Opinion
O'Donnell: US developers are dangerously distracted by speculative hydrogen subsidies
“In the U.S., there's a developer community's attention, in my humble opinion, has been a bit attracted to the hydrogen subsidies, and that The place will get the next wave of growth for utility-scale solar. We'll be building hydrogen projects that sell hydroge…”
Assertion Partly supported
O'Donnell: Intermittent renewable electricity is cheaper than burning fossil fuels
“It is intermittent electricity that's becoming the cheapest source of energy humans have ever had available. We have now entered this world where, on a primary energy basis, you can have electricity at a lower cost than burning fuel.”
Assertion Supported
O'Donnell: 1,000°C bricks match lithium-ion energy density at one-tenth the cost
“And when you heat a brick to a thousand C, it stores as much energy per pound as a lithium ion battery. Costs 10 times less, lasts 10 times longer.”
Assertion Open · timeframe Apr 2025
O'Donnell: Heat battery grid carbon savings double project-site savings
“And those grid effects of causing more renewables to show up that the heat battery is not using all those megawatt hours mean that the total system carbon savings are approximately twice the savings at the project site.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
O'Donnell: Path is clear to decarbonize industrial heat within 15 years
“We see the path clear with what we're doing to decarbonize most of that within about 15 years, given the constraints on how fast wind and solar can be built, and there aren't meaningful production constraints on the brick materials that we use.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2030
O'Donnell: Intermittent renewable power will economically eclipse fossil fuels globally by 2030
“By 20 30 in most of the industrialized world, the conditions that exist in the six European countries where we're developing projects now in Australia and the half dozen US states, those market conditions exist in most of the industrialized world that you can …”
Insight
O'Donnell: High Cost of Capital from Over-Innovation Kills Renewable Projects
“If you are too innovative, if you can't turn to a standard construction company or EPC, if you can't bring a new technology with suitable guarantees to market, cost of capital that's too high will just kill any renewable energy project.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Donnell: Intermittent solar and wind are the cheapest energy in history
“PV and wind are pretty much everywhere in the world, intermittently cheaper than any other form humans have ever had available, including burning fuel.”
Assertion Supported
O'Donnell: Carbon capture fundamentally requires burning 30% more fossil fuels
“One, the carbon capture path says you're burning fossil fuel, burn 30% more fossil fuel than you're using right now to capture the emissions from burning fossil fuel. We can stipulate that is not a pathway that's cheaper than burning fossil fuel.”
Assertion Supported
O'Donnell: Electric boilers double or triple emissions on today's US grid
“A heat pump may get you about level with emissions from burning fuel directly locally, and an electric boiler will multiply your scope one plus two, at least by a factor of two and maybe three.”
Assertion Partly supported
O'Donnell: South Australia experiences nearly 3,000 hours of negative electricity prices
“Look at South Australia with 70% renewables in the system and almost 3000 hours a year of negative electricity prices.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Donnell: Rondo heat batteries cost $5/kW marginally at 98% efficiency
“A round of heat battery is not a 2000 dollar or 1000 dollar a kilowatt electrolyzer that delivers heat at 50% efficiency. It's about five dollars a kilowatt on a marginal basis for these electrical wire heaters, and it's 98% efficient at turning electricity in…”
Assertion Open · timeframe Apr 2025
O'Donnell: Heat batteries unlock up to 1.9 times their capacity in renewables
“Jesse Jenkins has, is publishing a paper shortly exploring that. His paper findings really excited us because he found that in looking at systems that he modeled in the east, eastern side of the U.S., for every megawatt of heat batteries that show up in the sy…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Donnell: Electrolyzers do not pencil below 50% capacity factor
“Electrolyzers that in principle can operate intermittently, but because of their capital costs, they don't pencil operating at capacity factors typically below 50%.”
Assertion Supported
O'Donnell: Rondo heat batteries address 90% of global industrial heat
“The temperatures that today's Rondo heat batteries deliver serve about 90% of all the industrial heat used in the world.”
Insight
O'Donnell: Small Projects Are Extremely Difficult to Finance as Infrastructure
“Small projects, unless they're part of a big project portfolio, are very difficult to finance this infrastructure.”
Disclosure
O'Donnell: Rondo Sold Calgren Heat at a Discount to Gas Prices
“Here, just for simplicity, because it was on balance sheet, we said, fine, we will sell you heat at a discount to whatever the then gas price is.”
Assertion Supported
O'Donnell: Rondo Brick Storage Holds More Energy Per Kilogram Than Lithium-Ion
“We store a little bit more energy per kilogram than a typical lithium-ion battery pack in brick”
Disclosure
O'Donnell: Rondo Energy Acts as Prime EPC on Early Projects
“In these early projects, we are prime. We are the prime EPC.”
Insight
O'Donnell: Hardware Startups Should Not Automate Manufacturing Too Early
“It's important not to automate manufacturing processes too early because you may lock yourself into a design that You didn't like that, ok, and now you've made it hugely expensive to change that.”
Insight
O'Donnell: Electricity Moves 1,000 Miles While Steam Moves 1,000 Meters
“We learned that you can move electricity a thousand miles, you can move steam a thousand meters.”
Assertion Supported
O'Donnell: Industrial heat accounts for a quarter of global fuel consumption
“A quarter of all the fuel we burn in the world is for industrial heat.”
Assertion Contradicted
O'Donnell: Over half of global industrial heat is delivered as steam
“A little more than half of all the world's industrial heat is delivered as steam because steam is wonderful, energy-dense, easy to move around.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2027
O'Donnell: Full Calgren installation will be about 600 MWh
“Step one, this was a pilot for the full-size installation will be about 600 megawatt hours”
