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 41 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 7 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
Lubershain: Electricity rates will rise for most people in coming years
“Data centers are absolutely going to be pushing up rates, and other factors, right, in the supply chain. Rates are going up for most people in most places, I think, in the years to come.”
Lubershane: Retail electricity prices will outpace inflation, driving broader inflation
“I have a very high degree of confidence that moving forward, because as you said, all this stuff is, is leading indicators prices are going to rise faster than inflation overall, and because electricity is sort of a Foundational good for the economy. They'll a…”
Lubershane: Multi-year data center growth will force large-scale off-grid power adoption
“And if this data center boom continues for longer than the next three to five years, if it's really a robust trend that is gonna, you know, be, Decade plus, you know, for the foreseeable future, then I don't see any other option besides going to something like…”
Lubershain: The nuclear industry cannot sustain a Cambrian explosion of reactor designs
“There just can't be a Cambrian explosion of new reactors. The, Industrial logic of the nuclear industry just doesn't lend itself to that. I think best case scenario, it's bad for the industry if you end up with, you know, four or five competing reactor designs…”
Lubershain: Geothermal deployment will not truly take off until the 2030s
“I think that the inflection is, is going to be much slower and happen over the next five years, and that geothermal will really be positioned to take off more so in the 20 thirties than in the late 20 twenties.
That's my bet at the moment.”
Lubershain: New nuclear power will not scale in US until 2035+
“I don't think we're gonna see, we might see a little bit, you know, in the 2030, early 20 thirties time frame, but I think for the most part we're talking 2035 and beyond when we, when we'd actually have new nuclear power at scale coming online.”
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…”
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.”
Lubershane: Decarbonized grid storage needs will fall closer to 47 days
“So, you know, between the minutes of energy storage we have today and 47 days, I think we're going to fall probably actually ultimately closer to the 47 days level, ah, than even minutes, hours, or just a few days worth of storage.”
Lubershain: Electrifying heat could triple cold-climate peak electricity demand
“And so what this might do in cold climate environments is, is Basically shift peak demand from the summer to the winter and increase the peak by about three X.”
Lubershane: Decarbonization will trigger intense competition for waste biomass
“You need new dedicated land growing crops for that biomass, and I, you know, jury's still out, right, but I'm skeptical we're going to see that happen, and what that means is actually you have a run not, not on new land, but probably a run on what's called, wh…”
Lubershain: Every major utility could deploy hundreds of megawatts of DERs soon
“Could every utility, every major utility in the country within five years have a several hundred megawatt DER program, instead of it just being a few that have a several hundred megawatt DER program? And in a few places where, where you're, you know, have a li…”
Lubershain: Cost-effective battery systems will rely on Chinese cells for longer
“Not, not the cells, right? Those have gotten really cheap, but the full systems need to get cheaper if they're going to be really cost-effective resources. That probably means some portion of the battery, like the cells, at least for a while longer, is coming …”
Lubershain: Clean hydrogen producers' price sensitivity prevents US market turnaround
“Hydrogen, anyone making hydrogen is not going to be a price insensitive buyer. They're very price sensitive. They want the cheapest clean power. I don't know. I, I'm not personally super bullish on this making, helping make hydrogen make a turnaround”
Lubbershane: Battery cost will not constrain vehicle electrification, but density will
“Cost of batteries to some degree, although I think we have increasing confidence that cost of batteries is not going to be the constraint on basically electrifying any class of vehicle, but density of batteries definitely does matter.”
Lubbershane: Surging demand and supply constraints will increase wholesale electricity prices
“Basic economics, right? We're seeing demand rise really quickly. We're seeing constraints on supply. All else equal, I think that means we're going to see increases in wholesale electricity prices in general. I think if you had to make a bet one way or the oth…”
Lubbershane: Hyperscalers will pay a premium for early-stage clean energy technologies
“I think we're gonna see that particularly when it comes to customers who are willing to pay a premium for You know, perhaps newer technology that is not yet come very far down the cost curve. And, you know, I, again, I think what we're gonna see it from compan…”
Lubbershane: Most Future Green Hydrogen Production Will Likely Be Off-Grid
“Ultimately a lot of that hydrogen production is going to be probably off grid, you know, basically paired directly with large scale Renewables in the cheapest places where you can access renewable power.”
