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 71 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
Hickenlooper: House reconciliation bill proposed taxing all wind and solar energy
“The House bill came over and it had a tax on all wind energy and solar energy. So no, no longer are we going to give them tax credits, but we're going to, you know, we're going to tax them.”
Shah: Wildfire costs account for only 3-5% of PG&E rate hikes
“You know, what amounts to, I think, 15% rate increases every year for the last four years for PG&E because of uncontrolled distribution grade investments, and it's not wildfire related. Let's just be crystal clear. People call it wildfire. Three to four percen…”
Eighty percent of data center power consumption comes from cooling
“These new data centers that are so power hungry, where 80% of the power that they use comes from cooling”
Garabedian: Large-scale green hydrogen is not bankable today
“Large scale green hydrogen is not bankable today.”
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…”
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…”
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.”
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…”
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.”
Tomlinson: Texas is the only state where pipelines own in-pipe gas
“Texas is the only state in the country where pipelines get to own the gas inside the pipeline, and it allows pipeline generators to manipulate prices.”
Iseman: Make Sunsets received FAA clearance and a NOTAM for launch
“So we got, got clearance by the FAA. Like, we just got issued a NOTAM.”
Shah: US Solar and Wind Have Not Yet Saved a Gigaton of Carbon
“Even the solar and wind industry in the United States today hasn't saved a gigaton of carbon. Right? For all of the, like, you know, this is amazing, it's fully mature, it has not saved a gigaton of carbon.”
Shah: Almost No Hydrogen Investment in Past Year Came From Oil and Gas
“When you look at the investment that's been made over the last 12 months in hydrogen, almost none of it is from the oil and gas industry.”
Lovins: Global peak fossil fuel use almost certainly occurred in 2019
“The result is that peak fossil fuel almost certainly occurred in 2019, globally.”
Promethean applied for 600,000 tons of methane-reduction CO₂ credits
“Where we are getting the CO₂ credits is reduced methane from the cows because the feed that we provide them and the production dramatically reduces the methane that's coming out of the cows. So in we applied for 600,000 tons of CO₂ credits, and we expect that …”
Shah: Unused oil and gas public land permits can convert to geothermal
“All unused oil and gas permits on public lands can automatically be converted into geothermal.”
Groarke: Utility operations and maintenance costs are rising 40% annually
“O&M in the utility sector generally going up 40% per year per utility.”
Cotton: Under 1% of materials in new lithium batteries are recycled
“And if you contrast that today to a new lithium battery that you get regardless of the application, whether it's an EV or a piece of consumer electronics, et cetera that has under one percent of the recycled lithium, nickel, or cobalt in that new battery. It a…”
Utility sector faces first electricity demand growth since air conditioning invention
“The truth is, suddenly, the utility industry is going from 40 years of flat and declining load to the first growth moment since the air conditioning unit was invented.”
Tomlinson: A Texas bill proposed banning all future renewable energy development
“Well, I mean, there was one bill to ban all future renewable energy development.”
Slenk: Modesto City Schools placed the largest US electric bus order
“At his new job with Modesto City School District, he's ordered the largest ever single order for electric school buses in the country.”
Nichols: Battery-powered planes are already delivering freight between US airports
“There already are battery-powered airplanes that are making deliveries between small airports you know, in this country.”
Haspel: Annual household gas stove emissions equal driving 42 miles
“If you look at the amount of greenhouse gases from your stove, and you compare it to driving your car, your yearly stove use is going to be about the equivalent of driving 42 miles in an average car.”
Kimber: Industrial steam generation accounts for 20% of global carbon emissions
“You've got 20% of global carbon emissions that come from essentially boiling water to do things like make, you know, everything from consumer packaged goods and, you know cardboard packaging to, you know, drying food.”
Pinkowski: Nitricity closed an almost $10M USDA Rural Development loan
“The other thing we then went for is a USDA Rural Development loan, and we worked through the process there, and I'm very proud to say that that is closed, and so that was an almost ten million dollar Rural Development loan.”
