why aren't all 12 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public
record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 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
Prediction Not checkable as stated
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.”
Opinion
Kimber: Hybrid renewables and gas engines beat new combined-cycle plants
“If you go build a CCGT right now for 2000 dollars KW and, you know, like you can't even find sort of like You know, labor unions and pipe fitters and whatnot that have ever even built these things in many cases, right? You know, it's going to take five, six ye…”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
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…”
Insight
Kimber: Edge LLMs trigger recursive queries, massively multiplying datacenter power demand
“Every smaller distilled LLM that is power efficient doing inference is going to launch thousands of queries to bigger, more capable models that can actually reason their way through buying something on Amazon and reason. So it's almost like increasing the worl…”
Prediction Held up
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.”
Disclosure
Kimber: Intersect pivoted clean power assets from hydrogen to AI
“We thought maybe hydrogen would be first because of the supply side supports under the IRA. The demand just didn't materialize, and now all of a sudden, AI has just swept up all of the assets that we developed for, you know, behind the meter And co-located loa…”
Assertion Open · timeframe Feb 2028
Kimber: Co-located renewables can power Texas data centers carbon-free 75%–80% of the year
“75 to 80% of the hours of the year, we can run fully carbon free with, you know, wind, solar, and batteries all on the same site. And then, you know, 20%, maybe a little over 20% of the time, we need to have some gas or we need to use the grid.”
Opinion
Kimber: Reputable crypto players are among the smartest in the power market
“All of our interactions with the crypto folks almost universally, I'd say that the reputable players in the space are some of the smartest and most creative people I've found in the power market.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kimber: Federal crackdowns on Chinese clean energy equipment will not ease under Trump
“You've got the commerce and trade. You've got DOD and national defense you know, all kind of coming at, in particular, the Chinese sourced equipment for renewable energy. So that's been happening for a while. I don't anticipate it to get any better under Donal…”
Assertion Supported
Kimber: 15-year PPA prices are rising despite low spot electricity prices
“There's kind of an odd thing going on where spot prices remain quite low, but, you know, PPA prices for 15 year deals are kind of floating up.”
Disclosure
Kimber: Intersect Power has two multi-gigawatt data center sites in Texas Panhandle
“We've got two multi gigawatt scale data center sites in the panhandle of Texas. One of them's three gigawatts, one of them's over a gigawatt single sites and they're capable of being fully off grid if you want them to. They're on gas, they have you know, multi…”
Disclosure
Kimber: Intersect Power is project financing about $9B of capex
“We're in the middle of project financing about nine billion dollars of capex right now.”