Lubbershane: Surging electricity costs could cause voters to abandon decarbonization
“If the power sector isn't able to make it through this period and it results in People unable to build new manufacturing facilities, new data centers in a timely fashion. And if it results in kind of costs starting to spiral out of control, electricity costs s…”
Lubershain: Global AC demand will add another US power sector by 2050
“Depending on what forecast you look at in a sort of business as usual technology scenario, that means we're on track to add, roughly speaking, another whole U.S. Electricity sector worth of electricity demand globally for this new air conditioning demand by ar…”
Lubershain: Building heat will see the longest tail of natural gas use
“Where I'm pretty confident we'll, we'll see the longest tail of natural gas for the foreseeable future is in all of the end uses that are currently served by natural gas at the distribution level. So again, That's predominantly building heating. Interestingly …”
Lubershane: Data center electricity demand boom will last 3 to 5 years
“That is, of course, driven by the just extraordinary boom in demand from data centers that is happening right now, and I'm pretty confident is going to continue to be happening for the next three to five years, and honestly, who knows after that”
Lubershane: Islandable microgrids will deploy at megawatt EV charging depots
“The same expertise in in islandable large-scale power systems that are grid-connected but can take themselves offline, can provide peak capacity to the grid, can ensure that they're never drawing beyond a certain amount of capacity from the grid. Like, that sa…”
Lubershane: Ultra-dense batteries will commercialize in defense long before EVs
“Lithium-ion batteries we have today are kind of good enough from a range standpoint, so like, it would be cool to have a thousand watt-hour per kilogram battery, but not at four times the price. Like, I just don't, I think that would not get traction in the EV…”
Lubershain: The power grid cannot add hundreds of gigawatts this decade
“We can add a certain number of tens of gigawatts
Through the remainder of the decade, but we're not adding hundreds of gigawatts, right?
Like that just is not possible.”
Lubershain: Power equipment manufacturers will perform well for at least five years
“If you're making transformers or switchgear or conductor or turbines of almost any kind or engines of almost any kind, if you're making a way of producing, generating electricity or delivering it, you're probably doing pretty well. Right now. And I think we'll…”
Lubershain: Grid-enhancing technologies will take up to two decades to scale 10x
“Inflection point does not mean one to 10. It means one to two, and then two to three, and then maybe three to five, and gradually over the course of 10 to 20 years, you get to that 10 x.”
Lubershain: Developers will sit on hands during 45-day Treasury review
“I think for the 45 days until we have clarity there, and hopefully it is only 45 days I don't think that much happens. I think people kind of sit on their hands.”
Lubershain: Traditional safe harbor rules will favor well-capitalized developers
“If the rules are anywhere close to what we've seen in the past for safe harbor, where you can spend five percent of a project cost and kind of continuously make progress, then I think we see A lot of like the biggest developers who have balance sheets to buy, …”
Lubershain: Solar will likely stay cheaper on LCOE than subsidized geothermal
“And in those regions, like probably solar is still cheaper on a levelized cost of energy basis than geothermal, even subsidized even when geothermal is subsidized and solar is not for quite some time, but you don't add geothermal because you're competing with,…”
Lubershain: Policy setbacks will delay commercial fleet electrification by years
“Commercial fleets are very sensitive to cost, and so when EVs are the right economic choice and they feel confident in the infrastructure availability and, you know, in the performance, the range that they can get, they'll buy them. I think. And that's what, y…”
Lubbershane: Electricity will remain more cost-effective than biofuels or hydrogen
“Even as the cost of clean electricity increases over the coming decade or two or three, I think electricity will still look cost effective as a fuel, like the primary, you know, the energy input relative to things like biofuels or clean hydrogen, perhaps some …”
Lubbershane: High-performance lithium battery density will improve 50% within a decade
“I think it is reasonably safe to assume that we're going to get at least a 50% improvement in lithium ion battery density for high performance batteries in the next, let's say, five to 10 years.”
Lubbershane: Resolving power grid and generation bottlenecks will take longer than expected
“It's very obvious that we're in it, and it's looking like it's gonna take longer and longer to make it through.”
Lubbershane: Utilities will demand gigawatts of multi-day storage by the early 2030s
“Utilities are starting to see that, yes, it's very difficult to get, you know, a gigawatt of multi-day storage today, but in a few years, and certainly by the early twenty-thirties, they're going to want gigawatts of multi-day storage as a compliment to their …”
Lubbershane: EV and Heat Pump Adoption Will Overwhelm Local Transformers
“We're going to start to see more and more instances in which that distributed load begins to have to be coordinated with the utility because it's going to overwhelm the capacity of, you know, network transformers and, you know, individual households who want t…”
Lubbershane: EV chargers paired with storage will see widespread adoption
“And I really believe that's a category we're going to see a lot more of and already are starting to see pop up as this kind of electric vehicle chargers paired in some way with storage to buffer their demand against the grid.”
Lubershane: The grid will require three distinct storage tranches and technologies
“I think we're going to end up with sort of three tranches of storage in the grid, which are going to be filled by at least three different technology categories. The first is those short duration, you know, peak of the peak applications that lithium ion is, is…”
Lubershain: Long-distance electric transmission buildout will face increasing constraints
“And I really believe that over the coming decade or two, we're going to see more and more constraints on building out long distance electric transmission infrastructure to serve and to bring that those massive renewable resource potential to market.”
Lubbershane: Dynamic line ratings will see increasing adoption across transmission lines
“But I am hopeful, and I do think that there are going to be increasing numbers of transmission lines and regions where, you Adding dynamic line ratings makes more and more sense to ring as much value as is really physically possible out of the transmission sys…”