Woolard: BrightSource's power tower design cut solar thermal costs by ~40%
“It reduced, it was about a 40% cost reduction from the design alone.”
Woolard: Ivanpah operates at roughly 90% of its design capacity
“Ivanpah had some awkward parts ramping up, but ultimately delivered and ramps and produces power and energy today at about 90% of its original design capacity.”
Shah: Most US Geothermal Power Plants Only Achieve 60% Uptime
“Most geothermal units in the country right now only have 60% uptime.”
Shah: LMI consumers buy $4B in appliances monthly via high-interest debt
“LMI customers buy roughly four billion dollars worth of household appliances a month. And usually because it's an emergency, they have to put it on their credit card or have a payday loan for it at 30% interest, right?”
Groarke: Google estimates AI drives 15% of its load growth
“Google estimates that 15% of their load growth is going to be AI or is AI right now, right?”
AquaMetals CEO: Operating commercial-scale hydrometallurgical recycling is in China
“The hydro processes that are up and running at any scale are happening in China.”
Sekine: $100B+ committed to US EV and battery supply chains in 2023
“Even though last year we saw a record number of, like, commitments towards clean energy supply chains in general in the US,
Most of which were for EVs EVs and batteries, so about more than a hundred billion dollars committed towards EV and batteries supply cha…”
Lacey: DOE pause on LNG export approvals is unprecedented in department history
“It's the first time the DOE has ever done this”
Nouel: DER penetration peaks at roughly 20% even in leading markets
“Even in the places where we're really far ahead, like California and even Australia and other places, you know, penetration of DRs, whether it's EVs, solar, batteries, you know, heat pumps, you name it, it's still fairly low. I mean, it might make 20% at best …”
Most utility grid inspections still rely on paper, clipboards, and walking
“In many parts, Of the U.S. And even beyond the U.S. Globally, the most common way that, that we check for just quality of our distribution and transmission and storage systems is still paper, clipboard, and a walk.”
Hsieh: DOE has $43B available to deploy over the next six months
“Just in the next six months or so, it's almost, it's more than, like, forty-three billion. That's just right now. I mean, we've already deployed sixty-seven billion. So there's a ton, and that's not even including the loan program.”
Every Hermosa mine job pays 2.5x the local average household income
“Every job at Hermosa generates two and a half times the current average household income in the county.”
Lacey: ISO New England reversed stance to deem rooftop solar critical
“For years, rooftop solar was overlooked as a reliability solution in New England. But in a very sudden reversal, the grid operator says it's critical to keeping the lights on across the region.”
Nichols: Freight emissions now exceed emissions from passenger vehicles
“The emissions are now, especially, increasingly, the proportion that's coming from the goods movement, as we call it, is actually greater than from passenger vehicles.”
Exxon paid Equatorial Guinea and Chad just 8% and 10% in royalties
“Equatorial Guinea had only gotten about eight percent royalties in its Contract. Chad got 10%, but Guyana was more stable and developed than those countries had been when they inked contracts with Exxon.”
Shah: US Grid Capacity Utilization Peaked in 1979 and Continues Falling
“It is very clear to everybody that in 1979, we hit our peak in terms of capacity utilization of our grid.
Right.
And every single year since then, we have gone down in capacity utilization.”
EV adoption threatens to shift billions from gas stations to utilities
“The economic stakes are in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Today, gas stations and utilities sell roughly the same dollar amount of fuel and electricity, but the balance could shift dramatically toward utilities as more electric vehicles hit the roads.”
Proposed Texas Ike Dike will be most expensive US civil engineering project
“It hasn't been built yet, but once it is, it'll be the biggest and most expensive civil engineering project in U.S. History.”
Grunwald: Global farmland equals the area of Asia plus the Americas
“Right now, it's like, you know, Asia plus the Americas is used for agriculture”
Speculative water use is technically legal in Wyoming
“That's water speculation. And in Wyoming, it's technically not illegal.”
Adams: About 85% of HVAC systems are replaced during emergencies
“It's almost all air conditioners and furnaces are replaced on an emergency basis. They go out when it's hot or it's cold. So it's about 85% Is the number for that?”