Opinion
Naam: Wilderness no longer exists; preserving ecosystems requires active human management
“There is no such thing as wilderness on planet Earth anymore. We have modified the climate such that if you're, if it's a forest, if it's a coral reef, if it's a wetlands, It doesn't exist in the same climactic band that that natural ecosystem evolved in. And …”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jul 2028
Naam: Solar electricity costs will drop 4x by reaching one-third global generation
“So my personal forecast is the cost of solar electricity will drop by another factor of four. By the time electricity is, by the time solar is about a third of all electricity generation on Earth.”
Opinion
Naam: Continent-scale transmission is the most underrated clean energy technology
“The most underrated of those technologies is super long duration transmission. That is probably the one that... Ultra long distance, like coast-to-coast, continent-scale transmission. It's probably the one that has the best upside and the most certainty that w…”
Assertion Supported
Naam: Space launch costs are dropping faster than solar power costs
“Space launch is getting cheaper faster than solar. Only, only two things in history have gotten cheap faster than solar to date, which are computing and gene sequencing or gene printing. But right now, we're in a phase where the cost of space launch is actuall…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2032
Naam: IRA spending will reach trillions due to uncapped subsidies
“It's not four and fifty billion dollars of federal spending a year. It's like trillions. Because the IRA is not a pool of money. It's a per unit subsidy. And forecasters always do what? On unit forecasts, they always underestimate it, right? So the actual size…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Naam: Clean electricity will beat fossil fuels if permitting opens up
“Like, in an open playing field, if it's easier to build pipelines and transmission lines, Clean electricity is going to win.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2030
Naam: Total fossil fuel use and emissions will peak by 2030
“And I think we'll have peak total fossil fuels and peak emissions sometime later in this decade, ah, towards 2030.”
Prediction Held up
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.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Naam: Mass-produced factory cleantech will maintain rapid learning rates for decades
“I do think there's lots of reasons, not in every single cleantech, but in those, the ones we make in factories, mass-produced in high volumes, that those will have a very, very rapid learning rate for decades to come.”
Opinion
Naam: Laser space solar is BS because lasers cannot penetrate clouds
“Lasers are BS, because lasers don't penetrate clouds and rain, so why would you do it?”
Assertion Supported
Naam: Global sales of gasoline-powered cars peaked in 2017 or 2018
“Sales of gasoline-powered cars peaks? Anybody have a guess? 2017, 20 18. It happened already.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jul 2028
Naam: Global meat consumption will not decrease and will keep rising
“Like, forget about reducing meat consumption. It ain't going to happen. Meat consumption is going to keep going like this and this.”
Opinion
Naam: Hydrogen cars and trucks will not be cost-competitive with EVs
“Hydrogen-powered cars and trucks? Forget about it. That's been clear for a decade. That's not going to be cost-competitive electrification.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Naam: Aviation will probably never adopt hydrogen-powered planes
“We'll probably never make hydrogen-powered planes. They don't make any sense.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Naam: 12-hour energy storage will definitely be solved
“Like, 12 hour storage, I'm convinced, is like, that's going to be solved.”
Opinion
Naam: Floating offshore wind is massively underrated for deep-water regions
“I think offshore wind has a huge role to play, and floating offshore wind is one of the most underrated technologies, because in deep water, you basically can't do bottom out offshore wind. So around Japan, or the U.S. West Coast, I think floating offshore win…”
Assertion Supported
Naam: Beaming space solar with microwaves requires kilometer-square arrays
“The way to actually do it is microwaves, but the problem with microwaves is if you want to hit a target on Earth, you need these kilometer square arrays in space, and no one's ever built anything of that size in space.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jul 2028
Naam: Energy will be cheaper in the long run relative to income
“I think there's every reason to believe that in the long run, energy is going to be cheaper for people than it is today, certainly as a proportion of income.”
Assertion Supported
Naam: Sulfur aerosol emissions currently offset one watt per square meter of warming
“Today if you look at IPCC's numbers, all greenhouse gases account for about three watts per square meter of warming. That's human activity. The sulfur aerosols we're already emitting from ship fuels, from diesel engines, from coal plants, low altitude, they ca…”
Disclosure
Naam: Solar costs dropped twice as fast as his 2011 10x forecast
“So my forecast was the cost of solar would drop by about a factor of 10 to 20 50, and it actually dropped twice as fast as I thought it would.”
Ramez Naam