David Roberts

I run a newsletter/podcast called Volts about clean energy & politics. Subscribe & join the community at (@volts.wtf on bsky, ahem.)

[David Roberts @drvolts]

I have moved my daily activity to Bluesky. Going forward, this account will be used solely to a) solicit questions for & b) announce publication of new Volts content.

You should leave too. This place is run by a nazi, for nazis.

Subscribe to Volts!
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[David Roberts @drvolts]

Link:
https://t.co/EkgO7om1b4

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Today on Volts: Hot enough for you? Global demand for cooling is expected to triple by 2050, potentially doubling its 7% of global carbon emissions. How can we keep people cool in a warming world without accelerating that warming? I talk with an expert about it air conditioning.

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Link:
https://t.co/OSyDsajqQ3

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Today on Volts: GM sells the second most EVs in the US, after Tesla. Now it's making a big push to harness that fleet of EVs to help power customers' homes & bolster the grid (V2H & V2G). Will normie car buyers pay extra for this? Will utilities cooperate? I talk with a GM exec.

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Link:
https://t.co/eQ1TvWovur

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Today on Volts: the UK government has a new carbon budget (the 7th since its landmark 2008 climate law) & a relatively new climate minister, @KatieJWhite. I talk with her about the fracturing climate consensus, rising energy bills, & other challenges facing UK decarbonization.

[Ben Schifman @BenSchifman]

Great discussion about the grid reliability challenges that data centers could pose to the grid.

Data centers control large vast amount of electricity via software & can ramp up, ramp down, or trip offline in milliseconds.

The grid was not designed for load to behave this way, & it leads to real reliability challenges -- it makes sense that NERC is paying attention.

But there is an even larger version of the same problem: what happens when these reliability risks are triggered on purpose?

Frontier AI models like Mythos make it easier for a much larger set of actors to find and exploit software, & it is software that controls a data center's power use.

FERC and NERC have an opportunity to encourage cybersecurity hardening, in addition to the measures proposed in the most recent alert.

I wrote here about how faster interconnection for AI data centers should come with interim security requirements for the grid-facing systems that could create major reliability risks:

https://t.co/KvUUgsCrdu

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Tomorrow I'm talking with @RockyMtnInst expert Ankit Kalanki about a subject I have neglected for years: cooling! The world is getting hotter & air conditioning is spreading to poorer countries. How can we keep everyone cool without accelerating global heating?

Got questions?

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Link:
https://t.co/E1RORg4NOt

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Today on Volts: NERC (which oversees the reliability of the bulk power grid) recently issued a rare "level 3" alert about data centers. It seems their habit of taking 100s of MWs offline in the blink of an eye doesn't play well with the rest of the system. We talk solutions.

[David Energy @TheDavidEnergy]

“Outlets are preexisting bidirectional interconnection points.” The time for plug-in DERs is now. Thanks to the inimitable @drvolts for going deep with our CEO @James_McGinniss on the whole class of permissionless DERs.

https://t.co/sJJlAoJ7XN

[David Roberts @drvolts]

@cook82291 @JigarShahDC Possible OSHA violation.

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Link:
https://t.co/FsW99CQOew

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Today on Volts: I talk with Tim Sahay (@70sbachchan) & Kate Mackenzie (@kmac), who run the @polycrisis newsletter & podcast, about the current oil crisis & the need for US energy wonks to grapple more with international finance & politics. Fun!

[Logan Mitchell PhD 🇺🇸 @loganemitchell]

@JustinWolfers @drvolts interview of Dan Savage about the urban archipelago in US politics. Changed how I think about cities. https://t.co/8Ds1r9ZIYR

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Link:
https://t.co/4dEylQca7f

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Today on Volts: I talk with @James_McGinniss of @TheDavidEnergy about "plug-in DERs," which require no permissions or permits. He's selling plug-in batteries to small businesses in NYC, simply to reduce their bills, & he is *extremely* bullish on the future of this category.

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Big news: on Tuesday, I am interviewing Katie White, the UK's new climate minister, about the state of decarbonization in the UK, various ongoing controversies, the challenges ahead, etc.

Got questions about the state of climate policy in the UK?

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Link:
https://t.co/t6rsssPEnK

[David Roberts @drvolts]

Today on Volts: clean electrification is the most dynamic, hopeful sector of the economy, but when it comes to politics, it's a 98-lb weakling, a junior partner in trade groups dominated by fossil gas. Today's pod is about a new effort to change that. This is a spicy one!