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 1,736 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 82 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

Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2026
Dutta: Harbinger will reach ICE cost parity without subsidies by 2026
“And Harbinger by next year will be at cost parity with ICE trucks without any tax credits.”
Shomik Dutta Oct 8, 2025 ▶ 19:34 This VC wants climate tech to play hardball in Washington
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dutta: Climate Tech Lobbying Spend Relative to Profits Is 1/100th of Oil and Gas
“And if you look at the percentage of profits that the oil and gas industry puts into government lobbying versus the percentage of our profits, not on an absolute dollars basis, we are still one 100th of where the oil and gas industry is.”
Shomik Dutta Oct 8, 2025 ▶ 24:48 This VC wants climate tech to play hardball in Washington
Assertion Supported
No accident scenario can heat Kairos coolant enough to fail TRISO fuel
“The fact that the melting temperature for the salt is, you know, in like the 400, like we don't actually can't get the salt hot enough to like stress the fuel in the way that, that you could theoretically stress from other actors. So we don't have any scenario…”
Mike Laufer Sep 24, 2025 ▶ 5:45 Shortening the nuclear development cycle from decades to years
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kairos aims to cut reactor capital costs by 50% across seven builds
“We see the ability in, in just those first essentially seven reactors, like dramatically bringing down the capital costs you know, 40, 50% is possible, and then we're staged for the second half of the twenty-thirties to scale from there”
Mike Laufer Sep 24, 2025 ▶ 42:42 Shortening the nuclear development cycle from decades to years
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hickenlooper: Manchin secretly remained in IRA talks despite public walkout
“He told the press he was out, he was done. I saw him the next morning, had a nice, 15 minute happy chat, and I said, well, you're not really Over, you're not quitting, right? And he goes, no, but I'm going to let him think it for a while. Just I need space. Yo…”
John Hickenlooper Aug 27, 2025 ▶ 4:15 John Hickenlooper’s optimism in the face of opposition
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Graphitic Energy produces clean hydrogen for $2 to $3 per kilogram
“You know, I thought that decarbonized hydrogen had to come from an electrolyzer and cost, you know, six or nine dollars a kilogram. You guys can do this for two to three?”
Zach Jones Aug 13, 2025 ▶ 33:01 The rogue idea that saved a hydrogen startup
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Needham: Fusion plants can be licensed in 18 months for under $10M
“That means we can actually license a fusion power plant in like less than 18 months and less than ten million, as opposed to a fission plant Under 10 CFR, 50, 52, or 53, which is like five hundred million to a billion in 10 years, five to 10 years.”
Rick Needham Jun 18, 2025 ▶ 33:00 The tape that led to a fusion breakthrough
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2034
Needham: First commercial CFS fusion plant will launch in early 2030s
“Early 20 thirties. That means probably within a few, not 2030, but probably within a few years of 2030.”
Rick Needham Jun 18, 2025 ▶ 40:47 The tape that led to a fusion breakthrough
Assertion Supported
Fernandez: Large EPC firms stopped offering lump sum turnkey contracts post-COVID
“The reality is the EPC CapEx world changed dramatically after, after COVID, right? Things that used to be very secured, large scale EPC companies that used to be able to give you a, you know, lump sum turnkey contract are just not doing that anymore in, in con…”
Mario Fernandez Jun 4, 2025 ▶ 38:55 FOAK tales
Assertion Supported
Jewett: Fervo proved hydraulic fracturing and lateral drilling work in granite
“There was a lot of skepticism. You can't hit those drilling rates in granite. If you can't hit that build rate to a lateral well in granite, you can't do a plug and perf operation, you know, hydraulic fracturing operation in granite in the same way that you ca…”
Sarah Jewett May 21, 2025 ▶ 33:10 Building Fervo's geothermal giant
Assertion Open · timeframe Dec 2026
Only one company is delivering a 100MW firm clean project in 2026
“There is one company that's building a hundred megawatt firm clean energy project that's going to be delivered in twenty-twenty-six, and that's a geothermal company.”
Sarah Jewett May 21, 2025 ▶ 38:29 Building Fervo's geothermal giant
Assertion Contradicted
Garabedian: Large-scale green hydrogen is not bankable today
“Large scale green hydrogen is not bankable today.”
Rafi Garabedian Mar 12, 2025 ▶ 21:36 Electric Hydrogen’s bet on supersized electrolyzers
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Garabedian: Fertilizer industry lacks motivation to decarbonize
“The fertilizer industry has no compulsion or real kind of soft motivation to decarbonize.”
Rafi Garabedian Mar 12, 2025 ▶ 24:07 Electric Hydrogen’s bet on supersized electrolyzers
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
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Shah: Trump payment freezes will increase energy costs and private uncertainty
“But yet, I think that the actions that they're taking around freezing payments and some of the other things are going to lead to higher costs and a lot more uncertainty in the private sector, right?”
