1. Sources
We use primary public records only: companies’ own filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR), including press releases they furnish with them, and US federal spending records from USAspending.gov. We do not use social media, rumours, paywalled articles or anonymous sources. The coverage page lists every source, how often we check it and its status right now.
For the Project Progress Ledger we also read named regulator notices (published in the US Federal Register), Department of Energy announcements, and statements by project developers, their customers and financiers. We fetch only the exact pages listed in our records, keep a dated copy of each, and use a statement only if the quoted words appear exactly on that page. We show one short quotation per statement with a link to the original. A match proves the source says it; it does not prove the claim is true.
2. What each label means
Company-reported The company’s own words, typically a press release furnished to the SEC. It proves the company said it. It does not prove that every claim in it is true or that a pilot became a product.
Regulatory filing A statement in an SEC filing itself, such as a Form 8-K item. Companies carry legal liability for these, but they are still the company’s account.
Company-published A statement a developer, customer or financier published on its own website. It proves the company said it, nothing more.
Government-published An action published by a regulator or government body, such as a Federal Register notice or a Department of Energy announcement. It records the action exactly as stated: one permission is not every permission, and a conditional commitment is not money paid.
Government record A US federal award record. It shows money obligated by an agency. Obligated is not revenue, and it is not the total potential value of a contract.
3. Extraction and checks
Software reads each new filing or award and pulls out the headline, the core passage and any stated figures. Before anything is published it must pass hard checks:
- Every quoted passage must match our stored copy of the source character for character.
- Every figure must appear, as written, inside the passage it came from. We never compute, annualise or convert numbers.
- Dates come from the record’s own metadata. When a date isn’t stated, we say “not stated.”
An item that fails is narrowed (the failing part is dropped and the record falls back to what the filing itself establishes) or withheld entirely. Nobody overrides a failed check to publish faster. Each decision is logged.
The Project Progress Ledger’s rules
- Seven dimensions, never one score. Technical milestones, permissions, financing, customer and offtake, construction, commissioning and operational delivery each show their own latest sourced state, or “Not established in reviewed sources”. Our database refuses a state that does not rest on a statement filed in that same dimension, so one dimension can never move another.
- Units keep their own record. A project has a whole-project scope and, where its sources name them, physical units such as a block, a reactor or a phase. A statement about one unit sets that unit’s state only. One block in commercial operation says nothing about the next.
- Who is speaking is always shown. “Company reported”, “Regulator issued”, “Government record”, “Customer statement”, “Financier statement”, “Joint release” and “Secondary report” describe the source, not our opinion of it. When two sources disagree, both rows are shown and labelled “Conflicting sources”.
- What leads the homepage. The newest qualifying change of state, chosen by rule on every visit: disclosed in the last 48 hours first, then within seven days, a more material change before a lesser one. At seven days it leaves the lead. When nothing qualifies the page says so and shows a dated historical record, and when sources could not be checked it says that instead.
- Projections are labelled. A stated target is shown with the word “Target” and the date it was stated. We make no forecasts of our own.
- Each step keeps its name. An application submitted is not accepted for review, which is not a permit issued. A construction authorisation is not an operating licence. A conditional commitment is not closed financing, and closed is not disbursed. A memorandum of understanding is not a signed purchase.
- Targets are not progress. “Expects commercial operation in 2030” is kept as a target with the date it was said. It never sets a state, and when it changes both versions stay on record.
- Units stay honest. MW is power and MWh is energy; thermal megawatts are not electrical ones; a planned rating is not electricity generated. “Up to” stays a ceiling. We never add a company’s pipeline to a project’s capacity.
- Fusion results stay scientific. A plasma or gain milestone is recorded as the developer defines it and is never presented as electricity delivered.
- One release, one origin. Copies of the same release count once, however many sites carry it.
- Dates only as precise as the source. A quarter stays a quarter; nothing is rounded to an invented day.
- No sensitive detail. We show projects at the level of site and jurisdiction their own sources use, never facility layouts, security or operating vulnerabilities.
4. What we write ourselves
The “what the record establishes” and “what remains unknown” sections are fixed, careful statements for each type of record, written to be true of every record of that type. They don’t predict, rank or recommend. They exist so a headline can’t quietly turn into a conclusion.
5. Four dates, kept apart
When something happened, when the source published it, when we retrieved it, and when we published it are different facts, and every record shows them separately.
6. Corrections
Published records are never edited in place. A change creates a new revision with a note explaining what changed, and the old revision stays visible. If we emailed you an earlier version, we send you a short correction notice. All corrections are listed on the corrections page.
7. Silence and gaps
“Nothing changed” and “we couldn’t check” are different results. If a source is down or behind schedule, the site, your Monitor and your digest say so, and we never report a quiet week we didn’t verify.
8. Automation and independence
Power Inflection is operated by automated systems built by Quantum Economics. Subscriber watchlists are matched against records already published for everyone; they never steer what gets researched or published. No company pays to be covered or to change a record. Power Inflection doesn’t give investment advice or tell anyone to buy or sell anything.