Ask the Danes to explain how Denmark leverages its massive public charging networks—led by operators like Clever and Spirii—co-locating solar production and EV infrastructure directly into daily destinations, and how effective this strategy has been in accelerating EV adoption and reducing peak utility transmission demand for commercial refrigeration and residential HVAC. Denmark is a global leader on Vehicle-2-Grid implementation. Find out how their EV charging networks perform live frequency regulation, otherwise support the national grid, and pay EV owners $1,000 or more per year for connecting with V2G, without requiring an expensive stationary battery or charger.
Ask the Danes about how their plan to phase out oil and gas extraction in the North Sea is going (see, e.g. https://www.iea.org/policies/17708-denmarks-oil-and-gas-exploration-ban), if and how the Ukraine and Iran wars have affected their thinking on this, and their perspectives on how neighboring UK and Norway are approaching their own North Sea extraction plans
Relying entirely on text filtering—or auto-deleting incoming email—is a missed opportunity. A simple voicemail or audio drop line gives people a way to share nuanced feedback, real-time tips, or story ideas that rarely come through clean in text.
Voice adds context, tone, and efficiency that written messages miss. Setting up a dedicated audio inbox—even one with automated transcription—would protect your focus while opening a far richer line of communication with your audience.
It would definitely make me restart my subscription
I imagine that like attracts like around here, and the people who would show up for the monthly discussions would bring an incredible amount of knowledge to share and guide the energy transition efforts
Ask the Danes for their learnings from being global leaders in both decarbonising and decommissioning their gas network?
Their gas network is already over 40% biomethane, and at the same time they’re already phaseing out over 10k household connections per year. All residential heating will be electrified or on district heating by 2035.
What policy trade-offs and arguments have they gone through to reach this point? How did they secure buy‑in (or just push through), and what would they advise following countries to do differently?
They’ve also just introduced the world’s first explicit carbon price on agricultural methane so they are clearly able to get sufficient public support on emotive topics!
I don't know if this is "light," but I have a have a question about the climate and electrification world's obsession with ROI and all the handwringing that goes along with it.
I've noticed that we have special rules for electrification spending that we don't necessarily apply to other decisions. First of all, new cars (and cars in general) tend to have terrible ROI, but aside from EVs, it's never a consideration. People justify buying what they want because they can afford it, but if it's an EV they feel like they have to get out a calculator to make themselves feel better (I did this).
The same is true for solar and batteries versus generators. Nobody I know with a generator has ever paralyzed themselves with indecision over the ROI--either they can afford it or they can't, but it's never to save money over a 25-year horizon.
Municipalities do this too with stuff like solar canopies and EV chargers and other infrastructure that doesn't immediately save anyone money.
Anyway, I'm just curious if this ever comes up in your world--that we should stop apologizing for spending to go electric and start celebrating clean energy as a better way to live.
What do your interlocutors think of high-speed rail in Denmark? Is there anything notorious about car dependency there, and why is HSR slow-going there compared to peer countries? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Denmark
I put this in a comment on Bluesky, but I was wondering about paying extra for "green" power from a utility? In this case LADWP, which offers for you to pay extra to ensure a certain percentage of your electric use is renewable. (i'll have to look to see exactly how they describe it) Is that a legitimate thing, in the sense that my dollars really go to increasing the use of green power? Or is it squishier than that?
CCAs in California, like Peninsula Clean Energy (old name), can charge less than the utility generally, and about the same as the utility's price for all-green.
I have the same question. If I pay $200 for a “community solar” panel from my utility, does that mean there’s an extra solar panel installed after I give them the money, or just that I’m subsidizing existing solar?
I will try to answer both you and James’ question, caveat being that policies vary across jurisdictions. But I hope this answer is helpful:
Community solar: a privately owned solar project (I.e a project owned by an independent power producer, or IPP) feeds the electricity it produces into the grid. Some states have community solar regulations, which allow for qualifying projects to generate utility bill credits, which are sold to customers. So, when you are buying from a community solar provider, you are effectively buying something like a $0.20/kWh offset from your electric bill, ideally for some cost less than $0.20/kWh.
Green power: the additional money you pay the utility is used by the utility to purchase Renewable Energy Certificates (REC’s), which are the clean energy attributes associated with a given MWh of electricity.
Do either of these things help make the grid cleaner? Yes, in a sense. REC’s and the sale of power are the two primary ways that IPP’s generate revenue. So, if no one bought REC’s and no one bought the power from a solar project, that solar project would not get built. But plain old RECs are pretty cheap these days.
