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
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Elon Musk scrapped Tesla's Model 2 on the spot for the robotaxi
“When he saw the robotaxi, he was so bowled over by whatever it was he saw in it, right, that he remarked to his to his team, wow, you know, this looks great. Let's just do this. He scrapped the Model Two on the spot, and he said, let's do the robotaxi. We're d…”
Assertion Supported
Cumulative US LNG emissions could exceed the footprint of 1,000 coal plants
“If you add up all the emissions from what's in operation, all the emissions from what's under construction, all the emissions from what is being proposed beyond that, we could be talking about the emission footprint of about a thousand, actually more than a th…”
Assertion Supported
Del Chiaro: California solar sales fell 80% after net metering changes
“California just announced, you know, just put in place major changes to the number one driver to that market, which was net metering, and we just got data today that shows that sales are down 80% across the state.”
Assertion Supported
Green: Local anti-solar groups receive payments from climate denial networks
“And then they're supported by groups online or in their state or in their community that have ulterior motives, which we found. They're getting payments from organizations that have connections to climate denial,”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Utility union president directed extreme misogynistic slurs at female city council members
“At a city council meeting, after it was clear that things were not going to go in their direction, the president of the union himself said, I'm not resting till that fucking red flower, Corella de Vil cunt, and all those other fucking bitches are voted off tha…”
Prediction Held up
Biden: The US Will Bring an End to Nord Stream 2
“There will be no longer a North Stream Two. We will bring an end to it.”
Assertion Contradicted
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.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2027
Needham: CFS will demonstrate commercial net energy gain by 2027
“We're building a plant just about an hour west of here that in 2027 will show net energy gain in a commercially relevant architecture.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Das: Most Congressional Republicans now acknowledge human-caused climate change
“By and large, the Republican Party is You know, full of members of Congress who very much believe climate change is happening and is happening. For reasons caused by humans, and now our set of discussions are around how do we solve the issue.”
Assertion Contradicted
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…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Elon Musk canceled Tesla's affordable car to pursue a $10T AI pivot
“He's decided, I'm not a car company, I'm an AI and robotics company, and I'm about creating a 10 trillion dollar company that is based on first robotaxi, but then these humanoid robots, and he canceled, you know, the family car, the affordable car, the one tha…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tesla insiders doubt the robotaxi is ready to operate without pedals
“No one outside the company and no one inside the company who I spoke to anyway believes that the robotaxi is ready to be without a steering wheel, without pedals, and even if it were ready, that is ready for regulators are ready to say, yeah, go.”
Assertion Supported
Cornell research finds LNG lifecycle emissions are worse than coal
“It's been clear for years now that natural gas used domestically, because a lot of it leaks out, is pretty much akin to using coal, and now we have really interesting new data from Bob Howarth that Cornell, the kind of dean of methane scientists, who's done th…”
Prediction Partly held up
Planned US LNG expansion would surpass Europe's total greenhouse gas emissions
“If we let it go all the way that the LNG industry wants, Soon enough, American LNG exports will be producing more greenhouse gas emissions than everything that goes on in Europe.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
US emissions with LNG exports could surpass 2005 levels by 2030
“We could actually be looking at being above 2005 emission levels by 20 30 and beyond when you count in the export emissions that we're producing.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Wesoff: Ultra-cheap solar and storage may make advanced nuclear concepts obsolete
“We're gonna have amazingly cheap, abundant solar. Combined with storage, we may not need all of these advanced energy ideas.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kimber: US Grid Transmission Issues Will Not Get Fixed
“No one has the incentive to actually fix the problem, and that's why it won't get fixed.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Del Chiaro: PG&E's $55 monthly fixed charge will disincentivize solar
“PG&E now proposing 55 dollar a month fixed charge on all residential customers. Every single month, it will disincentivize efficiency and conservation and solar energy”
Assertion Supported
Del Chiaro: CPUC proposal forces multi-meter solar to repurchase generated power
“The Public Utilities Commission wants to apply the draconian changes to net metering and then some. They want to basically declare every electron that solar system generates on that apartment building and export and then force people to buy it back from PG&E a…”
Assertion Supported
Bowman: UN Draft Guidance Asserts Engineered Carbon Removal Is Unproven
“The Article VI supervisory body issued a guidance in May of this year, which by the way is not formally approved yet, and included a technical note that states that engineered carbon removal activities Do not contribute to sustainable development. The proposal…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tomlinson: Bass Brothers and Dan Friedkin pushed SB 624 to preserve ranch views
“And we know where that comes from. It's a coalition of wealthy landowners it's the Bass Brothers from Fort Worth. It's Dan Friedkin, who's a Hollywood producer and banker. We know about the folks down in South Texas. These are people who own hobby ranches. Rea…”
Assertion Supported
O'Brien: Nearly 60% of US TV meteorologists denied climate change recently
“For a very long time in our country, TV meteorologists were Outright denialists when it came to climate change. 50 plus, I, it was close to 60% just a few years ago.”
Assertion Supported
Florida Power & Light paid Matrix millions to fund ghost candidates
“An investigation from the Miami Herald and Orlando Sentinel found that FPNL, Florida's biggest utility, sent millions of dollars to Matrix to prop up fake candidates in local races. Those so-called ghost candidates siphoned votes away from candidates who the u…”
Assertion Supported
Matrix used utility funds to secretly finance six local news sites
“The floodlight team found direct financial links between six local news outlets, Matrix, FPNL, and Alabama Power. Matrix used utility money to fund political websites with names like Alabama Today, Florida Politics, and The Capitalist, and buy favorable covera…”
Assertion Supported
Kra: Greg Becker told investors only a run could bring SVB down
“And then Greg said something peculiar on the call. He said, we're solvent. We're in great shape. And the only thing that can bring us down is if all of you tell all of your companies to start pulling out share money.”
