David Roberts
Host and Creator, Volts. On 2 shows, 4 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
journalisthostauthor@drvolts ↗volts.wtf ↗
David Roberts reports on clean energy technologies, grid decarbonization, and climate politics through his independent outlet, Volts. Prior to launching Volts in 2020, he spent over fifteen years covering energy and the environment as a staff writer for Grist and Vox.
2shows
4appearances
22statements
5resolved
5supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
14said about them ↓ Everything David Roberts said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Roberts: The commercial nuclear industry is historically corrupt and incompetent
“What I don't want is the sort of generalized hype around SMRs to translate into just yet another round of a large and historically Corrupt and incompetent industry getting another giant round of subsidies dumped on its head for ultimately nothing, which is wha…”
Roberts: All US natural gas utilities are facing a death spiral
“And that's an alternative to natural gas utilities, slowly withering and dying, which is what all the natural gas utilities across the country are facing right now.”
Roberts predicts recycled minerals will become cheaper than mined within 20 years
“I would just say that my, I guess my prediction would be that in 10 years, maybe or in 20, that just a unit of critical minerals drawn from recycling will be cheaper than a unit of
Mind.
I think.
I think.
Eventually.
Like, I think it will end up being our prim…”
Roberts: A rogue actor could test solar geoengineering cheaply and go undetected
“You could stand up and do a reasonably large scale test on your own without a ton of money, arguably without being detected doing so by the world.”
Roberts argues distributed capacity is faster and cheaper than on-site generation
“I would like to see them get serious about exploiting distributed capacity. I think that's faster and cheaper than on-site generation if we can get the financial and institutional arrangements lined up the right way.”
Roberts predicts the concept of distinct distributed energy resources will fade away
“You and I know that the way the long-term evolution is that basically everything that is plugged in is gonna become a resource eventually. Like, the notion of DERs as a kind of distinct category, I think, is just gonna kind of fade away, because eventually, li…”
Roberts: Pakistan recently imported solar capacity equivalent to 40% of total load
“Pakistan went, like, I think it was like two years or three years, 40% of its total load now was It has imported solar panels equivalent to 40% of its total load.”
Roberts: Thermal batteries will unlock decarbonization of industrial heat
“I think the reason it's going to be a big enough deal that even normies will hear about it is that it is going to be this kind of skeleton key that unlocks the decarbonization of industrial heating and cooling, which is, you know, one of the big quote unquote …”
Roberts: Nuclear power is just one firm clean balancing option
“I just want people to see nuclear, not as some sort of special, unique kind of power, but simply one of the options on the table for balancing longer term Renewable energy. One among others, there are other options. There's geothermal, there's longer term stor…”
Roberts: Geogrids are the cheapest, cleanest way to heat and cool buildings
“And basically, if you can build one of these things, you have what I think is Easily the cheapest and cleanest and most efficient way of heating and cooling buildings that exists in the world, as far as I can tell.”
Roberts: Substitution and market supply will solve critical mineral shortages long-term
“I just think substitution plus new sources. Over the midterm, mid to longterm, is going to solve this. I agree that there will be years, couple of years, choke points here and there, as we've all, as we've already seen a couple of materials get tight. But I ju…”
Roberts: Hard-to-decarbonize sectors will be technologically easier than expected
“Hard to decarbonize sectors are going to be easier to decarbonize than I think is expected, technologically speaking. And I think that's been a theme in the clean energy transition now for decades is that the technological challenges turn out to be a lot more …”
Roberts: Most Climate-Themed Art and Media Have Been Bad
“Over the course of my career, most attempts to grapple with climate change via art, you know, music, or movies, or TV shows, or poetry, have just been bad.”
The Climate Movement Devolved Into Infighting Because Mainstream Institutions Ignored It
“You just end up talking to other climate people, and you end up Arguing with other climate people and forming these sort of teams and factions within the climate movement because no one else is paying attention. So I think that's sort of like become the cultur…”
Roberts: Autonomous vehicles will become ubiquitous in some cities within 5-10 years
“So anyway, I think within five to 10 years, we will at least see cities where these things become ubiquitous, and then I think at the very least we'll have directionally Answers to some of these things.”
Roberts: Power-to-heat thermal storage reaches 95% efficiency
“Which gets you way higher efficiency. Like you can get 95% of your heat back out.”
Roberts: DOE prioritizes standardized nuclear construction practices over modular hardware
“If you talk to the people at the DOE, the loans office, they'll tell you what needs to be replicated and done the same way over and over again is not necessarily the hardware, the chunks of hardware, it's construction practices. It's the construction sub parts…”
Roberts: Climate Art Struggles Because Scale Conflicts with Specificity
“It's so big and so distant and so kind of all-encompassing and abstract that it's very difficult to approach it via a specific place or person or story or relationship, and those specifics are what give art its power and its meaning.”
Roberts: Audiences Won't Flock to Movies Explicitly Marketed About Climate Change
“If you tell people, I made a movie about climate change, they're not going to herd to see it. They're just not.”
Roberts: Mammalian evolution makes humans ill-equipped to emotionally process climate change
“We're evolved creatures who are evolved to care about things within a certain space around us and on a certain timescale, right? We're just mammals. That means close proximity and relatively short timescales. And climate is huge and far away and slow.”
Roberts: 25 US states have proposed balcony solar legislation
“25 states had laws either Proposed or announced to be proposed to legalize balcony solar.”
The other half of the tape: David Roberts's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 14 times in 13 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Stephen Lacey 7Shayle Kann 4Katherine Hamilton 1
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
Catalyst 8
the Green Blueprint 6
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
2023 12 mentions in 11 episodes 1 per episode
- How will we power all those green factories?
- New frontiers of clean energy emerge
- Fixing interconnection
- Stopping geoengineering, by accident
- The food-energy nexus
- Inflation headwinds for offshore wind
- The carbon market’s quality problem
- Keeping copper from limiting the energy transition
- 3 more episodes that year, every mention in 2023 →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens David's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CATALYSTLEDGER | Host and Creator, Volts | 2 | 16 | 100% 4/4 | full record on Catalyst → |
| GREEN BLUEPRINTLEDGER | Host and Creator, Volts | 2 | 6 | 100% 1/1 | full record on the Green Blueprint → |