Curious about David's thoughts on the recent trend of renewable developers deciding to expand into Gas and Data Centers, and what near and long-term impacts this has one transitioning to electrification and decarbonization. First it was Clearway energy, which then seemed to walk it back very quickly after Heatmap's expose on it, but now we're seeing Arevia doing the same thing under the guise of “our nation’s growing energy needs.”
Since you're going to Denmark, maybe you can use the opportunity to visit Norway and record an episode on electric construction?
I haven't heard any other climate or energy pods discussing the electric construtction revolution that has been going on in Oslo the last years.
Since the start of 2025, all municipal construction sites have been mandated to use zero emission (in practice: electric) equipment, where possible (excevators, trucks and so on). The first electric pilot project was in 2019, and now almost every municipal construction site is electric.
One question I'd like answered as around the different plug-in solar laws, the effects of the variations, and maybe an actual electrician to explain the pros and cons.
I'm my own conversations on Reddit I've learned a lot about the differences between the US and Europe and some of the safety risks with the US. This is quite different than having someone who's financially motivated to get the loosest law passed come on to sell it.
Ask the Danes if they can also replicate Norway's incredible progress in EV adoption: 97% of all new car sales in Norway are EVs. And 90% of Norway's electricity is carbon-free hydro!! (many from inside mountains) Those Dammed Fjords!!
Norway hoovers up cheap renewables from neighboring countries (avoiding curtailment) then sells it back to them in winter. A good model to follow
Ask what the Danes are doing to reuse heat from data centers to heat factories and buildings. The Danes and EU are so far ahead of the U.S. in reusing data center heat and we have much to learn from them. A data center operates like a heat pump - electricity in at the front end and almost 100% of that energy is converted to heat. Instead of using lots of electricity to get rid of that heat, share it with nearby factories and buildings and you cut power demand 10-30%, reduce water use, and deliver zero or low-carbon heat or hot water to those offtakers.
Danish wind turbines are often partly owned by local communities through energy cooperatives, with at least 20% ownership required for new projects. It would be interesting to learn more about that model to see if it could be replicated here in the States.
It would be amazing if people could do small scale co-ops or VPP with solar and wind. Might be a business model for someone to consult and help get them running. I think I heard that some do this in Australia.
I'd like to know how the current crisis in the Strait of Hormuz etc. affects their economy....especially compared to how it affects other more FF-reliant economies like the US's.
1. David should go to Thyboron. He can stand under a 15 MW "offshore" wind turbine mounted on the town pier. They actually view it as a tourist attraction, not a tourist repellent, which is the claim/conjecture we hear from some opponents of wind farms here. Like many onshore turbines/farms in Denmark, there is community ownership. HOWEVER, not the offshore wind projects which pushed the Danes over the top on %renewable electric. Those billion dollar projects are owned by big companies. (Thyboren and the rest of Jutland, which is where most Danish wind is situated is a bit off the tourist track of southern Denmark, and famous for cold, windy, rainy conditions. But Denmark is not that big.)
2. Also, the Aarhus geothermal HEATING plant. An actual sensible use for geoTHERMAL! The wells are not super deep (2-3 km), and 70C water is extracted from, and reinjected to, a permeable aquifer. (No weird expensive inefficient pipe loops or deep fracking needed.) It is boosted by a heat pump with a refrigerant containing a hydrocarbon blend (not dead-end, expensive HFCs or HFOs or mixtures we Americans will probably be trapped with forever) to 95C for use in an existing district loop.
3. Progress and use of other heat pumps using other "natural refrigerants." Ammonia, CO2 in addition to HCs like propane and isobutane. I think Aarhus has a technical university that may have some leaders in this. But there is plenty of deployment/development that is not a science project. The majority of domestic air-water HPs there may use propane already.
4. Vertical, bifacial agrivoltaics. Also through the uni at Aarhus, there is at least a test plot with ten acres or so of each vertical and fixed S-facing panels. The locals seem to like the vertical ones. I don't know if this has seem much deployment there, but I like it and many but not huge deployment of Next2Sun systems in central Europe. Contact info at https://ingenioer.au.dk/en/current/news/view/artikel/double-harvest-vertical-solar-panels-and-crops-thrive-side-by-side
5. I would expect there are some projects storing excess wind power as resistance charged high temp heat, maybe in that industrial ecosystem you mentioned. But I'm not up to speed on that.
