Climate

WHAM! Nuclear fusion experiment hits new record for magnet strength

Climate /

A nuclear fusion experiment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has set a record for the strongest steady magnetic field confining a plasma, ushering in new hope that forthcoming demonstration reactors will deliver on their promises to produce more power than they consume.. The new magnets came from Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a pioneering startup in […]

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Mitti Labs aims to make rice farming less harmful to the climate, starting in India

Climate /

Rice is the staple crop of more than half of the world’s population. Demand is growing with the rising population in South and Southeast Asia. However, a significant portion of rice farming still relies on traditional cultivation methods that lead to substantial methane emissions, which are a major contributor to climate change — methane is

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Why Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ superconducting magnet sale is more than it seems

Climate /

Commonwealth Fusion Systems is shipping a pair of its specialized magnets to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the startup exclusively told TechCrunch. The move comes years before CFS anticipates starting its demonstration reactor, SPARC. It’s the first such deal, though possibly not the last, suggesting that the fusion sector has matured to the point where it

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Byway is using AI to help travelers slow down and take the scenic route

Climate /

Solo founder Cat Jones took the plunge on setting up a travel business right around the time the pandemic was hitting Europe in March 2020. Fast forward to summer 2024 and her curated package tour business, Byway, is announcing close of an oversubscribed £5.04 million Series A round (around $6.4M at current exchange rates). Jones’

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Google’s environmental report pointedly avoids AI’s actual energy cost

Climate /

Google has issued its 2024 Environmental Report, a more than 80-page document describing all of the massive company’s efforts to apply tech to environmental issues and to mitigate its own contributions. But it totally dodges the question of how much energy is AI using — perhaps because the answer is “way more than we’d care

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As the AI boom gobbles up power, Phaidra is helping companies manage datacenter power more efficiently

Climate /

Electricity demand is booming on account of AI. In a May 2024 report, Goldman Sachs predicted that data centers will use 8% of the U.S.’s total power supply by 2030, up from 3% in 2022, as cloud service providers expand to meet the demand for AI infrastructure. Assuming the current trend holds, U.S. utilities will need to

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Sensorita uses digital twins to help waste management companies streamline construction waste

Climate /

The amount of waste produced by the construction industry adds up to more than a third of the overall waste produced each year in the European Union. And it’s no better in the U.S. Stateside, the construction industry produces more than double the waste that households do each year. Sensorita wants to help the construction

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Cold shipping might be the next industry that batteries disrupt

Climate /

Hannah Sieber knows just how transformative batteries can be. At her previous startup, EcoFlow, she used them to replace generators, whether for powering homes after a bad storm or RVs at a campsite. The experience made her wonder what else batteries could do, especially smaller ones.  “What are the other industries that could dramatically change?”

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As battery startups fail, Sila snaps up $375M in new funding

Climate /

Amid a fraught environment for battery startups, Sila has raised $375 million to finish construction of a U.S. factory that will scale its next-generation battery technology for customers like Mercedes-Benz and Panasonic by the end of 2025. Sila, formerly known as Sila Nanotechnologies, is slated to finish construction of its Moses Lake, Washington plant in

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Climate X’s founders mortgaged their house to stay afloat — now they’ve raised an $18M Series A

Climate /

When it comes to building software for climate tech, it might make sense at first to work on something in the general vicinity of carbon accounting, given that the hottest software companies in the space have something to do with either accounting, offsets, removals, or regulatory disclosure. A glance at the startups in the space

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