank you for that.
But the one that has me really paying attention is the development of an Internet-like protocol for managing and sharing locally produced and stored power. Years back, you had a Vox post about how clean energy might overwhelm the grid and how we could adapt:
That post highlighted Larry Kristov's take on "the emergence of two clearly distinct visions or paradigms for how a decentralized, transactive electric system with high penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) could be designed to operate."
A point I've made over and over again to our State PUC, and to IOUs and co-ops is the difficulty, the near impossibility, of centrally managing hundreds, then thousands, and eventually tens of thousands of DERs top-down. Than makes zero sense. That was just one of the points brought home in "Making the electricity grid work like the Internet". That's a practical implementation of Kristov's take on the bottom-up integration of DERs.
One ask: Could you host someone to discuss the effect that will have on transmission design and its management? That paradigm is so different it implies a bifurcation of both from what is currently being implemented and what is planned. More importantly, it also implies a complete reworking of power flows away from long-distance transmission toward local grids. That changes everything.
Follow-up on a comment by Robert Merkel regarding the "surprising . . . enthusiasm" for SMRs. I don't think most people realize how wide the range is in deployment time lag for all the various energy solutions now being promoted as "clean". All nuclear options are at the far end of that scale, with no SMRs yet operating in the U.S., and no state willing to take nuclear waste. Fusion is even further from reality, which makes me think there's a lot of posturing and "own the libs" politics going on, while many solar and wind projects are ready to go.
I want to learn more about the cost of electricity for the average consumer, as the monopolistic tech companies increase their demand for local power. SImply, how can we get these tech monopolies to pay for their electricty infrastructure costs, as well as their monthly bill. Neither me nor the government should be on the hook for this. That's not to much to ask!
New to this forum, hope I’m posting in the right place. I’m interested in investing in the massive secular electrification trend. I really want to position myself between generation and end use. Switching, control, infrastructure, etc. The best idea I’ve found is The GRID etf. I’d be grateful for the thoughts of others.
For all I know you're sitting on a diversified portfolio of many millions of dollars already and know exactly what you're doing...
But for anyone with more moderate amounts of money thinking of this kind of investing...the standard advice to speak to a qualified financial adviser before investing exists for a reason.
NextEra would be a good choice as they are a developer and a transmission owner as well as utility. You may be able to find a transformer manufacturer to invest in.
--- CLIMATE JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES ---
https://www.greenlightamerica.org/careers/regional-campaign-manager-north-central
Greenlight America, featured on the pod Jan 8th, 2025 is hiring. Multiple positions but I wanted to highlight the post for the Midwest (aka North-Central).
Iowa is the leading state for wind energy and needs help maintaining that position
--- QUESTIONS ---
California is undergrounding lines to get around the pesky forest fire problem. I would be interested to hear about pros and cons of underground vs overhead transmission, especially around efficiency and maintenance, short term and long term.
Not to discount the value of a broader discussion but overwhelmingly the reason why it’s not done more widely is cost.
Check out the company https://earthgrid.io/ that's trying to solve this!
What's the scuttlebutt on Chinese electric vehicles? It's in the news a lot with the Canada-China trade talks and Trump's tariff threats. How dominant really are Chinese EVs, and does the end of IRA provisions mean doom for American EV manufacturers amid global competition?
Question/topic for future pods?
1) would love to hear a discussion of how to drive down costs of housing (such as making multi family more possible through removal of land development restrictions, codes “mandating” expensive/excessive requirements not supported by “outcomes-based safety evidence”, parking, coops, etc to drive out/reduce profiteers - UCLA housing leadership would be a good guest)
2) Similarly, evidence that European economies are adopting Passive House standards, at little to no cost premium (albeit much more emphasis on training/apprenticeships to facilitate). This topic could explore “total costs of living” (PH promises 90% lower utilities, and healthier interior air).. it also could include a discussion of how this could reduce cost of build (smaller, minimalist HVAC), opportunities to go net-zero more easily - becoming a potential contributor to our energy grid issues (not to mention housing problems) Leadership at Zurich housing authority, or possibly Cairn homes in Dublin would be good, and eye-opening guests.
Not to over-sell it, but reducing/eliminating need for massive subsidies is one way to build alternative means to solve community problems- without “permission” or federal support.
