Volts

Dakota Gruener, nonprofit leader who maps uncertainties in solar radiation management, discusses stratospheric aerosol injection. She covers why SAI is the leading sunlight-reflection approach. Conversations hit a major model disagreement on particle physics, engineering challenges of lofting aerosols, regional precipitation effects, transparency and rogue tests, and governance questions about who would control planetary cooling.

Jesse Jenkins, Princeton energy researcher focused on power-system modeling and decarbonization, and Astrid Atkinson, CEO building grid-flexibility software for large loads, discuss avoiding on-site gas lock-in. They explore flexible interconnections, battery-backed power parks, deliverability and accreditation challenges, and how shifting compute and virtual power parks can unlock more clean capacity.

Pete Sikora, a longtime New York organizer focused on energy, housing, and labor, breaks down the clash over the state’s climate law and affordability claims. He discusses why implementation stalled, the pause on cap-and-invest, what actually drives rising bills, political pressure from industry, and practical policy levers to lower costs while protecting low-income households.

Kunal Girotra, founder and CEO of Lunar Energy and former head of Tesla’s residential energy business, is a hardware and software entrepreneur focused on residential batteries, solar integration, and VPP software. He discusses building modular batteries and integrated inverters, switching to LFP cells, Lunar’s AI planning and GridShare VPP platform, scaling whole-home VPPs, and future charging and V2G plans.

Jan Sramek, founder and CEO of California Forever, is building a new large-scale city in Solano County with expertise in urban design and infrastructure. They cover walkable neighborhoods and five-minute amenities. They discuss transit-first corridors, car-free living and shared vehicle fleets. They explain large-scale approaches to affordability, modular housing, district heating, solar and phased downtown-first development.

Jan Sramek, founder and CEO of California Forever and urbanist focused on master‑planned cities. He discusses a plan for a walkable new city with Barcelona‑style superblocks, large‑scale land assembly, and funding from patient capital. They cover secret land buys, density guarantees, site resilience, and the project's street grid, parks, industries, and child‑friendly design.

Emily Grubert, associate professor of sustainable energy policy at Notre Dame and researcher on mid-transition challenges, discusses shrinking fossil systems and the concept of minimum viable scale. Short scenes explore physical and financial cliffs, declining infrastructure and workers, equity harms from haphazard closures, and why public ownership or coordinated governance could help manage decline.

In this episode, I chat with Catalyst host Shayle Kann about the most pressing unresolved questions in the clean energy world today. We explore whether data center gigantism will break the grid, if the smart home revolution is destined for platform enshittification, whether billionaires should start testing solar geoengineering, and more. 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

Clara Summers, a consumer advocate leading the Citizens Utility Board’s Consumers for a Better Grid campaign, explains PJM's governance and why rising data-center demand and a clogged interconnection queue are driving prices and political heat. Conversations cover capacity markets, double-counting in load forecasts, state guardrails like large-load tariffs, curtailable connections, faster battery solutions, and paths to allocate costs fairly.

Bruce Friedrich, founder of the Good Food Institute and author on the future of meat, explains why plant-based and cultivated alternatives matter. He discusses meat’s huge environmental and health costs. He maps the tech and policy landscape, the science behind cultivated meat, market dynamics, and practical steps to scale better meat alternatives.