A lot's gonna change

Hi,

Bonus points if you get the Weyes Blood allusion. I’m sure some or many of you were watching the Super Bowl last night. Hope you enjoyed, even if the game was kinda over early. Here’s the roundup of climate tech and energy news from the week.

Firstly, I briefly want to call out seven things that matter a lot to me and inform some changes to this Sunday newsletter going forward. They will take me time; for instance, today’s newsletter is still long. But they will get shorter and shorter as I go. You’ll see what I mean as I practice this in 2025.

1. As I discussed here, I will not try to cover every iterative U.S. federal policy update that may or may not impact the U.S. and world’s climate and energy efforts. The short recap behind my reasoning is that a) there’s too much to cover, b) point ‘a’ is part of the overarching point, the strategy behind the information flood is intentionally to overwhelm you (more on that here), c) MY job is to distill signal from noise, to attune you to what may actually be worth paying attention to–from my vantage point–to the best of my ability. Making this email long doesn’t constitute ‘good’ curation. It’s too much for most, if not all of you, to sift through.

2. Curation is its own artistic craft. It’s intimately intertwined with a) time I take to parse a lot of information, b) my iteratively improving (but always fallible) understanding of what’s noise vs. isn’t, c) ‘taste,’ which, like attention, will become infinitely more important as we shift (slowly) out of the “Industrial Age” into some new age, one that I firmly believe is starting but will take decades to centuries to take shape in a comprehensive form. More on ‘taste’ here & here.

3. It is not physically, emotionally, or holistically sustainable for me to keep up with “everything” for many of the same reasons distilled here (and again, it isn’t ‘effective’ curation, as per #2)

4. The world is big. The U.S. isn’t the only country that matters. I wish the U.S. would, federally, continue to contribute to energy and climate tech innovation; it still will in some if not many ways. TBD. I have no doubt our private sector will, too. But at the most basic level, per Carbon Brief, “Over the past decade, China was responsible for ~66% of global oil demand growth, as well as (33%) of gas growth and more than 90% of coal demand growth.” Nor is it just macro; the local, municipal, and state-level work matters greatly (see here, here, & here)

5. What’s the outcome → Fewer words over time. Today’s is still long. But I’m pushing myself to focus on what I, to the best of my ability, see as the highest signal information I saw and sat with any given week. As opposed to a summary of most of what I saw. 

6. I could add 50 more bullet points here around questions such as “How much bad news is worth publishing?” or the distinctions between curation and meta curation and “meta meta curation.” But again, I’m pushing myself to see the “forest” (ideally old growth), not to characterize every tree.

7. At the end of the day, my foundational understanding of effective newsletter writing is that if you can get one reader to learn one thing, get curious about it, investigate it further, or respond to you in civic disagreement, you’ve succeeded.

If you resonate with this, great. If you don’t or want to discuss, please let me know.

In today’s newsletter:

• A correction

• One story in a sentence (and a chart)

• Climate tech and energy headlines from the week

• Climate tech fundraising announcements

♡ If you find this work valuable, you can support it here. I put a lot of time into it. ♡

** Quick correction **

Last week, I wrote, “Supersonic flight wouldn’t necessarily just make flight faster; it could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions impact.” More accurately, the reverse could well be true, too, which Joe Wyer helpfully pushed me on. The jury’s out. Yeah, these companies want to be net-zero with SAF production eventually. But there is virtually no SAF today. More reading here, here, and here.

THIS WEEK IN CLIMATE TECH & ENERGY

One story in a sentence (and a chart)

• Nuclear power capacity under construction by region and national origin of technology, as of December 2024 (IEA) [not much U.S. construction or tech!]

(dark blue = Chinese tech // light blue = Russian // green = any other country)

15+ headlines

The good

• Yet again, China continues to lead, breaking records for the world’s fastest bullet train. And I still can’t take a train from Los Angeles to San Francisco, even though that’s been discussed basically all my life. Greatest country on Earth!! Link.

• India aims to amend regulatory constraints on using U.S. nuclear technology to build six GW-scale AP1000s. For reference (as shown above), most reactors under development do not use U.S.-based technology. Link.

• Meatly, based out of the U.K., partnered with plant-based pet food brand THE PACK to launch what is allegedly the world’s first pet food made with cultivated meat (which is what Meatly makes). Not-so-fun fact: If U.S. pets constituted their own country, they’d be the 5th largest meat-consuming country in the world (which is tied to a lot of greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental externalities) Link.

