BYD inks a monster BESS deal

Hi,

Hope you’re doin’ gr8.

I skipped my last two newsletters for the first time in probably four years (at least not without announcing I’d skip them prior). I doubt many of you noticed. I say that not as an indictment. I’ve talked to a handful of very dedicated Keep Cool readers in recent days who said they a) have a hard time keeping up with what I put out and b) didn’t notice.

I also skipped em’ because I needed a break and because I’m continuing to think critically about what the future of this newsletter looks like and what role it actually serves me and you, the readers. I’m continuing to think about what ‘my projects’ really are. So, more format tinkering to come, as well as bigger changes, (like moving to more of a weekylish model, writing a lot less volume-wise, etc…)

The essence of changes to this Sunday recap comes down to my core belief that:

• Good curation, or even ‘taste’ if you will, is a lifelong exercise in cultivating brevity, in living a “less is more mentality,” in espousing the opposite (or essence, really) of what Mark Twain (succinctly) got at when he wrote, “I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one.”

So, from now on, the recap newsletter will get progressively shorter. If you miss the length and detail of what I used to do, let me know. Umpteen other outlets aggregate everything under the sun well and I’m happy to point you in their direction.

More to come on what else I plan to do differently (including new things!) soon.

In today’s newsletter:

• A message & offer from people doing the work

• One story in a sentence (and a chart)

• 15 stories I took note of this week

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH MAKE SUNSETS

Some call them eco-terrorists. Many disagree with their cavalier approach. That's kinda the point, though. In many fields of endeavor, if you aren't making enemies, you're not pushing on sufficiently salient questions. You’re not on the “knife’s edge.”

Love em or hate em,' Make Sunsets likely accelerated the entrance of geoengineering into the zeitgeist by a year or two, if not more. What do they do? They send sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to cool the planet. There's little dispute about whether this ‘works’ (see here, for instance).

I buy Make Sunset's cooling credits every month. I wrote about why I think the company is on to something here. I've watched them work in person and helped with one of their launches. They're a conscientious team that cares deeply about the climate.

Want to support them alongside me? Buy cooling credits here.

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE (AND A CHART)

• Exhibit #134857 of China knowing how to build, according to plan, and actually executing on it, whereas the U.S. has lost its way; China’s high-speed rail network is bigger than the rest of the world's combined. Link.

15 STORIES I TOOK NOTE OF THIS WEEK

• Clean energy, whether via manufacturing or another pathway, contributed to 10% of China’s GDP in 2024, a new record. Link. Relevant / deeper Keep Cool reading here.

• China’s use of oil and other transportation-linked fuels is actually plateauing faster than expected (its coal use is not), per the IEA. Link. Relevant / deeper Keep Cool reading here.

• BYD, the Chinese EV and battery maker, announced an absolutely monster agreement to supply Saudi Electricity Company with 12.5 GWh of battery energy storage for a grid-connected project. Link. Relevant / deeper Keep Cool reading here.

• Not dissimilar to how DeepSeek—an LLM / OpenAI-type competitor—rocked the West recently after launching its model and open-sourcing its code, BYD also announced it will offer its self-driving technology on most of its cars for free now. This puts significant pressure on the likes of Waymo and Tesla. Waymo has a distinct lead in the U.S., as it already operates 150k weekly paid rides fully autonomously, while Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” software is probably the laggard of these three, at least. Link. 

• Mercedes Benz is the next global auto manufacturer in line to exhibit signs of distress, as Germany’s industrial complex struggles due to high energy prices and Chinese competition, with 2024 profits down 28% year-over-year. Nissan, also in deep trouble, called off its merger with Honda, which could have helped. The merger might still happen, TBD, but it doesn’t matter that much to the overarching story: Chinese automakers are eating the rest of the world’s lunch. Link. Link. More relevant Keep Cool reading here.

P.S., if you’re noting a Chinese theme in this newsletter, it’s not because I’m a Chinese ‘tankie';’ it’s because they’re the ones leading much of the work in this field right now.

• Elsewhere in transport, while I’ll always love Tesla for accelerating global road transport electrification by 5-10 years, basically on its own, Elon Musk’s political antics are turning U.S. and European customers off to the car brand. Of “All likely U.S. voters” surveyed by Data for Progress in February, 37% said they’re now “much less likely” to buy a Tesla. Link.

• While still struggling to reach escape velocity in terms of actual car sales, Rivian meanwhile did achieve gross margin profitability for the first time (though), mind you, that’s different than profitability at an operating margin or net income level). It’s the only U.S. EV startup to achieve that milestone besides Tesla so far. Link.

• Whether at the Federal or state level, the U.S. seems pretty serious about overhauling environmental review processes (which often hamstring building new infrastructure). That has significant implications for everything from energy to real estate, and, lest we forget, some natural ecosystems will inevitably be disrupted. It’s all tradeoffs, all the way down, at least in the current world order. Nor is this just a Trump thing, FWIW (see third link). Link. Link. Link.

• Microsoft unveiled a new chip for quantum computing that was 20 years in the making (shows what massive companies with huge cash reserves can do when they put their mind to R&D). Its new “topological qubit” and Majorana 1 chip (which allegedly involves another ‘phase’ of matter, i.e., not a solid, liquid, or gas) could drive efficiencies across many applications, though investors’ early reactions were muted on Friday. Link. Link. Link. Relevant / deeper Keep Cool reading here.

