Hello hello,

Halfway through the year! Can’t believe it. Hope all of you in Europe are surviving the brutal heatwave, certainly helps cast all the updates and work we’re focused on in these pages in starker relief. I’ll be heading out to Europe on Thursday myself, with my first stop in Berlin. If that’s home for you or you’ll be around as well… let me know!

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• Even in the U.S, more than half of people think climate change is a critical issue, though across the world, there’s also a stark perception gap in that most people underestimate the extent to which their peers agree with them. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• Western Europe recorded its most severe and widespread heatwave on record this week. Scientists from the World Weather Attribution service found the event would have been 2°C cooler as recently as 2003, and 3.5°C cooler in 1976, and was "virtually impossible" just decades ago. France hit 43.8°C in Palluau; the UK broke its June temperature record at 36.1°C; Spanish officials attributed as many as 212 deaths to the heat. Nearly half of Europe's 850 largest cities also endured their worst-ever heat stress levels. Link.

• The Indicators of Global Climate Change 2025 report found Earth's energy imbalance, the gap between incoming solar energy and energy radiated back to space, is now at a record high, driven by reductions in cloud, snow, and ice cover and by cleaner particulate air. Link.

• The Antarctic Peninsula recorded its highest June temperature ever earlier this month at 15.4°C (59.7°F), a full 20°C above the usual early winter average. Link.

• New research from the Wildlife Conservation Society and Macquarie University identified roughly 166,000 square kilometers of coral reefs across 71 countries with genuine climate resilience, which offers a more hopeful picture than previously thought, concentrated in Australia, the Bahamas, Cuba, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Link.

• Real Ice's Arctic sea ice thickening project added 50cm of extra ice thickness this season, up from 30cm last year, and found that its artificially frozen ice is unexpectedly more reflective than surrounding natural ice, an unexpected bonus for the project's climate impact. Link.

Nuclear fission and fusion

• The U.S. Department of Energy announced a $17.5 billion low-cost loan (supply chain loans) program to finance construction of up to 10 Westinghouse AP1000 reactors across five U.S. sites. If these come to fruition, it could add 11 gigawatts of zero-carbon baseload power to U.S. grids by 2035. The department is already in talks with seven utilities; Westinghouse and the utilities would jointly own the completed plants. Link.

• Valar Atomics' Ward 250 reactor completed a zero-power fueled criticality demonstration at the Utah San Rafael Energy Lab in Emery County on June 18. It’s the second advanced reactor to reach this milestone under the DOE's Reactor Pilot Program, and the first DOE-authorized reactor built outside a national laboratory. The facility was constructed from scratch in roughly nine months. Link.

• Aalo Atomics received DOE authorization to turn on its Critical Test Reactor at the Aalo-X campus. Energy Secretary Chris Wright came in person to sign the approval late last week. That’s the final regulatory step before Aalo can handle nuclear material and begin reactor start-up. Link.

• Commonwealth Fusion Systems received a "nine figures" investment from Abu Dhabi's Plynth Energy fund, adding Gulf sovereign capital to one of the most prominent fusion energy programs in the world. Link.

• China General Nuclear Power lifted the outer dome into place at its fifth reactor at the Ningde Nuclear Power Plant in Fujian province. The 270-metric-ton dome caps the containment vessel for the latest Hualong One, China's flagship domestically designed reactor. Link.

• Deep Fission, which aims to install next-generation nuclear reactors deep underground, raised $40 million in a lackluster IPO that came in significantly below its initial target. Link.

Elsewhere in energy and electrification

• The SunZia Wind and Transmission Project is now officially operational after nearly 20 years of development. Pattern Energy's 3.6 GW wind farm in eastern New Mexico, paired with a 550-mile high-voltage transmission line crossing into Arizona, is the largest renewable electricity project in American history, generating more power than the Hoover Dam. Link.

• U.S. battery energy storage installations in Q1 2026 surpassed the Q1 2025 record by 54%, reaching 3.3 gigawatts of new capacity across utility-scale, commercial, industrial, and residential segments, per Wood Mackenzie and the American Clean Power Association. Link.

• Tesla, Sunrun, and Renew Home announced a joint virtual power plant (VPP) offering with 16 gigawatts of dispatchable capacity available today, aggregated from home solar systems, batteries, and programmable thermostats. Sunrun and Renew Home paid out a combined $67 million in customer rewards last year from grid services earnings. Link.

• Ore Energy, a European iron-air battery startup competing with Form Energy, announced a 1-gigawatt-hour deal with Dutch utility Budget Thuis, with the first 400 MWh phase slated for 2028 delivery, building on the momentum from a successful grid-connected pilot with EDF earlier this year. Link.

• China Resources New Energy Holdings is set to raise $3.6 billion in what would be the largest IPO on record on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and China's biggest IPO in four years. The retail tranche was 683x oversubscribed. Link.

Policy

• China set a new target to source at least 50% of its electricity from non-fossil fuels by 2030, up from its prior goal of 42.3%. China also became the first country in history to surpass 4 terawatts of installed electricity capacity, with 62% of that now non-fossil. Link. Link.

• Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams lost his Republican primary to a fellow GOP challenger this week, driven largely by his approval of the Stratos data center (a Kevin O'Leary, of all people,-backed, 40,000-acre project that could consume up to 9 gigawatts) over intense public opposition on water, energy, and transparency grounds. The race adds to a growing list of state and local contests where data center backlash has flipped incumbents, including races in Alabama, Missouri, and Wisconsin. Link.

• Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called for a national moratorium on data center construction "until we can find a way to ensure they don't harm our nation's air, water, and power bills." A House subcommittee advanced the bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Act by voice vote in the same week, a narrower measure that would require data center developers to cover grid upgrade costs rather than halt construction. Link.

• The Trump administration agreed to pay Invenergy $765 million to cancel its four offshore wind leases, bringing the total committed to cancel U.S. offshore wind development rights to over $2.5 billion across three deals. In exchange, Invenergy committed to build natural gas plants and geothermal projects. Legal experts remain skeptical the settlements comply with federal law; seven state AGs have already challenged an earlier deal in court. Link.

• A bipartisan Senate bill co-sponsored by Senators Catherine Cortez Masto and Tom Cotton would prevent future presidents from interfering with already-permitted energy projects. The bill adds offshore wind coverage absent from the House version (the FREEDOM Act), strips a developer financial compensation mechanism in favor of court-appointed contractors, and extends fracking-style federal rule exemptions to enhanced geothermal projects. Link.

• The Trump administration paused its plan to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a $386 million network of over 900 ocean sensors tracking climate, weather, and marine ecosystems, following bipartisan congressional pushback and a Senate vote to halt decommissioning. Although one array off Oregon had already been removed before the pause was announced, this is still a huge save. Link.

• California's single-use plastics packaging law, which requires phase-outs, higher recycling rates, and $5 billion in industry payments, has drawn simultaneous lawsuits from a 17-state industry coalition arguing undue burden, and from environmental groups arguing the law's recycling definition permits methods that create toxic waste. Link.

• A French court ordered TotalEnergies to disclose climate risks linked to its products and develop mitigation plans under France's 2017 corporate duty of vigilance law, giving the company six months to amend its vigilance plan to include end-user emissions. The ruling stopped short of halting new fossil fuel projects. Link.

Philanthropy

• Frontier, the carbon removal advance market commitment, announced $915 million in new buyer commitments. Anthropic is among the new buyers, and this marks its first public climate-related financial commitment, lifting hopes that AI companies will become enduring supporters of carbon removal. Link.

• Michael Bloomberg committed $285 million in philanthropic funding to accelerate wind and solar deployment in developed and emerging markets, targeting that the two technologies eventually generate more than half of electricity in countries responsible for 70% of global emissions. Funds will support industry trade groups, market design, data collection, and private capital mobilization. Link.

• The Bezos Earth Fund granted $26 million to the Earth Fire Alliance for its FireSat satellite-based wildfire detection initiative, the largest single philanthropic grant to wildfire detection to date. Three satellites are slated for launch this summer, with a longer-term goal of monitoring every point on Earth every 20 minutes by the early 2030s. Link.

Transportation

• For the first time ever in the U.K., EVs have outsold petrol cars over a rolling 12-month period: 516,490 new battery EVs were registered versus 504,010 petrol cars in the 12 months to May 2026, per Carbon Brief analysis. This comes even as the car industry pushes to water down the UK's ZEV mandate. Link.

• European EV registrations rose 34% year-on-year in May across 17 markets, partly driven by higher fuel prices from the Iran war, though some executives warned demand could soften if petrol prices fall. Link.

• Slate, the stripped-down EV pickup startup, revealed a $24,950 starting price and an updated battery strategy: dropping the optional 240-mile NMC pack in favor of a standard LFP pack bumped from 150 to 205 miles. The switch reflects how dramatically cheaper LFP chemistry (roughly 40% less expensive than NMC) has become over the last four years, despite the U.S. LFP supply chain’s continued reliance on China. Link.

• Polestar announced it will exit the U.S. market after the Department of Commerce blocked the company from selling new vehicles under a Biden-era rule barring Chinese-origin software in internet-connected cars. The company, controlled by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, had sought a compliance waiver but was rejected, making it the first major casualty of the rule. Link.

• Honda is cutting its entire North American EV effort as the company faces its first annual loss since 1957, which is expected to exceed $15.7 billion. Link.

• Lucid Motors is cutting 18% of its workforce (~1,500 employees) and eliminating a second production shift at its Arizona factory. Link.

• Mobileye announced it will launch its own robotaxi service in a major U.S. city starting in 2027, targeting a fleet of roughly 17,000 vehicles within five years. Link.

• Waymo recalled nearly 4,000 robotaxis and suspended highway driving after identifying 13 cases in which its vehicles drove into highway construction zones in Phoenix and the San Francisco Bay Area. This is the company's sixth robotaxi recall. Link.

• EV fuel cost savings over gasoline currently stand at roughly $1,500/year for U.S. drivers charging at home, with particularly strong economics in nine western states where gas prices run above the national average and electricity rates run below it. This may decrease again as gas prices fall in coming months given oil prices are down again as the conflict in Iran slowly winds down (for now). Link.

• Momenta, a 10-year-old Chinese autonomous driving developer backed by Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, GM, Bosch, and others, is preparing a Hong Kong IPO expected to raise approximately $900 million at a ~$9 billion valuation. Link.

Other noteable financing rounds

• Missed this a few weeks back → Nyobolt, based out of Cambridge, U.K., closed a $60 million Series C at a $1 billion valuation for its tungsten niobium oxide anodes. Link.

• Also missed this one almost a month ago → CMBlu, based out of Alzenau, Germany, raised a €50 million (~$57 million) in Series C funding for its redox flow batteries. Link.

• Verse, based out of San Francisco, raised a $54 million Series B round led by Bessemer Venture Partners to manage energy procurement and orchestrates on-site battery storage to help data centers and large power users secure and optimize power access. GV, NVIDIA, and Norrsken VC also invested. Link.

• Maritime Robotics, based out of Trondheim, Norway, raised a $32.5 million round led by MS+Partners, with EnvisionTech, Nysnø Climate Investments, and Umoe also participating, to develop autonomous surface vessels and modular sea drone platforms for offshore energy, surveying, and environmental monitoring. Link.

• Astral Systems, a five-year-old Bristol, U.K. startup that builds compact fusion reactors producing medical isotopes for cancer imaging and targeted therapies, raised a ~$30.3 million round led by Mercia Ventures, with Tees River, Daphni, Blast Club, Speedinvest, and Playfair also contributing. Link.

• Foundation Alloy, a Massachusetts-based metals startup that mechanically bonds metal powders in a solid-state process to produce alloys without melting ([ideally] dramatically reducing energy demand versus conventional methods), raised a $22 million Series A led by Voyager Ventures. The company is building a 36,000-square-foot factory in Massachusetts and a smaller facility in New Hampshire, targeting 100x capacity growth by 2027. Link.

• Superlight, based out of Seattle and the U.K., raised a $21 million Series A co-led by Engine Ventures and 2150 to build purpose-built electric trucks for middle-mile logistics. The company has raised $33 million in total. Link.

• Critical Energy, based out of Hawthorne, California, raised a $19 million seed round co-led by Susa Ventures and Upfront Ventures, with MaC Venture Capital, Susquehanna Sustainable Investments, Humba Ventures, Scribble Ventures, and Underground Ventures also investing, to develop modular turbines for geothermal power plants. Link.

• Cuprum Metals, based out of Boulder City, Nevada, raised a $19.4 million Series A led by Lundin Family Office, with Woodline Partners and BHP Ventures also participating, for its water-based chemical leaching to recover copper from sulfide ores and mine tailings. Link.

• Ubotica Technologies, based out of Dublin, Ireland, raised an $11 million round co-led by Act Venture Capital and Greencode Ventures, with Atlantic Bridge also participating, to enable satellites to analyze Earth observation data onboard for maritime monitoring and offshore infrastructure threat detection. Link.