• Waymo already does 100k+ electric autonomous rides weekly in San Francisco. Now, it’s expanding to LA and beyond. Autonomous driving is here, folks. Safer, cleaner, more efficient. And Tesla ain’t leading (and many others are struggling, too). Link.

• State’s rights: The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hold a dispute over California's standards for vehicle emissions and EVs despite substantial pressure from President Trump's admin, which is trying to gut EV policy support nationwide. Link.

The inbetweens

• In keeping with my newsletter on the “subsidsy situationship,” Canary Media did the work I couldn’t, which was to compile a full list of government funding projects that are in the ‘entirely uncertain’ category right now. G’bless you, Dan McCarthy, Jeff St. John, Canary Media et al. Incredible work–I can’t imagine how long that took. Link.

• DeepSeek has not scared off billions (trillions cumulatively) in investment to build out all the requisite physical infrastructure for data centers for AI: 

• The UAE announced it will allocate $50 billion+ to build data centers in France, where, thanks to an overwhelming share of fission in the power mix, the grid is pretty clean. Link.

• Amazon announced it will spend $100 billion on data center development. Link.

• Alphabet (Google) also plans to invest $75 billion in AI-related infrastructure this year. Link.

• Comprehensively, just four companies plan to spend $315 billion this year. Link.

• Meet the new team: As Trump’s cabinet forms, we get a (foggy) window into their policies and priorities. Energy Secretary Chris Wright unveiled an agenda prioritizing “energy affordability” and fossil fuel expansion. It sidelines many climate-focused policies but stops short of climate denial.

• Saying no to “Net-zero”: Wright’s opening salvo bashed “net-zero” policies as costly and unreliable, framing them as threats to U.S. energy security while advocating “energy addition” via expanded fossil fuel infrastructure and use. This aligns with Trump’s “energy dominance” ethos.

• Baseload boost: The DOE now emphasizes “baseload and dispatchable generation”—code for natural gas plants (but also nuclear and geothermal and hydro!)—while sidelining solar/wind investments. Nuclear in particular, got a nod with rare bipartisan support, with Wright pushing to “launch the American nuclear renaissance.”

• Regulatory rollbacks: Immediate targets include:

  • Appliance efficiency standards under “comprehensive review”

  • Fast-tracking LNG export approvals

  • Refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

• Caveats and contradictions: Wright acknowledges climate change is “very real,” but prioritizes energy access over emissions cuts, arguing 10% of Americans face utility disconnections annually. It’s an “affordability first” stance.

• Bipartisan bright spot: The CIRCUIT Act (Sens. Moran/Cortez Masto) proposes 10% tax credits for U.S. transformer manufacturers like ERMCO Inc., aiming to:

  • Reduce 2+ year waits for grid equipment

  • Support 750,000+ annual transformer production capacity

  • Address data center/EV-driven demand spikes

The bad

• As I wrote on Thursday, the Trump tariff tornado is far too much to digest line by line, nor is trying to do so helpful for most people or parties. If you feel like it, here are some cross-sectoral stories you can check out: Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link.

• Note, there’s a TON of nuance to parse in any and all of this (see here and here, for e.g.)

• Here’s also what one reader shared on my overarching post on the matter:

• Next up? Trump is proposing tariffs on steel (50%+ of which is made in China) and aluminum. TBD how long these last (over/under, anyone)? But they’d be significantly impactful, to say the least. They would seriously disrupt global trade, though they could benefit large U.S. manufacturers, like Nucor, that already produce a lot lower-emission steel than Chinese and Indian manufacturers. Link.

• Trump’s (ongoing) funding freeze may be the most serious of all, as it’s leading to not just the uncertainty for project developers and basically the entire energy economy, as discussed in these pages on Thursday, but is leading to project cancellations. Canceled factories and rescinded energy projects stranded by the spending freeze have left tens of millions of dollars in unpaid invoices piling up at DOE's Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, sparking fears that the new admin might dismantle key programs altogether. The freeze complicates Energy Secretary Chris Wright's ‘bipartisan agenda,’ too, with insiders suggesting that the OCED could target its weakest projects for cuts or reprogramming.

Re: projects, take ones like AESC’s, a large Japanese battery manufacturer, pausing plans entirely to build a second EV battery plant in Georgia that could have brought in billions of investments and created more than 1,000 jobs. Again, too much to summarize, but more reading is available here: Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. 

