The Calls
Every prediction date that has already passed, checked against the public record: green held up, red didn't hold up, amber partly held up. Diamonds at the right edge were assessed before their prediction date arrived.
Everyone Ramez Naam (5)Dacia Leone (5)Stephen Lacey (4)Rick Needham (4)John O'Donnell (4)Jigar Shah (4)Tadeu Carneiro (3)Steve Cotton (3)Saritha Paruri (3)Katherine Hamilton (3)Yayoi Sekine (2)Will Hazlip (2)
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The record (56) every resolved claim →
Natale: Permafrost thaw will reach 30% to 70% by 2100
“There's a, there's an Kind of a range of possibilities for how much permafrost will thaw, say, by 2100, and number of different, based on a number of different models, but the range always stays somewhere between 30 to 70%, something like that, and I think abo…”
Lott: Up to 17 states tied to California rules may ban gas cars
“New York is also banning gas-powered car sales by twenty-thirty-five, and soon, as many as 17 other states, like Washington and Massachusetts, which currently have vehicle emissions standards tied to California's, may follow suit.”
Gard-Murray: Heat pump incentives will save consumers $27 billion over a decade
“Over the next decade, we project that a conversion incentive like the one we wrote about would save consumers twenty seven billion dollars.”
Paruri: All-perovskite tandems could achieve 60% to 70% efficiency
“And over time, you can engineer out the silicon, and you're just doing perovskite on perovskite on perovskite tandems, You can get to 60 or 70% efficiency.”
Lacey: Solar and wind will constitute ~92% of 2030 renewable additions
“So solar is probably going to make up about two-thirds of the target here, and solar is just the least cost resource in many areas of the world, so it will continue to dominate. Solar and wind together will make up about 92% of this tripling target, but solar …”
2030 green hydrogen goals would consume 16% of new renewables
“If about a 20 millimetric tons or so of clean hydrogen are produced globally by the end of the decade, And we got to about 16% of all the renewables we expect to deploy this decade will just go to the production of hydrogen.”
Proposed manufacturing can meet hundreds of gigawatts of demand by 2030
“In terms of, if you look at the supply chain we think there's enough proposed electrolyzer manufacturing capacity and proposals to do, build more electrolyzers that you could supply all those few hundred gigawatts of electrolyzers by the end of the decade if a…”
Shah: Trump administration will roll back wind and solar pauses to avoid blackouts
“I think they're going to be forced to pull it back too, just because it's 90% of everything that gets deployed in the grid, right? And so at some point, if none of that stuff gets deployed in the grid, we're going to have rolling blackouts.”
Janus: Advanced nuclear and fusion will not solve grid problems this decade
“They're not solving any problems this decade, right? That is a 20 thirties and probably a late 20 thirties. Opportunity.”
Lovins: Russia's war will push global fossil fuel use into steep decline
“Putin's war really puts the last nails in that coffin, turning what was usually forecast as a bumpy plateau of fossil fuel use for most of the rest of this decade into a steep decline.”
Bhargava: Individual AI data centers will add 1.5 gigawatts of load
“Data centers are going to get real hairy. It is going to be a lot of load coming on very, very, very quickly, and the power sector has not dealt with that much load that quickly when you've got a gigawatt and a half, you know data center coming online, and tha…”
Munster: Foreign Electrolyzers Will Reach Half the Cost of Western Units
“At some point, those foreign electrolyzers are going to cost, installed, half the price that ours do, because we're not moving down the cost curve while they are.”
Davis: Only 50 GW of 120 GW announced US capacity will materialize
“Again, like I said, we don't anticipate all of that. 120 gigawatts of module manufacturing is going to get built. We expect it'll be more like, you know, 50 or so over the next you know, four or five years.”
Planned US LNG expansion would surpass Europe's total greenhouse gas emissions
“If we let it go all the way that the LNG industry wants, Soon enough, American LNG exports will be producing more greenhouse gas emissions than everything that goes on in Europe.”
Pending project approvals could quadruple US LNG export capacity
“There's a whole wave of new proposals Coming after that that, if this administration approves, could even quadruple LNG from where we are today.”
Graphitic Energy's single pilot will provide all required commercial scale-up data
“We feel really confident that that will give us all the scale-up data we need. It isn't a, well, we built this pilot because this is what we could kind of get done, and then we kind of have to go build a second one that goes and de-risks these other things. It…”
Naam: Odds of limiting global warming to 1.5°C are minuscule
“But the bad news is we have missed 1.5 degrees C, and I don't know how to say this anymore clearly, because there are people that will tell you that we might hit it. The odds of that are minuscule.”
