Volts

The think tank Ember just released its yearly Global Electricity Review. In this episode, I chat with co-authors Nicolas Fulghum & Kostantsa Rangelova about the biggest stories in the global power sector in 2025. We geek out over the record-breaking scale of solar deployment, the game-changing role of batteries in shifting midday power to the evening, and the tantalizing possibility that India will not follow China’s coal-heavy development path and that global fossil fuel generation has finally plateaued.


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Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer joins me to unpack the sheer madness of the current news landscape. We discuss the energy implications of the Iran war, the vexed politics of permitting reform, Microsoft’s retreat from carbon dioxide removal, the lessons of the IRA, the lingering pastoralism of the environmental movement, and much more.

Beth Bafford spent years designing Climate United, a revolving fund meant to push out $7 billion of Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund money to underserved communities. She had barely begun sending out grants when Trump shut the program down and rescinded all the money. In this episode, I talk with her about that experience, the ongoing legal fight to reclaim some of the money, and the central importance of finance in clean energy policy.


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In this episode, I welcome back my old friend Jigar Shah to discuss the current hullabaloo around explosive electricity demand from new data centers. We dig into why its stupid for tech companies to build their own behind-the-meter natural gas plants, how this approach is wrecking equipment and destabilizing the grid, and a better, smarter, faster path forward.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe

There are some circumstances — think disaster recovery zones or forward military bases — that cry out for portable, reliable, resilient power. I talk with Lauren Flanagan about Sesame Solar’s self-contained nanogrids, which use solar PV, batteries, and hydrogen storage to provide energy that works around the clock in remote or inclement environments.