The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 27 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 2 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Chris Wright: Climate change is not a top 10 global problem
“But if you look at the math and the economics of it, it's just not even close to top 10 problem in the world today.”
Chris Wright: Non-dispatchable power sources act as expensive parasites on the grid
“But if you're not dispatchable, you're not adding to the peak capacity of a grid, you're just a parasite. Parasites are expensive.”
Wright: Intermittent energy sources are parasites on reliable power systems
“If you're not there at game time, all you are is a parasite on the systems that is there at game time.”
Chris Wright: Climate change is not among the top five global problems
“We've increased atmospheric CO₂ by 50%, hundred percent, it absorbs infrared radiation, it's been a force for warming, that's all true. But if you look at the trade-offs on it, it's not in the top five problems the planet focuses.”
Wright: Solar will never reach 10 percent of global energy
“He has a wildly exaggerated view of where solar and batteries will go. And I'd love, if we could make a bet 50 years out, I'll make a bet, solar never gets to 10% of global energy.”
Wright: Energy policy prioritizes humans first over climate change
“So the administration is humans first. The previous administration, climate change was first, energy was a subset of climate change, human lives were a subset of energy. For this administration, it's the opposite.”
Wright: All US batteries combined store five minutes of grid power
“If you take all the batteries in the United States, you could store five minutes of power.”
Chris Wright: Administration will eliminate Clean Power Plan 2.0 regulations
“We're going to get rid of Clean Power Act two point O that says you're going to have to have carbon capture and storage, you know, 15 years out on any natural gas”
Chris Wright: Nuclear is statistically the safest form of energy production
“It's the safest form of energy production we've ever seen, for amount of energy it's produced and the amount of negative impacts, but people think it's the scariest and the most dangerous.”
Chris Wright: Trump administration aims to deregulate and revitalize nuclear power
“The goal of the Trump administration is to reverse that strangulation of nuclear and let it fly again, but you're right, it'll take some time.”
Wright: Wood burning doubles the energy of wind, solar, and batteries
“The biggest component I didn't mention is traditional biomass. Burning wood. That is twice the total global energy of wind, solar, and batteries combined.”
Wright: Federal government subsidizes wind power at 4 cents per kWh
“The government pays that wind power producer four cents a kilowatt hour in a subsidy to pay it. That's straight from the federal government to the provider of that wind power.”
Chris Wright: IPCC projects only a 0.2% to 4% income drop by 2100
“Their estimates range from 0.2 to maybe three, four percent reduction in per capita income at the end of this century.”
Wright: US will have new small modular reactors by July 2026
“We will have new next generation small modular reactors critical next year. Our goal is by July fourth, and I think we will beat that.”
Chris Wright: Energy Department will stop planned closures of 100GW power plants
“There's plans between now and 2030 to close a hundred gigawatts of power plants. And we're stopping most all that.”
Wright: Wind, solar, and batteries provided 3% of PJM peak demand
“In PJM where we are right now, at peak demand this year, 97% of electricity, wind, solar, and batteries delivered three percent.”
Wright: Texas wind and solar supplied 8% of power at peak demand
“Wind and solar go on vacation. They're 35% of the capacity in Texas, eight percent of the delivered power at peak demand.”
Chris Wright: Natural gas will be the main source of new US electricity for AI
“Natural gas is what's going to power AI. Let's just be honest. What's going to be the main source of new electricity in the United States by far and away? Natural gas.”
Chris Wright: China has over 20 nuclear reactors under construction
“They're building reactors faster and therefore cheaper, and they've got 20 plus under construction right now.”
Wright: Hydrocarbons provided 85% of global energy in both 1973 and 2024
“Yeah, so, so in 1973, and I use that year because that's the Yom Kippur War. That's when oil prices tripled. Later in the decade, they doubled again in the Iranian Revolution. So we said, we gotta get off oil and gas. So in 1973, oil, gas, and coal provided 85…”
Wright: U.S. retail electricity prices rose 25% under Biden administration
“We saw retail electricity prices rose 25% during the Biden administration. Wholesale electricity prices rose far more than that, over 50%.”
Wright: Small modular reactors will take probably 10 years for market viability
“Ah, probably 10 years. 10 years. Because it's just a learning curve. With the small modular reactors, you gotta build up the supply chain, you gotta build up and build them in volume. The cost can come down dramatically.”
Wright: China built 100 new coal plants last year
“It's by far and away the biggest source of electricity in China, and they built a hundred coal plants last year.”
Wright: Electricity accounts for only 20% of total global energy usage
“Electricity delivers 20% of global energy. Wrap the panel in a, wrap the whole planet in a solar panel, you got 20% of energy delivered.”
Wright: Three Gen-IV reactors will achieve criticality at Idaho lab by next summer
“We will have three next generation Gen-IV reactors critical in Idaho National Lab next summer.”
Wright: DOE received 300 data center proposals, announcing first four tomorrow
“We put out at the Department of Energy, we got 16 locations to build data centers. We said, who wants to come build one? We'll permit them right away, We'll help you build power generation right next to it. We got 300 responses. We will announce tomorrow the f…”