Thanks Samuel and David- love the work you’re doing!
Hello! I really enjoyed the podcast with Jonas Birgersson on building a distributed energy grid where microgrids interact via switches, a shared language, established power sharing rules. I understand this as a step towards a more flexible energy grid with many more DERs on the grid. How is this different in practice then a more traditional grid managed by software (like WeaveGrid) that controls when assets are charged, when they provide or pull power, etc? Is the end result essentially the same and these are two approaches to achieve the same future?
A timely question – what happens to solar generation when panels are covered with multiple inches of snow?
If panels are covered in snow, generation will stop given that snow is reflective. However, panel systems are designed to shed snow quickly so this isn't much of an issue.
I live in an old (115 year old) rowhome in Baltimore. Heat is gas-powered through a boiler and radiators. Are there any options to switch to electric but still use the radiators?
--- SHARE WORK, ASK FOR HELP, FIND COLLABORATORS ---
Hey all! I just wrote my first Substack post (on climate policy / green bonds), and would love if anyone had time to check it out: rohankansagra.substack.com/p/the-carrot-and-the-stick
I'm also on the lookout for my next role and would appreciate if anyone had any potential leads, here's my LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohankansagra/
Thanks all! :)
Hey Voltians! I write a weekly newsletter about clean energy, climate solutions, and politics. It's called Green Juice (www.greenjuice.wtf). Our fun and funny posts feature custom illustrations from an awesome doctor artist. Lately I've been writing about Ecosocialism and DSA, public power, and e-viation. Hope you'll check it out.
Hi Volts listeners! I'd like to brainstorm with other folks about how to get solar+storage deployed to power data centers instead of fossil fuels or nuclear. Background: I live in New Mexico, which is currently beset with would-be data center developers wooing local officials with promises of investments and jobs. Those same developers managed to get a legislative exemption from the state's renewable energy requirements if they bring their own (dirty) energy. As David's recent podcast shows, this is outdated thinking. New Mexico has plenty of land and plenty of sun. How can people like us could play a role in powering this and other states' future needs in a way that looks forward rather than backwards? If you are interested in such a conversation, please get in touch. I suggest reading the New York Times article on Project Jupiter (non-paywalled link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/business/boarderplex-new-mexico-data-center-mystery.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IFA.lDBJ.g2AE-v5rw2VX&smid=url-share) and listening to David's recent solar+ storage podcast ((https://www.volts.wtf/p/solarstorage-is-so-much-farther-along).
Just to preview my bias, I am currently more interested in working in and with the business world than in lobbying the legislature, while acknowledging both are essential. I am open to talking about anything that might make this part of the future greener.
Voltians! Here in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan we are addressing AGW, ES, and the local tourism-based economy by buying tracts of Boreal Hardwood Transition Forest. Currently buying 17,315 acres for $30 million. Have $19 million, need $11m more this year. How? By having like-minded people donate (small amounts) but even more importantly, SHARING OUR STORY far and wide (social media, email, in person) and ultimately that big donor/ foundation in the sky will see it and help. Seriously! It works. With your help. 3 great reasons this big sexy project attracts attention: 1. 17,315 acres 2. Protects nearly an entire watershed (!) and the spectacular and geologically significant Phoenix Cliffs (short version, they are the wall of North America’s own Rift Valley, filled by Lake Superior. Fascinating copper mining history starting 10,000 years ago and went crazy 1845-1955 ish), and 3. We are all volunteers, so every penny goes directly to land acquisition. Also it’s cheap, lots of bang for the buck under $2k per acre! Please send averyone you know to www.GratiotRiver.Watershed.org
Go for the pics if nothing else. Gorgeous up here 😊
Final fun fact: 67,500 TONS of carbon sequestered annually.
This doesn’t EXACTLY fit the Volts pod (would love to come on tho Dave!) but if anyone knows the perfect fit I’m available.
--- EVERYTHING ELSE ---
My sources are saying 21 states have now introduced plug-in solar bills.
Can you help me identify the IL bill number? I'd like to share it with my representative and have been sending them information to educate themselves on the topic. I can't seem to find it.
Illinois — HB 4371 (sponsored by Rep. Delgado)
Hat tip to Kevin Chou, Brightsaver.