Assertion Supported
Patton: Some Louisiana plants have violated Clean Air permits for over a decade
“Some of these plants have been in consistent violation of their Clean Air Act permits for more than a decade, and they are still in operation every day.”
Assertion Supported
Patton: Marathon received $1.5M in ITEP tax exemptions per job created
“Under the ITEP program, Marathon was by far the largest benefactor from the program. At one point they were receiving 1.5 million dollars in tax exemptions per job that Marathon created.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Biden: The World Will Need Oil for at Least Another Decade
“I said, we're going to need oil for at least another decade, and that's going to exceed... And beyond that, we're gonna need it.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shah: Solar and wind generated 36% annualized returns since 2007
“Most of us who've been in the solar and wind industry have generated 36% annualized returns every single year since we were in there from 2007.”
Assertion Supported
Gas stoves account for 12.7% of childhood asthma cases in the US
“We found that 12.7% of childhood asthma Could be attributed to gas stove use, but in some states it was much higher because, for example, in Illinois, 80% of households with children cook with gas, and so for, in that state, it was about 21%, similar in Califo…”
Assertion Supported
Gas stove asthma risk is directly comparable to secondhand smoke exposure
“So when we looked at, okay, who else has calculated this PAF, population tributal fraction, for other factors, we found that for childhood asthma, it was very similar to exposure to secondhand smoke.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Friedman: Climate governance will see Article 6 completely collapse
“I think we will begin to see new laws and new protocols, everything from the revisions to the London Convention of the Sea to Article VI's complete collapse and dissolution.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Haspel: Corn and soy dominate due to crop efficiency, not subsidies
“There's a reason that soy and corn came to dominate the landscape, and it's not because of subsidies. It's because corn is the most efficient cereal grass, and soy is the most efficient leg.”
Assertion Supported
Rathi: US and China originated the COP26 'phase down' coal language
“And that two or three page document that Came on Wednesday was what then set the tone for the deal to happen on the Saturday, and in that deal is where we had the language around phase down of coal, and that's the language that eventually made it into the fina…”
Assertion Open · timeframe Dec 2050
Dennett: 2024-2050 copper demand will exceed all historical production combined
“We need more copper between now and twenty-fifty than in the history of human civilization. That includes the Bronze Age.”
Assertion Supported
Jurowicz: Nuclear is the only power source enabling decades of fuel stockpiling
“You can actually safe harbor and stockpile years, even decades, of a nation's worth of fuel and energy in the form of uranium and nuclear fuel. You can't do that with any other power generation technology. You can't do that with gas. You can't do that with coa…”
Assertion Supported
Jurowicz: Nuclear power has never been commercially project financed
“Nuclear power has never been project financed before. It has always been financed on the backs of taxpayers and ratepayers because it's been so prone to construction risk.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Sullivan: Mega-fund co-investing concentrates capital into narrow innovation categories
“Many of these larger funds end up doing quite a bit of co-investment amongst themselves. So that co-investment dynamic drives further concentration of the aggregate capital into a relatively narrow category of innovation at the early stage.”
Assertion Supported
O'Sullivan: Half of top 20 energy exits were corporate spinouts, not VC-backed
“Of, you know, the top 20 exits actually probably half or more were not kind of venture orientated or indeed growth or backed businesses, but they were corporate spin-outs and so on and so forth.”
Assertion Partly supported
Paruri: Perovskite Solar Requires No Rare Earths and Nothing From China
“There's no rare earths or critical minerals, no kind of Supply chain sensitivities or vulnerabilities, right? Like nothing from the inputs or the tools has to come from China.”
Prediction Partly held up
Paruri: All-perovskite tandems could achieve 60% to 70% efficiency
“And over time, you can engineer out the silicon, and you're just doing perovskite on perovskite on perovskite tandems, You can get to 60 or 70% efficiency.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Paruri: Tandem PV Tested Module Outdoors for 18 Months Without Degradation
“For the last few years, we've been making 10,000 panels a year, testing those in our indoor accelerated labs and also external testing And, you know, we're there on our kind of R&D format where we're able to, you know, we had a module outdoors for 18 months wi…”
Assertion Open · timeframe May 2029
Supercool Earth extracts more water from clouds than silver iodide
“And what we bring, as opposed to silver iodide, is that we can target more clouds and essentially bring, get more rain than silver iodide can currently today. So we can target more geographies, more warmer clouds, more seasonalities, and then at that same temp…”
Assertion Supported
Su: FT reported major Gulf economies reviewed invoking force majeure on commitments
“In early March, the Financial Times reported that the three of the four major Gulf economies were collectively Doing an internal review of whether they could invoke force majeure on their financial commitments.”
Assertion Partly supported
Su: Captive coal plants supply 60% of energy for Chinese solar manufacturing
“So it's kind of like you know, behind the meter for coal for a solar facility. So it's accounting for, I've seen some estimates, accounting for 60% of the energy used to produce these solar panels.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Enhanced rock weathering measurement remains too immature for long-term offtakes
“The quantification methods just aren't there yet. So this has been true for enhanced rock weathering for us to date. It's something we're working through right now. Like, is, do we feel good enough about the quantification methods of carbon removal through enh…”
Assertion Contradicted
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”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dutta: Startups Raising More Grant Dollars Have Higher Average Failure Rates
“Businesses that raise more grant dollars on average have higher failure rates.”