• Cactos, based out of Helsinki, raised €12.5 million (~$14.3 million) led by Union Square Ventures for its energy storage systems that use second-life batteries. JTel, Rando Ventures, Tesi, Hyundai, Silence VC, and FJ Labs also participated. Link.

• Aseon Labs, based out of Redwood City, California, raised a $10 million seed round led by Crane Venture Partners to develop automated pods to inspect, clean, and charge robotaxis. Y Combinator, Expa, Robin Hood Ventures, and Founders Capital also invested. Link.

Keep cool out there,

— Nick

Hey there,

Thanks for the patience on this one; been a bit busier of late and anticipate being so for much of the summer and fall. As such, I may start sending the news roundups on a biweekly versus weekly basis. TBD. Figured I’d still get this one out as there’s notable movement on the Iran war and its impact on oil market dislocations, plus some sunnier updates on solar power as it continues ‘eating the world,’ as the saying goes. All that and more below.

P.S. - hope all of you have a great father’s day this coming weekend!

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• Solar power overtook gas-fired power in Asia for the first time in April, 2026, though coal-fired power still reigns supreme on the contient. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• El Niño has officially begun, per NOAA, with a modeled 63% probability of sea surface temperatures reaching 2°C above norm, which would constitute a "very strong" event. There’s even a likelihood sea surface temperatures exceed 3°C of warming this year, which would make this year’s the largest El Niño on record. Forecasters warn extreme heat and weather could drive disruptions to food supplies, agriculture, and energy infrastructure, though the predominance of the impact will likely fall into 2027. Link.

• A new UN World Ocean Assessment covering 2021–25 finds the rate of sea level rise has doubled from ~2mm/year to 4.3mm/year, with 16% of total ocean heat accumulation since 1955 taking place after 2018. The report, drawing on nearly 600 scientists across 86 countries, warns of "severe and accelerating" anthropogenic pressure on ocean systems, widespread biodiversity loss, and notes that large-scale ocean current systems, which redistribute heat globally and regulate temperatures considerably, including in places like Europe, are themselves changing in ways that remain poorly understood. Link.

• Antarctica's Bellingshausen Sea is almost completely ice-free during what should be peak winter sea ice expansion season. Satellite data shows ~650,000 sq km of missing ice relative to typical ice extents, though this is the third such record low level in four years. Scientists warn the loss is likely linked to ocean warming—which is particularly intense this year given the mounting El Niño event, and may have intensified a peninsula heatwave last week that saw daytime temperatures peak at 15.4°C, more than 20°C above average; one Antarctic sea ice expert at the University of Tasmania said flatly: "I don't think we will see sea ice there any more. It's done." Link.

Energy market x Iran war updates

• We have a deal! The U.S. and Iran agreed to a 60-day ceasefire and a framework for nuclear talks, with a formal signing ceremony set for Friday in Geneva. The deal includes a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of global seaborne oil and LNG trade flows; full shipping volumes will take time to recover, given ongoing mine-clearing operations and the time it will take to rebuild trust generally. There are still many gaps between the parties that they’ll need to work through in the 60-day negotiating window, ranging from terms of nuclear enrichment, uranium stockpile disposal, sanctions relief, and Iran's missile program. Crude oil prices are now at their lowest levels since the war started, with both WTI and Brent trading close to $80. Link. Link.

• The agreement comes right in time, as the U.S.’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve is approaching critical lows. Specifically, the SPR is hovering around its Biden-era nadir; if it dips further, it will fall to the lowest level since 1983. Link.

→ With that, barring major updates, I’ll stop covering this topic all that closely.

More solar power milestones

• Solar generated more electricity than coal in the U.S. for the first time in history in May, supplying 12.8% of generation versus coal's 12.2%, according to Ember. The Trump administration still won’t let coal go down without a fight; last week, it announced plans to invest $700 million to “revive” the industry. Link. Link.

• New York set a new solar generation record on June 3, with solar meeting approximately 29% of the state's electricity demand around noon, primarily from behind-the-meter systems. That said, the New York Independent System Operator also noted the state’s grid is facing declining reliability margins. Link.

• Qcells has begun commercial production of silicon solar cells at its Cartersville, Georgia facility, the country's only vertically integrated solar manufacturing plant and the largest solar cell factory in the U.S. The plant will reach 3.3 GW of cell capacity by Q3, more than doubling current U.S. operational solar cell capacity. Link.

Elsewhere in energy and electrification

• Ormat Technologies has designed what it says will be the largest geothermal power plant in the industry at 100 MW, double the capacity of Ormat's current largest operating facility. Link.

• The UK is preparing to extend the life of Sizewell B nuclear power station by 20 years; owners and operators ECF and Centrica are close to agreeing a contract-for-difference with the government running from 2035–55 at approximately £70/MWh (~$93.85), a notably cheaper price than the £91.20 that new offshore wind plants in the UK recently negotiated. Link. Link.

• Separately, the new Hinkley Point C nuclear plant faces more potential delays due to, checks notes, fish protection requirements, which could effectively sink the UK government's 2030 grid decarbonization pledge given the plant's expected 7–10% share of UK power supply. Link. Link

• Elsewhere, Canada's Bruce nuclear power station brought its Unit 3 CANDU reactor back online after refurbishments completed seven months early and $107 million under budget, a welcome contrast to other recent nuclear projects in North America and Western Europe. Link.

• Battery startup ZincFive has announced plans to go public via a SPAC formed by SparkLabs Group at a $600 million pre-transaction valuation. If successful, it will raise ~$125 million. The company makes nickel-zinc batteries that are capable of faster charge/discharge cycles and feature lower flammability than lithium-ion. It hopes to sell to data center and AI infrastructure applications (who doesn’t right now). Link.

• Hawaii's average electricity bill hit $248 in May, up from $203 in April. The state's dependence on imported oil both for transportation and for power generation makes it uniquely exposed to price spikes. Electricity prices reached 52 cents/kWh, more than triple the national average of 17.5 cents, though with oil prices now falling, perhaps the state will see some relief soon. Link.

Policy

• Trump's DOJ is abandoning its appeal of a federal court ruling that vacated the president's offshore wind permitting moratorium, filing a motion to dismiss on June 10 after failing to submit an opening brief by the court's deadline. The order pausing permits and authorizations for offshore wind projects remains vacated, though the withdrawal of areas eligible for new leasing remains in effect. Link.

• The Department of Energy has also reversed the termination of 11 clean energy grants to states that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, following a court ruling that the cancellations violated the Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantee. The DOE itself admitted that projects being located in "blue states" was cited as part of its justification for the cancellations; red state projects had also been targeted in the original cuts. Link.

• The White House released draft regulations that would give political appointees final approval over federal research grants across government agencies; analysts worry the changes will stymie scientific research generally. Link.

• Texas Governor Greg Abbott has recommended sweeping data center reforms to state regulators, including requiring new facilities to add power to the grid, mandating closed-loop water systems, repealing data center sales tax exemptions, requiring annual reporting of electricity and water use, and making data centers pay their own interconnection costs. Link.

• The EU plans to extend its Emissions Trading System to cover foreign airlines flying to and from the region as part of a broader ETS reform package due July 15, aligned with the EU's 90% emissions reduction target for 2040. Link.

Transportation

• BYD Executive VP Stella Li told CNBC that China's EV market penetration could "very quickly" approach 80%, after already reaching 53% in 2025, up from just 6% in 2020. China's EV exports surged 78% in Q1 year-over-year, and BYD's new-car registrations in Europe jumped 115% in April, outpacing Tesla's 47% growth in the region. Link.

• The U.S. added BYD, Alibaba, and 186 other Chinese firms to the Pentagon's Section 1260H list of companies deemed to have ties to the Chinese military, flagging them as potential national security risks. The listing does not trigger immediate sanctions but alerts American organizations to risks of doing business with the named firms; BYD and Alibaba have both disputed their inclusion. Link

• General Motors made a strategic investment in sodium-ion battery startup Peak Energy, to explore alternative battery chemistries both for cars and for expansion into grid energy storage applications. Link.

• Einride, the 10-year-old Stockholm-based developer of electric autonomous freight vehicles and fleet software, has begun trading on Nasdaq following a SPAC merger valuing its equity at $1.35 billion. Shares traded up 70% in its first session. Investors include EQT Ventures, Northzone, Temasek, Norrsken VC, NordicNinja, and IonQ. Link.

Other noteable financing rounds

• Iceye, based out of Espoo, Finland, raised ~$520.5 million in a new quity round at an $11.6 billion valuation, alongside a $636 million secondary share sale, for its synthetic aperture radar satellite constellation that provides all-weather Earth observation data. General Atlantic led. Link.

• Climate First Bancorp, based out of St. Petersburg, Florida, raised a $67 million round co-led by Wellington Management and AllianceBernstein for its climate-focused bank and fintech platform. Specifically, it provides solar project financing and sustainable lending to community banks, credit unions, CDFIs, and green banks. Link.

• Endurance Energy, based out of Seattle, raised $54 million in Series A funding led by Founders Fund to develop deep-ocean geothermal energy systems near tectonic plate boundaries. Ascend, Construct Capital, Felicis Ventures, First Round Capital, Point72 Ventures, Riot Ventures, and Voyager Ventures also participated. Link.

• Evotrex, based out of Los Angeles, raised $30 million in Series A funding from GSR United Capital, Forebright Concerto Capital, TTGG Ventures, and Pegasus Capital, for its hybrid battery-powered RV travel trailers. Link.

• Galvany Energy, based out of Berlin, raised a €10 million (~$11.6 million) seed round co-led by SET Ventures and AENU to integrate acquisition, installation, and management of heat pump systems for multifamily buildings. Link.

• Skyfora, based in Helsinki, Finland, developing advanced atmospheric sensing technology to enhance weather forecasting and climate monitoring, raised €6.5 million (~$7.5 million) in a round led by Ugly Duckling Ventures, with Eviny Ventures, LUMO Labs, the European Innovation Council, and Business Finland participating. Link.

• Granarium Technologies, based out of Helsinki, raised €1 million (~$1.16 million) in pre-seed funding led by BSV Ventures to develop and commercialize nanocellulose-based supercapacitors from waste biomass for fast-response grid stability and industrial power quality applications, Beamline, FiBAN, EstBAN, and LatBAN also participated. Link.

My best,

— Nick

Hello hello,

Sadly I did not succeed in spotting a jaguar last week in Belize, but night hikes in the jungle were still replete with scorpions, tarantulas, toads and frogs, possums, many a bird, and much more. In lieu of a successful jaguar sighting, what I can offer four more new poems of mine, published in various online lit mags → here, here, here, and here.

On the climate, sustainability, and energy front, last week saw a raft of news in the fusion space in particular, alongside plenty of updates on the usual fare of AI, the war in Iran and its impact on global energy markets, and more. Let’s hop to it, shall we?

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• As per reporting and polling from Heatmap News, Americans’ attitude towards data center development has shifted markedly for the worse in recent months, so much so that more than 60% support a moratorium on new data center development nationwide (see second link), just as top AI companies prepare to IPO, I might add. Link. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• Helion, based out of Everett, Washington, raised a $465 million Series G round at a $15.5 billion post-money valuation. Thrive Capital led; new investors included Lux Capital, Alta Park Capital, Anti Fund, and others alongside returning investors like Lightspeed. The company is developing magnetic-confinement fusion power plants that generate electricity directly via electromagnetic induction (so, in this case, no steam turbines, unlike what this newsletter’s headline would suggest.) Helion has now raised $1.5 billion and is, from my vantage point, a frontrunner in terms of fusion developers with respect to who actually has a credible shot at producing power for a customer by 2030. Link.

• The WMO is warning there’s an 80% chance an El Niño event forms before September and a 90% chance it does before November. Similarly, the climate science community is concerned we may be in for the strongest El Niño so far in the 21st century, which, layered on top of an already-elevated global temperatures, risks triggering intense droughts, heatwaves, floods, and wildfires. Link.

Energy market x Iran war updates

• Iran-U.S. ceasefire negotiations collapsed again after Tehran announced it was suspending talks in response to Israel's expanded offensive in Lebanon. Iran also threatened to re-close the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and launched a deadly attack on a Kuwaiti airport this week. Oil prices were up again earlier this week, then fell again later in the week, and are up again to start the new week as of this writing; there’s little in the way of a discernible short-term reason for this seesaw! The main takeaway at this point for any given week has been that little is changing overall and that oil markets will remain quite constrained for much of the year at rhis rate. Link. Link. Link.

• U.S. commercial crude inventories have fallen to their lowest level since 2004, dropping 8 million barrels to 433.7 million. Meanwhile, to transit the closed Straight of Hormuz, some ships ferrying LNG and other fuels have started “going dark,” i.e., stopping all data transmission, prior to entering it to avoid detection (second link). Link. Link.

