Volts

Addison Stark, co-founder and CEO of Atmos Zero who builds air-source industrial heat pumps, explains why electrifying steam needs a new approach. He discusses designing high-temperature, multi-stage heat pumps, tradeoffs between ambient and waste-heat sourcing, scaling manufacturing, and commercial strategies like hybrid systems and heat-as-a-service.

Bruce Nordman, veteran research scientist on building energy and networked systems, advocates dynamic, time- and location-specific retail pricing to coordinate distributed energy. He explains why price signals can replace aggregators, how devices optimize locally to hourly to five-minute prices, and how price plus capacity envelopes preserve customer value, privacy, and grid safety.

Grant Gunnison, founder and CEO of Zero Homes, is building a digital operating system to simplify whole-home retrofits. He discusses homeowners’ retrofit headaches and why quotes and quality vary. He explains contractor business frictions, how remote 3D video scans replace many site visits, and how Zero Homes standardizes design and delivery to improve outcomes.

Mike Silvestrini, co-founder and managing partner of Energia, a platform letting retail investors back international solar projects. He discusses evolving from friends-and-family deals to Reg A public offerings. The conversation covers how investors earn returns from PPAs and battery rentals, building microgrids in emerging markets, managing political and currency risk, and scaling retail capital with low minimums.

Tom Steyer, billionaire financier turned climate activist running for California governor, discusses cutting electricity bills and reshaping utility incentives. He outlines boosting local competition, using tech and AI to raise grid utilization, tackling wildfire and transit costs, and funding housing by closing a corporate Prop 13 loophole. Short, policy-forward talk on affordability-focused climate strategies.

Kostantsa Rangelova, Ember analyst focused on batteries and solar deployment. Nicolas Fulghum, Ember analyst tracking global power trends and renewable rollout. They cover record-breaking solar growth, the rising role of batteries shifting midday sun to evening, whether global fossil generation has plateaued, and why India might avoid a coal-heavy path.

Robinson Meyer, executive editor and co-founder of Heatmap News and former climate reporter at The Atlantic, brings sharp investigative reporting chops. He unpacks the energy fallout from the Iran war, the politics of permitting reform, corporate moves on carbon removal, shifting climate movement strategies, and the market realities behind oil price shocks.

Beth Bafford, CEO and clean‑finance leader who built Climate United to channel billions into underserved communities. She recounts designing a $7 billion revolving fund, the shock of its sudden shutdown, the legal battle to recover funds, and how public capital and standardized finance can scale small clean-energy projects.

Jigar Shah, clean‑energy entrepreneur and former DOE loan office lead, weighs in on booming data center power needs. He skewers on‑site natural gas plants and explains how cycling wrecks equipment and destabilizes grids. He outlines smarter paths: shared capacity, flexible interconnection, VPPs, batteries, and policy fixes to unlock underused grid resources.

Lauren Flanagan, founder of Sesame Solar and maker of rugged mobile nanogrids, discusses portable power for disaster zones, remote operations, and military use. She describes solar-plus-battery containers with onboard hydrogen production and storage. Conversations cover when hydrogen backup is needed, automation for remote management, cost tradeoffs versus fuel logistics, and scaling manufacturing for real-world missions.