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 606 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 124 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
Friedmann: Congress is highly likely to preserve 45Q and 45V tax credits
“With respect to Forty-five-Q and other tax credits in the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act I give high odds That they will sustain, 45 Q, 45 V related projects.”
Smith-Eppsteiner: AI companies face 40% to 70% gross margins from inference costs
“Like, inference cost is non-trivial. I think for a bunch of the AI companies, both in our portfolio and that we've seen you know, this is, like, not going to be a 90% margin SaaS. Like, we may be talking about 40 to 70% gross margin based on inference costs.”
Koomey: AI industry will pivot to massive efficiency gains under infrastructure constraints
“Between those various, ah, improvements that you can get beyond just shrinking transistors and making things closer together, there's orders of magnitude possibility for improving efficiency, and so my sense is that the, you know, the focus has been basically …”
Kann: US data center capacity will more than double by 2030
“I was on the side of, we will see total capacity of data centers as measured in megawatts, or gigawatts, I guess, really double by twenty-thirty, and I was on the side that we will see it more than double.”
Koomey: US data center load will double once more then level out
“It would not surprise me if You know, we saw another doubling, but I would say, you know, probably that's about it. I think that's going to level out, and then people are going to be more efficient at what they're doing based on the history”
Datar: Cultivated meat is in the 'trough of disillusionment' but will happen
“We're in this kind of trough of disillusionment, as they call it in the hype cycle terminology, where people are like, what do you mean this thing will never happen, it's been way too long, when actually, it will happen, it's just, now we've kind of set oursel…”
Yao: Anode-free sodium-ion battery cells could reach $40 to $50/kWh
“An anode-free sodium ion cell is one of the most competitive technologies out prices out there, because you don't have a negative electrode material that, that adds to cost, as well as the ability to really increase energy density. Those numbers can get to pot…”
Kimber: Data centers are entering an era where grid connection is optional
“Generally speaking, I think we're moving into an era where grid connection is optional and should be optional. And that, you know, we should be able to, you know, operate these things fully off grid if necessary.”
Kimber: AI data centers will never offer flexible power load
“Every second you aren't running that at a hundred percent capacity factor is enormous amortized cost, right? So that it's just, it's one of those things where it's like, you'd be a fool to turn it down. You have to at some points because operationally, you kno…”
Kimber: AI inference will ultimately draw far more power than training
“I think now what we're seeing is that inference in the aggregate is actually probably a much larger draw than the training in the long run.”
Kann: Carbon removal startup oversupply will force a market reckoning
“I think the overwhelming likelihood is that we're in for a bit of a reckoning in that market. In that market, I mean, both the general voluntary carbon market, and more specifically, the CDR market. Not to say everything fails, but there's just the, there's an…”
Grunwald: Feeding 2050 Population Needs Two Indias' Worth of New Land
“If, even if we continue to increase farm yields at the same rate they've increased throughout the Green Revolution we're gonna need another two India's worth of land, which essentially means, you know, gonna bye-bye Amazon and Congo rainforests, you know, very…”
Grunwald: Halving Beef and Waste Won't Eliminate Yield Gap by 2050
“Even if we Reduced our beef consumption 50% in rich countries, and reduced food waste 50% in the entire world, we would still need, you know, the numbers are so bad that we would still need to jack up our yields significantly to feed ten billion people by twen…”
Klauber: Microsoft cannot hit 2030 net-zero targets without book and claim
“Even if there's tremendous uptake, a company like Microsoft who wants to get to net zero by 2030 simply will not be able to do this without Book and Claim.”
Jaffe: Northvolt's stranded factory will eventually produce batteries under new ownership
“But that factory, I believe strongly, is going to be making batteries. Somebody else is going to own it, and they are going to be making batteries.”
Janous: Compute demand will exceed available power supply through 2030.
“It's possible, though I suspect that given the, my fundamental belief is that the demand for compute, let's just say through twenty-thirty, will exceed the available power in the market. And therefore, the marginal value of the next watt or gigawatt, frankly, …”
Ellis: European carbon regulations will double the price of cement
“They realize this is going to, these regulations are going to double the price of cement in Europe, whether you're going to be paying for post-combustion carbon capture, or you're simply going to be paying the carbon price.”
Frith: Lowest battery spot prices will rise while average prices continue falling
“I think, you know, unfortunately, we're probably going to see prices increasing, you know, moderately in, in the next kind of year or so, I would say, or kind of, let's say two years out, we'll probably see higher prices than we're at today. But I don't think,…”
Apley: DAC market will be increasingly supply-constrained for 2030 and 2035
“If people are trying to secure the volumes for 2030, 30 or 20, 35, when they potentially want to actually fulfill their net zero ambitions, then I clearly see this will become more and more supply constraint.”
MacDonald: DOD climate procurement will rapidly lower civilian adaptation tech costs
“Like, this is a part of the public sector that's going to rapidly lower the cost of stuff that, like, regular civilians need, and that could extend to stuff like, you know, detection of vector-borne illnesses or other illnesses or biometric sensors that detect…”
Johnson: Geologic hydrogen extraction costs should match natural gas extraction
“If you can find hydrogen under the ground, the reality is you should be able to produce it from a volumetric standpoint at a similar cost that we produce natural gas out of the ground.”
Johnson: Natural hydrogen and biogenic CO2 can reach aviation fuel parity
“You could even take, you know, natural hydrogen produced at optimized prices, combine that with biogenic CO two, and you could make kerosene for sustainable aviation fuel pretty darn close to cost parity to the kerosene that just comes out of oil refinery.”
Berdichevsky: It may take many years to absorb online battery capacity
“I think these shocks of supply-demand shocks will start to be smaller and smaller, but it'll take us a few years to, it may take many years to use up the capacity that's already online.”
