Claims

Prediction · Technology

“I actually don't believe it will win in every area, because clean coal technologies will be so expensive, many renewables will come in cheaper.”

Vinod Khosla, venture capitalist, interviewee · 28 September 2007 · Interviews - Vinod Khosla (Frontline Heat) (PBS Frontline)

He did not believe clean coal would win in every area, because clean coal technologies would be so expensive that many renewables would come in cheaper.

Resolved true The record shows it happened or was so.

What would count as true or false

No horizon is given, so judge on cost and deployment evidence available when the research is done. True: levelized cost comparisons (Lazard LCOE, EIA AEO, IEA/NEA Projected Costs, IRENA) show coal with CCS is more expensive than several renewables, such as onshore wind and utility-scale solar PV, in many markets, and coal with CCS has not become the cheapest or dominant option in every region. Mostly true: coal CCS is costlier than renewables in most markets, but its high cost is not the main reason it failed to win. Mixed: coal CCS is cheaper than renewables in roughly as many major markets as it is costlier. Mostly false: coal CCS is competitive with or cheaper than most renewables in most markets and loses only in a few. False: coal CCS proves cheaper than renewables essentially everywhere and wins across all areas.

Evidence

1. [PDF] Reaching Zero with Renewables: Capturing carbon - IRENA International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) · 2021

   “In the power sector, renewables outcompete fossil fuels with CCS in terms of levelised costs of electricity (LCOE) and, in contrast to renewables, no significant capacity has been built to-date.”

2. [PDF] Reaching Zero with Renewables: Capturing carbon - IRENA International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) · 2021

   “In most contexts in the power sector, renewables outcompete CCS on cost per tonne of CO2 and sustainability grounds.”

3. [PDF] Reaching Zero with Renewables: Capturing carbon - IRENA International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) · 2021

   “IRENA’s annual assessment of renewable power generation costs for 2020 (IRENA, 2021b) showed that, increasingly, newly installed renewable power capacity costs less per kWh than the cheapest unabated fossil”

4. [PDF] Reaching Zero with Renewables: Capturing carbon - IRENA International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) · 2021

   “The respective roles of renewables versus CCS vary by country, sector and the specific contexts of each deployment.”

Reasoning

IRENA's 2021 report says that in the power sector, renewables beat fossil fuels with CCS on levelised cost of electricity, and that, unlike renewables, no significant CCS capacity had been built (E1). The same report says renewables beat CCS on cost per tonne of CO2 in most power-sector contexts (E2). It also notes that the balance varies by country and sector (E4), but nothing in the evidence shows coal with CCS winning in every area. This matches the criteria for "true", although it rests on one independent source that speaks of fossil fuels with CCS in general rather than coal specifically.

Cite this claim

Vinod Khosla, “He did not believe clean coal would win in every area, because clean coal technologies would be so expensive that many renewables would come in cheaper.” (said 28 September 2007). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_c8e86500499e, method 0.1.0+c876030c. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_c8e86500499e