Opinion
Wesoff: All advanced nuclear reactor designs are untested paper reactors
“All of the reactors in the advanced reactor population are paper reactors. We haven't built them. We haven't tested them.”
Opinion
Wesoff: SMRs are engineering solutions misapplied to financial and PR problems
“Small reactors, SMRs, are a nuclear engineering solution to a financial problem. We need a financial solution to this financial problem. Small modular reactors are a nuclear engineering, engineering solution to a PR problem. We need a PR solution to that, not …”
Opinion
Wesoff: Nuclear industry should build AP1000 reactors over novel designs
“We should be figuring out how to build AP 1000 instead of flailing around trying to find silver bullet designs that will rescue this industry.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Wesoff: Ultra-cheap solar and storage may make advanced nuclear concepts obsolete
“We're gonna have amazingly cheap, abundant solar. Combined with storage, we may not need all of these advanced energy ideas.”
Opinion
Westhoff: US Is No More Suited to Solar Manufacturing Than iPhones
“However, I have to say that the United States is no more suitable to solar manufacturing than it is to iPhone manufacturing.”
Opinion
Westhoff: Auxin Solar Is an Uncompetitive Manufacturer Seeking Government Aid
“I would suggest that they are just an uncompetitive manufacturer looking for any help they can get.”
What-if
Wesoff: SolarCity would have gone bankrupt without Tesla's $2.6B acquisition
“If Tesla had not purchased SolarCity for 2.6 billion dollars plus the assumption of a couple of billion dollars worth of debt, SolarCity would for sure have gone bankrupt within a couple of months.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Wesoff: Tech billionaires trying to disrupt nuclear with software will fail
“We have these hordes of software developer billionaires thinking that they can disrupt the nuclear industry just like you can disrupt the software industry, and I think they're going to be sadly disappointed very soon.”
Assertion Supported
Wesoff: NuScale SMR footprints exceed traditional 1.2 gigawatt reactor sizes
“The modular reactor from NuScale is 76 feet tall, so that's not exact. If you're thinking it's the size of a bread box, it's not. It's 76 feet tall, and when you're building a twelve-pack of these modular NuScale reactors, the size of the civil works that you …”
Insight
Wesoff: South Korea aligns nuclear construction incentives better than the U.S.
“In places like, say, South, South Korea, the folks who design The nuclear plant and build the nuclear plant are also the same people, in many cases, are the same people who operate and maintain the nuclear plant, and all of their incentives are aligned, and th…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Westhoff: Auxin Solar froze the $10 billion US solar market
“In a world where Chinese manufacturers are at gigawatt and 10 gigawatt and 50 gigawatt capacities, aux and solar is relatively inconsequential on the world stage, and yet they're still able to essentially freeze the ten billion dollar U.S. Solar industry.”
Assertion Supported
Westhoff: Tariffs Give the US the World's Highest Solar Module Costs
“In fact, the United States has the highest cost solar modules in the world because we are taxing ourselves with tariffs.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Westhoff: US Energy Transition Cannot Happen Without Imports
“The energy transition does not happen in the United States without imports.”
What-if
Wesoff: Tesla likely would not exist today without $465M DOE loan guarantee
“Without that diving save of getting that venture capital, and without the half a billion dollars in loan guarantee, it's quite likely that the Tesla of today would not exist.”
Assertion Supported
Wesoff: Tesla had barely installed 1,000 solar roofs total by 2021
“Despite ridiculous promises about spooling up to 1000 roofs per week, I would say that he's barely installed a thousand roofs with the product, and it went through four different revisions over the course of the first few years.”
Opinion
Wesoff: Despite Musk's lies, Tesla catalyzed the global energy transition
“They are forcing the curve on EVs. They're forcing the price structure of batteries. It's hard not to see them as one of the greatest forces of the last decade in catalyzing the energy transition. For all of the lying and prevaricating and questionable busines…”
Assertion Supported
Wesoff: Only 20-25% of nuclear plant costs come from equipment
“Only 25%, 20 to 25% of the cost of a nuclear site stems from the actual equipment itself, the reactor vessel, the fuel rods. 50% of the cost of a nuclear project is due to the cost of installation, the cost of building reinforced concrete and the steel that's …”
Opinion
Wesoff: DOE is funding too many advanced reactor designs instead of standardizing
“There are too many advanced reactor designs being looked at by the DOE and the industry. That's an enormous problem right there. We need to pick a design and stop this first-of-a-kind nonsense.”
Opinion
Wesoff: Current climate tech boom will not repeat Cleantech 1.0 bust
“Those of us who have lived through a bubble might see certain parallels this time, and this is certainly not your grandmother's venture capital bubble. It's a very different situation. The societal impetus for acknowledging climate change, the bank and financi…”
Opinion
Westhoff: Solar Protectionism Unites Obama, Trump, and Biden Administrations
“We've seen them enacted during the Obama administration, we've seen them during the Trump administration, and we've seen them continued under the Biden administration. Turns out there's one thing that they can all agree on is, ah, protectionism.”
Assertion Supported
Westhoff: Solar manufacturers halt US shipments over retroactive tariff risk
“Not only is it raising prices for power purchase agreements, not only is it causing paroxysms within the developer world, But it's causing manufacturers to stop shipping to the United States because they're afraid of tariffs, and more importantly, retroactive …”
Assertion Supported
Westhoff: 65% of 2022-2023 US solar projects threatened by tariff probe
“Surveys by industry groups, whether it be SEIA or American Clean Power have found that 65% of the projects that are on the books in the United States in 20, 22 and 23 are threatened.”
Opinion
Westhoff: Biden Clean Energy Promises Are Empty Rhetoric Under Solar Tariffs
“And Biden is also a union man, and there's a union aspect to keeping manufacturing going in the United States, and so Biden has to balance that out, but it's empty rhetoric if you're going to cut the industry off at its ankles with a tariff, and to then say we…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Wesoff: EV competition with Tesla will even up by 2024
“I think things are going to be evened up in a couple of years.”
