Opinion
Pierpoint: Venture capital is the superhero of the climate movement
“I think venture is the superhero of the climate movement, right? Like, venture steps up in ways that other capital allocators really are not”
Opinion
Pierpoint: Many climate tech startups cut corners on pre-construction engineering
“When it comes to doing engineering studies and development work and everything that happens before you construct, a lot of folks cut corners and they don't want to spend a lot of time doing a huge amount of de-risking because there's a lot of binary risk in th…”
Assertion Partly supported
Pierpoint: 58% of Californians support keeping Diablo Canyon plant open
“I noted that this year, polling in my home state of California showed that 58% of Californians support keeping Diablo Canyon nuclear plant open, and that is very surprising. This has been a pretty staunchly anti-nuclear state for decades, I think, as folks wel…”
Opinion
Climate hard tech often targets inherently low-value markets
“The reality of what it takes to develop hard technologies and to commercialize them for markets that are inherently not crazy high-value markets all the time.”
Assertion Supported
IPCC 2°C global warming scenarios require carbon dioxide removal
“All of the scenarios modeled by the IPCC that keep climate change to two degrees or lower by the end of the century agree. In addition to decarbonizing, we're going to need CDR.”
Assertion Supported
WS Development poured the first commercial low-carbon concrete in history
“Yanni Sippis and his team were building the largest net zero office in Boston, and they were getting ready to pour a low-carbon version of concrete, one that had never been used in the entire history of commercial construction.”
Insight
Influential end customers drive heavy commodity supply chains to low-carbon tech
“This is true in commodities like steel and e-fuels because an influential end customer can push the rest of the chain to take a chance on a low-carbon product. It's definitely true here in Cement.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Pierpoint: Advanced nuclear developers upsized reactor designs to 300MW+
“That's one of the big reasons that you saw this shift from like a whole bunch of folks that were really thinking like sub hundred megawatt reactor designs all the way up to 300 megawatts, and in some cases much higher than that.”
Assertion Supported
California Sierra Nevada recorded second-lowest snowpack in 2026
“April first, you know, here in California is the official measurement of the snowpack that occurs, and we just found out that we have the second lowest snowpack on record in the California Sierra Nevada”
Assertion Supported
Pumped hydro accounts for 90% of global energy storage capacity
“Most of the energy storage in the world, about 90% of all energy storage globally, is pumped hydro, which requires a mountain, a ton of water, and usually a whole lot of permitting.”
Assertion Supported
San Miguel Electric Cooperative secured a $1.4B USDA grant for renewables
“Historically, it's operated a coal plant, but in twenty-twenty-four, SMECI got a one-point-four-billion-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to transition to solar and storage.”
Assertion Supported
Microsoft contracted 2.7M tons of carbon removal from Ørsted over 11 years
“Microsoft made a deal with Orsted to purchase 2.7 million tons of carbon removal over an 11 year period from a bioenergy carbon capture and storage plant.”
Assertion Supported
Pierpoint: Fervo's Project Red Became the Most Productive EGS in History
“In May of 23, Fervo Energy's Project Red in northern Nevada officially became the most productive enhanced geothermal system in history up until that point.”
Assertion Supported
Pierpoint: Fervo applies horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to geothermal
“Fervo is bringing two major innovations from the oil and gas industry to geothermal. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.”
Assertion Supported
Pierpoint: Project Red flow test proved Fervo's geothermal technique
“The flow test that Sarah spoke about at the top of the show proves that Fervo's techniques could produce steam, capable of generating electricity.”
Assertion Supported
One Boston Wharf Road is Boston's largest net-zero office building
“One of the seaport's new buildings is one Boston Wharf Road. It's the city's largest net zero office building, which in this case means that it does have embodied carbon, but it operates with no net emissions.”
Assertion Contradicted
Frontier buyers are willing to pay upwards of $5,000/ton for CO2 removal
“There's, you know, a number of companies, particularly around Frontier, that are willing to pay upwards of 5000 dollars a ton for CO two”
Assertion Partly supported
Pierpoint: Over 6 GW of Utility Battery Storage Added in 2023
“Just over six gigawatts of utility-scale battery storage was added to the grid in twenty-twenty-three, according to the International Energy Agency.”
Insight
Pierpoint: Choosing nuclear as an entrepreneur is 'literally choosing hard mode'
“All that said, this is a really hard industry, and I know we're going to get into this, but you know, if you're going to be an entrepreneur, choosing nuclear as your technology is literally choosing hard mode.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Pierpoint: Copper wire theft occurs every three weeks in her neighborhood
“Our copper wires get stolen in my neighborhood on the order of once every three weeks which is insane.”
Assertion Supported
CO2 is 150 times more concentrated in oceans than in air
“For one, it's easier to remove CO₂ from the ocean where it's a 150 times more concentrated.”
Assertion Supported
Pierpoint: US steelmakers to produce over 71M tons of steel
“This year in the U.S., steel manufacturers will produce more than seventy-one million tons of steel.”
Assertion Supported
India is the world's largest producer and consumer of milk
“India is the largest producer and consumer of milk in the world, but poor infrastructure makes getting chilled milk from farmer to consumer very difficult.”