The most important thing to ask the Danish is how much of their energy now comes from Wind and Solar and how did they create the environement and regulation to make this happen. Denmark is already well along in the transition to EV's and a renewable grid and are selling power to their neighboring countries.
I would like to hear Caroline's early take on how transit and urban planning did. I will be monitoring the Bay Area's (existential) Regional Transit Measure, but I am sure there are many other important examples nation wide that I am unaware of.
Hi David, It was great to meet you at NY Climate Week. To jog your memory, I'm the guy who is working on getting solar installed on Habitat for Humanity homes in 16 states (www.give.solar). Regarding your poll in the community thread above, I would like to see an episode on "What's the deal with the Big Tech company's climate goals?" Have companies like Google, Meta, AWS, etc. totally given up on their climate commitments due to the emergence of AI? I would also like to hear an episode on what is happening to the enabling policy of solar net metering around the country. Thanks for all that you do to catalyze the clean energy transition!
--- EVERYTHING ELSE ---
Ask the Danes to explain how Denmark leverages its massive public charging networks—led by operators like Clever and Spirii—co-locating solar production and EV infrastructure directly into daily destinations, and how effective this strategy has been in accelerating EV adoption and reducing peak utility transmission demand for commercial refrigeration and residential HVAC. Denmark is a global leader on Vehicle-2-Grid implementation. Find out how their EV charging networks perform live frequency regulation, otherwise support the national grid, and pay EV owners $1,000 or more per year for connecting with V2G, without requiring an expensive stationary battery or charger.
Hello, Storm!
Storm says hi back and has received her honorary head pat!
Ask the Danes about how their plan to phase out oil and gas extraction in the North Sea is going (see, e.g. https://www.iea.org/policies/17708-denmarks-oil-and-gas-exploration-ban), if and how the Ukraine and Iran wars have affected their thinking on this, and their perspectives on how neighboring UK and Norway are approaching their own North Sea extraction plans
Relying entirely on text filtering—or auto-deleting incoming email—is a missed opportunity. A simple voicemail or audio drop line gives people a way to share nuanced feedback, real-time tips, or story ideas that rarely come through clean in text.
Voice adds context, tone, and efficiency that written messages miss. Setting up a dedicated audio inbox—even one with automated transcription—would protect your focus while opening a far richer line of communication with your audience.
—
Robert Sterbal
robert@sterbal.com
412-977-3526
mosaics: https://mosaics.sterbal.com
It would be nice to have a monthly zoom call for subscribers
Thanks Robert, both are good ideas. A monthly subscriber call might make a good poll for a future thread. Y'all let us know if you'd show up.
It would definitely make me restart my subscription
I imagine that like attracts like around here, and the people who would show up for the monthly discussions would bring an incredible amount of knowledge to share and guide the energy transition efforts
Ask the Danes for their learnings from being global leaders in both decarbonising and decommissioning their gas network?
Their gas network is already over 40% biomethane, and at the same time they’re already phaseing out over 10k household connections per year. All residential heating will be electrified or on district heating by 2035.
What policy trade-offs and arguments have they gone through to reach this point? How did they secure buy‑in (or just push through), and what would they advise following countries to do differently?
They’ve also just introduced the world’s first explicit carbon price on agricultural methane so they are clearly able to get sufficient public support on emotive topics!
--- ASK DAVID ---
I don't know if this is "light," but I have a have a question about the climate and electrification world's obsession with ROI and all the handwringing that goes along with it.
I've noticed that we have special rules for electrification spending that we don't necessarily apply to other decisions. First of all, new cars (and cars in general) tend to have terrible ROI, but aside from EVs, it's never a consideration. People justify buying what they want because they can afford it, but if it's an EV they feel like they have to get out a calculator to make themselves feel better (I did this).
The same is true for solar and batteries versus generators. Nobody I know with a generator has ever paralyzed themselves with indecision over the ROI--either they can afford it or they can't, but it's never to save money over a 25-year horizon.
Municipalities do this too with stuff like solar canopies and EV chargers and other infrastructure that doesn't immediately save anyone money.
Anyway, I'm just curious if this ever comes up in your world--that we should stop apologizing for spending to go electric and start celebrating clean energy as a better way to live.
How does David manage to talk about heat pumps all the time and not have installed them in his own home (any kind) yet?
