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.
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Thiel: New grid storage must hit $100-$150/kWh to beat 2030s LFP
“So I think that the numbers that we've landed on in, in our work are sort of in the hundred to 150 dollars per kilowatt hour total installed system cost. If you can see a path, a pretty clear path to those numbers, with your system, then you probably have a pr…”
Thiel: Even at $1/kg hydrogen, synthetic methane feedstock costs $10/MMBtu
“In the best case, you need something like half a kilo of hydrogen per kilo of methane. And so if we looked into a, to a wonderful version of the future where we, Get to the kind of magic one dollar per kilogram hydrogen mark that, you know, is, is on the DOE's…”
Thiel: Synthetic fuels require $1/kg hydrogen and $100–$200/ton CO2
“And you know that, you know, for a fuel, if you want to get anywhere close to economically competitive, you know, subsidies decide you have to have hydrogen that's going to be on the order of a dollar per kilogram, and you have to have CO two that's in that 10…”
Thiel: Synthetic fuels require $1/kg hydrogen and $100-$200/ton CO₂ to compete
“For a fuel, if you want to get anywhere close to economically competitive, you know, subsidies decide, you have to have hydrogen that's going to be on the order of a dollar per kilogram, and you have to have CO₂ that's in that 100 to 200 dollar per ton range, …”
Thiel: New grid storage must hit $100-$150/kWh to compete in 2030s
“The numbers that we've landed on in, in our work are sort of in the hundred to 150 dollars per kilowatt hour total installed system cost. If you can see a path, I mean, a pretty clear path to those numbers with your system, then you probably have a pretty good…”
Thiel: Small-scale green Haber-Bosch struggles with synthesis loop scaling
“So, so at the end of the day, if you're trying to scale down a Greenhaber Bosch plant, maybe maybe you'll be able to do okay on the core parts of the electrolysis side of the equation here, the cells and stuff and so forth. But the ammonia synthesis loop and t…”
Thiel: $100/ton DAC CO2 adds $6/MMBtu to synthetic methane costs
“The, again, sort of best case from the chemistry is something like 2.75 kilograms of CO₂ per kilogram of methane. So thinking back on a, on an MMBTU basis, you know, if you want to Get the good sort of CO₂ from the air, and we hit all our hopes and targets of …”
Thiel: Hydrogen Cost Is Overwhelmingly Dominant Cost Driver for Synthetic Fuels
“If you want to make a synthetic Fuel. If it's going to be a hydrocarbon, you do need a source of carbon, and the source of that CO₂, carbon CO₂, matters from a carbon economic perspective. But from a cost perspective, The thing that matters is number one, the …”
Thiel: Single-pass conversion gains do not significantly improve green methanol economics
“If you get A better conversion of CO two and hydrogen to methanol on a single pass. It just really doesn't move the overall economics in a huge way because again, back to a previous point, CO two and hydrogen are the big cost drivers in that system.”
Thiel: Early techno-economic models should focus on error bars, not detailed design
“It's better or it can be helpful just to put error bars and understand the sensitivities on things earlier on and go down the deeper, more detailed design rabbit holes when the higher level stuff is fixed.”
Thiel: Single-pass CO2 conversion does not significantly move green methanol economics
“If you get A better conversion of CO two and hydrogen to methanol on a single pass. It just really doesn't move the overall economics in a huge way because, again, back to a previous point, CO two and hydrogen are the big cost drivers in that system.”
Thiel: Early deep tech models should prioritize error bars over detail
“It can be helpful just to put error bars and understand the sensitivities on things earlier on and go down the deeper, more detailed design rabbit holes when the higher level stuff is fixed.”
Thiel: Air separation units are difficult to scale down economically
“You can get them at many, many different scales from small to world scale, and you see some big Economies of scale effects there, so hard to scale down.”
Thiel: Natural gas is by far today's largest source of energy storage
“The largest source by far of energy storage that we have today is in the form of gas storage.”
Thiel: Standard synthetic methanation achieves approximately 50% total efficiency
“If you used something like that and did this kind of fairly standard methanation process, the total efficiency of the process kind of comes in around 50% ballpark, right? And about half of those losses of the 50% of the energy that you lose are in the electrol…”
Thiel: Facility installation costs are typically two to four times core equipment
“Thinking about sort of a chemical or a fuel synthesis type process, the core equipment, you know, might only, or the total installed cost of a facility might be two, three, four, even more times the cost of the core componentry itself, and so if you end up foc…”
Thiel: Small EV drivetrain efficiency gains matter because batteries are expensive
“The biggest, biggest single line item cost in an electric vehicle is, is the batteries, and a lot of the drivetrain, you know, power conversion equipment, motors, and so forth, are really, really efficient, and so it could be tempting to kind of, if you're loo…”
Thiel: Techno-Economic Analysis Helps Early-Stage Startups Prioritize Engineering Resources
“And I think by exploring, you know, maybe
A level further in terms of sensitivities and limits in the model, it helps you figure out what matters, what design decisions matter to affordability and hitting the customer value prop and which don't. And when you'…”
Thiel: Facility installation costs regularly reach 2 to 4x core component costs
“And, you know, thinking about sort of a chemical or a fuel synthesis type process, the core equipment, you know, might only, or the total installed cost of a facility might be two, three, four, even more times the cost of the core componentry itself.”
Thiel: Small EV drivetrain efficiency gains matter due to battery storage costs
“But a few points in efficiency, Might actually matter a lot at the system level, because every kilowatt hour that you waste in the drivetrain is a kilowatt hour that you have to store in your battery, and that's a really, really expensive kilowatt hour to stor…”