The Ledger

Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.

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why aren't all 1,446 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 23 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable

Assertion Supported
Garabedian: Electrolyzers at $2,000/kW are unviable without massive subsidies
“Electrolyzers today in the 2000 dollars a kilowatt range, they're too expensive to produce economically viable Green hydrogen. And we're seeing this in projects all through the world. So where green hydrogen projects are being built, they're being built at pri…”
Rafi Garabedian Mar 12, 2025 ▶ 29:18 Electric Hydrogen’s bet on supersized electrolyzers
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Garabedian: Electric Hydrogen cuts electrolyzer equipment costs by 50 percent
“Our technology and our product Reduces that cost by 50% and gets us into the ballpark where green hydrogen becomes economically viable with moderate subsidy and support, and once we get to scale, it'll get even better from there.”
Rafi Garabedian Mar 12, 2025 ▶ 29:52 Electric Hydrogen’s bet on supersized electrolyzers
Assertion Partly supported
Shah: Oil and Gas Outspends Clean Energy 20 to 1 on Influence
“I think where we are today is that the clean energy industry in the United States, in all of its forms, invests roughly five hundred billion dollars a year but pays about two hundred million dollars a year in influence. The oil and gas industry invests about t…”
Jigar Shah Feb 19, 2025 ▶ 7:57 Open Circuit: Jigar, Katherine, and Stephen are back
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shah: Clean energy platforms are selling out over cash and policy uncertainty
“There are platforms, for instance, that are for sale now. Yeah, that we don't have cash to make, make it through October, and we don't know what's going to happen, and we can't wait for certainty, and so we're selling out, right? So I think you're seeing the v…”
Jigar Shah Feb 19, 2025 ▶ 22:33 Open Circuit: Jigar, Katherine, and Stephen are back
Assertion Supported
Shah: IRS scrutiny of renewable tax equity is continuing under Trump
“During the Biden administration, there was a big crackdown by the IRS on the renewable energy sector for tax credit and tax equity policies. Around step up in basis and some of that stuff, and I think the Trump administration is continuing all of that work, an…”
Jigar Shah Feb 19, 2025 ▶ 22:54 Open Circuit: Jigar, Katherine, and Stephen are back
Assertion Supported
Shah: Solar Costs $30-$50/MWh Compared to $95/MWh for New Natural Gas
“Today, you know, solar power installed is, you know, 30 dollars a megawatt hour. Without the tax credits, it's 50 dollars a megawatt hour. That's more expensive than 30 dollars a megawatt hour. I get that. But that's not out of the money. Right? New natural ga…”
Jigar Shah Feb 19, 2025 ▶ 32:01 Open Circuit: Jigar, Katherine, and Stephen are back
Assertion Partly supported
Shah: EVgo Is Basically Profitable Due to Higher DC Fast Charger Utilization
“EVgo is now basically profitable because of, like, they've got huge increases in the use of their DC fast chargers”
Jigar Shah Feb 19, 2025 ▶ 33:53 Open Circuit: Jigar, Katherine, and Stephen are back
Assertion Supported
Shah: DOGE cannot reach $2T cuts without defense, Social Security, or healthcare
“The only places that matter if you're going to get to two trillion is defense, social security, and Medicaid, and Medicare. That's the only places that matter. Like, the discretionary part of the budget is so small that it just doesn't matter. You could zero i…”
Jigar Shah Feb 19, 2025 ▶ 42:48 Open Circuit: Jigar, Katherine, and Stephen are back
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.”
John O'Donnell Dec 11, 2024 ▶ 4:22 A complex path for building heat batteries
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dave: Hypothesized project finance for FOAK systems did not exist in 2022
“What I learned was that the project finance that I had hypothesized was out there for first of a kind systems was not.”
Shreya Dave Nov 27, 2024 ▶ 11:47 The risk of scaling 100x
Assertion Contradicted
Woolard: California regulators tried to halt Ivanpah over a tarp's color
“We happened to have a brown cover to that temporary, 18 month manufacturing facility, and the CEC, California Energy Commission tried to stop all construction, which basically would have killed the project, because the color of the tarp was not the right color…”
John Woolard Nov 13, 2024 ▶ 17:49 Why concentrated solar couldn’t compete
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shah: Traditional utility expansion formula causes 10% annual rate hikes
“When you think about the normal course of business for most utilities is to build more natural gas plants, Build more transmission and build more distribution. Today, that formula results in 10% rate increases every year. That is not workable.”