• Nor is it all Trump’s tariffs. Per pv magazine, “The American Active Anode Material Producers, a coalition of U.S. graphite producers, filed a petition for the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties on imports of active anode materials from China.” If implemented, batteries, the price of which has been declining for decades, buoying EV sales and battery energy storage deployment, could double. Link. 

Unwinding the below will take time, and to an extent, Trump has a point–it may require some “pain”:

• It’s also going hotter: Despite the cold snap in the U.S., January was once again the hottest month since we started measuring (1.75*C!!). Link. Link. Link. Link. Link.

• Similarly, the cold snaps that are hitting Europe and America, as well as the cost of transporting natural gas, are boosting coal usage (dirtiest fossil fuel, please don’t @ me re: LNG, I’ll eviscerate you line by line, I promise). Even in the U.S. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link.

• Meet Trump’s team part two: New Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum launched a sweeping overhaul of U.S. energy policy through six executive orders targeting fossil fuel expansion, regulatory rollbacks, and Biden-era climate program reversals:

• National Energy Emergency Declaration:
  Burgum invoked emergency powers to fast-track domestic energy projects, directing Interior to:

  • Identify all legal authorities to expedite permitting for oil/gas drilling, pipelines, and critical mineral mining. Link.

  • Bypass environmental reviews for “authorized infrastructure projects” under national security provisions. Link.

• Fossil Fuel Prioritization:
  The Unleashing American Energy order:

  • Terminates Biden’s offshore drilling bans, reopening 3.7 million acres of Outer Continental Shelf leases. Link.

  • Launches review of Inflation Reduction Act funds to block allocations for renewables/storage projects. Link.

  • Mandates “10 regulations cut for every new rule” across Interior agencies. Link.

• Alaska Resource Surge:
  Reinstates 2017 policies for the National Petroleum Reserve, allowing:

  • Drilling in 23 million acres of ecologically sensitive North Slope wetlands1

  • Fast-tracked approval for ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project and similar developments. Link.

• Climate Policy Purge:
  The Cost-of-Living Crisis order targets:

  • Elimination of methane emission rules for oil/gas operators. Link.

  • Review of appliance efficiency standards likely to weaken DOE conservation mandates. Link.

• North of the border (for now?), a carbon tax Canadian policymakers were pushing on consumer fuels is likely dead, too. Link.

• Everyone besides Waymo seems to be struggling with autonomous driving; Cruise (GM) is laying off half its staff. Ford also lost $5 billion on its EV segment last year, whoops. Link. Link.

• One more not fun one for you: Whether in the U.S. or Europe, EV demand is slowing for real this time (though China has been leading for a while as is). Some of this is due to Trump and Elon’s antics; some of it isn’t. Link. Link. Link.

• Last one, I promise; offshore wind looks dead in the water for the umpteenth time, as: 

1. Orsted slashes 2030 investment program by 25% (Reuters)

2. New Jersey puts brakes on offshore wind projects (AOL)

3. “New Jersey Board of Public Utilities Statement on New Jersey’s Fourth Offshore Wind Solicitation” (New Jersey Board of Public Utilities)

4. Dominion Energy's Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project cost rises by nearly $1 bil (13NewsNow)

5. Per my takes on all this from ~18 months ago – little of it is new

• Things I don’t have capacity to address but that seem important: here, here, and here.

CURATED DEALS

Larger funding rounds

• X-energy, based out of Rockville, MD, raised an additional $200 million in Series C-1 funding (bringing its total Series C-1 raise to $700 million) to make small modular nuclear reactors. Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund led. Segra Capital Management, Jane Street, Ares Management, and Emerson Collective participated. Link.

• Tidal Vision, based out of Bellingham, Washington, raised $140 million in Series B funding to turn crab shells into chitosan, a biodegradable material used in water treatment, agriculture, and material science. Cambridge Companies SPG, Eni Next, Milliken & Company, Kirkbi Climate, Convent Capital, Swen Capital Partners, MBX Capital, and the Oman Investment Authority invested. Link

• Elevated Materials, based out of Santa Clara, CA, spun out of Applied Materials, a major semiconductor manufacturer, and launched with an undisclosed amount of funding (“closer to” Series D funding, according to sources) to scale manufacturing of its lithium thin film technology at its plant in Alzenau, Germany, which it uses to improve energy density, cycle life, and first-cycle efficiency in lithium-ion and solid-state batteries. TPG Rise Climate led. Link. Link.