• In the vein of cataloging some illustrative downstream consequences of the ongoing oil market constraints, here’s one for this week: California's Air Resources Board voted to grant up to $4 billion in free allowances to oil refiners and industrial polluters to ease compliance with the state's 13-year-old cap-and-trade program and reduce affordability pressure given the spike in oil prices this year. The decision is predictably drawing criticism from the more climate-concerned analysts, economists, and policymakers out there, who have underscored the irony of California’s supposed status as a leader on climate and environmental regulations. Link.

More fusion news

• Focused Energy, based out of Germany, closed an oversubscribed $240 million Series A led by RWE to develop inertial-confinement fusion technology. The company aims to build its first demonstration system, Lighthouse, at a former RWE nuclear site. SPRIND, Prime Movers Lab, and the European Innovation Council Fund also invested. Link.

• Pacific Fusion, a Fremont, California based inertial confinement fusion company, unveiled a subscale pulser prototype that it claims successfully released 440 gigawatts in an 80-nanosecond burst. That milestone brings the company closer to beginning construction on its demonstration facility, which it will start building in New Mexico later this year. Link.

• Xcimer Energy, based out of Denver and also focused on intertial confiment fusion, activated its Phoenix laser system, which it claims is the world's largest privately owned laser. Featuring a 38-meter core capable of generating over 1 kilojoule of energy. Xcimer is betting that more powerful, less complex lasers can help make a commercially viable inertial confinement fusion-based power plant a reality. That’s not where my money is at, however; I see magnetic confinement approaches as more likely to yield scalable commercial power generation in the future. Link.

• Avalanche Energy, a developer of compact fusion reactors based out of Tukwila, Washington, is the latest clean power generation company to pursue an IPO, even as it (like other energy companies on or seeking public market listings) has yet to sell a watt of power to a customer. This week, word got out the company has hired Jefferies to prepare for a potential IPO later this year. Link.

Elsewhere in energy and electrification

• China installed the containment dome on its latest reactor at the Lianjiang nuclear power plant in Guangdong province, a routine but meaningful construction milestone. China has roughly three dozen conventional, light-water fission reactor under development right now (half of all capacity under construction worldwide), whereas the U.S. has none (it only has two reactors under development at all, and those are SMRs). The U.S. still has the largest nuclear fleet in the world, but that may well not be true in 2050. Link.

• The U.K. also reached a noteable milestone at the long-delayed Hinkley Point C fission power plant (which will feature 3.2 gigawatt of capacity via two reactors once completed), where the second reactor pressure vessel was lifted into place this week. Link.

• In an effort to raise the dead (or at least the dying), the Trump admin announced up to $850 million in coal support via the Defense Production Act, including $425 million to expand capacity at 13 existing coal plants, $75 million for a new West Coast coal export terminal, and $350 million toward the first new U.S. coal plants in over a decade (one in Alaska, one in West Virginia), plus upgrades to Puerto Rico's Guayama facility and a Maryland plant that closed in 2024. Link.

• Fervo Energy provided an update (directly in my email inbox) regarding a recent incident at its 500 MW Cape Station geothermal power plant, which is currently under construction, noting it contained the flow of fluid and that there were no injuries, no environmental damages, nor any needed pause construction. The company is still targeting first power at Cape Station by late this year.

• FERC approved Constellation Energy's request to transfer grid interconnection rights from its Eddystone gas plant to the Three Mile Island site, clearing a major obstacle for its planned 2027 restart (and rebrand as the “Crane Clean Energy Center”). The decision overrides an earlier PJM warning that had pushed the restart timeline to 2031. Link.

• Urenco, the British- and Dutch-government-owned nuclear fuel enricher, announced plans to expand capacity at its National Enrichment Facility in New Mexico (the only commercial uranium enrichment plant in the U.S.) by ~50%, in what it described as a multi-billion-dollar commitment to domestic nuclear fuel supply chain resilience. Link.

Policy

• The U.K. government set a draft target to cut emissions 87% below 1990 levels by 2040. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband framed it as protection against fossil fuel price shocks, though the proposal faced swift opposition and debate regarding just how much that will require across many sectors and from tax payers. The proposal still requires parliamentary approval by the end of June. Link.

• New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont filed suit against the Trump administration over its agreement to reimburse TotalEnergies nearly $1 billion for walking away from two offshore wind leases, alleging the deal violates federal law and misuses taxpayer funds. Link.

• The Trump administration is dismantling the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a $368 million deep-sea monitoring network with an annual operating budget of $48 million. Since 2016, it has helped track and monitor coastal currents, oceanic carbon absorption, marine ecosystems, and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), in particular. The National Science Foundation has already started sending ships to remove more than 900 instruments anchored off Oregon, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina, and the Irminger Sea. Losing this infrastructure, which isn’t that expensive in the grand scheme of things, imperils not just the U.S.’s, but the world’s capacity to understand how climate change is impacting oceanic systems like AMOC. Considering its scale and the increasing scientific consensus that it’s at severe risk of weakening, AMOC is becoming a focal point of concern both in climate circles and outside of them. The Trump admin’s move here is probably best understood not as a cost saving measure but as an admission that climate change is impacting systems like AMOC and that they’d prefer people not to know or think about that fact, lest it cause voters to demand more action. Link.

• In response to the above, the European Commission announced OceanEye Europe, a program designed to increase its contributions to the global ocean observing system such that it has a 35% share by 2035 and to secure 35% of the market for ocean observation technologies generally. Europe is particularly exposed to risks associated with AMOC’s weakening; in a scenario where AMOC fully collapses, temperature differentials between northern and southern Europe could spike by up to 4° C (7° F). Hence, it’s not surprising they’d pony up for more monitoring infrastructure to support more foundational scientific understanding of whether and to what extent AMOC is weakening already, modeling of future AMOC trajectories and associated risks, and early warning systems. Link. Link.

• The European Commission is also taking Ireland to court over widespread illegal peat extraction, alleging there’s been ongoing, sizeable bog cutting and extraction without securing the requisite permissions or environmental impact assessments, in violation of EU habitat protection laws. Peatlands are highly concentrated stores of carbon; when mined, they readily release both carbon dioxide and methane emissions. Link.

More on data centers

• To stay competitive in the AI race and to deploy more compute capacity as quickly as possible, Meta has apparently been putting tens of thousands of chips in tents (125,000-square-foot tents, that is) at its New Albany, Ohio data center campus. The ‘strategy,’ reminiscent of Tesla's 2018 tent-manufacturing playbook, has reportedly cut compute buildout time in half, although I doubt that trying to keep data center operations cool in tents versus, say, a building, is the most efficient set-up per se. To power the chips and the rest of the requisite infrastucture, Meta inked a 10-year deal with Williams to build a pair of 200 MW off-grid natural gas-fired power plants. Both the make-shift nature of this approach and its reliance on natural gas as opposed to cleaner energy and/or energy storage, is emblematic of companies willigness to cut corners to scale AI right now. Link.

• Meanwhile, New York's legislature passed a one-year moratorium on large data center development, giving the state time to develop regulations around energy and water use. Whether Governor Hochul will sign the bill is TBD. Link.

• A JPMorgan analysis found that more than 60% of U.S. AI data center capacity planned for 2027 is not yet under construction, with another 7% already delayed, as power constraints, permitting fights, and supply chain backlogs slow the buildout. Link.

• A new United Nations University report also found that global data centers consumed 448 trillion watt-hours of electricity last year (more than all but 10 countries) and produced ~208 million tons of CO2 emissions (about half a percent of global totals). Link.

Other noteable financing rounds

• Gigascale Capital, based out of Palo Alto, closed its first institutional fund at $250 million. It will invest in early-stage companies rebuilding the physical economy (think clean energy, grid infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and physical AI). Link.

• Spiro, based out of Dubai, raised $215 million in equity financing from investors including Impact Fund Denmark for its electric motorcycles and battery-swapping infrastructure. Link.

• InCharge Energy, based out of Los Angeles, raised a $46 million round led by S2G Investments to expand into distributed energy management generally (battery energy storage systems, solar, and electrical distribution infrastructure) to support reliability across its EV charging network reliability. The company already manages more than 30,000 EV charging and other energy assets across North America for commercial fleets, school districts, and municipalities. Link.

• Gigaton, based out of London, raised a $26 million Series A led by Plural to use AI to simulate industrial process behavior and autonomously adjust plant controls to reduce fuel use and emissions across cement, steel, glass, and chemical production. Link.

• Terra AI, based out of Palo Alto, California, raised $20 million in Series A funding to use AI to improve subsurface mineral analysis for critical minerals exploration. Khosla Ventures led. Link.

• Red Metals, based out of Charleston, South Carolina, raised a $10 million seed round led by Gigascale Capital to develop an integrated copper refining process that converts scrap feedstocks directly into finished copper products, eliminating the multi-step intermediate chain of conventional refining. Future Ventures, JB Straubel (founder and CEO of Redwood Materials, co-founder of Tesla), and my team at Climate Capital also invested. The company plans to invest $70 million in a Charleston facility as it scales. Link.

Ciao,

— Nick

Hi there,

Happy June. I’m writing to you from the jungle in Belize, where I’m happily camped out in a hut for a week. Nice to slow things down a bit and turn inward a bit. Wish me luck this week as I make efforts to see a jaguar; that’s my main goal this week; i’ll report back.

Today, let’s check out at what went down last week across the climate, energy, and sustainability circles I keep myself apprised of. The headline news is that, unfortunately, we’re seeing another wave of countries, corporates, and other groups and jurisdictions, like New York state, uncommit from sustainability and net zero pledges they once made. For the original piece in which I called out this waxing trend in Q1 2025, see here.

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• According to new research from Pew American’s conviction that current climate change is driven in large part by human activities has fallen by 5% since 2022; the belief that “there is no solid evidence” for that claim is also down in parallel, however. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

Energy market x Iran war updates

• Oil prices spent most of the week reasonably stable and relatively subdued; they’re down markedly from recent wartime peaks but also still ~50% above levels seen before March. Still, it’s been more than three months since the Straight of Hormuz has been effectively closed, and several execs at major oil and gas companies spent the weekend warning that global oil inventory levels have fallen perilously low as companies and countries dip into them to offset shortages and high prices. If the oil doesn’t get flowing again soon, price dynamics could change again in a nonlinear fashion that’s otherwise been averted so far by using the inventories in question. Link. Link.

• Given how low oil reserves and inventories are globally, countries and blocs the world over are also taking even more initiative to reduce pressure on prices and encourage more production. The EU is reportedly drafting a plan to waive penalties for three years for oil and gas companies that breach its methane emissions law. Norway is also apparently lobbying the EU to lift its Arctic drilling moratorium to unlock resources representing nearly two-thirds of Norway's petroleum reserves. Link. Link.

Elsewhere in energy and electrification

• Fervo Energy, the next-generation geothermal developer that recently completed one of the hottest IPOs of the year (and of the decade, really, as far as climate and energy companies, especially outside oil and gas, are concerened) suffered a blowout at its first commercial power plant that it’s developing in Cape Station, Utah. The full extent of the damage was unclear at the time of reporting; blowouts—i.e., uncontrolled, high-pressure release of underground fluids, steam, or gases from a drilled well—are not uncommon at geothermal sites. This could delay this closely-watched project, but it’s not a disaster. Link.

• Last Energy became at least the fourth nuclear microreactor developer to receive Department of Energy safety approval for a pilot plant, namely its 5 MW demonstration reactor at Texas A&M University. A second unnamed company also received PDSA approval the same day, per a LinkedIn post from the DOE's Idaho operations manager. The DOE approval is a procedural step and does not cover commercial electricity production, which still requires NRC licensing. Dozens of fission startups have received approvals of various sorts over the past few months and years as they inch closer to commerical operation of various reactor designs, but all of them are also still multiple steps away from actually getting a novel, new reactor hooked up to and sending energy to a U.S. power grid (or even a behind-the-meter customer). Link.

• The Trump administration is also considering letting five VC-backed nuclear startups (Oklo, Standard Nuclear, Exodys Energy, SHINE Technologies, and Flibe Energy) negotiate access to surplus weapons-grade plutonium from dismantled Cold War warheads. Link..

• China’s Southern Power Grid reported a record-high power load in May, nearly a month earlier than typical summer peaks, as early heat waves drove electricity demand to 259 GW. China is also stockpiling more than a 30-day supply of coal in preparation for an anticipated El Niño-fueled summer power crunches. Link. Link.

• Another week, another speculative energy-focused SPAC. ProLogium Technology agreed to go public via a SPAC merger valuing the solid-state battery maker at approximately $3.8 billion, following a path taken by rivals QuantumScape and Solid Power, and by many other energy sector companies of late (X-Energy, for instance). Nuclear developer Newcleo is also preparing to public via SPAC at a roughly $2.4 billion valuation. There’s no shortage of these deals hitting public markets at multi billion dollar valuations for companies that are effectively pre-revenue. I doubt it’s a sustainable dynamic but it’s as they say: don’t hate the player, hate the game! Link.