Jigar Shah Jul 16, 2024 ▶ 10:15 Our final episode: The top stories of 2024 so far
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shah: New nuclear, geothermal, and hybrid storage all cost ~$100/MWh
“And now, with all of the additional incentives, you can build a new nuclear reactor, as long as, you know, get some of the bonus credits, like energy communities, etc., at a hundred dollars a megawatt hour. Guess what else is a hundred dollars a megawatt hour?…”
Jigar Shah Jul 16, 2024 ▶ 36:03 Our final episode: The top stories of 2024 so far
Assertion Supported
Beebe: Solar Scaled Through Brute-Force Supply Chains, Not Novel Tech
“And one of the key catalysts that I hadn't really understood was the ability to use non-semiconductor grade silicon, you know, not the purest type of silicon to make solar cells. So instead of radical innovation, you know people like Nanosolar and even Solyndr…”
Andrew Beebe Jun 10, 2024 ▶ 4:57 AI-fueled geothermal and ‘the edge of the possible’
Assertion Contradicted
Beebe: Zanskar has proven a 90% hit rate for exploratory geothermal wells
“Today, when we do, when we drill wells looking for geothermal, we'll drill 10 wells and get one hot spot. And that's not cost effective. Those wells are very expensive. With Zanskar, they have been proven that they can drill 10 wells and get 90% hit rates, and…”
Andrew Beebe Jun 10, 2024 ▶ 19:35 AI-fueled geothermal and ‘the edge of the possible’
Assertion Supported
Orthofer: Only 10% of net-zero abatement potential is fully mature today
“And when we do that, we actually find that only about 10% of the abatement potential that, that we need to get to net zero is in this in global deployment or a sort of fully mature category which is a lot less, I think, than we would have hoped.”
Anna Orthofer Jun 3, 2024 ▶ 8:38 A macro view on the state of climate tech
Assertion Supported
Elon Musk laid off Tesla's entire Supercharger team to prioritize robotaxis
“Musk also laid off the entire supercharger team, and now he's putting all his attention on an autonomous robo-taxi.”
Stephen Lacey May 15, 2024 ▶ 3:15 Tesla’s extremely hardcore pivot
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tesla Roadster engineers learned of Musk's revised acceleration specs on Twitter
“He decided to Himself without, without telling anyone else that that it's gonna go twice as fast as I said before, so instead of going from zero to 60 in 1.9 seconds, which is very fast, like, think in your mind how long Okay, that was about two seconds, like …”
Steve LeVine May 15, 2024 ▶ 5:43 Tesla’s extremely hardcore pivot
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Elon Musk targeted a late 2025 launch for Tesla's robotaxi
“So suddenly, he doesn't, not only wants the robo-taxi, but he wants it at the same time that the Model Two would have come out, which is the second half of next year.”
Steve LeVine May 15, 2024 ▶ 13:24 Tesla’s extremely hardcore pivot
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tesla's hardware teams lack confidence in Elon Musk's leadership
“That's, that has made the team dismayed, unhappy, and lacking confidence in Musk's leadership.”
Steve LeVine May 15, 2024 ▶ 29:09 Tesla’s extremely hardcore pivot
Assertion Partly supported
Hurlbut: $250B of $370B in clean tech investment goes to red states
“Axios this morning cited three hundred and seventy billion dollars to boost green energy and technology sectors. Two hundred and fifty billion dollars of that is going to red states.”
Brandon Hurlbut Apr 26, 2024 ▶ 6:13 Political Climate: Is the IRA under political threat?
Assertion Contradicted
Domenech: US emissions declined as fast under Trump as Biden
“Well, emissions declined at about the same rate under Trump as they have under Biden. In fact, they declined more in the first two years than they did under Biden. And a lot of that was driven by U.S. Natural gas.”
Emily Domenech Apr 26, 2024 ▶ 23:38 Political Climate: Is the IRA under political threat?
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.”
John O'Donnell Apr 9, 2024 ▶ 9:11 The rise of heat batteries
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.”
