Volts

Volts guests have argued that data centers can be good for the grid if they’re built right. Here I hear the case against, from Ketan Joshi, a former wind-industry analyst who now tracks Big Tech’s climate claims. He sees data centers as the wrong kind of demand growth: lumpy, concentrated, unwanted by neighbors, and largely met with gas. Underneath it all is the worry that the backlash against data centers will become a backlash against electrification itself.

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

02:14 – How Ketan became a big tech critic

06:01 – The case against data centers

07:39 – What data centers add to emissions

11:57 – Isn’t more electricity demand good?

20:12 – Backlash and the NEXTDC power-pole protest

24:21 – AI claims 1: will AI help the climate?

27:53 – AI claims 2: machine learning vs. generative AI

33:47 – AI claims 3: inflated climate wins

36:51 – The gas rush: how much gets built?

44:49 – Would easier renewables fix it?

49:14 – Can data centers be flexible load?

55:41 – Do we actually want AI data centers?

59:39 – What should data centers do to plug in?

1:05:31 – Fake crackdowns and the risk to renewables

1:09:24 – What if AI is a bubble?

Clean energy is the cheapest, fastest-growing source of power in the country, yet politically it barely registers. Republicans gutted its tax credits last year without fearing any consequences. The Invest in Tomorrow Coalition, a super PAC backed by clean energy investors, is trying to change that the old-fashioned way: by punishing the industry’s enemies. It went six for six in this year’s primaries; it’s now spending at least $15 million against seven Republican House candidates in the midterms. Its chair, Tom Matzzie, makes the case for fear as a political asset, explains why the industry has been so slow to throw elbows, and describes what it would take for clean energy to become a lion instead of a gazelle.

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction

02:55 - How the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition started

06:23 - Why a super PAC, and the idea of mythic power

09:50 - Punishing opponents to send a message to Congress

12:55 - Proving impact, and the permitting bill

17:13 - How ITC picks its general election races

21:41 - Does knocking out extremists help Republicans?

24:53 - Free riders and barriers to industry politics

28:58 - Who funds ITC, and why the industry underinvests

32:44 - Why clean power stays politically weak

38:28 - Did the IRA’s red-state investments pay off?

40:35 - Fear of Trump’s retaliation

45:05 - Avoiding the Democratic PAC label

49:30 - Presidential primaries and the ethanol playbook

53:20 - Gas inside the clean power trade groups

58:37 - Where ITC goes after November

Collectively, the electric stack (batteries, motors, chips, power electronics) has gotten about 99% cheaper since 1990. It is quietly remaking every machine that turns electricity into motion, heat, or work. Problem is, China makes most of it. Sam D’Amico, co-author of “The Electric Slide” and founder of Impulse Labs, is betting the US can still claim a piece of that stack. He’s starting with a battery-powered induction cooktop. We talk about why domestic manufacturing matters, what America would actually have to build to compete, and how Silicon Valley’s founder world really thinks about climate change, geoengineering included.

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

02:52 – From VR headsets to kitchen appliances

07:07 – How a pizza oven inspired a battery stove

10:07 – Peak demand, at home and on the grid

13:25 – Which appliances could use a built-in battery

16:46 – Electric stack 1: the four technologies

20:28 – Electric stack 2: power electronics and motors

25:21 – China bets on hardware, the US bets on AI

30:08 – Why not just buy it all from China?

33:51 – Why engineers need to be near the factory

38:39 – How much does the US need to make at home?

45:19 – US EV policy and letting Chinese cars in

47:49 – Batteries in appliances vs. one home battery

52:04 – Impulse’s plan: its tech in other brands’ stoves

55:17 – What’s next after the stove

57:14 – Has Silicon Valley stopped caring about climate?

