America invented the clean energy future. Now it may be dismantling it, just as the rest of the world hits the accelerator.

The U.S. was first. The first silicon solar cell in New Jersey. The first wind turbine in Cleveland. The first microinverter in a California garage.

But now it’s China scaling the clean energy transition—building factories, locking in supply chains, and racing toward a low-carbon economy at industrial speed.

In the U.S., the president just signed the Big Beautiful Bill into law—gutting the historic clean energy investments at the heart of the Inflation Reduction Act. The country that helped invent the clean energy future is now stepping back. Just as solar keeps getting cheaper. Just as global investment hits $2 trillion. Just as the low-carbon transition starts to tip.

David Roberts, founder of Volts, has spent 20 years as a journalist tracking this shift. In this episode, he joins Josh Dorfman to dissect the precarious moment we find ourselves in—when America’s energy future is uncertain, global momentum is accelerating, and the clean energy transition won’t wait. They talk solar’s 60-year cost curve, energy policy, and why the real revolution may be happening from the bottom up.

This is what it looks like when the politics retreat—but the transition doesn’t.

Show Notes

Guest: David Roberts

Company: Volts

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