• This week in audacious data center plans: Anchorage-based Stak Energy proposed building a $500 million, 3 GW data center complex on Alaska's Arctic North Slope, citing the cold temperatures for cooling equipment, inexpensive land, and plenty of natural gas supply. TBD if they can get past environmental reviews, source natural gas turbines and deliver them all the way out there, and make good on water consumption claims, which they forecast at 90% lower water than comparable facilities in the lower 48 given the reduced cooling needs if they can use cold Alaskan ambient air for that. Link.

Transportation

• The latest data (IEA) shows that China continues to account for roughly 75% of all new EVs produced globally as EV exports from China to Europe grew 62% year-over-year in the first two months of this year, pushing China's European market share to a record 22%, up from ~3% five years ago. EV sales across the developing world (ex-China) also surged 80% annually, with Southeast Asia more than doubling and Latin America up 75%. U.S. EV sales, by contrast, fell 27% in Q1 2026 after the federal tax credit expired, with total market share plateauing around 6%. Customers worldwide are on pace to buy ~23 million EVs this year, representing 28% of all light-duty vehicle sales; Outside of Europe and the U.S., Chinese models accounted for 55 percent of all EV sales last year. Link. Link.

• Waymo began offering free rides to select riders in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco in the Ojai, its new Chinese-made electric robotaxi. The goal is to slowly begin reducing its fleet-wide costs as it grows overall deployment. This rollout comes the same week Waymo suspended service in six cities after its vehicles drove through flooded roads during storms. There’ll be some hiccups along the road but, on the whole, the self-driving roll-out continues scaling without too much of a hitch. Link. Link.

Industry

• California Resources Corporation became the first company in California's history to inject carbon dioxide into an underground storage formation, as it started up its Carbon TerraVault I project in Kern County. The site is designed to permanently store up to 30 million tons of CO₂ in depleted oil reservoirs roughly a mile underground. Link.

• BHP quietly shelved billions of dollars in decarbonization projects at its iron ore operations in Australia, with an internal memo leaked to the Guardian and ABC News revealing that the mining giant's plan to hit net-zero by 2050 had a "low probability of success." Not exactly a tremendously startling revelation. Link.

Climate science

• .The UN's World Meteorological Organization now estimates there's an 86% chance at least one year between 2026 and 2030 will be the hottest ever recorded, as a strong El Niño is forecast to take effect as early as December. There’s also a 75% chance that the entire five-year average from 2026 to 2030 will exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Link.

• Meanwhile, a record heatwave, driven in part by a heat dome is already battering western Europe. Portugal saw temperatures hit 40.3°C recently, an all-time record for May. Turin (Italy) suffered blackouts which were blamed on grid strain from hieghtened cooling demand, and Italy generally issued a red alert due to heat for Rome. Link.

Policy

• New York's Democratic-controlled legislature effectively gutted the state's landmark 2019 climate law, swapping a 40% emissions reduction target by 2030 for a weaker 60% by 2040 goal. The shift is being couched in terms of feasibility and affordability. Governor Kathy Hochul, who is up for reelection, signed the rollback. Climate groups have already sued the Hochul admin for missed deadlines. Doubt they’re any happier now! Link.

• Tony Blair also published an essay calling for the U.K. to ditch its net-zero agenda, abandon clean-energy-first priorities, and extract all remaining North Sea oil and gas reserves. Separately, reports emerged that senior Labour cabinet ministers are increasingly questioning the party's opposition to new North Sea drilling. Link. Link.

• The Bezos Earth Fund has only allocated 28% of the $10 billion in philanthropic funding it committed to grant by 2030 to address climate change. The pledge was made in 2020, so more than half of the time in which grants were supposed to be made has now elapsed. Annual spending dropped to $183 million in 2025; while it has reportedly risen to ~$400 million this year so far, the fund still needs to pick the pace up markedly. Link..

• Burberry pushed its net-zero target back a decade from 2040 to 2050, citing supply chain complexities and alignment with peers like Kering and LVMH. The move is part of a broader retreat from ambitious climate commitments across corporate Europe. Link.

• In better news, California reaffirmed its 25-gigawatt offshore wind target for 2045, even as the Trump administration paid a developer to abandon its floating turbine project off the state's coast and has been waging a holistic policy jihad against wind generally. Link.

Honorable financing mentions

• Focused Energy, based in Darmstadt, Germany, raised a €240 million (~$281 million) Series A fundign round to develop laser-driven fusion energy systems using deuterium-tritium fuel capsules. RWE, SPRIND, and the European Innovation Council Fund invested. Link.

• Thea Energy, based in Kearny, New Jersey, raised $100 million in Series B funding for its stellarator-based fusion power company. Thomas Tull's U.S. Innovative Technology Fund (USIT) led; General Innovation Capital Partners, Linse Capital, Calm Ventures, Climate Capital, and others invested. Link. I also wrote about the business previously here.

• Endurance Energy, based out of Seattle, raised between $25 million and $30 million in seed funding led by Founders Fund to try and harness undersea geothermal energy. Not fully clear to me why you’d expect that to get cost competitive with other generation options longer term but as always, I’m ready and excited, even, to be wrong. Link.

OTHER COOL STUFF

Sightline Climate is partnering with Elemental Impact to create a 2026 climate founders and entrepreneurs survey. If you’re a founder in climate tech or consider yourself an entrepreneur in the space in any capacity they’d love your input. It only takes ~10 minutes, is fully anonymous, and you'll be entered to win a $50 gift card. Results will also be published in an upcoming CTVC newsletter and report. Hundreds of founders have already shared their perspective; join em here! The survey will close Friday, June 12th.

Adios,

— Nick

Hey folks,

Hope all those in the U.S. had a great Memorial Day Weekend. I’m back in New York for a bit for work and to catch up with some folks before I get back on the international travel circuit with my next destination being Belize. I’m sure I’ll learn some cool stuff about susatainability out there, particularly / at minimum on the conservation front. I’ll report back. Before that, let’s round up the news from the past couple weeks across energy, climate, sustainability and more. There’s been plenty to chew on, including one of the first IPOs for a climate tech company from the early 2020s vintage!

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• Crude oil prices are still ~50% higher than they were before conflict in the Middle East escalated in March, and prior decreases in oil have been met with abrupt increases again over the past few months anytime a proposed ceasefire failed to prove enduring. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• Geothermal startup Fervo Energy completed a Nasdaq debut, raising an upsized $1.89 billion and pushing its valuation past $10 billion. The Houston-based company applies horizontal drilling techniques developed during the shale era to previously inaccessible geothermal resources and is the first enhanced geothermal systems company to reach public markets. At Cape Station, its inaugural commercial project in Utah, Fervo aims to get 100 MW of generation capacity online in 2027, and then scale that up fivefold to 500 MW in 2028. The stock is up 33%+ since debuting; as of this writing (5/25), $FRVO fetches a $11+ billion valuation. Link.

Energy market x Iran war updates

• Peace talks between the U.S. and Iran continued to oscillate wildly of late. Trump declared a framework agreement "largely negotiated" on Saturday, prompting a 5% drop in oil prices, which has extended into a more pronounced drop to start this week as both sides again signaled progress, with Brent closing around $96 and WTI near $90. We’ll see if this détente sticks; even if it does, it will take some time for prices to normalize. Link.

• One in three Americans was living in “energy insecurity” in 2024, up from roughly one in four in 2020, per EIA data. During that period, utilities sent 94.9 million final shutoff notices in a single year. A Heatmap-MIT analysis found more than 98% of 400-plus utilities have raised rates since 2020, over half by more than 20%, with 79% hiking again in 2025. The burden is also falling hardest on those already least able to absorb it. Link.

• The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index dropped to 44.8, a lower reading than we’ve seen ever since the survey launched in the 1950s, as wartime fuel costs and pervasive cost-of-living anxiety weigh on households. Notably, this print comes even as equity markets continue setting new highs. Link.

Elsewhere in energy and electrification

• Wind and solar combined generated more than 22% of global electricity in April, eclipsing natural gas in global generation share for the first time on record. Ember attributed the milestone partly to seasonal conditions and partly to the Iran war accelerating the shift away from fossil fuel dependence. Link.

• U.S. grid battery additions reached 9.7 GWh in Q1 2026, the strongest opening quarter on record and a 32% improvement over Q1 2025 per SEIA and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. Link.

• Ford Energy, the battery storage unit carved out of Ford Motor's EV operations, also secured its first major commercial win: a five-year supply agreement with EDF's North American renewables arm for up to 20 GWh of battery systems delivered at 4 GWh annually, with initial deliveries slated for 2028. Link.

• NextEra Energy agreed to acquire Dominion Energy in a $67 billion all-stock transaction that would produce the world's largest utility. The combined entity would carry a $420 billion enterprise value, operate roughly 110 GW of generation, and step into a 130-plus GW queue of "large load" interconnection requests (data centers foremost among them) targeting service by 2032. That queue alone would dwarf New York State's entire installed base several times over. The companies pledged $2.25 billion in customer credits over two years as a sweetener for state regulators. Link.

• Germany is now expected to overshoot its 2030 climate target by up to 100 million tonnes of CO2 (“MtCO2”), according to its independent climate advisory council. The government had estimated its overshoot at just 4.5 MtCO2 previously. Having reduced emissions roughly 48% from 1990 levels, the country still needs to hit 65% by 2030 and is still targeting net zero by 2045. Link.

• A proposed AI data center in northwestern Utah spanning more than 62 square miles that will require 9 GW of energy generation capacity, i.e., more than the entire state currently consumes, is facing a local ballot challenge after nearly 4,000 residents filed objections to its energy and water demands. Link.

• Cleveland also rejected a permit for a $1.6 billion data center in a residential neighborhood. Approximately 25 data centers were canceled nationally in Q1 as local opposition becomes a meaningful constraint on hyperscaler expansion. Link. Link.

• The IRA-era solar and battery manufacturing build-out in the U.S. is (understanbly) losing momentum. New solar factory announcements tumbled from a peak of over $2 billion per quarter to roughly $350 million last quarter; capital deployed into new solar facilities fell 22% between Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, and battery manufacturing investment dropped 16%. The primary driver is the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which set a July 4 construction-start deadline to claim wind and solar tax credits. Link.

Transportation

• Global EV and plug-in hybrid sales are trending toward a record 23 million units this year, with the IEA projecting nearly 30% of all new cars sold globally in 2026 will be electric or plug-in hybrid. European EV and PHEV combined share is expected to reach one in three vehicles; Asia-Pacific ex-China and Latin America are each forecast to grow well above 40%. Link.

• China's auto export mix crossed a historic threshold in April: new energy vehicles accounted for 52.7% of total outbound units at 406,000 cars, marking the first month ever that China shipped more EVs abroad than combustion vehicles. Domestic sales, however, fell 21.5% to a multi-year low. Link.

• U.S. EV sales dropped 23% year-on-year in Q1 2026 after the expiration of federal tax credits, with volumes also essentially flat versus the prior quarter per Rhodium Group's Clean Investment Monitor. Link.

• U.S. hybrid sales climbed 20% over the past year, and nearly 50% just since February, as drivers rattled by fuel prices gravitate toward a middle path that doesn't require the same payback calculus as a full EV purchase. Link.

• U.K. EV sales meanwhile set an all-time quarterly record in Q1 2026, with about 87,000 pure electric vehicles sold between January and March per SMMT, a 32% year-on-year gain and the highest-volume quarter the market has ever recorded. Pure electric light duty vehicles sales share is still ‘only’ 4.3% of total sales. Link.

• Tesla's Austin Robotaxi service has logged 17 crashes since its summer debut, with the company bearing fault in roughly seven, per newly unredacted NHTSA filings. Two passengers suffered minor injuries and one required hospitalization. On the whole, self-driving performance remains markedly safer than human driving; Waymo has a substantially larger data set than Tesla so far towards this end. Link.

• California announced a $1 billion rebate program targeting electric medium- and heavy-duty trucks as part of its continued push toward zero-emission commercial vehicle adoption. Link.

Climate science

• Antarctic sea ice has fallen to unprecedented lows, according to new research in Science Advances, and there’s risk that a self-reinforcing feedback loop is already underway to drive continued losses thereof as diminished ice leaves ocean surfaces more warm and salty. Through 2015, Antarctic sea ice had actually been on a modest upward trend, but that brightspot in albedo and climate resilience to global warming has been lost. Link.

• Stardust Solutions, the geoengineering startup backed by former Israeli nuclear officials and $75 million in total funding, published the full composition of the particle it wants to spray in the stratosphere to deflect incoming sunlight: amorphous silica in the first generation, and a calcium carbonate-core silica shell in a second design engineered to avoid stratospheric heating at higher deployment scales. The company argues that dispersing 10 million tons over several years could lower global temperatures by 1.5°C, a proposition that more than 600 scientists have formally called for an international ban on. Link.

