Best of July 2026

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Volts published eight conversations in July on subjects with nothing obvious in common: an Arizona utility board election, Minnesota smart meters, land value taxes in Spokane, silicon battery anodes. Yet six of them arrived at the same constraint. What stops energy infrastructure from getting built in the United States is more often written into law than into physics. On this episode, David Roberts pulls one stretch from each July conversation into a single hour, with two Minnesota utility regulators, a Spokane city council member, a Hawaii state senator, a co-founder of a battery materials company, and more.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction: a new format for Volts

01:22 Arizona: winning the utility elections nobody watches

07:04 Minnesota: the smart meter data nobody uses

12:40 Spokane: how property taxes reward empty lots

17:31 Hawaii: the education gap in state energy policy

22:13 The data center backlash is a politics story

27:41 Why America can't build transit: procurement

32:41 Clean energy after the IRA: the glass debate

38:26 Silicon anodes: the other half of the battery

44:47 Closing: tell me if this worked