What do your interlocutors think of high-speed rail in Denmark? Is there anything notorious about car dependency there, and why is HSR slow-going there compared to peer countries? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Denmark
Love this one. Passed it to David for the Denmark trip since its a good idea for a question there.
I put this in a comment on Bluesky, but I was wondering about paying extra for "green" power from a utility? In this case LADWP, which offers for you to pay extra to ensure a certain percentage of your electric use is renewable. (i'll have to look to see exactly how they describe it) Is that a legitimate thing, in the sense that my dollars really go to increasing the use of green power? Or is it squishier than that?
CCAs in California, like Peninsula Clean Energy (old name), can charge less than the utility generally, and about the same as the utility's price for all-green.
I have the same question. If I pay $200 for a “community solar” panel from my utility, does that mean there’s an extra solar panel installed after I give them the money, or just that I’m subsidizing existing solar?
I will try to answer both you and James’ question, caveat being that policies vary across jurisdictions. But I hope this answer is helpful:
Community solar: a privately owned solar project (I.e a project owned by an independent power producer, or IPP) feeds the electricity it produces into the grid. Some states have community solar regulations, which allow for qualifying projects to generate utility bill credits, which are sold to customers. So, when you are buying from a community solar provider, you are effectively buying something like a $0.20/kWh offset from your electric bill, ideally for some cost less than $0.20/kWh.
Green power: the additional money you pay the utility is used by the utility to purchase Renewable Energy Certificates (REC’s), which are the clean energy attributes associated with a given MWh of electricity.
Do either of these things help make the grid cleaner? Yes, in a sense. REC’s and the sale of power are the two primary ways that IPP’s generate revenue. So, if no one bought REC’s and no one bought the power from a solar project, that solar project would not get built. But plain old RECs are pretty cheap these days.
Curious about David's thoughts on the recent trend of renewable developers deciding to expand into Gas and Data Centers, and what near and long-term impacts this has one transitioning to electrification and decarbonization. First it was Clearway energy, which then seemed to walk it back very quickly after Heatmap's expose on it, but now we're seeing Arevia doing the same thing under the guise of “our nation’s growing energy needs.”
--- EPISODE IDEAS & GUESTS ---
Since you're going to Denmark, maybe you can use the opportunity to visit Norway and record an episode on electric construction?
I haven't heard any other climate or energy pods discussing the electric construtction revolution that has been going on in Oslo the last years.
Since the start of 2025, all municipal construction sites have been mandated to use zero emission (in practice: electric) equipment, where possible (excevators, trucks and so on). The first electric pilot project was in 2019, and now almost every municipal construction site is electric.
More info here:
Power BI dashbord for data on zero emission projects in Oslo: https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZTY4NThkZjktZDdhMC00MjRhLWJlNWEtYzVjOWQ5N2Q4MzljIiwidCI6ImUxZjAwZjM5LTYwNDEtNDViMC1iMzA5LWUwMjEwZDhiMzJhZiIsImMiOjh9
Report on the implementation of electric construction sites: https://www.klimaoslo.no/rapport/barriers-success-factors-for-zero-emission-construction-in-oslo/
News article from the City of Oslo about zero emission mandates: https://www.klimaoslo.no/oslo-requires-emission-free-machines-on-municipal-construction-sites/
News article in The Guardian about Oslo's electric construction sites: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/10/oslo-leads-quiet-low-emission-electric-vehicles-building-sites
This is a great one, thanks for all the sources. Passed it along to David as an episode idea.
One question I'd like answered as around the different plug-in solar laws, the effects of the variations, and maybe an actual electrician to explain the pros and cons.
I'm my own conversations on Reddit I've learned a lot about the differences between the US and Europe and some of the safety risks with the US. This is quite different than having someone who's financially motivated to get the loosest law passed come on to sell it.
Ask the Danes if they can also replicate Norway's incredible progress in EV adoption: 97% of all new car sales in Norway are EVs. And 90% of Norway's electricity is carbon-free hydro!! (many from inside mountains) Those Dammed Fjords!!
Norway hoovers up cheap renewables from neighboring countries (avoiding curtailment) then sells it back to them in winter. A good model to follow
Ask the Danes how they make their cardamom buns so delicate and the right amount of sweetness.
Clearly the most important question in the thread. We'll see if David comes back with a recipe.