Fission and fusion

• Deep Fission, which is developing small nuclear reactors housed deep underground, also filed with the SEC for a $150 million IPO targeting a valuation of up to $1.66 billion. Link.

• X-energy, which is also now publicly listed, commanding a valuation north of $10 billion, secured NRC approval of the environmental review for its debut plant, which will feature four 80 MW Xe-100 high-temperature gas-cooled reactors at Dow's Seadrift, Texas facility. This represents the first commercial nuclear project in the NRC's 52-year history to clear environmental permitting through an assessment rather than a full environmental impact statement. The safety review recommendation is expected in November. Link.

Policy

• The Trump administration announced it is easing restrictions on hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), potent greenhouse gases used in air conditioners and refrigerators, framing the decision as relief for grocery store and thereby consumer prices ahead of the midterms. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin joined Trump at the White House; a separate proposed rule would also roll back HFC restrictions on transporters of refrigerated goods. Link.

Honorable financing mentions

• Boston Metal, based in Woburn, MA, a green steel and critical metals startup, raised a $75 million round (raising total funding to date over $500 million) to restart its Brazilian plant after a January equipment accident forced layoffs, and to expand into metals including niobium, tantalum, vanadium, and nickel. Climate Investment participated. Link.

• Star Catcher, a two-year-old startup based in Jacksonville, Florida, raised $65 million in Series A funding led by B Capital to build an orbital power grid that transmits solar energy via laser to satellites in space. Shield Capital and Cerberus Ventures also participated. Link.

• Gridcare, based out of Redwood City, California, raised $64 million in Series A funding led by Sutter Hill Ventures to use physics-based AI to surface unused electrical grid capacity and accelerate power connection timelines for data centers and AI infrastructure. John Doerr, National Grid Partners, Future Energy Ventures, Emerson Collective, and Stanford University also invested. Link.

• Mantle8, based in Grenoble, France, raised a €31 million (~$36.2 million) Series A led by Sandwater for its subsurface modeling and exploration technologies that identify commercially viable geologic hydrogen reserves. Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Ecotechnologies 2, IP Group, Wind Capital, and Calderion participated. Link.

• Iceotope, based in Sheffield, U.K., raised a $26 million Series B to that manufacture a chassis-based liquid cooling systems for AI data centers and edge computing infrastructure. Two Seas Capital and Barclays Climate Ventures co-led. Link.

• Aboard, based out of Orange, California, raised a $13 million in Pre-Series A funding co-led by Ondine Capital and Llama Ventures to build electric travel trailers with integrated batteries, towing assist systems, and automated controls designed to extend range and enable off-grid capability. Link.

• Texture, based out of New York, raised a $12.5 million Series A co-led by VoLo Earth Ventures and Equal Ventures to create a unified operational layer for electric utility cooperatives to conduct real-time grid monitoring, distributed energy resource management, and OEM integrations. There are 850-plus co-ops serving 42 million people in the U.S. Lerer Hippeau and Abstract Ventures also participated. Link.

• Qurie, based out of Freiburg, Germany, raised a €2.2 million (~$2.5 million) round from High-Tech Gründerfonds, Technology Transfer Fund TT49, and Aepikur for its electrocaloric cooling systems designed to replace electrically responsive materials for the compressors and refrigerants in conventional HVAC and refrigeration. Link.

• S2G Investments, based out of Chicago, raised $1 billion for its S2G Solutions Fund I, targeting "missing middle" growth-stage businesses improving supply-chain resilience and energy and food security. Portfolio companies include XOcean, Echandia, Exacto, and Urbint. Link.

• Playground Global, based out of Palo Alto, closed its fourth fund at $475 million, with a mandate spanning compute architectures, semiconductor materials, energy technologies, robotics, and quantum computing. Link.

• Convective Capital, based out of San Francisco, launched an $85 million second fund targeting climate resilience infrastructure. Founder Bill Clerico cited "$60 trillion of real estate at high risk from disaster" and argued that conditions have deteriorated enough that private markets are now positioned to lead where public spending hasn't. Link.

OTHER COOL STUFF

On the podcast front, I have both a new podcast of my own to recommend to you as well as a fantastic podcast from friends Ben Eidelson and Anay Shah at Stepchange:

• Ben and Anay’s podcast is a magnum opus on the history of power grid’s and how a deeper understanding thereof informs ongoing discussion and analyses of how best to simultaneous grow power supply and decarbonzie it. Highly recommend giving it a listen (perhaps over a few days), if you’re keen to learn more about the grid or, as was my case, it’s simply been a while since you thought about it that critically as opposed to other climate-y things.

• For my latest podcast, I was stoked to welcome Aidan Madigan-Curtis, Partner at Eclipse Capital, to the Keep Cool Podcast. Eclipse Capital recently raised another $1.3B in new funds, and now manages more than $10B, making it one of the larger yet underdiscussed venture firms funding decarbonizaiton work, among several other key pillars of focus. Aidan and I discussed Eclipse’s outlook and theses as well as many other topics ranging from whether and to what extent the data center buildout should still be expected to be a boon for decarbonization and sustainability and how public market narratives (fitting as we discuss Fervo’s IPO) have shifted to priviledge hardware-focused businesses again after a decade in which software was the darling and valuations reflected that. Tune in for all that and more here.

Finally, here’s a cool job opportunity: my friends at Althea Insurance, a new climate resilient insurance play starting with storm coverage in the U.S., are hiring a software engineer to support their rapidly scaling product. “Backend-first, full-stack capable” is a glimpse into how they’re thinking about the role; many more details available here.

Until next time,

— Nick

Hello,

Hope you all had a lovely Mother’s day yesterday, especially if you’re a mom!! One quick heads up: I’ll be in Hawaii this week for a friend’s wedding, so it’s unlikely I’ll publish a roundup this time next week. I’ll get back to post a few more articles and regular roundups for the rest of May after this week.

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• New research from S&P Global offers a retort to the prevailing theory that data center development is the biggest driver of increasing electricity prices in the U.S. (“we observe no clear correlation between the change in state-level electricity prices over the last five years and the change in state-level data center capacity over the same period"). Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• In a landmark shift that has gone almost entirely unnoticed in English-language media, the scientific body that sets official scenarios for IPCC climate research has retired its most extreme warming pathways (RCP8.5, SSP5-8.5, and SSP3-7.0) formally labeling them "implausible." The new top-end scenario projects roughly 3°C of warming by 2100, versus the 4.4°C figure that dominated headlines and policy for two decades. There hasn’t been a ton of media coverage of this story, including in outlets, like the New York Times (most prominently) that used those scenarios to inform past reporting. Link.

• Airborne microplastics are a previously underappreciated climate forcer. According to new research in Nature Climate Change, colored plastic particles lofted into the atmosphere absorb sunlight and trap heat, with a global warming impact equal to about 16.2% of black carbon's. The finding challenges prior assumptions that atmospheric plastics were climatically negligible because lighter particles reflect sunlight. Link.

• A strengthening El Niño has pushed near-term temperature forecasts higher. Updated modeling now puts 2026 at roughly 1.46°C above the pre-industrial baseline, with 2027 projected at approximately 1.61°C. Forecasts for 2027 also now carry an 85% probability of making it the warmest year ever recorded, with an 88% chance of breaching the 1.5°C threshold. Both estimates have risen from projections made at the start of the year. Link.

Energy market x Iran war updates

• Oil futures are up again at the time of this writing after they fell somewhat over the course of the week on hopes that there’d be more progress soon towards peace in the Middle East. Now, that prospect looks remote again as hostilities flair up again. Link.

• The pump price pain keeps intensifying in the U.S., where gasoline prices hit a new wartime high of $4.54 per gallon, up roughly 51% since the conflict began. Link.

• U.S. airlines also burned through just over $5 billion in jet fuel in March, a 56% increase over February, as the Iran war-driven oil shock has also rippled into aviation costs. Link.

Elsewhere in energy and electrification

• The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) escalated a Level 3 grid alert, only the third such warning in the watchdog's 58-year history, after data centers in Virginia and Texas suddenly dropped off the grid, creating conditions that experts warned could trigger widespread blackouts. The alert comes with seven mandatory actions for grid operators and transmission planners. Link.

• U.S. electricity prices in April rose 6.7% above April of last year, with the 12-month trailing average also up 6.5%. These gains are consistent with the growth trend of the past five years, per Heatmap and MIT's Electricity Price Hub. The national picture, high in and of itself, also masks some ugly local dynamics: New Jersey and Washington D.C. saw trailing 12-month averages climb 21% and 25%, respectively, as power demand outstrips supply in the PJM market. Link.

• China's solar manufacturing sector is undergoing a pullback. The country's 22 biggest panel makers collectively lost 10.5 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in Q1 as raw material prices cratered and demand remained relatively soft. New installations tell a similar story, as capacity additions dropped 31% year-on-year to 41.4 GW in Q1. Link.

• Geothermal developer Fervo Energy has filed to go public at a $6.5 billion valuation. It aims to raise over $1.3 billion in an IPO. Recently reviewed leases owned by Fervo represent more than 40 GW of potential capacity (equal to~15% of total installed U.S solar). Link.

• As we’ve began to point to in recent weeks, local communities are pushing back on data center development more and more; Q1 2026 saw roughly 100 new local fights logged, a record for a single quarter, and cumulative project cancellations have now topped $85 billion over the past three years, per Heatmap Pro. Link.

• Microsoft appears to be quietly retreating from what was once corporate America's most ambitious clean energy commitment, namely a 2030 pledge to match every kilowatt it consumes with carbon-free power on an hour-by-hour basis. The company has already paused its carbon removal purchasing program and stopped mentioning the hourly target in press releases; Bloomberg now reports it may formally delay or drop the goal entirely. Overall, the AI buildout has already torched much of Big Tech's climate commitments; since ChatGPT launched in late 2022, Meta's reported carbon emissions have surged 64%, Google's 51%, Amazon's 33%, and Microsoft's 23%. Link. Link.

• Construction is underway in northern Switzerland on what will be the world's largest redox flow battery, a 2.1 GWh system being built by FlexBase that can push or pull 1.2 GWh of power in milliseconds. The $1 billion-plus project targets a 2029 launch and will anchor a broader technology complex that includes a co-located data center. Link.

Fission and fusion

• Brookfield Asset Management and The Nuclear Company are teaming up to restart construction of two AP1000 reactors at South Carolina's V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, a project that was abandoned nearly a decade ago following massive cost overruns. Link.

• Ontario Power Generation has set the foundation for what could become the Western world's first operating small modular reactor, completing the below-grade concrete base of its BWRX-300 unit at the Darlington station east of Toronto, roughly 35 meters underground. If the project stays on schedule, it enters service in 2029. Link.

• Chicago-based Clean Core Thorium Energy cleared a meaningful technical hurdle for its patented thorium-uranium fuel blend by finishing a high-burnup irradiation test at Idaho National Laboratory's Advanced Test Reactor. In the test, it delivered more than eight times the output of conventional uranium fuel used in pressurized heavy water reactors. The fuel is designed to work in existing reactors without modifications. Link.

Policy

• Every new onshore wind project in the U.S. is now effectively on ice as the Pentagon has stopped signing off on routine FAA airspace clearances. This immediately impacts up to 165 wind farms, including many that historically wouldn't have needed military sign-off at all. The tactic mirrors the offshore wind halt the administration attempted earlier this year, which courts blocked within weeks after developers sued. The same legal playbook is expected to follow in this case. Link.

• New York's landmark climate law got materially weakened in budget negotiations this week. A tentative deal would push enforcement of greenhouse gas regulations back to 2028 and replace aggressive near-term cuts with an interim target of 60% below 1990 levels by 2040. Governor Hochul had initially sought to delay action until 2030; now, the final compromise landed somewhere in between. Link.

• The EU also looks set to weaken a landmark methane rule before it even took effect. Draft guidelines seen by Politico would let national governments grant open-ended exemptions to fossil fuel companies on energy security grounds, with no explicit Brussels oversight. The rules kick in January 2027 and carry fines of up to 20%, but have faced intense lobbying pressure from both the US and the fossil fuel industry. Link.

• The SEC took two significant swings at corporate reporting this week by advancing advanced a proposal to kill Biden-era climate disclosure requirements for public companies and separately floating the idea of halving financial reporting frequency from quarterly to twice-yearly. Whereas the disclosure rollback has been widely expected, the quarterly reporting change is the bigger potential structural shift of the two, and has drawn some positive interest from decarbonization advocates who've long argued that short-termism discourages long-horizon climate investment. Link. Link.

• The DOJ sued Minnesota to shut down the state's climate liability case against Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute, arguing a state cannot effectively set national greenhouse gas policy through litigation. Minnesota's suit, one of dozens filed by states and municipalities seeking to hold oil companies financially accountable for climate damages, has wound its way through courts since 2020 and survived a dismissal attempt by the defendants just this January. Link.