Berdichevsky: Some US battery factory projects will get mothballed
“So I do think some of these projects are still, are not going to go forward at certain stages. You know, and that's kind of classic. A lot of times, you know, maybe half the announced projects end up getting built. The pipeline is way bigger than the demand to…”
Kann predicts US data center capacity will double by 2030.
“I'm on the oversight here. I'm betting that there will be more than 20 gigawatts of new data center capacity in the United States by then.”
Loo: Projections show ammonia will eventually be cheaper than e-methanol
“In the long term, if you look at the projections and the numbers, I think if costs were the driver, then the cost of ammonia is going to be cheaper than the cost of e-methanol.”
Loo: Low-density future fuels will force distributed bunkering networks
“And so that model, I think, will break down and we will see more distributed bunkering because of the low volumetric density of these future fuels.”
Janus: AEP will not connect 90 gigawatts in next decade
“There's no reason to believe that AEP is going to connect 90 gigawatts in the next 10 years.”
Janus: AI Training Loads Will Not Run as Intermittent Renewable-Following Workloads
“So I think it's a little bit overblown to say, and I think this is also true of Something like the conversation around crypto, but that these are highly curtailable loads that you could just, you know, attach a training model to a wind farm and only run it, yo…”
Janus: Nuclear Power Will Not Solve Data Center Bottlenecks This Decade
“The focus that these companies have right now is getting data centers online in the next, Two, three, four years, and nuclear is not going to solve that problem.”
Janus: Hyperscaler climate targets are probably not achievable on time
“And so there is, I think at this point, a point of coming to grips with the fact that those targets are probably not achievable in the time horizons that they had all set.”
Baglino: AI power demand is overhyped by a 'toilet paper' queue run
“I'm not so sure that it is going to be as dramatic as people think, both because I think
there's a little bit of the toilet paper problem going on here... You've got all of these companies that think AI is going to be massive and want AI to be massive, and th…”
Lubbershane: Maxing out global cellulosic biomass solves only half of aviation demand
“Even kind of optimistically, if you were to max out that resource globally,
And all of it were to go into the aviation fuel market, especially given the growth we're expecting to see in demand for aviation fuel.
we're still talking about probably solving abou…”
Shah: Warehouse rooftop solar may be cheaper net-net than utility-scale solar
“And so, and when you look at, you know, interconnection cues from utility-scale solar and that kind of stuff, it may actually end up being net-net cheaper to put solar on these four-acre warehouse rooftops than to put it in the middle of a field.”
Moerenhout: Zero Chance Energy Transition Succeeds on Schedule Without China
“Zero chance. Not at all. Not in a million years.”
Steingart: Battery recyclers will face a lean period as scrap rates drop
“I worry about the business case here because the gigafactories have every incentive in the world to minimize this amount of scrap, and so at the same time, we don't want batteries to die, so every recycler is going to have a lean period as scrap rates go down.…”
Steingart: Direct recycling is likely the only viable path for LFP batteries
“I think if LFP recycling is going to have a shot, it's going to be on a direct recycling route, and for those that know me and get a beer with me after conferences, they're probably doing a spit take, because I'm pretty skeptical of direct recycling in a lot o…”
Lubbershane: North America will significantly expand natural gas generation
“I don't see a way that we make it through this first phase of the gauntlet without adding a significant amount of more natural gas fire generation in North America.”
Lubbershane: Surging electricity demand makes a nuclear energy renaissance all but certain
“I think that the gauntlet makes it all but certain that that's one pathway we will turn towards.”
Kann: US is unlikely to build significant new nuclear capacity this decade
“It's unlikely we're going to see a lot of new nuclear capacity built in the United States this decade, and even the first few projects that are going to get built, those are going to be quite expensive.”
Stacey Kauk predicts carbon removal takes 30 years to become a commodity
“In order to function properly, we need to end up in a place where a ton is a ton is a ton, and there's two reasons for that. One, it, Provides that level playing field on the side of the suppliers, but it also provides a level requirement across companies or w…”
Stacey Kauk predicts carbon removal will become a government-funded public mandate
“So in the longer term, I think this is going to be more of a public requirement Then it is going to be something that's got to achieve gigaton scale and make, you know, the ROI that the VC funds are looking for.”
Mills: DOE will compromise on proposed transformer efficiency standard
“They asked for public, the Department of Energy asked for public comment, and I think there was enough out there and enough concern expressed that I suspect a compromise position is going to come out. I don't think what they had originally released will actual…”
Bullard: Battery chemistries will segment by use case rather than one dominating
“In batteries, I think we will see a world where you've got some separation based on use cases. You know, there will be the NMC batteries that get used for hypercars and for aviation. And maybe the LFP battery becomes much more common for your sort of bulge bra…”
Cabiyo: Global biomass demand in 2050 exceeds sustainable supply by 11x
“There's a huge mismatch between the supply and demand there of biomass and biomass uses and that mismatch is, based on the best estimates that, that I've seen, that mismatch is something on the order of, like, 11 to 16 X. In other words, 11 to 16 X more uses i…”
Jaramillo: Grids will pay for 100-hour storage at $20 per kWh
“All the modeling that we did confirmed by third priority modeling is that a hundred hours and 20 dollars per kilowatt hour is sort of the magic combination. And if you can hit 20 dollars per kilowatt hour, the system will pay for a hundred hours of duration.”
US domestic battery manufacturing will reach 200 GWh by 2025
“And at that point, we're going to have the LG GM Ultium joint venture making over a hundred gigawatt hours of batteries throughout this country. LG Stellantis will be making 35 gigawatt hours. Stellantis Samsung STI will be making another 30. And then Ford wil…”