• Here’s some good news: Divert, a company we’ve covered multiple times, announced this week that it has helped Giant Food, one of its customers, process almost 80 million pounds of unsold food. By keeping that food out of landfills, the partnership has prevented the release of 37,000+ metric tons of CO2e (mostly methane, really). The partnership spans all 163 Giant stores across the Mid-Atlantic and ‘diverts’ wasted food to anaerobic digestion to convert it into renewable energy and soil amendments. FWIW, that’s probably more real-world impact than most, if not many, climate tech startups since the resurgence in climate tech interest and investment have actually made. Link. 

→ More relevant Keep Cool reading and listening here, here, and here.

• In another bass-ackward (shoutout Kurt Vile) energy move for an EU member, Belgium shut down its oldest nuclear reactor this week, though talks of a revival remain alive. Link.

• I know homeowners in the Bay Area firsthand who lost their private wildfire insurance shortly after the cataclysmic wildfires in Los Angeles earlier this year (Allstate pulled the plug on their future coverage). Their plan of last resort? The California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) Plan. The rub is that accessing coverage would have them cost $1,500 monthly (even “insurers of last resort” can’t sacrifice affordability for actuarial rigor). The family in question is considering selling the house and moving to a lower-cost, lower-climate-risk area. Across various risk types and the U.S. as a whole, their story is becoming more common, though not everyone chooses to relocate. California’s FAIR Plan now covers more property than ever (doubling since 2021). Link.

• Pursuant to the above, while this insurance crisis comes to a head in states like California (Louisiana and Florida have been ‘underwater,’ literally and metaphorically, for a long time, too), parametric insurance startups like Floodbase are partnering with insurance and reinsurance giants to expand hurricane protection for homeowners with few other options to turn to. Link. More Keep Cool listening here.

• There’s far too much going on at a federal policy level for me to break down—nor do I have any desire to do so, as it’s all in flux and explicitly designed to distract you and demoralize organized opposition (it’s not supposed to make sense!)—but one good case study is congestion pricing in New York. For one, congestion pricing is working quite well, and most New Yorkers (in the city, not the state) support it so far. Now, the Trump administration wants to kill it, probably mainly to test the extent of their power. What will happen? Likely a protracted court battle (if not multiple). Link. Link. Link.

• 5 fundraising rounds I actually think are noteworthy (vs. covering all of em’):

→ Archer Aviation, based out of Santa Clara, CA, secured $300M in funding from institutional investors to accelerate its hybrid aircraft platform development. The eVTOL company is expanding beyond its initial commercial aviation focus to pursue defense opportunities, which it says are "stronger than expected." Note: While most eVTOL makers have focused on urban air mobility for civilians, defense contracts are a good target for early revenue, not dissimilar to how SpaceX and other massive venture-backed winners like Anduril operate, i.e., using government contracts to bootstrap commercial operations and rely less on dilutive capital while spinning up revenue. Also worth noting: This is, like, the one SPAC I know that’s ‘working,’ or at least hasn’t shed 80% of its value. Link.

→ Twelve, based out of Berkeley, CA, raised $83M in additional Series C and project financing funding for its AirPlant™ One facility, building on a $645M raise from last fall. Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund led the round, with participation from Mitsui, the Development Bank of Japan, and others, like existing investor DCVC, which increased its position. The company's Opus™ System transforms captured CO2 into materials and E-Jet® sustainable aviation fuel. Note: The diverse capital stack here—mixing strategic corporate investors, Japanese institutions, and infrastructure financing—tells you real scaling work goes far beyond venture capital. Link.

→ The Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA), based out of the U.K., announced 27 international teams it will fund out of its £81 million (~$103 million) ‘Forecasting Tipping Points’ program, all of which will focus on developing early warning systems for climate tipping points (e.g., methane leaking out of thawing permafrost). One sample project? The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has an ongoing project studying thawing and risks to the Greenland Ice Sheet, which could someday collapse entirely, raising sea levels and reducing a substantial portion of some of the Earth’s most reflective (high albedo) land). Link. Link. Link. More Keep Cool reading here, here, and here.

→ Valar Atomics, based out of El Segundo, raised $19 million in seed funding to make off-grid "helium-cooled, high-temperature gas [nuclear] reactors." Riot Ventures led, and a who’s who of highly influential U.S. VCs have invested at this point. That’s also a massive seed round. It doesn’t mean a ton in the way of new operating nuclear capacity, but it’s a sign of where VCs want to place their chips. While early-stage venture capital rounds are primarily social signals, Valar Atomics does plan to show off a prototype thermal reactor next week (which they built very quickly). I wish the team the best. Link.

→ Cactos, based out of Helsinki, Finland, raised ~$7.4 million in funding to develop "distributed energy storage systems" that help businesses manage energy consumption. Superhero Capital and Union Square Ventures (USV) co-led. The company's 'Cactos One' units purportedly manage energy use and provide backup power automatically, paired with their 'Cactos Spine' software platform for real-time monitoring. Note: This is a crowded space, but USV is one of the most legendary and top-performing venture investors of all time, so they must see something here. Link. Link.

GO FROM 0 → 1 (OR 100) ON EARLY-STAGE CLIMATE TECH INVESTING 

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The program will run from March 20th to April 24, including weekly 90-minute sessions that combine education with access to coaching from experts and hands-on work diligencing deals with Climate Capital investors (people like me!)

Applications are open until March 13. Secure your spot today and join an upcoming webinar on March 7 to learn more.

Adios,

– Nick