Volts
A newsletter, podcast, & community focused on the technology, politics, and policy of decarbonization. In your inbox once or twice a week.
- Update frequency
- every 4 days
- Average duration
- 57 minutes
- Episodes
- 357
- Years Active
- 2020 - 2025
Volts podcast: Kimberly Nicholas on the best ways to get cars out of cities
In this episode, Kimberly Nicholas discusses her published research on the most effective policies to reduce car use in cities.
Text transcript:
David Roberts
In the U…
Volts podcast: Abigail Hopper on the trade case that is crushing the US solar industry
Volts podcast: Lauren Melodia and Kristina Karlsson on energy inflation and how to tame it
Volts podcast: Jesse Morris on building an operating system for distributed energy
Volts podcast: Doug Thompson defends the deep state
In this episode, Doug Thompson, associate professor of political science at the University of South Carolina, sings the praises of bureaucracy and its essential role in the fight against climate chan…
Volts podcast: Andy Frank on how to sell whole-home retrofits to skeptical consumers
In this episode, Andy Frank, president and co-founder of Sealed, discusses his company’s pay-for-performance model for home electrification.
Text transcript:
David Ro…
Volts podcast: Fran Moore on how to represent social change in climate models
In this episode, UC Davis assistant professor Fran Moore discusses her research team’s effort to construct a climate model that includes (instead of ignores) effects from the interplay of social cond…
Volts podcast: Nan Ransohoff on how (and why) Stripe is kick-starting the carbon-removal market
In this episode, Nan Ransohoff, head of carbon at Stripe, discusses the company's new spinoff, Frontier, which will pool money from partners and make it available to early contenders in the carbon di…
Volts podcast: Michael Terrell on Google's pursuit of 24/7 clean energy
In this episode, Google’s director of energy, Michael Terrell, explains the company's new goal of supplying all of its facilities with clean energy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We …
At long last, I have an EV
For years now, I’ve been dithering about getting an electric vehicle (EV). Much of that dithering has been done in public, on Twitter and for various sites I’ve worked for — just a few weeks ago I su…
Volts podcast: Elizabeth Popp Berman on the "economic style of thinking" that consumed US policy
In this episode, sociologist Elizabeth Popp Berman discusses her new book, Thinking Like an Economist, about the “economic style of thinking” and how it took over in US policy circles in the post-war…
Volts podcast: Paulina Jaramillo on the IPCC's new climate-solutions report
In this episode, Carnegie Mellon professor Paulina Jaramillo discusses the IPCC's working group 3 report, “mitigation of climate change,” of which she was a co-author. It's the most comprehensive lo…
Me, on the Some More News podcast
Earlier this year, I stumbled on the news videos from the team at Some More News. They are like The Daily Show, but longer, smarter, more in-depth, more profane, and free of Jon Stewart’s unfortunate…
Me, interviewed by Noah Smith
Economist Noah Smith runs the excellent substack Noahpinion, where he writes and podcasts about … pretty much everything. Economics. Politics. The war. Housing. Technology. On and on. The guy is ludi…