I live in Minneapolis - thank you for highlighting ways to help. We're feeling a bit isolated here. I second the recommendation to donate to Unidos MN. Not only have they been instrumental to fighting for (and winning!) state level immigrant rights, they've also been a big part of the climate successes we've had here in Minneapolis. I've volunteered with them for a few years at this point and can say that any dollar you send them is a dollar well spent.
Finally - it may be a tough read for some, but I've been sharing this article with folks who don't live in Minneapolis and therefore aren't experiencing the on-the-ground situation:
https://racketmn.com/voices-of-the-occupation-of-mn-ice-trump?giftLink=bc4a08621094c6ae55b08a1a8eeda8c3
Build relationships with your communities now. ICE won't stop here.
Having lived through it already in Chicago, I empathize with your plight. We're all in this together. Stand strong.
I hesitate to mention his name in polite company, but it's recently been reported from Davos that : "For Elon Musk, the solution is solar energy, both here on earth and in space. He singles out China as the one country that gets it: “Later this year we will produce more [AI] chips than we can turn on, except for China. China’s growth of electricity is tremendous.” He rebuffs Larry Fink (Blackrock CEO) that nuclear is the solution: “Actually solar is the biggest thing in China. I believe China’s production capacity for solar is 1,500 GW a year and they’re deploying over 1,000 GW a year of solar. For continuous solar load you divide that by roughly 4 or 5, that’s around 250 GW of steady state power paired with batteries. That’s a very big number. That’s half of the average power usage in the U.S. The U.S. power usage on average is 500 GW. China – just in solar – can provide steady state power and batteries can do half of the U.S. electricity output per year”.
Three more years, and we'll be over a decade behind.
To put China’s solar deployment in perspective. They are installing around 3 GW every day, thats about 10 MILLION PANELS EVERY DAY! They realized the obvious - an energy source within infinite, free fuel and almost no maintenance will be the winner, full stop. With batteries and LDES they will pull ahead and be the next world dominant power. I don’t want that, but its clear where this is headed.
This is the stat I want nuclear boosters to reckon with: 3GW per day is like adding three nuclear plants of capacity per day. I know, I know, this is intermittent/peak power. But when it's happening at this breakneck of a pace, the downsides of solar matter less and less.
Exactly, no energy technology whose fuel is used as a WMD is going anywhere. It will always be more expensive and take longer to permit/build, AND THATS A GOOD THING! Unless it’s changed since I went to grad school (totally possible, been decades), the storage standard for spent nuclear fuel has to be garaunteed for 10,000 years. You know, just twice as long as recorded history. That will never be cheap.
Just saw an announcement that PG&E is going to promote SPAN Edge, an energy management module that connects to your home via their meter collar. Gemini says this will enable V2G. PG&E is supposedly going to almost give these away to homeowners with old 100 amp panels. Might be worth a Volts interview?
BTW: I've already installed my Brightsaver 4panel +battery system to supplement my existing solar system installed in 2016.
Hi David and Samuel,
Thanks for all you do to make clean energy better known, more acceptable, and more affordable.
I know you have done several podcasts on several geothermal energy variants. However, maybe I haven't understood what I was listening to (I tend to listen while working out, so my attention is divided.), but this example of a 15-year-and-still-learning project (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07022026/colorado-college-geothermal-network/), and the fact that the article referenced in the two URLs below suggests that is an example of a 5th-generation district energy system is a taxonomy I don't remember hearing about. For existing, cost-effective technologies, deploy, deploy, deploy seems to be the order of the day, and this looks like a good example.
Again, thanks for all you do.
Bruce Angier
703-678-8366
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590174524002046
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The last episode inspired me to cancel my subscription to the Atlantic, where I was often hate reading reactionary centrist articles without knowing what they were. I used that money to subscribe to Volts, 404 Media and a few other places where people are doing great work.
Thanks for featuring that comment on SMR PR getting to these Senators. I was listening to the Redefining Energy Pod with the two EU/UK investors. They referred to the US nuke industry as "powerpoint companies and lobbying companies." They noted that one of them raised $400M or so, and as a public company disclosed it had given 20% of that to "charity," which would include various think tanks etc., which produce PR/lobbying on their behalf. Contrast this to the largest wind project in the US, SunZia, which was sold to a Canadian pension fund. No $100M going to PR.
