Volts

> essentially a bond return You reminded me: David Roberts' often states that a hurdle for electrification and decarbonization projects is connecting them to "slow capital". Stuff like residential, community, solar, battery, heat pumps, appliances, ground source heat, yadda yadda. I gather that there's plenty of "slow capital" perfectly happy with low risk long term modest returns. But these projects are too small to be worth the effort. Probably something about transaction costs. My impression is there's an opportunity to bundle up these projects for the larger/largest investors. Biden's IRA created a "green bank" (RIP); maybe that was its intended function. You're smart about money and finance, so you can probably explain what Roberts is talking about (to noobs like me). https://volts.wtf

David Roberts, formerly of Vox and now independent, has been a great resource for years. You can find his archive at these two links: https://www.vox.com/authors/david-roberts https://www.canarymedia.com/about/people/david And he now podcasts at the site https://www.volts.wtf

As ever, Volts did a really good episode on this: https://www.volts.wtf/p/how-to-make-rooftop-solar-power-as Worth a listen, both to learn about how ridiculous the US situation is, and just how good the "news" of abundant solar is.

Just to add to your point; The final energy demand is much less than the primary energy we produce due to the energy costs of extraction, refining, transportation, and inefficient end use. According to Kingsmill Bond (great name btw) on Dave Roberts' Volts podcast if we magically could replace all fossil energy with renewables today the final energy use would only be ~30% of today's total energy use. "We’re pouring, from our calculations, two thirds of the primary energy into the air and wasting it." - Kingsmill Bond https://www.volts.wtf/p/clean-electrification-is-inevitable

Aha, that meaning wasn't clear to me in your original sentence. The best research I have seen on why different technologies get their learning rates is from the interviewees of this podcast: https://www.volts.wtf/p/which-technologies-get-cheaper-over Some people think that SMRs are a way for nuclear to get on a learning curve, but there's just as many skeptical people as enthusiastic people about that, in my experience. Natural energy resources are a huge source of geopolitical turmoil since the start of the industrial age. Renewables have the potential to significantly lessen these conflicts compared to what's happened with fossil fuels.

The author of this article appears to be unaware that very high electricity prices have been the other key driver behind Pakistan’s solar boom along with the massive reduction in the cost of solar panels. This was covered recently in a great interview with two Pakistani renewable energy experts on the Volts podcast: https://www.volts.wtf/p/pakistans-solar-boom

It's definitely impressive. However, natural gas outages do happen. For example Winter Storm Uri in Texas led to gas outages. Sadly, the outages and possible the loss of life connected to it could have been prevented if the gas companies hadn't fought back against stricter weatherization rules[^0]. > they made recommendations to the Railroad Commission to implement weatherization rules on the natural gas supply chain because there had been water coming up from the formations — it's called produced water, it's naturally occurring — and it was freezing at the top of the wellheads and restricting gas flow both at the wellheads and in pipelines. And yes, the Railroad Commission is not in charge of trains, but oil and gas in Texas. [^0]: https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-deal-with-the-texas-railroad

Climate! Listen to the Volts podcast (https://volts.wtf) … I’d say about half of the episodes make me want to quit what I’m doing and beg the guest for job at their startup. Climate solutions is a wide-open field, jammed with entrepreneurs and scientists going head-on with tough scientific, engineering, sociopolitical, and business problems, with pretty much everything on the line. The stuff people are working on ranges from fintech products to full on science fiction. There’s something there for you work-wise and mission-wise.

There is a good Volts[1] episode[2] on it. TL;DR the thing that limits how much power a line can carry is heat dissipation, which depends on weather. We used simple heuristic models to back out what we considered safe operating currents historically, but if you use sensors to enable a more data-intensive approach, you can operate closer to full capacity. [1] https://www.volts.wtf/ [2] https://open.spotify.com/episode/4sqNcVcXdLF3QFDR6f5Vgd

There is an excellent podcast from David Roberts that dives into Fervo's approach https://www.volts.wtf/p/enhanced-geothermal-power-is-finally

I think it was someone on the Volts podcast[1], either David Roberts or a guest, who made the point (I'm paraphrasing) that one of the most helpful things a regular person can do is start to think of solar arrays or windmills as beautiful; if building them isn't "climate but eyesore" but rather a "climate and beauty" proposition, they are much more likely to get built. 1: https://www.volts.wtf

I remember listening to a great podcast about digital circuit breakers that seems relevant to this discussion: https://www.volts.wtf/p/the-digital-circuit-breaker-and-why#details

"Volts" by David Roberts![0] A lot of subjects covered related to decarbonization and getting and using more renewable electricity, usually by interviewing a variety of experts [0] - https://www.volts.wtf/

People have proposed approaches to increasing the earth's albedo (and thus reflecting more sunlight) without launching material into the atmosphere. Best known is probably the idea of painting roads and rooftops white. Another interesting approach: setting up very light-weight (thin plastic?) mirrors in large quantities in farmer's fields. Farmers have incentive to do this in areas that are getting hotter and where crops may already grow better with some partial shade than in full sun. Spacing mirrors on posts in fields can provide this. This is being proposed by Ye Tao, an MIT Chemistry PhD who has pivoted to this project. Discussed on Dave Robert's Volts podcast [0]. [0] https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-dr-ye-tao-on-a-grand#details

An excellent discussion on the matter on the excellent Volts podcast: https://www.volts.wtf/p/the-extraordinary-potential-value#details

Wind, especially if you're in the Great Plains or connected by HVDC transmission lines to the Great Plains. https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data/325 https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power