Jigar Shah Feb 19, 2025 ▶ 13:08 Open Circuit: Jigar, Katherine, and Stephen are back
Prediction Partly held up
Shah: Trump administration will roll back wind and solar pauses to avoid blackouts
“I think they're going to be forced to pull it back too, just because it's 90% of everything that gets deployed in the grid, right? And so at some point, if none of that stuff gets deployed in the grid, we're going to have rolling blackouts.”
Jigar Shah Feb 19, 2025 ▶ 18:42 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
Prediction Open · timeframe Jan 2029
Shah: Trump's DOE will honor all closed and obligated LPO loans
“But like, for closed loans and loans that have obligated funds, I think they'll honor all those loans.”
Jigar Shah Feb 19, 2025 ▶ 39:35 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
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Jigar Shah: Battery storage additions will be tenfold natural gas deployments
“Battery storage will be heralded as the savior of the grid a year from now, and we will deploy 10 times as much battery storage as we deploy natural gas.”
Jigar Shah Feb 19, 2025 ▶ 49:00 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
Prediction Held up
Das: Congress will preserve parts of IRA with a scalpel approach
“And so because of the direct connections between the clean energy investments that are happening and the locations in the country and where, where that's happening, I think we're going to see Some continuation of IRA. And we've heard this phrase thrown around,…”
Tanya Das Dec 4, 2024 ▶ 7:19 The ‘third inning’ of the energy transition [partner content]
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
Prediction Open · timeframe Jul 2029
Shah: Annual electricity load growth will likely be around 2.5%, not 7%
“I don't think we're going to have seven percent load growth every year. I think it's probably more like two and a half percent, but it's still something that we don't have the tools to deal with right now.”
Jigar Shah Jul 16, 2024 ▶ 10:05 Our final episode: The top stories of 2024 so far
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’
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Beebe: Big Tech will build gas plants for AI, delaying climate goals
“The latest version of that that I'm very worried about is large tech companies acknowledging, hey, you know, we're not going to lose this AI thing. I think they're going to blame it on China and say, hey, it's a national security. Security thing we can't lose,…”
Andrew Beebe Jun 10, 2024 ▶ 11:13 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’
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Beebe: Geothermal can power AI data centers in 3-4 years vs 10 for SMRs
“Building de novo facilities to power either clusters or giga sites for massive data centers, I think is going to be much, much harder, and they're going to try with small modular reactors, that's a ten-year kind of process, but doing it with geothermal, I thin…”
Andrew Beebe Jun 10, 2024 ▶ 20:34 AI-fueled geothermal and ‘the edge of the possible’
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Beebe: Internal combustion fleet residual values will plummet, impacting insurers
“I'm watching residual values of internal combustion fleets because I think they're going to plummet. I think that's going to have an impact on lease companies. I think it's going to have an impact on insurance companies.”
Andrew Beebe Jun 10, 2024 ▶ 34:59 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
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2039
Orthofer: Max 30% of abatement needs commercially viable by late 2030s
“Despite sort of huge cost down historically and projected, we will not get to more than 20 or 30% of all abatement needs being sort of fully in the money or fully sort of commercially mature by the end of the 20 thirties, which I guess is a rather, was for me …”
Anna Orthofer Jun 3, 2024 ▶ 9:06 A macro view on the state of climate tech
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2038
Orthofer: Green hydrogen cost parity delayed 5 to 8 years past 2030
“If I look back at our forecast from 20 20, for when we would achieve cost parity between green hydrogen and grey hydrogen, we said this would be by the end of this decade. I think by now we've moved that out by five to eight years, depending on geography, just…”
Anna Orthofer Jun 3, 2024 ▶ 19:01 A macro view on the state of climate tech
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Janus: 2x more efficient AI chips will lead tech giants to deploy 2x more chips
“And, you know, I had someone ask me the other day, well, what happens if, you know, if NVIDIA comes out with a chip that's twice as efficient? And my response to that is, well, then Meta or Microsoft or Google will plug in twice as many chips. If they have the…”
Brian Janous May 21, 2024 ▶ 21:44 Energy is now the ‘primary bottleneck’ for AI
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Janus: Utilities Can Meet Load Growth Without Heavy Natural Gas Buildout
“I think we can. I think there is a lot of levers that we have at our disposal, you know, and I have, I've had empathy for my friends in the southeast. I know that they're under a lot of pressure, and I know that, you know, they, they're at the tip of the spear…”
Brian Janous May 21, 2024 ▶ 32:40 Energy is now the ‘primary bottleneck’ for AI
Prediction Open · timeframe May 2029
Belizaire: Batch computing will quickly consume more energy than real-time compute
“If you look at the whole pie of the types of compute that's out there the batchable portion is growing faster than the rest, and it's become, it will quickly become a larger portion of the over, overall pie, and it will quickly have more energy demands than th…”
John Belizaire May 21, 2024 ▶ 35:27 Energy is now the ‘primary bottleneck’ for AI
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Janus: Advanced nuclear and fusion will not solve grid problems this decade
“They're not solving any problems this decade, right? That is a 20 thirties and probably a late 20 thirties. Opportunity.”
Brian Janous May 21, 2024 ▶ 49:20 Energy is now the ‘primary bottleneck’ for AI
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
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