Volts

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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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!