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 63 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
Friedmann: Gas with carbon capture beats nuclear cold in many markets
“In many markets, that's competitive with wind, solar, and batteries. In many markets, that just beats nuclear cold.”
Friedmann: Gas with CCS builds in half the time of nuclear
“They can build a natural gas with CCS plant in roughly half the time in which they could build a nuclear plant.”
Friedmann: New gas with full CCS costs $70–$100/MWh in the US
“In the U.S., assuming three dollars per million BTU for natural gas, on a new build, All costs. That means cost of capture, compression, transportation, storage, and permitting. You're looking at 70 to a hundred dollars a megawatt hour.”
Friedmann: Secretary Wright is proposing cuts to Congressionally approved clean energy programs
“We are seeing Secretary Wright propose a set of cuts to programs that were approved by Congress and approved by the prior DOE. In some cases, Congress, I mean the contracts have already been made, and this is part of the broader rescission around clean energy.…”
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.”
Friedmann: Announced SAF plants cannot meet the 2027 global airline mandate
“If every Sustainable aviation fuel plant that had been announced were to be built, there would not be enough fuel for the twenty-twenty-seven target. Period.”
Friedmann: Ammonia power generation will be limited to select Asian economies
“I do think it's going to be unusual to It's going to be big in those economies, but not the rest of the world. India is not going to do this. The US is not going to do this. South Africa is not going to do this. They have other options. And so ammonia is a pow…”
Friedmann: Maritime shipping will use a mix of methanol and ammonia by 2050
“But in twenty-fifty, I think we're going to end up with a blend of both, in part because we're starting already with methanol. People are making investments in methanol ships and methanol bunkering because they want to decarbonize rapidly by twenty-thirty. And…”
Friedmann: Science is unsure if atmospheric ammonia increases or decreases net warming
“As we looked into this in our report, one of the things we discovered is that if ammonia gets in the air and atmosphere, we do not know today whether it makes greenhouse gas warming bigger or smaller. A lot of evidence suggests it improves greenhouse gas warmi…”
Friedmann: Governments will soon mandate priority uses for biomass, disrupting contracts
“Pretty soon, there's gonna be some loading order priority, which a government, a municipal government, or a state government, or a federal government, comes out and says, you know, first use of biomass is for X, second use of biomass is for Y. And when that ha…”
Friedmann: Waste Biomass Is Sufficient to Scale SAF Without Hitting Limits
“We do need huge volumes of biomass to make huge volumes of sustainable aviation fuel. But in point of fact, there is way more waste biomass than that. So we're not going to hit the limit just on sustainable aviation fuel.”
Friedmann: Biomass is more valuable for carbon removal than energy generation
“Biomass is pretty crappy energy, but pretty good carbon. So, At almost any reasonable carbon price, it is more valuable to remove the CO₂ than turn it into energy. That carbon removal is actually more valuable than most energy products.”
Friedmann: The bioplastics market is too small to impact climate change
“So the entire plastics market is barely climate relevant. So if you're thinking about something that can deliver a big climate solution, bioplastics isn't it. You cannot balance the atmosphere's needs on making yoga pants and hoodies.”
Friedmann: Gas CCS is most expensive per ton, cheapest per MWh
“If you think about it in terms of dollars per ton, natural gas is the most expensive. If you think about it in terms of dollars per megawatt hour, it's actually the least in the power sector.”
Friedmann: Retrofitting depreciated gas plants with CCS costs $40–$70/MWh
“I will add, if you retrofit an existing plant, it's cheaper, because assuming that plant has been fully depreciated, so you're retrofitting something that's in a utility off on the grid somewhere, the costs come in more like 40 to 70 dollars a megawatt hour.”
Friedmann: Section 45Q cuts gas CCS adder in half to $10–$15/MWh
“And that means you're looking at something like 20 to 25 to 30 dollars a megawatt hour is the adder in most markets. And 45 Q knocks off, say, half of that.”
Friedmann: Fluor, SLB, Shell, and Mitsubishi offer fully commercial 10Mt carbon capture
“There's a handful of companies that will today sell you a big facility with a performance guarantee and a wrapper, and they will sell you like up to ten million tons of capture a year. They will sell you big facilities. These are Fleur, Schlumberger Acker, She…”
Friedmann: 47 facilities globally capture 60 million tons of CO2 annually
“So we have something on the order of 47 facilities around the world that operating today that capture CO₂ and keep it out of the air and oceans for climate. Broadly, that's about sixty million tons a year.”
Friedmann: IPCC models show 90% of captured CO2 must go underground
“Out of the, say, six gigatons that the IPCC believes we're going to need to do, five and a half gigatons of that are going to be storage. It's something like 90%.”
Friedmann: CO2-to-concrete is an exothermic, gigaton-scale market
“So turning CO two into concrete is a gigaton market, and it's not nuts. It actually releases energy.”
Friedmann: Ammonia synthesis was the top invention of the 20th century
“Oh, I would put it at the top invention of the 20th century.
No question.
Number one invention of the 20th century.”
Friedmann: Shipping liquefied hydrogen adds $3 per gallon equivalent compared to ammonia
“If you tried to liquefy hydrogen and ship that instead of ammonia, and then regasify it at the other end, that basically adds about three dollars a gallon gasoline equivalent compared to just moving ammonia around.”