Hazlip: Upstate New York will host an early large-scale green hydrogen facility
“We think upstate New York is already gonna be home to the, one of the first large-scale clean, green hydrogen production facilities in the country, and that's because of the abundance of the clean energy in that area.”
Francetic: Mandatory climate disclosure regulation is still coming to the US
“We knew these disclosures and this regulation was coming, because we could see what was happening in Europe, and we could see that this pressure that was being placed globally on big investors to try to disclose this was gaining momentum in the U.S., even thou…”
Davis: Solar manufacturing will shift predominantly to N-type modules by 2028
“So we're going to witness over the course of the next three, four years A pretty big shift from mostly P-type modules, which is just, you know, a cell technology that's mostly the older technology, to predominantly N-type modules, and particularly technologies…”
Grunwald: Ocean wild fish catches cannot expand beyond current levels
“There's no way we're gonna get more fish from the ocean than we're getting now. You know, at best, we can sustain it.”
Eggers predicts climate VCs will back core AI companies within three years
“I'd be surprised if we and EIP and others like us don't have in two or three years at least a couple of companies who have, you know, an AI co-pilot or something where AI is the core offering of what they're doing.”
Noel: Weaning off Russian gas will accelerate European decarbonization
“So, whatever is done to win ourselves off Russian natural gas will be leveraged to accelerate our decarbonization objectives. In that sense, it's positive. Governments in Europe will be empowered, potentially dramatically so, to accelerate the transformation o…”
Hamilton: Treasury Will Likely Retain 45V Three Pillars Hydrogen Framework
“I suspect they will. I suspect that they will simply come up with ways in which you can use existing resources at certain times to be able to qualify so that you really are getting clean, green hydrogen and you're not leaving plants that are, that aren't reall…”
Lott: 2021 US coal power resurgence will be short-term
“So I can't see coal roaring back to its glory days of a few decades ago. I don't think anyone sees that. I personally think it'll be shorter term.”
Davis: Global solar growth rates to slow, remaining flat in China
“But then, you know, this year and next year we're sort of hitting, we're kind of like hitting past that inflection point and growth rates are actually going to slow in many different markets. China being one of them. So growth's actually flat over the next sev…”
Das: Congress will preserve parts of IRA with a scalpel approach
“And so because of the direct connections between the clean energy investments that are happening and the locations in the country and where, where that's happening, I think we're going to see Some continuation of IRA. And we've heard this phrase thrown around,…”
US LNG exports are expected to double again in three years
“And just in the last three years, we've had a doubling of LNG exports, and the amount already under construction is expected to approve, is expected to double again in the next three years, how much LNG.”
The US will have multiple industrial-scale clean hydrogen plants within three years
“It seems like we're about to cross this line from there really being no industrial-scale clean hydrogen production in the U.S. To there being a bunch in the next two, three years even.”
Beebe: Lilium is one to two years from commercial flight
“I think they are, let's say, a year or two away from human and commercial flight.”
Tomlinson: New firming requirements will definitely slow Texas renewable investment
“This is going to be really expensive. It's also going to be highly political because we don't know yet what the PUC will assign to different facilities, but it will definitely slow down new investment in Texas, renewable energy.”
Slenk: Modesto's 30 new electric buses will save $250K annually on fuel
“With fuel prices the way they are, the new buses should save the district a quarter of a million dollars every year.”
Shah: Li-Cycle Rochester plant will produce 8,500 tons of lithium carbonate
“Life cycle in Rochester, New York will produce 8500 tons of lithium carbonate once it's fully scaled up. To put that in perspective, the United States as a whole produces 5000 tons per year. It'll be the single, single largest producer of lithium carbonate in …”
Jigar Shah: Battery storage additions will be tenfold natural gas deployments
“Battery storage will be heralded as the savior of the grid a year from now, and we will deploy 10 times as much battery storage as we deploy natural gas.”
Jigar Shah: 2025 EV sales will surpass 2024 levels
“I think that we'll have more EV sales in 25 than we had in twenty-twenty-four.”