Medium-sized funding rounds

• Archive, based out of Portola Valley, CA, raised $30 million in Series B funding to help brands build profitable resale programs across apparel, footwear, accessories, and home goods. Energize Capital led the round, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, G9 Ventures, Capital F, and new investors Woodline Partners LP and Frontline Growth. Link.

• Urban Sky, based out of Denver, raised $30 million in Series B funding to develop and commercialize its Microballoons™, which are small, reusable high-altitude balloons that capture high-resolution aerial imagery and monitor wildfires at—what the company claims—a fraction of the cost of satellites, aircraft, or drones. Altos Ventures led the round, with participation from New Legacy Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, Catapult Ventures, Lavrock Ventures, New Stack Ventures, TenOneTen, DA Ventures, Union Labs VC, and Techstars. Link.

• BeGas Motor, based out of Madrid, raised ~$18.5 million in equity funding to make engines that run on biogas for industrial vehicles. Stellum Growth and Nexio Power led. CDTI Innvierte, Ekarpen Private Equity, Repsol Energy Ventures, Itzarri EPSV, Easo Ventures, and Seed Capital Bizkaia participated. Link.

• IONATE, based out of London, raised $17 million in Series A funding to develop hardware and software solutions that help transform existing electrical grids into decentralized energy platforms. AlbionVC led the round, with participation from In-Q-Tel (IQT), JGC MIRAI Innovation Fund, Santander InnoEnergy Climate Fund, and Antares Ventures. Existing investors IQ Capital, Zero Carbon Capital, and Cycle Group also participated. The funds will support expansion in Europe and entry into the U.S. market. Link.

• Presto, based out of Oakland, raised $15 million in seed funding for its EV fleet charging-management software (crowded space). Union Square Ventures, Congruent Ventures, Powerhouse Ventures, and Jetstream invested. Link.

• GenLogs, based out of Washington, D.C., raised $14.6 million in Series A funding for its software that helps freight and logistics operators analyze real-time data, patterns, and potential efficiency optimizations. Venrock and HOF Capital co-led. Link.

• Tyba, based out of San Francisco, CA, raised $13.9 million in Series A funding to help renewable energy developers, investors, and independent power producers optimize battery storage with energy price forecasts and automated dispatch decisions. It supports more than 1 GW of BESS projects across California and Texas; it plans to use the funds to expand into new domestic and international markets. Energize Capital led. Pear VC, Mobilize Climate Capital, Borusan Ventures, and previous investors Powerhouse, Wireframe Ventures, Virta Ventures, and Lorimer Ventures invested. In total, it has raised $18+ million. Link. Link. Link.

• Enduro Genetics, based out of Copenhagen, raised $12.3 million in Series A funding for its genetic tool that helps microbes sustain high production rates in precision fermentation, improving yields and reducing costs in biomanufacturing. Supernova Invest, NOON Ventures, and Sandwater invested. The funding, which closed in December after a roughly nine-month raise, will support scaling the technology for applications in pharmaceuticals, fragrances, flavors, and more. Link.

Smaller funding rounds

• MacroCycle Technologies, based out of Cambridge, MA, raised $6.5 million in seed funding to transform plastic waste into reusable plastic (purportedly) using 80% less energy than traditional methods. Clean Energy Ventures and Volta Circle co-led the round, with participation from KDT Ventures and Neotribe Ventures. Link. Note: I podcasted with MacroCycle a while back. Listen here.

• Astral Systems, based out of Bristol, U.K., raised ~$6 million in equity funding to make multistate fusion technology based on “lattice confinement fusion” and designed to deliver efficient, cost-effective (highly compact) fusion reactors. Target delivery date? EOY (not holding my breath). Speedinvest and Playfair led. Link.

• Modern Synthesis, based out of London, raised $5.5 million in funding to create more sustainable textiles by transforming nanocellulose—a natural byproduct of fermentation—into alternatives to animal leathers and plastic-based materials for high-end fashion brands. Extantia Capital led the round, with participation from Artesian and Collaborative Fund. Link.

• 44.01, based out of London, raised an additional $5 million in Series A funding Nysnø Climate Investments and Jasoor Ventures (bringing its total funding to $42 million) for its carbon removal business that focuses on accelerating rock mineralization. Link.

