Volts

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Jane Flegal has worked inside philanthropy at the Hewlett Foundation, industrial emissions policy at the Biden White House, and carbon-removal market development at Frontier; she's now a senior fellow at the Searchlight Institute, writing some of the smartest climate policy analysis around. We cover a lot of ground: industrial policy versus market approaches, what the IRA got right and wrong, philanthropy's proper role, data centers and the case for an infrastructure fund, and behind-the-meter gas, among other things. This is a long one, and spicy!
Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction
03:11 – Flegal's thesis: building a clean grid fast enough to power growth
06:29 – Why she rejects degrowth
09:27 – The Roosevelt essay: climate as more than a market failure
13:30 – Why clean energy underuses its political muscle
15:24 – Industrial policy and the green spiral theory of change
20:40 – Was IRA the right approach?
22:12 – Lily Bermel's paper and the fight over what survived
23:21 – What she would have done differently under IRA
30:11 – Philanthropy, Silicon Valley, and what government is for
33:29 – The epistemic crisis inside environmental NGOs
39:09 – The abundance movement and what each faction misses
44:16 – What establishment Democrats get wrong on climate
46:06 – Why issue polling misleads
50:34 – Republicans and the Cold War analogy
52:47 – Data centers and the American Grid Infrastructure Fund
59:13 – Affordability politics and who pays for the grid
1:08:14 – Emissions, behind-the-meter gas, and flexible load
1:13:57 – The clean firm debate: storage plus transmission?
1:20:14 – Capacity markets, ERCOT, and the case for planning
1:24:32 – Utility incentives, public power, and affordability fixes
1:35:55 – Permitting reform and the land footprint asymmetry
1:41:05 – NEPA reform and the political window
1:48:21 – Where fresh policy thinking comes from

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Zanskar argues that the US is badly underestimating its conventional geothermal resources — that there are far more undiscovered hydrothermal systems, and that each one can produce far more power, than people think. They think AI can help find those resources, and they have drilled three sites to back it up, including a “blind” discovery in Nevada with no surface signs and no prior exploratory wells. If they're right, terawatts of firm, carbon-free power are reachable with off-the-shelf drilling technology. Co-founders Carl Hoiland and Joel Edwards make the case.
Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction
03:29 – Heat, permeability, and how resources have been found
04:49 – Why conventional geothermal stalled, and why the estimate is stale
09:22 – Applying AI to old exploration data
11:10 – The data Zanskar works with
13:09 – Models, field testing, and the feedback loop
15:02 – How much more resource is really out there
20:22 – Lightning Dock: reviving a written-off field
22:14 – What has changed in drilling technology
28:37 – Pumpernickel and the permeability question
31:08 – Natural permeability vs. enhanced geothermal
34:21 – Big Blind, the first blind discovery in 30 years
37:09 – Improving the models to keep getting better
40:51 – Financing exploration: the development capital facility
44:38 – The NV Energy PPA and data center demand
47:42 – The skeptical case and geographic limits
54:20 – Policy dependence and public lands
58:11 – What's next for Zanskar

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Volts published eight conversations in August — with two Idaho state legislators, a grid cybersecurity expert, the architect of Uruguay's energy transition, an EV charging exec, and more — which is a lot for anyone to listen to. We've rounded up the highlights into a single hour. Enjoy!
Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction and how the best-of series works
01:59 – Saleem Chapman on why every market design fails ratepayers the same way
07:51 – Patrick Miller on Chinese inverters and commodity boards
12:22 – Ben Toews and Megan Egbert on how Idaho's housing bills happened
18:34 – Seth Cutler on why an IONNA site is technically a bakery
22:52 – Ramón Méndez Galain on getting every Uruguayan party to sign one plan
28:00 – Quinn Nakayama on why a utility would adopt something that saves money
34:16 – Varun Sivaram on workload tiers and who pays when flexing goes wrong
38:44 – Todd Tucker on the Defense Production Act precedent
44:20 – Closing note and what to send in

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Disinformation about clean energy is showing up everywhere — online after every blackout, at county commission meetings about siting new projects, in regulatory dockets stuffed with fake comments. GoodPower, which combines a C3 education arm with a C4 advocacy arm, is trying to fight back with a network of thousands of content creators, rapid-response campaigns around storms and grid failures, and an AI tool that detects manufactured public comments. I talk with CEO Leah Qusba about what they've tried, what they've measured, and what actually works.
Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction
03:06 – What the disinformation claims, and who spreads it
05:57 – From Action for the Climate Emergency to GoodPower
08:38 – Building a creator network in non-political verticals
14:17 – Competing with talk radio and Fox News
18:26 – Winter Storm Fern and the rapid response system
23:26 – Measuring whether a deployment actually worked
27:24 – Pre-bunking and the 80-county experiment
33:18 – Getting people off the couch and into the room
38:10 – AI agents and where human judgment sits
42:05 – Keeping the C3 and the C4 distinct
47:13 – Battery fires, Moss Landing, and talking to fire chiefs
50:54 – TrueVoice and manufactured public comment
56:13 – Whether AI will overwhelm the comment process
58:11 – The best messages that actually land
1:04:22 – Super PACs, budgets, and what comes next

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Even as he has torn down climate policy, Donald Trump has normalized the use of more powerful & aggressive tools of economic statecraft, like equity stakes in private companies, new federal authorities, and sovereign wealth funds. The Roosevelt Institute recently issued a collection of 17 essays exploring how a future administration could use the tools Trump has assembled for decarbonization. I talk with Todd Tucker, editor of and contributor to the volume, about these new industrial planning tools.
Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction
02:32 – Did Biden's green policy prove durable?
09:39 – The Defense Production Act and the Sable pipeline
14:59 – Whether to leave the DPA on the table
15:35 – Executive orders and the durability problem
19:01 – Whether the Supreme Court treats Democrats differently
22:03 – Executive power and a disempowered Congress
25:05 – Senate malapportionment and filibuster reform
29:43 – Court reform and the major questions doctrine
34:13 – Manufacturing vs. deployment
42:52 – Permitting, abundance, and theory of power
49:20 – Public ownership and the U.S. Steel golden share
55:22 – What state capitalism could look like for green ends
59:56 – Shelley Welton on utilities as planning tools
1:02:42 – Speed vs. deliberation before 2029