• Germany is putting up to €5 billion on the table this year to keep more heavy industry, such as steel, cement, chemicals, domestic and on a decarbonization path, using 15-year carbon contracts to cover cost gaps between more clean and conventional production methods. The round is the first to extend eligibility to carbon capture and storage technologies alongside novel production and decarbonization pathways. Link.

Honorable financing mentions

• Panthalassa, based out of Portland, Oregon, raised $140 million in a Series B led by Peter Thiel to build wave-powered offshore platforms that generate clean electricity and use it to run AI inference computing at sea. John Doerr, TIME Ventures, SciFi Ventures, Susquehanna Sustainable Investments, Hanwha Group, Fortescue Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Founders Fund, Gigascale Capital, and others participated. Link.

• Nyobolt, based out of Impington, U.K., raised $60 million in a Series C round at a $1 billion valuation to make high-power-density batteries. Symbotic led. Link.

• Moment Energy, based out of Coquitlam, British Columbia, raised $40 million in a Series B led by Evok Innovations to turn used EV battery packs into grid-scale energy storage systems. W23, Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, and In-Q-Tel also participated. Link.

• Blackhorn Ventures, based out of Denver, Colorado, raised $40 million in a first close toward a targeted $150 million climate tech early-stage fund. Link.

• Terraform Industries, based out of Burbank, California, raised $37.75 million to produce synthetic natural gas from air and electricity. Link.

• Skeleton Technologies, based out of Tallinn, Estonia, raised €33 million (~$38.9 million) from Axon Partners Group, SmartCap, and Taiwania Capital to make ultracapacitors and energy storage systems for grid, automotive, and transportation markets. Link.

• Lithosquare, based out of Paris, France, raised $25 million in a seed round for its AI-driven critical metals discovery startup. It also announced a partnership with mining company Aterian to apply its platform to eight exploration projects across Morocco and Botswana. Link.

• Magrathea, based out of San Francisco, raised $24 million in a Series A co-led by Resource Technology Capital and Balerion Space Ventures to use electrochemical processes to pull magnesium metal from seawater and industrial brines. Oxcart, WovenEarth, Audacity, Avila, VoLo Earth, Capricorn Investment Group, and Ora Global also invested. Link.

• Barocal, based out of Cambridge, U.K., raised $10 million in a seed round from World Fund, Breakthrough Energy Discovery, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, and IP Group to develop a solid-state cooling technology that replaces conventional refrigerant gases with materials that produce no direct emissions. Link.

Bye,

— Nick

Hello hello,

May, already. Plenty to catch up on from the past week in energy, climate tech, and sustainability news, so let’s hop right into it today.

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• Chinese domination of clean and climate tech supply chains is accelerating amidst the ongoing war in Iran and the pressure it has put on international oil and gas prices; exports of solar, batteries, and EVs reached a record 68 GW in March, according to Ember. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• CATL signed the world's largest-ever sodium-ion battery order to the tune of 60 GWh over three years with energy storage integrator HyperStrong. The company says it has solved the full sodium-ion mass production chain, while industry analysts are calling it a potential "DeepSeek moment" for energy storage, given sodium-ion's promise as a cheaper, more abundant alternative to lithium. CATL also raised $5 billion in a Hong Kong listing, with its stock up nearly 25% since late February on surging fossil fuel prices and data center storage demand. Link. Link.

• Rainmaker, a category-leading cloud seeding company, claims to have produced 142 million gallons of water in the form of snow; this is the first example of a commercial cloud seeding operation claiming verifiable precipitation results. Utah and Idaho are already paying the company “millions” of dollars annually while Utah's cloud seeding budget has grown from $350,000 five years ago to $7 million today. Results have not yet been published as a peer-reviewed study; I look forward to that data being made available. Link.

• A new paper using two decades of satellite data finds that Amazon deforestation causes top-of-atmosphere cooling that scales with the fraction of forest lost — and that cloud-driven albedo increases double the effect relative to surface brightening alone. The findings underscore the importance of accounting for cloud responses in climate models and land management policy. Link.

Energy market x Iran war updates

• Brent crude surged past $126/barrel this week, levels not seen since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While prices have again eased some heading into next week, Goldman Sachs forecasts Brent still averaging $90 in Q4, even if exports normalize by end of June. The U.S. dismissed Iran's latest ceasefire proposal; the near-term path to export normalization remains opaque. Link. Link.

• The U.S. national average gasoline price hit $4.39 per gallon, a new high since the start of the Iran war, per AAA. Link.

• The U.S. has also became a net exporter of crude oil for the first time since World War Two, and LNG exports are, rather predictably, posed to reach all-time highs. Link.

• The EU announced emergency state-aid measures to help offset the fuel and fertilizer cost spike from the Iran war. Individual companies can claim up to €50,000 each through year-end with minimal paperwork; energy-intensive industries can recover up to 70% of eligible excess electricity costs. Agriculture, fisheries, road, rail, and short-sea shipping are all covered. Airlines were notably excluded, though the EU left the door open for future intervention. Link.

• Japan Airlines announced it will double its jet fuel surcharge to $350 per ticket on flights to North America and Europe; South Korean carriers are implementing the same increase, citing elevated oil prices from the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Link. Link.

Elsewhere in energy and industry

• India set a record electricity demand of 256.1 GW last weekend, driven by extreme heat pushing air conditioning usage to new levels. Coal and gas-fired generation both increased to meet demand, though solar accounted for one-fifth of total generation during peak periods. Link.

• The UAE announced it will withdraw from OPEC, effective May 1, shrinking the cartel to 11 members. The UAE accounts for roughly 4% of global oil production, and officials claimed the decision aligns with its long-term energy strategy and national interest. OPEC+ is expected to agree a modest output quota increase at its weekend meeting, though if more members leave the group in coming weeks, months, or even years, it will erode its overall lobbying power and ability to influence global oil market prices. Link.

• ERCOT set a new solar generation record this week, producing 33,975 MW produced for a brief interval on Saturday. That level of production is enough to meet ~65% average instantaneous power grid demand in ERCOT / Texas. Link.

• Vineyard Wind became the third U.S. offshore wind project to enter full commercial operation, with Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey activating the project's electricity contracts at a fixed price of $69.50/MWh for 20 years. Link.

• The Trump administration also confirmed it has brokered two more “pay-to-go-away” offshore wind buyout deals: Bluepoint Wind (50% owned by BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners) will receive up to $765 million reimbursed after committing an equal amount to a U.S. LNG facility, and Golden State Wind will recover ~$120 million after investing the same in oil, gas, or LNG projects along the Gulf Coast. Both developers agreed to exit U.S. offshore wind entirely. My joke of the week is that a new, hot business to pursue is larping like you’re going to develop an offshore wind farm just to get paid to cancel it. Might give it a go and see what happens. Link.

• Compass Datacenters, backed by Brookfield Asset Management, abandoned its bid to develop more than 800 acres of a planned 2,100-acre data center corridor in Prince William County, Virginia, after political resistance to tax incentives and mounting community opposition made the project untenable, despite already investing tens of millions on the development effort. Link.

• The Bureau of Land Management issued its third categorical exclusion for geothermal projects in two years; this time the exclusion covers pre-leasing drilling activities up to 10 acres. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) also introduced bipartisan legislation to boost federal funding for next-generation geothermal R&D. Link. Link.

• Meta placed an order for up to 1 GW of space-based solar capacity from Overview Energy to power its data centers. That’s a sizable bet on a technology that has yet to be proven at commercial scale; I’m all for the catalytic commitment, though. Link.

• The DOE announced it will soon unfreeze $430 million in negotiations to support upgrades at 212 hydropower facilities across the country. Link.

Fission and fusion

• Commonwealth Fusion Systems became the first fusion energy company to apply to connect to a major U.S. power grid, filing with PJM, the largest grid operator in the U.S., as it advances plans to open the world’s first nuclear fusion power plant in Virginia in the early 2030s (TBD, maybe another fusion developer will claim that “first.” What’s most likely in my opinion is that we’re still a bit further from commercial fusion than all this indicates, but I’d love to be wrong. Link.

• Belgium is reversing course on the decommissioning of its final two nuclear reactors and moving to nationalize its entire nuclear fleet. Prime Minister Bart De Wever confirmed an agreement with French utility Engie, which owns all seven of Belgium's nuclear plants, to begin studies for a full government takeover of its plants, following a years-long political battle that saw five of the seven reactors shut down. France nationalized its own nuclear utility EDF in 2023. Link.

• Canada also announced a new national nuclear strategy this week centered on its domestically-designed CANDU technology. Link.

• Duke Energy's Robinson nuclear plant in South Carolina received NRC approval to operate for 80 years. This was the agency's fastest-ever license renewal review, which is probably the bigger story here (it still took/takes 12 months). The plant's Unit 2 had previously received a 20-year renewal in 2004, making this its second subsequent renewal, in line with an executive order Trump issued last year to accelerate the process. Link.

• China's San'ao nuclear station Unit 1 (1116 MWe), the first of six planned reactors at the site, entered commercial operation this week. China has far more reactors under development than any other country and may well surpass the U.S. for largest nuclear power plant feet (whether measured in total capacity or by reactors) in coming years. Link.

Industry

• U.S. Steel announced a $1.9 billion investment to build the first direct reduced iron (DRI) facility in the United States at Big River Steel Works in Osceola, Arkansas, vertically integrating operations from iron ore mining in Minnesota through to electric arc furnace steelmaking on-site. The company said its partnership with Nippon Steel helped accelerate the timeline. Link.

• Atome, a British-listed green fertilizer company, took a final investment decision on a $665 million green ammonia plant in Villeta, Paraguay, which will use low-cost hydropower to produce ammonia via green hydrogen rather than natural gas. The company described it as the first time an industrial-scale green fertilizer facility has been closed and financed. Link.

Transportation 

• Tesla has begun mass-manufacturing its Class 8 electric semi at its Reno, Nevada production facility. Link.

• Rivian raised its Georgia factory production capacity estimate by 50% to 300,000 vehicles and renegotiated its DOE loan down to $4.5 billion from the original $6.6 billion award, in an effort to allow it access the funds sooner (if at all). Link. Link.

• Ford's EV division reported an $800 million operating loss in Q1 2026, flat year-over-year, on $1.2 billion in revenue (also flat), with a negative EBIT margin of -63%. The company says it is preparing a more affordable EV lineup on a new UEV platform, but, on the whole, I feel like all I’ve reported from legacy U.S. auto manufacturers EV divisions over the years in these newsletters are losses. Link.

• The U.K. now has just over 2 million licensed zero-emission vehicles on its roads, representing 4.8% of all registered vehicles. More than 500,000 ZEVs were licensed in 2025 alone, a 24% increase year-over-year. Link.

• BYD posted its lowest quarterly profit in three years, weighed down by softening demand in its home market. It seems the main story here is that among Chinese EV companies, there’s significantly more competition now than there was a few years ago; certainly, BYD isn’t enjoying the same market share it had even as recently as 2024. Link.

Honorable financing mentions

• Living Carbon, based out of San Francisco, raised $500 million investment, plus an additional ~$13 million direct equity investment, from Octopus Energy Generation to accelerate its U.S. afforestation and reforestation projects. Link.

• CMBlu Energy, based out of Alzenau, Germany, raised a $58.6 million Series C at a valuation exceeding $1 billion for its non-lithium multi-hour battery systems for data centers and industrial applications. Samsung Ventures led. Link.

• DISA Technologies, based out of Casper, WY, raised $33 million in an equity funding round led by Galvanize to use high-pressure fluid technology to extract minerals from ore and recover uranium from contaminated mine sites. BHP Ventures, Evok Innovations, Constellation Energy, Halliburton Labs, Valor Equity Partners, and Veriten also participated. Total funding raised stands at $83 million. Link.

• BMW i Ventures launched a new $300 million fund focused on early-stage through Series B startups working on agentic AI, physical AI (including robotics and AVs), industrial software, advanced materials, and manufacturing and supply chain technologies. This new raise brings the firm's total capital under management to $1.1 billion. Link.

• Kompas VC, based out of Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Tel Aviv, closed its second fund at €160 million (~$187.5 million). The firm writes early-stage checks of €3–5 million into companies focused on decarbonization, manufacturing, supply chains, and critical infrastructure. Link.

• Arcadia, an AI-powered energy intelligence platform, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire ENGIE Impact, the utility expense management, energy procurement, and sustainability advisory arm of ENGIE. The combined business will serve over 1,500 enterprise customers, including roughly 25% of the Fortune 500, manage 4.5 million meters globally, and process over $30 billion in annual utility payments. Link.