> I guess Im more skeptical, especially when this is coming from a single purpose advocacy group I agree it's unlikely you'll just have solar + batteries used just for LV. However, taking a look at the adoption of storage in California and Texas, I think it's safe to assume an upwards trajectory for solar + batteries [1]. I didn't know much about Nevada's electricity generation, but based on current data [1] there are enough alternative sources to support a sizeable increase in solar generation. Still, I don't know how much solar will be deployed and I hope nuclear does drop in price in order to speed up the energy transistion. It's exciting to see so many great technological leaps in our lifetimes. Finally, a shout out to geothermal, which looks very promising. I recommend listening to "Catching up with enhanced geothermal " - https://www.volts.wtf/p/catching-up-with-enhanced-geothermal. 1. https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2025-09-14 2. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/0?agg=2,0,1&f…

Republicans. https://www.volts.wtf/p/the-right-wing-groups-behind-renewable With regards to your crazy rich people comment: Yes, there’s a crazy rich person (Connie Ehrlich) in northern Indiana who is attempting to stall the Mammoth Solar installation because it doesn’t align with her values and beliefs. As of this comment, Connie has posted on her Facebook group a slew of elected positions open that her 1.1k followers should consider running for. https://www.facebook.com/groups/350548792612785/ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/30/its-got-nasty-the-… Now, these parts of rural America are shrinking and dying anyway, so it’s hard to say if this is going to have a material impact if you can route around the ignorance with policy at the state level and siting the projects in more favorable jurisdictions until these folks age out.

In short, this is probably because climate economic modeling has traditionally focused on estimating more knowable, quantifiable impacts, and acknowledging but not including potential (maybe even probable!) impacts that are too difficult to model based on current knowledge. Tail risk is a big area that has traditionally not been modeled well leading to a very likely underestimate to the social cost of carbon (SCC): https://www.volts.wtf/p/economists-have-quantified-the-economic Here’s a historical overview of the situation with some links to the latest research: https://impactlab.org/research-area/social-cost/ It’s not just tail risk, even things like geopolitical instability and crop failure were often not historically included… you can see why the headline statement seems to conflict with intuition, and it’s because of the narrow view taken on the impact of the fossil fuel scenario on GDP. There is one more important element, and that is the distinction between economic activity (which GDP measures) and economic welfare. Natural disasters often don’t have much of an impact on GDP in part because the rebuilding activity counts in GDP. But it’s obvious to see why a future where we are spending an increasingly larger share of our effort to mitigate and rebuild losses is a much worse one. So GDP may not be the best measure here: https://www.economy.com/economicview/analysis/296804/How-Natural-Disas…

One problem with hydro is we've long ago exhausted the easy wins, and then went on to build the kinda wash outs. See the fight over Glen canyon, which even its architect went on to admit was a mistake. The wins now are in closed loop pumped hydro; see https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-deal-with-pumped-hydro

Also, I just listened to the latest Volts podcast and they make the claim that data centers will actually lower the cost of electricity fairly soon (~2030). Very counterintuitive but it does make sense. We'll find out soon enough. https://www.volts.wtf/p/sooner-than-you-think-electricity

You can, but it is damn difficult. https://www.volts.wtf/p/is-the-brand-new-city-in-california

> Nuclear theoretically should be much, much cheaper than it is if it were not for the regulatory costs thrust upon it Solar and wind theoretically would also be much, much cheaper if not for the regulatory costs. [1] Everything is regulated and all regulations have costs. I'm not morally opposed to nuclear energy. Is there a comprehensive study on which specific safety regulations are unnecessary and the LCOE if they were removed? 1. https://www.volts.wtf/p/how-to-make-rooftop-solar-power-as

The power grid problems islands have is a really interesting topic. Just the other day I read an interview discussing Taiwan's energy situation[0] and even though I am familiar with the various factions and the surface level debate, it prompted me to think a bit deeper on the unique challenges islands have as marginalized geographic entities. I didn't grow up on an island so I'm not sure if people who do are more conscious of the precarity, but you'd think if they did then they would place even more emphasis on getting energy independence. It's one of those things that would be cool to study if I could go back in time and choose a different specialization... [0] https://www.volts.wtf/p/taiwans-energy-dilemma

Here's a good podcast (with written transcript) about what's happening in Australia. https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-real-story-with-australian The difference in the permitting process between Australia and US is staggering.

Thanks for this! ...Thanks for helping me curb my naivete a bit. I think you'd appreciate this effort at even cheaper grid-scale chemical battery storage: https://www.volts.wtf/p/can-second-life-ev-batteries-work

Yeah, advanced geothermal is very interesting. They're taking fracking techniques and using them to get to hot rocks, which opens up geothermal to a much, much wider set of locations. Interested parties say it could provide everything we need beyond wind/solar, and seems much simpler than building out nuclear plants. Check out: https://www.volts.wtf/p/catching-up-with-enhanced-geothermal

Super enjoyed this read today. And a much shorter punchline. https://www.volts.wtf/p/us-transit-costs-and-how-to-tame https://bsky.app/profile/volts.wtf/post/3lvbpy6p2zk2c It's just so sad having a nation where disbelief & being against things is so the spirit.

Nuclear is clean, but has other drawbacks. "Solar+Storage is so much farther along than you think": https://www.volts.wtf/p/solarstorage-is-so-much-farther-along

Volts had a really good recent episode on the state of perovskite PV panels and why they are exciting: https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-deal-with-perovskite-solar Theoretically they can ~double output of silicon PV, but have historically been hampered by faster degrading; that problem seems now to have been significantly improved