American homes are filling up with batteries, EVs, and smart thermostats that could be coordinated to make the grid cheaper and more reliable — but almost none of them are. To understand why, it helps to watch what happens when the company best in the world at this tries to do it here. In Britain, Octopus Energy has built a giant virtual power plant out of its customers' devices. In the US, it has spent six years running into walls. Now it’s bought Uplight, which runs customer programs for 85 utilities. I talked with Nick Chaset, who runs both, about what's in the way and whether distributed energy can ever scale with US utilities … the way they are.

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

02:02 – Octopus’s past year and the Uplight investment

05:18 – What makes the UK market work for Octopus

11:12 – Texas: fast growth, flattened volatility

14:57 – Will flexibility put itself out of business?

19:16 – Why Octopus stays out of Pennsylvania and New York

22:17 – Does residential retail competition have a future?

24:41 – Why utility programs trail Octopus on participation

32:17 – The demand stack and what planners can count on

39:11 – Kraken, Uplight and the overlap

46:04 – Consumer protection and the aggregator model

51:17 – Data centers and the social license to operate

55:11 – Do we need dynamic pricing?

58:30 – Five years out

Denmark gets a large share of its power from wind and other renewables and has cut its emissions roughly in half since 1990, but independent analysts doubt it will hit its 70 percent target for 2030. Kristian Jensen, CEO of Green Power Denmark and a former Danish minister of taxation, foreign affairs, and finance, argues the next stage is electrifying how Denmark uses energy: heat, transport, and industry. I talk with him about district heating and heat pumps, EVs and vehicle-to-grid, municipally owned grid companies and hourly power prices, biomass, carbon capture, power-to-X, solar’s “fields of iron” backlash, a grid oversubscribed with data center requests (an October 1 agreement has since put most data centers at the back of the queue), and whether the country’s political consensus will hold.

Chapters

00:00 – Introduction: Denmark and industrial symbiosis

02:44 – Is the 70% target for 2030 out of reach?

06:24 – Carbon capture and storage, and the peatlands lag

09:57 – Why electrification has lagged: biomass and wood pellets

14:45 – Few batteries, many interconnectors

16:48 – Data centers and the grid-connection prioritization bill

21:34 – Municipally owned grid companies

24:32 – Smart meters, hourly prices, and thermal batteries

28:40 – The solar backlash and local ownership

35:04 – Agrivoltaics and biodiversity

37:24 – District heating: heat pumps, geothermal, and finance

43:24 – The EV transition and vehicle-to-grid

47:45 – Road pricing and fiscal room

50:07 – Power-to-X and eSAF

54:21 – Can Denmark build enough clean power?

57:12 – Will the political consensus hold?

On this episode, recorded live at Climate Week NYC, I talk with Matt Traldi. He’s the founder and CEO of Greenlight America, which finds the local meetings where clean energy’s fate is being decided and recruits supporters to attend. Traldi argues that siting and permitting approvals turn on who shows up, and that local partners, conservative groups included, outperform outside advocates. We discuss how to measure impact, recent wins and losses, blue-state resistance, data center backlash, and Greenlight’s growth.

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

02:09 – What Greenlight does and why Matt started it

04:41 – How Greenlight finds the decisions that matter

07:27 – Growth, and the tax credit deadline sprint

13:38 – Who shows up to local hearings

19:39 – Winning in conservative communities

22:35 – Bodies in the room, measuring impact, and win rates

27:46 – Losses, wins, and “there is no bag”

32:44 – Blue-state obstacles and organized opposition

36:31 – When data center backlash spills over onto clean energy

42:31 – Which projects Greenlight won’t back

45:38 – Lessons from housing and growing an organization

50:17 – Audience Q&A: disinformation and state permitting reform

54:39 – Audience Q&A: developers and elections

59:30 – Audience Q&A: funding local groups and designing community input

The proposed bipartisan federal permitting bill is 417 pages filled with extremely consequential provisions that have left the climate community some mix of excited, infuriated, and confused. In an attempt to bring some clarity, I asked Daniel Palken of Arnold Ventures, a veteran of Senate permitting fights, to walk through what’s in it. We cover the blockbuster transmission reforms, the rule making data centers pay more than their share of grid costs, the wins for geothermal, and the fossil carve-outs. Then we get into NEPA reforms that render the act toothless, limits on state water permits, and the permit-certainty sections that have lawyers worried about “forever permits.” And finally: whether it restrains Trump, why Democrats shouldn’t wait for a better deal, what the modeling says about emissions impacts, and Daniel’s odds of passage. This is a long one, folks. Buckle up.