Shah: Republicans will pass Trump tax cuts bill and flip five Democrats
“Like, if you think that the Republicans on the Hill are not going to pass a bill that actually extends the Trump tax cuts, like, you're nuts. And if you think that it's not going to be super easy to peel off five Democrats to vote for it, Just by giving them, …”
Citizen-driven solar in Puerto Rico will reach 1 gigawatt by 2025
“The fossil fuel industry still have a total control of PREPA, but we have done like a projection by 20, 25, Puerto Rico should be producing by net metering by citizenship. Citizen investment up to one gigawatt of power, which will be more than necessary for re…”
Sekine: Global battery manufacturing overcapacity will worsen through 2025
“If we are to simply look at the overall capacity that's expected to come online based on company announcements between now and 2025, that factor that I mentioned three X of battery capacity relative to demand today or in 2023, that actually becomes worse over …”
Davis: Solar module prices will start to rise slightly by 2025
“And so by, you know, 20, 25 or so, we do anticipate that the pricing will start to go up a little bit more. Not a whole lot. But basically 20, 24 should be the floor for some of those module prices.”
Del Chiaro: California's electricity load will at least double from electrification
“We anticipate our electricity load is going to at least double just from our electrification initiatives in the next couple of years, and that's not counting any kind of impact climate change has on electricity consumption.”
McKibben predicts the Biden administration will reject the CP2 export license
“That's why I'm pretty sure that the Biden administration will see reason and say, we're not going to approve.”
Davis: Chinese solar module prices will floor at 12-15 cents in 2024
“Well, in terms of pricing trends just for Chinese modules, we do expect some further declines throughout twenty-twenty-four. Depending on what module technology you're talking about modules can be, you know, 15 to 18 cents, and we expect that they might go dow…”
Davis: The United States solar market will grow 10% in 2024
“So in 2024, overall, we're forecasting that the U.S. Market is going to grow 10%.”
BNEF's Sekine: Average battery prices will fall 6% to $133/kWh in 2024
“Our, like our expectation at BNF is that prices will drop this year. So drop about six percent. So we averaged last year, just as a pricing point, we averaged at about 139 dollars per kilowatt hour on a volume average basis. So that includes all segments that …”
The Biden administration will likely pause new LNG export permits
“So I think having signed that Dubai declaration They're probably sending a signal that they're getting ready to do this right thing on this biggest single challenge that they face.”
Florida will ask Washington to pay for disaster recovery, and likely succeed
“And now, of course, we see the consequences, and the consequences will be Florida's gonna put its hand out and ask Washington, D.C. To pay for all this, and probably they will.”
US hydrogen rules will likely adopt three pillars with phase-ins
“The U.S. Guidance is likely to follow these three pillars that are outlined on additionality, temporal matching, and deliverability or geographic correlation with some sort of phase in, particularly on the requirement for additionality, so for new renewable en…”
RMI: Global battery capacity will reach 9 TWh annually by 2030
“They Are estimating that there's going to be global capacity of nine terawatt hours of batteries, lithium ion batteries per year by 2030. That's a kilowatt hour for every person on the planet. And they are estimating that just those batteries will surpass the …”
Lovins: European Purchases Of Russian Natural Gas Will Disappear By 2023
“It now looks like the purchases of Russian gas will be cut by two-thirds this year alone, and probably be gone by Next summer, at latest, next autumn”
Mitrova: EU oil embargo will likely reduce Russian exports by only 10-15%
“In the longer term, as the EU is implementing its oil embargo, and with all these constraints on insurance and shipping, There will be definitely some effect to limited extent. So we are probably talking about 10, 15% decline in the Russian oil exports and cor…”
Gard-Murray: Heat pump conversion will save the average family $160-$170 annually
“And so for the average family getting one of these units, that's going to work out to around 160 170 bucks each year.”
Mitrova: Europe faces wartime energy rationing and physical shortages this winter
“And in the wartime, the economy is mobilized, and the decisions are made by the governments, not by the free market. So this is the case for Europe this winter, and there will be lots of very difficult and painful choices on which industries, which groups of c…”
Biden: The US Will Bring an End to Nord Stream 2
“There will be no longer a North Stream Two. We will bring an end to it.”
Hamilton: Stalled climate bill is 'just a flesh wound' and will pass
“Absolutely. I am. It is just a flesh wound. This bill will get over the finish line.”
Hamilton: Democrats will pass climate legislation by March 2022
“The optimistic take for me is January, maybe February. I don't think we're going to go much beyond March, certainly. And they're so close that I think it wouldn't take long at all to get this over the finish line in the month of January once they resolve some …”