Ciao,

— Nick

Hurricane Helene, which wreaked unprecedented damage (both in scope and location) in regions more than four hundred miles inland in North Carolina, makes landfall on September 26, 2024. Credit: CSU/CIRA & NOAA

The U.S. has spent decades getting better at weathering hurricanes. Building codes have been strengthened, evacuation systems refined, forecasting windows extended and made more precise. After Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida in 1992, Miami-Dade County adopted some of the strongest building codes in the country. Yet, twenty-five years later, Hurricane Irma still caused nearly twice as much economic damage to Florida. When Hurricane Michael tore through Florida's Tyndall Air Force Base in 2018, meanwhile, it destroyed hundreds of buildings and caused nearly $5 billion in damage to a single military installation. The base is now being rebuilt to withstand future Category 5 storms. It’s a worthwhile response. And an emblematic one, insofar as it’s solely focused on adaptation and resilience. 

The pattern is consistent across the Atlantic basin. Despite sustained investment in adaptation and preparedness, hurricane-related damages keep climbing as economic development in vulnerable coastal areas grows, concentrating more and more at-risk infrastructure and people in the path of a perennial series of storms. Almost all investment goes toward downstream preparedness, i.e., efforts to prepare for, absorb, and recover from the damage hurricanes cause. There's another approach, however, one that asks a fundamentally different question: what if we could weaken hurricanes before they make landfall? 

It's not a new idea. For decades in the mid-twentieth century, the U.S. government, as well as the Japanese government, funded ambitious, multi-agency programs to investigate scientific questions surrounding hurricane formation, trajectories, and the feasibility of upstream interventions to weaken or redirect them. Then, for several reasons, all reasonably founded, the vast majority of that work ground to a halt. The science was inconclusive, the costs were escalating out of hand, and social and geopolitical questions were and remain valid, complicating factors. For half a century, this field has lain fallow.

This is not to say there isn’t ongoing, credible, rigorous research into intervention in hurricanes; there is significant, ongoing research at many institutions worldwide on several different potential pathways to viable intervention. But the fundamental conditions that historically stifled interest in storm modification have changed considerably, making it worth revitalizing, accelerating, and creating coordinating infrastructure to advance intervention efforts.

The history of hurricane modification

The first federally funded program to investigate the viability of hurricane modification was Project Cirrus, a collaboration between the U.S. Army Signal Corps, the Office of Naval Research, and General Electric to cover "research study of cloud particles and cloud modifications." In 1947, researchers with the project dropped roughly 86 kilograms of dry ice near the center of Hurricane King. The storm appeared to weaken briefly, though it then intensified the following day before making landfall in Georgia and South Carolina. It’s unlikely, and was impossible to conclude at the time, that Project Cirrus’ intervention altered the trajectory or power of the storm. Still, the general public blamed the seeding efforts and a lawsuit followed, establishing a pattern in which social license and geopolitical questions, as well as the need for more sophisticated methodological and meteorological capacity, came to the fore after any period during which intervention research gained a modicum of traction.

While Project Cirrus was discontinued in 1952, it sparked interest and appetite for federal storm modification research efforts. Between 1954 and 1955, six hurricanes (namely Carol, Edna, Hazel, Connie, Diane, and Ione) caused extensive damage across the eastern seaboard of the U.S., reinvigorating political and scientific appetite to, well, “do something.” In 1955, Congress authorized the U.S. Weather Bureau to create the National Hurricane Research Project. Within a few years, it had its own aircraft and was studying hurricanes for exploitable weaknesses.

Perhaps the most famous of past research efforts into hurricane modification was Project STORMFURY, an experiment conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Navy from 1962 to 1983. The project aimed to weaken hurricanes by seeding their clouds with silver iodide, a substance known to induce cloud formation by causing supercooled water droplets to freeze. The same technique is still used today in cloud seeding operations that attempt to induce rain from supercooled clouds worldwide.

VQ-1 Whale in 1974; similar planes were used in STORMFURY operations (Credit: U.S. Navy)

Researchers discovered large amounts of supercooled liquid water inside hurricanes, which led to a hypothesis that seeding the eyewall of a storm with silver iodide and freezing the supercooled water in it might force the eyewall to reform at a larger radius. That, by virtue of conservation of angular momentum, might help reduce peak wind speeds. In 1961, the National Hurricane Research Project tested this hypothesis on Hurricane Esther. Silver iodide seeding in the wall cloud appeared to reduce maximum wind speeds by about 10% over two hours. The result was promising enough to formalize the effort: In 1962, the U.S. Navy and the Department of Commerce launched Project STORMFURY.

STORMFURY’s ambitions were high, but its ultimate success was limited. Given stringent (understandable) safety conditions governing how far from land storms had to be to qualify for potential intervention, Project STORMFURY only attempted to intervene in three storms: Beulah in 1963, Debbie in 1969, and Ginger in 1971. Debbie was the high-water mark. Over two days of seeding, the storm’s wind speeds dropped measurably from 57 m/s to 43 m/s. Researchers were cautiously optimistic. But Ginger, a weak and disorganized storm, showed no objective response to seeding. 

As storm science matured, STORMFURY’s hypothesis also began to disintegrate. In the 1980s, improved observations revealed that most hurricanes simply don't contain enough supercooled water for silver iodide seeding to work as theorized. Secondly, and perhaps more consequentially, researchers observed that hurricanes naturally undergo eyewall replacement cycles, forming new eyewalls at larger radii absent any human intervention. The Japanese government had also been conducting typhoon and hurricane modification research, but its efforts petered out toward the end of the 1970s, roughly in parallel to those in the U.S.

STORMFURY’s failure to produce conclusive results, coupled with the scale of the testing that would have been required to make additional progress (hundreds of controlled hurricane experiments), weakened appetite for additional resource allocation. Moreover, geopolitical considerations cropped up, as countries downwind of proposed experiments (mainly China and Japan) objected to being in the way of “modified” storms. By the early 1980s, U.S. agencies redirected funding for weather‑modification programs toward forecasting and atmospheric science, where the returns were clearer, would come faster and with higher likelihoods of success, and weren’t politically fraught. After STORMFURY’s cancellation in 1983, no federal hurricane‑modification program with comparable funding or size replaced it.

The stigma that stuck

STORMFURY's cancellation didn't mark the end of all federal interest in storm modification, but what followed illustrates why the field continues to struggle to regain its footing. The back-to-back hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005, which together caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage, prompted the Department of Homeland Security to investigate whether the government could, once again, resume efforts to reduce storm intensity directly, in addition to investing in damage mitigation. In 2008, DHS's Science and Technology Directorate partnered with NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory to scope viable paths forward. The resulting plan was modest and methodical; the coalition would develop models focused on the most promising potential intervention pathways, iteratively narrow the list for further testing, and eventually, ideally, identify one worth advancing to small-scale outdoor experiments.

DHS launched Project HURRMIT to model hurricane mitigation ideas, such as cloud seeding and wave-driven upwelling pumps, and later established a Hurricane Aerosol Microphysics Program (HAMP) that enlisted scientists including Joseph Golden, a retired NOAA researcher who worked on STORMFURY decades earlier. But the initiative ran into a wall that had less to do with science than with institutional culture. As William Laska, a program manager at DHS's Science and Technology Directorate, described it: 

The terms "geoengineering" and "weather modification" were still heavily charged in scientific and government circles. There was, as Laska also noted, "still a sour taste from STORMFURY." DHS ultimately retreated to aerosol and cloud microphysics research. That work is essential, too, but DHS explicitly reframed it as hurricane prediction support, rather than intervention. 

The lessons from the early aughts mirror those from the 20th century: Even well-resourced federal agencies, motivated by devastating hurricane seasons and armed with cautious, stage-gated plans, couldn't overcome lingering stigma and institutional risk aversion that persisted in the field over decades and still does to this day. 

What makes this decade different? 

Investment in tropical storm modification has stalled in the U.S., and abroad, multiple times for three main reasons:

1. The science: Experiments failed to conclusively showcase the capacity to modify storms or to bear out initial hypotheses, in part due to technological constraints, some of which have since been solved or are now solvable. 

2. The capital: The scale of capital required to iterate on these experiments again, as well as to expand them to prove intervention capacity, was monumental. 

3. The stigma: Stigma in academic and scientific circles, as well as social license and geopolitical concerns, coupled with the other factors, undercut appetite to keep investing in research, programs, and supporting infrastructure. 

So why is now, more than fifty years after the largest ever experiments, the right time to resuscitate storm modification and intervention efforts? For one, much of the core science, weather forecasting, and modeling capacity needed for research has advanced considerably. Computational models have grown in power by many orders of magnitude and continue to scale annually, if not monthly. Satellite and airborne observation systems can reach resolutions that Stormfury-era researchers would have salivated over. But as the frequency and severity of tropical storms accelerate as a result of cascading climate impacts, scientists are revisiting the idea of intervening in them, this time with the tools of modern science.

Three broad categories of intervention are attracting the most scientific attention. The first focuses on cooling sea surface temperatures along likely hurricane tracks before storms arrive, using methods including engineered upwelling or deep-water mixing to deprive storms of the warm water that fuels them. The relationship between sea surface temperature and hurricane intensity is one of the most robust in tropical meteorology, and autonomous ocean sensing now makes it possible to map subsurface thermal structure in real time. The second category investigates suppressing evaporation at the ocean surface using thin, temporary films that cut off the heat transfer powering intensification, an approach validated in lab settings decades ago but abandoned because the films couldn't survive realistic ocean conditions. That’s a materials science challenge that modern capabilities are much better equipped to solve, though concerns regarding potential environmental contamination persist. The third category updates the STORMFURY playbook: modify hurricane inner-core dynamics via cloud seeding, but with better observation, targeting, and attribution capabilities, more rugged deployment architectures, and potentially more effective and environmentally safer seeding agents.

The University of Miami SUSTAIN Laboratory’s wind-wave tank is capable of simulating Category 5 hurricane conditions and provides a necessary testbed for modern experiments.

Still, the landscape of science, research, and development remains a far cry from what it was in the 1960s and 1970s, and many bottlenecks persist that render step-change-type progress in the field unlikely near-term. For any modification and intervention efforts, regardless of the intervention pathway in question, to achieve greater viability, researchers will need more sophisticated sensor and data technology, which in turn will support more sophisticated modeling and attribution. Current lab work consists of large indoor tanks, static water tests, film layers, all of which, even together, can only loosely represent real hurricane conditions. Progressively larger and higher-fidelity simulations and testing infrastructure, ones that better represent ‘real’ conditions, alongside better parameterization in models, are essential before outdoor experiments can even be considered and anyone can credibly claim meaningful hurricane-weakening effects from any given intervention pathway.

The highest-leverage areas for this intervention research span several interconnected fronts. On the computational side, the field needs higher-resolution, AI-assisted hurricane models capable of simulating candidate interventions at operationally relevant speeds, as well as better integration of aerosol-cloud microphysics into numerical weather prediction. On the observational side, researchers need rugged, low-cost atmospheric sensing equipment that can be deployed in and around hurricanes, alongside real-time subsurface ocean thermal profiling across hurricane basins. Better materials are also essential, particularly turbulence-resilient, environmentally benign surface films and cost-effective ocean cooling delivery systems that can function at meaningful scales.

Perhaps most critically, the field needs experimental and statistical frameworks capable of detecting and attributing the effects of future interventions against natural variability — the problem that ultimately undermined STORMFURY and other past projects' credibility. Lower-stakes proxy testbeds, such as marine stratocumulus or non-hurricane tropical convection, offer a path toward validating intervention physics before scaling toward tropical storm environments. And all of this research will need to proceed alongside co-developed governance and policy frameworks involving local, state, federal, and international stakeholders, infrastructure that could take as long to formalize as the science itself.

Moreover, recent years have seen renewed interest and investment flow towards weather modification efforts more broadly, particularly cloud seeding, a sector in which private-sector companies are raising venture capital and inking deals with customers ranging from farmers to ski resorts to augment rain and snowfall. The World Meteorological Organization reports that cloud seeding operations have taken place in more than 50 countries. China alone has purportedly conducted ~27,000 documented operations since 2014, a figure that is likely significantly higher, given it is based on a limited data set. While markedly different in many ways from hurricane intervention efforts, advances in cloud seeding could be useful to several potential hurricane intervention pathways, and the broader signal that attitudes toward weather modification are shifting is a helpful tailwind. 

The optimal path forward to revitalize the field

Private companies, academic labs, and government agencies are all doing valuable work on hurricane intervention. Venture-backed startups are exploring ocean cooling technologies. Academic researchers are refining models and testing hypotheses across intervention pathways. Government agencies continue to fund foundational atmospheric science. But each operates within constraints that limit how far any one actor alone can advance the field. Venture capital drives companies to commercialize on a fund-lifecycle timeline, which can pressure companies to pursue commercialization before the science is ready, creating tension and inhibiting collaboration with other players in the field. Hurricane intervention efforts, especially at the scale of storms, are highly unlikely on medium-term timelines, regardless of how well near-term revitalization efforts proceed. What a revenue model for future interventions looks like is also opaque; even if meaningful intervention is achieved someday, precise attribution of what potential damages it averted and to what extent, may remain more challenging than meaningful intervention efforts themselves. 