Chapters:

00:00 – Intro: the bipartisan permitting bill

04:15 – Why permitting reform matters

12:23 – Agency staffing and capacity

16:59 – Past permitting attempts

20:26 – Transmission 1: planning and federal backstop

28:28 – Transmission 2: who pays and grid upgrades

38:17 – Data centers 1: paying more for grid access

43:20 – Distributed energy and geothermal

49:06 – Oil, gas, and mining provisions

57:06 – Data centers 2: will they go off-grid?

1:00:19 – NEPA 1: courts can’t halt projects

1:08:57 – NEPA 2: the main objections

1:17:10 – State water permits

1:23:35 – Endangered species

1:27:37 – Permit certainty 1: limits on revoking permits

1:36:43 – Permit certainty 2: lawsuits and damages

1:48:12 – Politics 1: Trump’s wind blockades

1:52:57 – Politics 2: why not wait for a better deal?

1:58:33 – Politics 3: elections, courts, and modeling

2:10:57 – Politics 4: next steps and odds of passage

On September 14, I sat down with Leah Stokes in front of a live audience at Seattle’s Town Hall to talk about her new book, The Carbon Wave. It’s an insider account of how the Inflation Reduction Act got made, braided with the story of the high-risk twin pregnancy she went through while helping to make it. We get into why electrification is the heart of decarbonization, the enduring mystery of what’s going on in Joe Manchin’s head, what it means to trade your carbon footprint for a carbon wave, and how much of the IRA survives. It was followed by questions from the audience.

Chapters:

00:00 – Welcome and housekeeping

03:05 – The twins, the NICU, and writing the book

08:51 – Carbon footprint vs. carbon wave

13:39 – Sam Ricketts and 100% clean electricity

18:13 – Why electricity is the core of the solution

23:28 – Utilities and the politics of change

26:18 – Tech companies and data centers

29:11 – Inside the Manchin negotiations

33:57 – Why Manchin got to yes

38:46 – Trump, setbacks, and where things stand

42:55 – Clean energy politics and the global shift

46:25 – Audience Q&A: the transmission gridlock

48:59 – Institutions, speed, and structural reform

53:27 – If Democrats win the House, what next

55:43 – Permitting reform

59:06 – State utilities, coal, and getting involved

Volts published seven conversations in September, which is a lot for anyone to listen to. We’ve rounded up the highlights into less than an hour. Enjoy!

Heat pump water heaters use a fraction of the energy of conventional electric resistance heaters — which use more electricity in a year than an EV — but they're only 2 percent of the market, mainly because they tend to cost more, be slow and loud, and require a plumber and an electrician. Reservoir is a Boston company trying to fix all that, with a smarter, quieter machine and its own plumbers. I talk with CEO Luke Winston-Almanzar about how it works, what it costs, and its potential role in demand response programs.

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

03:06 – Why water heaters

06:34 – How gas, resistance, and heat pump water heaters work

09:33 – Size and slow recovery: predictive heating and party mode

15:31 – Installation and vertical integration

22:19 – Cutting electric resistance backup

20:31 – What Reservoir builds and what it sources

23:41 – Tankless gas, virtual capacity, and the booster heater

27:11 – Recirculation, freeze protection, leak detection, and Legionella

32:03 – What it costs and what it saves

36:01 – Placement: small rooms, basements, and cold climates

42:37 – Noise and durability

48:19 – Demand response and virtual power plants

53:22 – A. O. Smith’s CO2 split system and Reservoir’s moat

55:54 – Policy headwinds after the IRA

59:29 – What’s next for Reservoir