• BiocSol, based out of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, raised ~$4.6 million in equity and non-dilutive funding to make sustainable crop protection solutions and bio-pesticides. Pymwymic and Win4company invested; the Win4company program provided the non-dilutive funding. Link.

• Villari, based out of Delft, Netherlands, raised ~$4.1 million in equity funding to develop “crack-detection sensors for steel infrastructure.” Forward.one and Innovationquarter Capital invested. Link.

• Mantle8, based out of San Francisco, raised ~$3.4 million in seed funding to develop AI and imaging tools to locate and asses natural hydrogen deposits. Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Kiko Ventures invested. Link.

• Epyr, based out of Paris, raised ~$3.1 million in pre-seed funding to develop “large-scale thermal energy storage solutions” for industrial applications. AENU and Daphni led. OVNI Capital and WEPA Ventures participated. Link.

• Green14, based out of Stockholm, raised ~$2.1 million in equity funding from Ingka Investments to turn industrial waste into high-purity materials like silicon using a hydrogen-powered process (typically coal-based) to refine materials like silicon. The company claims it can add benefits, like copper and cobalt extraction from industrial waste. Ingka Investments and led. Link.

• Sequestra, based out of Vienna, raised ~$1.1 million in pre-seed funding to advance its patented technology platform for permanently binding CO₂ in industrial residues like steel slag and demolition waste, enabling large-scale carbon utilization in construction. Carbon Drawdown Initiative led the round, with participation from VSE Beteiligungs-GmbH and Climate Founders. Link.

• Heritable Agriculture, based out of Mountain View, CA, raised an undisclosed amount of equity funding from FTW Ventures, Mythos Ventures, and SVG Ventures for its plant breeding and biotech startup. Link.

Other funding rounds

• Altus Power, based in Stamford, CT, agreed to a $2.2 billion acquisition (including debt) by TPG’s Rise Climate Transition Infrastructure Fund. The deal offers $5/share (66% premium) to take the NYSE-listed commercial solar business. Link.

• Stratasys, based out of Tel Aviv, Israel, raised $120 million for its polymer 3D printing business from Fortissimo Capital. The company is already publicly listed on stock exchanges. This capital is primarily intended for medical device expansion, but 3D printing is “hot” for a variety of applications and industries ranging from automotive to agriculture to achieve greater material efficiency. Link.

• Blastr Green Steel, based out of Lysaker, Norway, raised its “second strategic partner financing round” (nature or size of financing undisclosed) to build hydrogen-powered steel plants in Inkoo, Finland. The company has noted it will need upwards of $4 billion for the project. Blastr’s steel decarbonization approach focuses on DRI-EAF steelmaking, which may be able to offer 90% CO2 emissions reductions compared to modal blast furnace operations. The financing was backed by new investors, including Aurora Infrastructure (Nordic electricity networks), Onvest Oy, and Security Trading Oy, as well as existing investors, including Cargill, Tesi, and Vanir Green Industries. Link. Link. Link.

• Pixel Photonics, based out of Munster, Germany, raised ~$1 million in grant funding from the German Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation for its single-photon detectors, which have transport-relevant applications like LiDAR. Link.

New funds

• Hitachi Ventures, based out of Tokyo, launched a $400 million fund to (predominantly make Series A investments) across energy, AI, and biotech. It’s Hitachi’s fourth corporate venture fund and its largest so far and follows the tailwinds in AI, data centers, and clean electron investment. Link.

• Despite exiting the Net Zero Bank Alliance, Goldman Sachs intends to raise a $3 billion ‘climate credit’ fund. Probably has more to do with the the hype around private credit than climate, imo. Link.

• Overlap Holdings, based out of New York, raised its first fund to the tune of $33 million. It will invest in seed through Series B business across focal areas, including energy, robotics, materials science, and several others. Link.

MORE TO EXPLORE

Jigar Shah, the 🐐 of government funding for reshoring cleaner energy technology manufacturing, catalyzing first-of-a-kind projects, and much more (formerly of the DOE’s Loan Programs Office (and a Keep Cool podcast guest as well) is rejoining the weekly podcast, now called Open Circuit, with former co-hosts of ‘the Energy Gang.’ Will be looking forward to listening to this one often!

I’m sure his future endeavors won’t stop there. Vaya con dios!

Bye : )

– Nick