Shashank Samala

Co-founder & CEO, Heirloom · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

Samala leads Heirloom, a climate-tech company developing direct air capture systems that utilize limestone to absorb and permanently sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide. Earlier in his career, he co-founded Tempo Automation, a rapid electronics manufacturing platform, and served as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Carbon180.

12statements → 9claims → 7claims resolved → 86%fully supported → 3.83/5average certainty → 2/5average debate potential →

6 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 1 not checkable as stated how the 9 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 7 assertions · 1 opinion · 1 insight · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 9 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 7 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Shashank argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Heirloom's direct air capture is 5,000 to 10,000 times more land-efficient than trees

“So compared to trees, these are actually about Five to 10,000 times more land efficient.”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 23:16 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted

Humanity produces only three commodities at the billion-ton scale

“So it's three things. It's cement, steel, and fossil fuels.”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 10:04 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Shashank Samala on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

What they said12 Episodes1

Everything Shashank Samala said on How I Built This that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Carbon removal will become a trillion-dollar industry at $100-$200 per ton

“So, you know, we think that In a medium to long term, the carbon price is likely going to be in the hundred to 200 dollar per ton mark, and at that cost, for five to ten billion tons, we were talking about a trillion dollars worth of carbon removal industry.”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 17:14 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

Assertion Supported

Heirloom's direct air capture is 5,000 to 10,000 times more land-efficient than trees

“So compared to trees, these are actually about Five to 10,000 times more land efficient.”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 23:16 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

Opinion

Synthetic direct air capture materials are too expensive to scale globally

“So the traditional way folks have gone about it was basically to build a novel material artificially. But the problem was not whether you could capture the CO two. The problem was the cost of making that material. And because the supply chains don't exist, you…”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 7:37 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

Assertion Supported

Heirloom operates North America's first direct air capture and storage plant

“Yeah, so this is the first director capture facility in North America that captures and stores CO₂ from the air.”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 18:56 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2030

Carbon removal credit prices will eventually coalesce around $300 per ton

“And, you know, there's, we think that the price is going to coalesce around 300 dollars per ton, given where the supply and demand, ah, is.”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 21:25 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

Insight

Emissions reductions alone cannot prevent climate change without removing billions of tons

“We can't just reduce emissions anymore. It won't be enough to stop climate change if you've emitted too much. And, you know, you can reduce emissions you've already emitted, so we have to start removing some of that carbon from the atmosphere. By some I mean i…”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 3:53 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

Assertion Contradicted

Humanity produces only three commodities at the billion-ton scale

“So it's three things. It's cement, steel, and fossil fuels.”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 10:04 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

Assertion Supported

Heirloom's lime trays capture atmospheric CO2 and become limestone within days

“We stack these baking trays vertically To, you know, 2030, 40, 50 feet, and you effectively have a very tall baking rack with trays with thin layers of lime, and as the air passes through, basically gobbles up that CO₂, and in a few days it turns into calcium …”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 13:41 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

Disclosure

Heirloom signed a multi-hundred million dollar carbon removal deal with Microsoft

“This year we signed a contract with Microsoft. It's about 315,000 tons. It's a multi-hundred million dollar deal.”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 21:05 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

Assertion Supported

Heirloom won a $600M DOE grant for a Louisiana carbon capture hub

“The next facility is, you know, recently we won this directory capture hub award from the Department of Energy. So we won about six hundred million dollars to build a facility that can scale up to a million tons a year, and that is Southwest Louisiana.”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 24:09 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

Assertion Supported

Direct air capture must extract one CO2 molecule per 2,500 air molecules

“You're pulling one molecule of CO two out of every 2500 molecules. So fundamentally it's a You know, an expensive gas separation problem.”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 7:28 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

Assertion Supported

Limestone costs $30-$40 per ton and constitutes 4% of Earth's crust

“So we found that limestone specifically is, you know, you can get this stuff for like 30, 40 bucks a ton. There's trillions of tons of limestone across the world. There's four percent of the earth's crust.”

Shashank Samala Feb 8, 2024 ▶ 11:35 Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

Appearances (1)

Episode	Date	Speaking time
Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom	Feb 8, 2024	16m

Shashank Samala

The record, in short

Their most notable supported claim

Their most notable contradicted claim

How they sound: not measured why? →

Appearances (1)

Turn any episode into a week of clips.