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.
why aren't all 10 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 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
Dave: Component lead times make 10x scaling take as long as 100x
“The 10 X step, though, easier engineering was going to take just as long as getting to a hundred X because our lead time was defined by system components. When you purchase an electrical box or purchase a pump or purchase a component that has a long lead time,…”
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.”
Dave: Via Separations membrane cuts industrial separation energy use by 90%
“Which at the industrial scale is 90% lower energy, fully electrifiable, and more modular and therefore demand responsive.”
Dave: Hardware startups must be upfront about first-of-a-kind deployment risks
“When we were negotiating that contract, it was very Explicit to all of us that this was a first commercial system, that this was the first, that, that we'd never done this before, that we'd never delivered a project before. And some might look at that and say,…”
Dave: Via Separations acted as its own general contractor
“Well, we decided to be our own general contractor so that we could stay very close to the engineering, the EPC, the engineering procurement and construction phases of the project.”
Dave: Via Separations took on cost overage risk using time-and-materials contracts
“We didn't have a firm fixed price contract. So we were working on a time and materials basis with a number of different partners, all who contributed very important things to the project, which also left us as the sort of general contractor exposed to cost ove…”
Dave: Very few climate tech companies operate at commercial scale
“There are very few climate tech companies who can say they're operating at commercial scale and that the customer is accepting the product.”
Dave: Climate Finance Lacks Offtake Frameworks Beyond Solar and Wind
“We are starting to build the vocabulary and the talking points, but we're not quite there yet because we've historically really only done solar and wind.”