Friedmann: Global ammonia trade will rely on ships, not pipelines
“There are not going to be huge amounts of ammonia pipelines going around the world. Like, we're not going to see that. The way that we use ammonia pipelines in the U.S. Today is sort of very unusual and bespoke for our purpose, but that's not the way that we'r…”
Friedmann: Biowastes are far more concentrated than raw biomass feedstocks
“Even though biomass is broadly distributed, bio-wastes are actually more concentrated, and so that creates an opportunity for us.”
Friedmann: Europe's sustainable aviation fuel push risks deforestation and eco-colonialism
“So there's a risk that by Europe going forward fast on sustainable aviation fuels that may lead to eco-colonialism or may lead to deforestation and bad outcomes, even though they're chasing something virtuous.”
Friedmann: At $60-$120/ton CO2, burying biomass beats energy conversion
“For some of these systems, it's like, 60 dollars a ton. It's just cheaper to bury the carbon instead of making something. And at a carbon price of, say, a hundred bucks or a 120 bucks, that's pretty much everything.”
Friedmann: Hyperscalers prioritize deployment speed over cost and carbon
“We've learned the top five things that the hyperscalers and people building data centers want is, in this order, speed, speed, speed, cost, and carbon. All of those are important, but speed is the thing that is driving a lot of this.”
Friedmann: Zero announced gas CCS data centers, but hyperscalers are circling
“Are there announced projects? No. But we are getting a lot of inbound on this exact topic, and we are talking to, if not all of the hyperscalers, almost all of the hyperscalers.”
Friedmann: Carbon capture projects are impossible without transport and storage infrastructure
“If there is no CO₂ transportation in storage, there is no project. Period. Plop. You can't make it work.”
Friedmann: Europe will not deploy much gas-with-CCS due to fuel costs
“I will reiterate that this number, 70 to a hundred dollar megawatts, requires low cost natural gas. So Europe is not going to be doing a lot of this, right?”
Friedmann: Adding Carbon Capture Reduces Pollutant Load of Gas Plants
“And in fact, if you have a natural gas plant that's running uncontrolled, carbon capture reduces the pollutant load.”
Friedmann: Policy uncertainty is killing carbon capture investment decisions
“This kind of uncertainty is killing investment decisions at best. They're delayed at some point or another people just walk away. And it is critically important that the United States resolve these questions firmly and clearly so that investors can put money t…”
Friedmann: Only a fraction of captured CO2 will be recycled into products
“To turn CO₂ into stuff usually takes energy or money. And so, in the same way we only recycle a fraction of our produced goods of any kind, whether it's glass or aluminum or paper or whatever, we also will only recycle a fraction of the CO₂.”
Friedmann: Oil and gas geology has 10 to 20 trillion tons of CO2 storage capacity
“We have something like 10 to 20 trillion tons of storage capacity in those kinds of rocks.”
Friedmann: Hundreds of companies convert CO2 into building materials
“Now there's hundreds of companies that turn CO₂ into those kinds of products.”
Friedmann: Methanol will become a major fuel for decarbonizing maritime shipping
“And the reason why is because methanol is going to be an important maritime fuel. About two, two and a half percent of global emissions are shipping stuff around the world with boats. And it turns out that they need a clean fuel too. As we've talked about befo…”
Friedmann: Advanced carbon materials like graphene sell for $100k per ton
“If you can actually turn CO two into those materials, they're hard to make, but boy, are they valuable. They're like a 100,000 dollars a ton.”
Friedmann: Conductive carbon structures from CO2 possible in 15-20 years
“But these sort of, you know, superconducting carbon structures are a thing you could do, If not now, maybe in 15 years, maybe in 20 years.”
Friedmann: Community benefit agreements will become the template for CO2 pipeline approval
“I expect we're going to be seeing more of these kinds of things. That's not yes in every community, but it does mean that there will be some communities that opt in because they get the benefits themselves. So watch this space. This is no panacea or done deal,…”
Friedmann: German pipeline opposition forces CO2 transport onto Rhine river barges
“We're seeing that happening right now in Europe, where basically, instead of doing pipelines, they're doing barges. They're putting CO₂ on boats and shipping it down the Rhine, and the reason why is because they can't get a pipeline through Germany. Like, Germ…”
Friedmann: The United States already has 10,000 miles of ammonia pipelines
“The fact that blew my brain is the United States has already 10,000 miles of ammonia pipeline in it.”
Friedmann: Carbon capture on ammonia synthesis achieves only 60% decarbonization
“A first useful consideration is should you just capture that CO₂ and store it, keep it out of the atmosphere? And in a bunch of places, that will be the fastest, cheapest way to decarbonize. That only typically gets you 60% decarbonization.”
Friedmann: Japan committed to buying low-carbon ammonia at a premium
“Basically, the government of Japan has said, we will buy low carbon ammonia at a premium, and we will use it to decarbonize our existing infrastructure.”
Friedmann: Jet A will remain the winning aviation fuel specification
“And I think it is going to continue to be the case that Jet A is going to be the winner, and synthetic fuels of all stripes still have to make Jet A.”
Friedmann: Japan will use ammonia in its steel mills
“Japan is going to be putting ammonia into its steel mills”
Friedmann: Injecting hydrogen into blast furnaces caps out at 20% decarbonization
“So if you take an existing blast furnace and put hydrogen into it, you can get about 20% decarbonization. Okay, that's worth doing, but you can't get 50% decarbonization with hydrogen.”
Friedmann: Distributed ammonia production will emerge over the next decade
“If you have distributed hydrogen production, you could very well have distributed ammonia production. And so these kinds of things are opportunities that we're going to see emerge over the next decade, and I'm excited to see that technology come to the field.”