John O'Donnell Apr 9, 2024 ▶ 18:47 The rise of heat batteries
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gurman: Kevin Lynch recommended canceling Apple Car to reallocate engineers to AI
“And he made the decision ultimately to recommend that Apple winds down this car program. He thought it couldn't be done. He didn't know, ah, when they'd be able to pull off autonomy, and so him alongside Williams, you know, ultimately wound down the Titan proj…”
Mark Gurman Mar 28, 2024 ▶ 19:21 Inside Apple’s failed car program
Assertion Supported
Alsup: Ambient Fuels halts Corpus Christi project over hourly matching rules
“I talked to the head of ambient fuels who had a massive project planned at the port of Corpus Christi in Texas. And that was a project that was specifically targeting refineries, and not only is that project on hold, Ambient's take is that hourly matching sort…”
Maeve Allsup Mar 22, 2024 ▶ 1:29 The Latitude: Could government rules hinder green hydrogen?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sussman estimates hourly matching will raise Nueces hydrogen costs by 20%
“Sussman estimates the price increase for the Nuesa's project with hourly matching to be at least 20%.”
Lisa Martine Jenkins Mar 22, 2024 ▶ 18:40 The Latitude: Could government rules hinder green hydrogen?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ramanathan: Wind and solar returns cannot match oil and gas returns
“Wind and solar are becoming commodities where the returns are not anything like what you get in oil and gas.”
Shalini Ramanathan Feb 22, 2024 ▶ 9:49 A view of the $1.8 trillion clean energy economy
Assertion Supported
Downing: VPP peaking capacity can be 60% cheaper than gas peakers
“For a utility, procuring peaking capacity from a VPP can be 60% cheaper than procuring it from a natural gas peaker plant.”
Jen Downing Feb 15, 2024 ▶ 9:06 Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid
Assertion Supported
Hamilton: MISO Set FERC Order 2222 Implementation Timeline for 2030
“MISO in the Midwest said we're gonna do 2030. So, so this is 10 years from the time the order was issued. And FERC did issue a ruling that said, MISO, why so long? Why do you need so long to implement this?”
Katherine Hamilton Dec 22, 2023 ▶ 21:11 The storylines of the energy transition in 2023
Assertion Supported
The DOE bases LNG decisions on Trump-era environmental impact studies
“Today what we're seeing with the Biden administration is that even the impact studies that it's using, specifically that the DOE is using to inform its decisions, were Completed when Trump was in office and don't necessarily align with the data that we have to…”
Nicole Pollack Dec 18, 2023 ▶ 13:49 LNG exports: America’s hidden ‘climate bomb’
Assertion Supported
CP2 LNG export facility emissions would be 20 times the Willow project
“The greenhouse gas emissions associated with CP-II would be 20 times that of the Willow oil complex.”
Bill McKibben Dec 18, 2023 ▶ 20:08 LNG exports: America’s hidden ‘climate bomb’
Assertion Supported
The DOE does not disclose GHG emissions in LNG project reviews
“They really don't do a project by project analysis. They do a project by project opinion, but they don't actually tell you what the greenhouse gas emissions are.”
Jeremy Symons Dec 18, 2023 ▶ 38:53 LNG exports: America’s hidden ‘climate bomb’
Assertion Supported
Alaska LNG's lifetime carbon footprint would equal the entire US power sector
“One DOE analysis of Alaska LNG, which was re reaffirmed by the DOE pretty recently, showed that even if facilities that received that gas burned it using carbon capture, the carbon footprint over its lifetime would be something equivalent, like something on pa…”
Nicole Pollack Dec 18, 2023 ▶ 43:26 LNG exports: America’s hidden ‘climate bomb’
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 …”
Eric Wesoff Dec 12, 2023 ▶ 11:50 Making sense of advanced nuclear’s stumbles
Assertion Partly supported
Lacey: Zero EV chargers built yet from $7.5B federal infrastructure program
“The Inflation Reduction Act allocated seven and a half billion dollars to building out a national EV charger network in this country, and two billion of those funds have been allocated to states, but there have been zero chargers built as part of those funds, …”
Stephen Lacey Dec 12, 2023 ▶ 49:19 Making sense of advanced nuclear’s stumbles
Assertion Contradicted
Ramanathan: Average AI usage carries the environmental impact of five cars
“Average use of AI, so not like building deep fakes, but just like, you know drafting emails, that kind of thing that I, you know, I think everyone will be doing soon enough. That kind of average use has because of the computing demand involved, has the environ…”
Shalini Ramanathan Nov 29, 2023 ▶ 22:03 How to triple renewables by 2030
Assertion Supported
AI models can identify specific real-time appliance usage from smart meters
“You know, the reality is because of the high level resolution that we're doing on the sampling and using language models, we actually stopped from, like, guessing what's happening in the home to, like, actually knowing what's happening in the home. Right to th…”
Carlos Nouel Nov 16, 2023 ▶ 37:24 AI in the real world: Solar forecasting, EVs, and virtual power plants
Assertion Not checkable as stated
St. John: Freight Depots Face 1-2+ Year Grid Interconnection Delays for EV Chargers
“A lot of the freight depots out there are reporting that it's taken one, two, or more years to get the grid interconnection service they need to actually do all the charging that they're gonna need for all those trucks.”
