Climate

Nuclear startups face new competition as energy giant Enel enters the ring

Climate /

Italian energy giant Enel is placing a bet on small modular nuclear reactors through a partnership with Ansaldo, another Italian energy company, and Leonardo, a defense contractor. The new company is expected to be announced in the coming days. Enel already has a deal with small modular reactor startup Newcleo to develop so-called fourth-generation nuclear […]

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Microsoft bets a carbon removal bake-off will help offset its skyrocketing AI emissions

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Microsoft is in a pickle: It has committed to being carbon negative by 2030, but its emissions have skyrocketed more than 40% since 2020, thanks in part to its booming AI business. The company has bought a bunch of renewable power, but some emissions, like air travel, have been impossible to eliminate. What’s a Big

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Ecolectro stuffs hydrogen production into shipping containers to cut costs

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For all its promise as a climate friendly fuel, hydrogen hasn’t had much luck. It lost the battle over personal transportation to battery electric vehicles, and for industrial users, it remains far more expensive than natural gas. That’s in part because natural gas can flow through sprawling networks of pipelines. Hydrogen doesn’t, which means buyers

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Nearly half of AI data centers may not have enough power by 2027

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AI’s insatiable thirst for electricity is expected to surge in the coming years, potentially leading to power shortages for data centers. New servers last year demanded 195 terawatt-hours of electricity, according to a new report from Gartner. That’s as much as 18 million households use in a year. But by 2027, new servers could command

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Atlas.co wants its web-based mapping tool to be the Figma of geospatial data

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Startup inspiration can strike anywhere. But for Atlas.co*, a freemium browser-based, real-time mapping tool that’s being built by an Oslo, Norway-based team of (initially student) engineers, the realization that there might be a business opportunity in competing with expensive legacy mapping software hit the founders during class. “When we took introduction class to GIS [geographic

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Lyten buys battery manufacturing assets from beleaguered Northvolt

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Lyten, a Silicon Valley battery startup, announced today that it’s acquiring manufacturing assets from Northvolt, a Swedish battery manufacturer that’s facing a cash crunch. As part of the deal, Northvolt is selling manufacturing equipment the company inherited in its 2021 acquisition of Cuberg, another battery startup. Lyten will also assume the lease of Cuberg’s old

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Germany’s Klim raises $22M to take its regenerative farming platform international

Climate /

Global food production generates at least a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, more than 80% of which comes from agriculture. But addressing that impact is easier said than done since there are simply so many moving parts to address. “Regenerative” farming is often touted as one way to make progress towards several sustainability goals, as it offers

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Ecosia and Qwant, two European search engines, join forces on building an index to shrink reliance on Big Tech

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Qwant, France’s privacy-focused search engine, and Ecosia, a Berlin-based not-for-profit search engine that uses ad revenue to fund tree planting and other climate-focused initiatives, are joining forces on a joint venture to develop their own European search index. The pair hopes this move will help drive innovation in their respective search engines — including and

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SpaceX alums find traction on Earth with their Mars-inspired CO2-to-fuel tech

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A trend has emerged among a small group of climate tech founders who start with their eyes fixed on space and soon realize their technology would do a lot more good here on Earth. Halen Mattison and Luke Neise fit the bill. Mattison spent time at SpaceX, while Neise worked at Vanderbilt Aerospace Design Laboratory

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Large funds are too invested in the energy transition to turn back now

Climate /

The results of the U.S. presidential election has left many worried about the future of climate tech, but the energy transition has enough financial momentum that experts aren’t expecting investment trends to change anytime soon. Limited partners like pension funds and endowments have committed $892 billion over the last decade to the energy transition, according

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