The solar and wind biz are commodity biz with tight margins. Our Colorado solar lobbying group (COSSA) was recently holding an expensive rubber chicken luncheon to raise money. And so on. Infighting between solar branches, wind getting neglected inside ACPA (wind folks, yourselves a favor and QUIT, and go back to having your own lobby), overseas companies because US investors are obsessed with high risk/high return venture investing, etc, etc.
I think Bloomberg did a piece on FF funding of pro-nuke propaganda. Michigan just sued some of the FF majors for conspiracy to suppress renewables, inc. information/PR campaigns. https://cleantechnica.com/2026/01/25/us-oil-industry-busted-for-one-of-the-most-successful-antitrust-conspiracies-in-us-history/
Even states with "trifectas" are falling sway to "considering" nukes as an alternative to "alternative energy," while renewables languish. CO is one. WA has just been called out: https://www.opb.org/article/2026/01/26/our-reporting-showed-washington-ranks-last-in-green-energy-growth/
Perhaps you can find some folks with winning strategies that have turned this Titanic around somewhere.
The WA article is strange. Can WA do better and get more projects built? Sure. But our grid is already 80% clean/renewable and only 20% dirty/fossil. So what if our rate of growth in renewables is 50th in the country, we’re starting near the top and the last 20% is always going to be the hardest.
Yeah, you're kinda right, but...
Washington was exporting more decarbonized electricity until hydro production dropped in the past few years. State consumption has been flat despite data center construction, which I've always thought was a trade with aluminum smelter shutdowns. Also effective state EE policies.
Not only that, while indeed small compared to other states, fossil fuel electric generation has increased (from 15 to 20 GWh/yr, though coal drops while gas increases) along with that drop in exports. Hydro indeed was typically 75 GWh/yr, but dropped to 60 in 2023 & 2024. Interesting whether this persists.
More wind seems to make sense, particularly given CA's solar "surplus" but needs in winter, so for a while they can buy it at higher costs than WA is willing to pay. At some point, I guess we hope enough FF heat and driving switches to electric to bump up demand, with much in the winter, while materially decreasing FF use in cars, trucks, boilers and furnaces. In both states.
CO and WA have one problem in common. Incumbent generation is cheaper than new renewables w/o tax credits. In WA, it's the hydro power. In CO our gas and coal are both relatively cheap, though gas is volatile in the extreme. It's hard to argue that new wind, solar, nukes, maybe geo, whatever would decrease rates w/o the Feds chipping in big subsidies. Y'all went through this with WPPSS and nuke plans.
CO is just getting down to 50% FF generation, so maybe I'm "projecting." Lots of churning in political circles about how to get to a 100% target by 2040, which distracts folks about just marching forward with a hundred turbines or a hundred acres of solar here and there and adding storage and, and, and... maybe we never get to 100%, but maybe that's OK if we get close and decarbonize the other sectors cheaply.
Gawd that got verbose. Cheers.
I agree. You’re probably 1 of 10 people left who knows what WPPSS is :)
--- CLIMATE EVENTS & MEETUPS ---
Something hit me about VPPs, I'm hoping someone can clarify.
David keeps talking about how the data center dudes need to get "already available" energy by providing heatpumps and the like to residences, and then sucking up the newly available leftover electrons.
This ONLY works for those moving to heat pumps from electric resistance heating, right? Moving from gas to heat pumps will INCREASE electrical demand, not lower it. Overall it's a good move, but it doesn't free up electrons.
What am I missing?
IF the territory is a summer-peaking utility, and IF the high performance heat pumps have significantly better AC efficiency, that would actually free up grid capacity, even though not energy. And I think there are still a lot of homes out there with leaky ducts in hot attics, and other leaks that could be fixed.
BUT, there may be more peak load savings available from converting old single-stage HPs w/strip heat backup, that resistance electric typically handling 100% below sometimes 40 or 45F, to modern, modulating, HPs with less, or even no backup, some maybe cold climate, because a lot of these homes are in the south and south-ish parts of the country.
A panel of manufacturers discussed this on the Heat Pump Pod. They would love to just ban AC only. And have higher nationwide standards w/o loopholes so they could reduce the number of variations they need to make, test, document, stock, sell....