Jeff St. John Oct 6, 2023 ▶ 3:31 Can California pull off its clean energy ambitions?
Assertion Supported
Senator Becker: EV charger grid interconnection takes 70 weeks in his district
“So in my district, it takes about 70 weeks, which is hard to believe, like seven, no, seven 70 weeks to get things connected, to get new charging infrastructure, for example connected to the grid.”
Josh Becker Oct 6, 2023 ▶ 17:39 Can California pull off its clean energy ambitions?
Assertion Partly supported
Del Chiaro: Pending proposal restricts solar installations to licensed electricians
“There's a proposal right now pending before a licensing board called the California Contractor Licensing Board that would require solar and storage distributed to be only installed by electricians.”
Bernadette Del Chiaro Oct 6, 2023 ▶ 41:12 Can California pull off its clean energy ambitions?
Assertion Contradicted
Senator Becker: Oil lobby is the top donor to California's legislature
“So the number one contributor to the state legislature is the Western States petroleum initiative, right? By far.”
Josh Becker Oct 6, 2023 ▶ 43:09 Can California pull off its clean energy ambitions?
Assertion Supported
Senator Becker: California bundles wildfire costs and social programs into electricity rates
“The problem is we stuff lots of things into rates, right? We stuff in all the wildfire costs into rates. The care program, which is a five billion dollar program, we put that into rates. So we put everything into rates.”
Josh Becker Oct 6, 2023 ▶ 46:40 Can California pull off its clean energy ambitions?
Assertion Supported
Senator Becker: California spent $1B extending dirty legacy power plants
“We spent a billion dollars on dirty legacy, you know, once through cooling, heavily polluting plants, just because we might need them for, like, 15 hours a year.”
Josh Becker Oct 6, 2023 ▶ 53:12 Can California pull off its clean energy ambitions?
Assertion Partly supported
Lacey: Over Half of US Manufacturing Incentives Go to Foreign Firms
“More than half of the incentives are actually being in on the manufacturing side are being taken and Advantage of by firms outside the US.”
Stephen Lacey Aug 15, 2023 ▶ 19:23 America’s historic climate law, one year on
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Unregulated grid-powered hydrogen could double emissions compared to fossil fuels
“Without any restrictions on hydrogen production from grid electricity, the emissions of hydrogen production in the U.S. Could be double that from producing just hydrogen from fossil fuels directly.”
Adi Basham Aug 3, 2023 ▶ 3:13 The high stakes debate over green hydrogen
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Unregulated grid-powered hydrogen would add 200 million metric tons of CO2
“The worst case is really that there's really no requirements for hydrogen production from grid electricity, which means, in the end, you end up creating more emissions than what fossil hydrogen production is already creating today. So let's say the U.S. Actual…”
Adi Basham Aug 3, 2023 ▶ 9:37 The high stakes debate over green hydrogen
Assertion Partly supported
Storrow: ISO New England study finds rooftop solar stabilized regional grid
“And the study finds that, no, actually, New England's grid is, at least in the next couple of years, is actually in really good shape. And a big reason that it's in really good shape is that New Englanders have put so much solar on their rooftops that it is ef…”
Ben Storrow Jul 26, 2023 ▶ 3:48 A surprise benefit of rooftop solar in New England
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