Ask what the Danes are doing to reuse heat from data centers to heat factories and buildings. The Danes and EU are so far ahead of the U.S. in reusing data center heat and we have much to learn from them. A data center operates like a heat pump - electricity in at the front end and almost 100% of that energy is converted to heat. Instead of using lots of electricity to get rid of that heat, share it with nearby factories and buildings and you cut power demand 10-30%, reduce water use, and deliver zero or low-carbon heat or hot water to those offtakers.
Danish wind turbines are often partly owned by local communities through energy cooperatives, with at least 20% ownership required for new projects. It would be interesting to learn more about that model to see if it could be replicated here in the States.
It would be amazing if people could do small scale co-ops or VPP with solar and wind. Might be a business model for someone to consult and help get them running. I think I heard that some do this in Australia.
I'd like to know how the current crisis in the Strait of Hormuz etc. affects their economy....especially compared to how it affects other more FF-reliant economies like the US's.
For local utility consideration, how do the Danes compensate customers for solar energy they generate?
1. David should go to Thyboron. He can stand under a 15 MW "offshore" wind turbine mounted on the town pier. They actually view it as a tourist attraction, not a tourist repellent, which is the claim/conjecture we hear from some opponents of wind farms here. Like many onshore turbines/farms in Denmark, there is community ownership. HOWEVER, not the offshore wind projects which pushed the Danes over the top on %renewable electric. Those billion dollar projects are owned by big companies. (Thyboren and the rest of Jutland, which is where most Danish wind is situated is a bit off the tourist track of southern Denmark, and famous for cold, windy, rainy conditions. But Denmark is not that big.)
2. Also, the Aarhus geothermal HEATING plant. An actual sensible use for geoTHERMAL! The wells are not super deep (2-3 km), and 70C water is extracted from, and reinjected to, a permeable aquifer. (No weird expensive inefficient pipe loops or deep fracking needed.) It is boosted by a heat pump with a refrigerant containing a hydrocarbon blend (not dead-end, expensive HFCs or HFOs or mixtures we Americans will probably be trapped with forever) to 95C for use in an existing district loop.
3. Progress and use of other heat pumps using other "natural refrigerants." Ammonia, CO2 in addition to HCs like propane and isobutane. I think Aarhus has a technical university that may have some leaders in this. But there is plenty of deployment/development that is not a science project. The majority of domestic air-water HPs there may use propane already.
4. Vertical, bifacial agrivoltaics. Also through the uni at Aarhus, there is at least a test plot with ten acres or so of each vertical and fixed S-facing panels. The locals seem to like the vertical ones. I don't know if this has seem much deployment there, but I like it and many but not huge deployment of Next2Sun systems in central Europe. Contact info at https://ingenioer.au.dk/en/current/news/view/artikel/double-harvest-vertical-solar-panels-and-crops-thrive-side-by-side
5. I would expect there are some projects storing excess wind power as resistance charged high temp heat, maybe in that industrial ecosystem you mentioned. But I'm not up to speed on that.
The most important thing to ask the Danish is how much of their energy now comes from Wind and Solar and how did they create the environement and regulation to make this happen. Denmark is already well along in the transition to EV's and a renewable grid and are selling power to their neighboring countries.
Vestas is Danish, and the leading wind turbine company in the world on some counts.
Ask the Danes about their air to water heat pumps. These appear to be more common in Europe.
For Danes - what is the status of shifting to decarbonized electricity, heating and transportation in Greenland?
I would like to hear Caroline's early take on how transit and urban planning did. I will be monitoring the Bay Area's (existential) Regional Transit Measure, but I am sure there are many other important examples nation wide that I am unaware of.
David could you comment in the #31 post so I don't lose this?
Sorry, I bounced out of the thread to sign in and clearly replied to the wrong one...will do.
Hi David, It was great to meet you at NY Climate Week. To jog your memory, I'm the guy who is working on getting solar installed on Habitat for Humanity homes in 16 states (www.give.solar). Regarding your poll in the community thread above, I would like to see an episode on "What's the deal with the Big Tech company's climate goals?" Have companies like Google, Meta, AWS, etc. totally given up on their climate commitments due to the emergence of AI? I would also like to hear an episode on what is happening to the enabling policy of solar net metering around the country. Thanks for all that you do to catalyze the clean energy transition!
Oops, posted this in the wrong thread. Will cut and paste into appropriate comment thread.
Danny Richter, guest speaker, on the current state of carbon pricing. I think he is currently with Resources for the Future
Thanks for the suggestion! Adding Danny to the guest ideas list.