You’re partially correct. Just remember, there are many other components to VPPs (or whatever you want to call them). Probably the best example is solar and storage. For the cost of retrofitting a house with an old electric furnace to a modern heat pump (roughly $30K), you could cover the roof with panels and install batteries. From personal experience, my home solar offset 20-25 MWh/year of electricity consumption and that does not include my fossil fuel conversions (i.e. gas furnace, gas water heater, gas dryer, gas vehicles). My hunch is solar is so cheap now that it is the best bang for the buck for the “data center dudes.” If only we had Australia’s regulatory and interconnection frameworks, it’d be even better.
To defend democracy, I recommend doing two things simultaneously: First, show up and speak out in organized protests as the people in Minneapolis and other parts of the country are doing. Two, get engaged in doing democracy with a specific goal. By "doing democracy," I mean making it work for you at the local or state level through climate change projects, education projects, health care projects, and other ways to improve the structures and substance of our government. By doing projects that change ordinances and laws or strengthen non-governmental organizations, you are helping to weave the institutional fabric of self-government and not only improving lives but making it much harder for the autocrats to wield power. So, keep participating in protests of the unaccountable, thuggish acts of the ICE and Border Patrol brown shirts, but also join with other to make democracy work for all. (And become a paid member of Volts.)
David often says that using the spare capacity on the grid, e.g., via VPPs, is the quickest way to get new power. This has a great deal of surface plausibility, but in other contexts we bemoan the multiplication of soft costs, the challenges of customer acquisition, and the difficulty of scaling anything involving millions of individual decision-makers. How do you reconcile this conflict, and is there any proof of concept showing that it really *can* be done quickly?
The recent podcast about the emerging market for DERs led me to propose a business model for our local electric co-op. So thank you for that.
But the one that has me really paying attention is the development of an Internet-like protocol for managing and sharing locally produced and stored power. Years back, you had a Vox post about how clean energy might overwhelm the grid and how we could adapt:
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/11/30/17868620/renewable-energy-power-grid-architecture
That post highlighted Larry Kristov's take on "the emergence of two clearly distinct visions or paradigms for how a decentralized, transactive electric system with high penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) could be designed to operate."
A point I've made over and over again to our State PUC, and to IOUs and co-ops is the difficulty, the near impossibility, of centrally managing hundreds, then thousands, and eventually tens of thousands of DERs top-down. Than makes zero sense. That was just one of the points brought home in "Making the electricity grid work like the Internet". That's a practical implementation of Kristov's take on the bottom-up integration of DERs.
https://open.substack.com/pub/davidroberts/p/making-the-electricity-grid-work?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
One ask: Could you host someone to discuss the effect that will have on transmission design and its management? That paradigm is so different it implies a bifurcation of both from what is currently being implemented and what is planned. More importantly, it also implies a complete reworking of power flows away from long-distance transmission toward local grids. That changes everything.
Follow-up on a comment by Robert Merkel regarding the "surprising . . . enthusiasm" for SMRs. I don't think most people realize how wide the range is in deployment time lag for all the various energy solutions now being promoted as "clean". All nuclear options are at the far end of that scale, with no SMRs yet operating in the U.S., and no state willing to take nuclear waste. Fusion is even further from reality, which makes me think there's a lot of posturing and "own the libs" politics going on, while many solar and wind projects are ready to go.
David, thank you for the link on directory of ways to help the people of Minnesota. Have not seen it elsewhere.
I want to learn more about the cost of electricity for the average consumer, as the monopolistic tech companies increase their demand for local power. SImply, how can we get these tech monopolies to pay for their electricty infrastructure costs, as well as their monthly bill. Neither me nor the government should be on the hook for this. That's not to much to ask!
New to this forum, hope I’m posting in the right place. I’m interested in investing in the massive secular electrification trend. I really want to position myself between generation and end use. Switching, control, infrastructure, etc. The best idea I’ve found is The GRID etf. I’d be grateful for the thoughts of others.
For all I know you're sitting on a diversified portfolio of many millions of dollars already and know exactly what you're doing...
But for anyone with more moderate amounts of money thinking of this kind of investing...the standard advice to speak to a qualified financial adviser before investing exists for a reason.
NextEra would be a good choice as they are a developer and a transmission owner as well as utility. You may be able to find a transformer manufacturer to invest in.