Government agencies, as the DHS’s experience illustrates, face institutional stigma and are subject to political cycles that make sustained commitments, let alone scaling additional capital allocation, difficult. Academic labs produce essential science but often lack mandates to coordinate across disciplines or a clear, viable path to progress toward applied, field-ready research programs. Alongside scientific, R&D, and governance components, what’s missing from this field at present is a coordinating layer: an entity to convene otherwise disparate actors around a shared research agenda, to fund the foundational work that doesn't fit VC’s timeline or any single lab's mandate, and to build key coordination infrastructure for the field.

The economic stakes reinforce the case. Financial returns, including those potentially realized by averting economic losses driven by hurricanes, could be significant. Hurricanes scale approximately with the cube of their landfall wind speed, meaning even 10–15% reductions in maximum sustained winds at landfall can reduce total damages by ~50%. Who pays for interventions, however, remains an open question. That’s not to say that the benefits of intervention couldn’t be structured into financial instruments in creative ways; in the market for financial derivatives, which is massive, there is basically no limit to creativity. But the scientific and R&D advances most needed for the field today and in the medium-term require a “first mover” funder that isn’t motivated primarily by medium- or even long-term financial gain, given hurricane intervention is likely to produce more public than private goods. Even if real-world hurricane intervention never reaches operational scale, advancing the underlying R&D — such as weather and atmospheric data collection, modeling capacity, materials science — could find application across other fields, offering valuable co-benefits regardless.

Philanthropy is best positioned to fill this void. Philanthropic capital combines the catalytic characteristics of venture capital (relatively small investments with high potential upside) with the patience and public-interest orientation of non-private sector funding. A philanthropically-funded coordinating entity could de-risk private sector investment by advancing foundational science to the point where commercial applications become more viable. It could also bridge academic silos by creating shared benchmarks and sequencing research so that early results inform later decisions, and kickstart more of the essential work of building governance frameworks and stakeholder coalitions, including with governments, multilateral institutions, and affected communities, in parallel with the science. 

A government-funded entity could do more of this work, too. But it seems unlikely governments will invest more at this point in time, given how many cycles of prioritization and deprioritization they’ve already gone through with respect to hurricane intervention. Philanthropy, specifically, the creation of a new, philanthropically-funded entity, is the best option to create vital coordination infrastructure for the hurricane intervention field at this time.

The eyewall in the room

Now, it’s time to return to the eyewall in the room. The operational realization of hurricane intervention efforts and strategies will always have to navigate social and geopolitical controversy. They always have and always will. The planetary atmosphere is a global commons. Modifying a hurricane to spare one specific region could inadvertently redirect the storm to another, potentially yielding geopolitical blowback and exacerbating already scientifically and financially challenging questions around attribution and liability.

While that scale of intervention is a long way off, it’s another reason that an uncoordinated field of actors isn’t the ideal state of play to advance this discipline. No single actor is in the position to take on the level of risk larger-scale interventions will entail, nor to build and sustain global coordination, whether on research or governance efforts. Coordination on those fronts will need to proceed in parallel with accelerated R&D; as they could take as long, if not longer, to formalize than the science, technology, and attribution systems. The urgency and opportunity grow every year as more people, more infrastructure, and more overall economic value sit in the path of intensifying storms. As such, it's essential that all workstreams accelerate today, with coordination anchored by a new, philanthropically-funded entity.

Other opportunities

The Capital Valleys Forum is coming up on May 8, as part of the inaugural Sacramento Climate Week. It features a growing, curated selection of speakers ranging from Mayor McCarty (of Sacramento), Utilities, Cisco, CalSTRS, CARB, SMUD, CalEPIC, Infinium, California Forward, HSBC and more TBA; covering water, energy, jobs, agriculture and AI, bridging discussions of tech & policy for the prosperity of California. → RSVP here.

Catch you back here on Monday

— Nick

Hey,

It was a great SF climate week. Paul Gambill’s roundup of the Stabilize Earth event does it better justice than I could do in brief here, and we launched the Arctic Stabilization Initiative on Tuesday. Thanks for all the kind words; if you missed the launch, read more here.

For those of you I caught in SF, ‘twas great to see you. For those of you I didn’t, well, hope to see you soon. Also, ICYMI, I have a new podcast with Silas Mähner, which offers insight into the current climate tech landscape, especially re: recruiting and storytelling.

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ONE STORY IN (TWO) SENTENCE(S) AND A CHART

• The Western U.S. has been and remains in an atrocious drought; March 2026 was the third-worst month for drought in observed history for the United States. Here’s to hoping there are some more spring showers before we head into an El Niño-fueled H2 2026. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• A stretch of anomalously warm Pacific water spanning roughly 5,000 miles is drawing concern from climate scientists, who warn it could push western U.S. temperatures and humidity significantly higher this summer while increasing the likelihood of both hurricane formation and wildfire conditions. Link.

• 2025 was a record year for climate fund closes, according to reporting from Sightline and CTVC. $92 billion was raised across 179 funds. That said, the landscape is increasingly bifurcated. Infrastructure mega-funds dominate, with 75% of all capital concentrated in just 58 funds and Brookfield alone accounting for $51 billion in closes. Meanwhile, climate VC at earlier stages is struggling. Close rates fell to 39% (the lowest for any fund type), the average VC fund shrank from $174M to $160M, and the U.S. saw just $37 billion raised versus Europe's $61 billion, a striking reversal from 2022. Link.

Energy market x Iran war updates

• Oil futures are still hovering close to $100 a barrel as of this writing, given ongoing Middle Eastern conflicts remain largely unresolved. Link.

• Reposting some numbers here from recent weeks → EV sales surged globally in March amid rising fuel prices from the Hormuz conflict: India posted 87% year-over-year growth, the U.K. recorded its highest monthly EV sales ever, and U.S. used-EV sales rose 17% year-over-year in Q1, 2026. Link.

• Nitrogen-based fertilizer prices have more than doubled following the Strait of Hormuz closure, which has choked off roughly one-third of global urea exports. The CEO of fertilizer giant Fertiglobe warning it could take "months and months" to normalize even after the strait reopens, and that many farmers are likely to forgo fertilizer this planting season, which raises the prospect of food shortages and inflation ahead. Link.

Elsewhere in energy and industry

• For the first time in over a century, clean power surpassed coal's share of global electricity generation in 2025; renewables hit 34% vs. coal's 33%, according to Ember. Solar alone met three-quarters of last year's demand growth. Link.

• The global wind industry installed a record 165 GW of new capacity in 2025, a 40% increase from 2024; China and India accounted for four fifths of the additions. Link.

• CATL unveiled a series of battery breakthroughs at an event in Beijing. Its third-generation Shenxing LFP battery charges from 10% to 80% in just 3 minutes and 44 seconds, even at temperatures as low as -30°C, while a separate battery claims a world-record 932-mile range. The company also confirmed that sales of passenger EVs featuring sodium-ion cells rather than lithium-ion will begin sales by Q3 and full scale sodium-ion battery production will start in Q4. Link. Link.

• GE Vernova shares jumped 14% after the company reported its order backlog surged 32% to a record $163.28 billion, driven by soaring demand for gas turbines and nuclear reactors to power the AI data center buildout. Analysts expect the company to be sold out of heavy-duty turbine production capacity through 2029 and potentially into 2030. Link.

• A federal judge halted the Trump administration's freeze on new wind and solar projects, which clean energy advocates said had placed 57 GW of capacity at risk of cancellation or delay beyond 2029. Link.

• For a brief period this week, fossil fuel fired-electricity fell to just 2% of the U.K.'s electricity supply, the lowest level on record since 2009, underscoring the country's reasonable success adding renewables. In 2025, U.K. gas use fell to a 34-year low and coal use dropped to levels last seen in 1600. Link.

• Perovskite solar startup Tandem PV officially opened its new factory in Fremont, California, aiming to produce panels that increase solar conversion efficiency by up to 40% over conventional silicon cells. Link.

• The White House declared grid infrastructure, including transformers, transmission lines, substations, and high-voltage circuit breakers, essential to national defense, perhaps a helpful policy tailwind for companies working to electrify America. TBD how much follow through we get on this executive order, which mostly amounts to words right now. Link.

• Battery recycling startup Redwood Materials, based in Carson City, NV, laid off approximately 135 employees (~10% of its workforce) as it restructures to focus on energy storage. The company raised $425 million just earlier this year at a $6+ billion post-money valuation. Link.

Fission and fusion

• Nuclear developer X-energy raised $1 billion in an upsized IPO priced above its expected range, with surging electricity demand from AI data centers driving investor interest in small modular reactors. I’d be cautious on the investor side here, personally; we’re seeing big valuations for companies that have never sold a single kWh. Link.

• Bill Gates-backed TerraPower broke ground on its 345-MW Natrium advanced nuclear plant in western Wyoming. Link.

• Kairos Power broke ground on its first commercial-scale advanced reactor, which will supply power to Google data centers. Link.

• GE Vernova's BWRX-300 boiling water reactor at Ontario Power Generation's Darlington plant is 38% complete and purportedly on track to deliver electricity by 2030, per recent updates; it’s in the running to be North America's first operational small modular reactor. Link.

Policy

• Monterey Park, California became the first city in the state to permanently ban data centers, with the city council voting unanimously to declare them a public nuisance. Link.

• Maine Governor Janet Mills vetoed a bill that would have imposed a statewide moratorium on new data centers through November 2027, though she signed legislation barring data centers from state tax incentive programs. Lots of whiplash in this story so far, which is par for the course energy and sustainability news wise this year. Link.

• BP shareholders handed the oil major a "heavy defeat" at its annual meeting, rejecting two resolutions that would have reduced the company's climate reporting requirements and replaced in-person shareholder meetings with online-only events. Nearly 18% of shareholders also voted against the reelection of BP's chair. Link.

• A group of institutional investors including Sarasin & Partners, NEST, Merseyside Pension Fund, Lombard Odier Investment Management, and EdenTree Investment Management asked the U.K.'s Financial Reporting Council to audit HSBC's 2025 accounts as to whether the bank is properly accounting for climate-related financial risks. Link.

• The 2026 midterms are shaping into a competitive referendum on the Trump administration: Democrats need a net gain of just ~3 House seats to reclaim the majority, with some projections approaching 50/50 odds of a Democratic House flip. The Senate map structurally favors Republicans, but Georgia, Michigan, Maine, and Texas are all in play, and mid-decade redistricting, particularly amid Virginia map redistricting. Virginian outcomes alone could flip four Republican seats, which could shift control of the House. Link.

Transportation 

• Waymo's safety record is now approaching 200 million driverless miles with zero at-fault fatalities, only five serious incidents plausibly linked to its vehicles, and crash reviews that indicate most incidents involved human drivers striking stationary or slow-moving Waymos. Human drivers, in contrast, average a fatal crash every ~90 million miles. Link.

• General Motors has indefinitely suspended its next-generation full-size electric truck program at its Factory Zero plant in Detroit, shifting back toward internal combustion and hybrid vehicles amid weaker-than-expected demand for large electric pickups. Link.

• Swedish electric truck startup Einride secured a deal to deploy 75 heavy-duty EVs within Amazon's Relay freight network. Link.

Honorable financing mentions

• USA Rare Earth announced plans to acquire Brazilian rare earth miner Serra Verde in a deal valued at $2.8 billion in cash and shares, pitching the move as a direct challenge to China's dominance in rare earth processing and supply chains. Link.

• The U.K.'s development finance institution, British International Investment, launched British Climate Partners, a £1.1 billion ($1.5 billion) initiative to mobilize private capital for the energy transition across Asian developing economies including India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia. The estimated investment scale needed to help transition away from coal (and not necessarily solely to renewables, either) runs ~$210 billion annually for Southeast Asia and $160 billion for India through 2030. Link.

• As noted earlier on in this email, X-energy, a nuclear small modular reactor developer, raised $1 billion in an upsized IPO priced above its marketed range. Link.

• Blue Energy, a three-year-old startup based in Chevy Chase, MD, raised $380 million in financing split between equity and debt to make nuclear power plants by manufacturing reactors in shipyards and then transporting them to deployment sites. VXI Capital led; At One Ventures, Engine Ventures, and Tamarack Global also invested. Link.

• Nova Fusion, based out of Shanghai, raised $103 million in a pre-seed / seed round (!) from Alibaba Group to make nuclear fusion reactors. Link.

• Rivan, a three-year-old startup based in London, raised $34 million in a Series A round led by IQ Capital to make synthetic fuels. Plural, Fundomo, and various angels also invested. Link.

• Decade Energy, a seven-year-old startup based in Paris, France, raised $25.8 million in a round co-led by Eiffel Investment Group and SET Ventures to design, finance, and operate integrated energy systems including battery storage and EV charging for fleets. Ananda Impact Ventures and Contrarian Ventures also participated. Link.

• Humble, a recently founded startup based in San Francisco, CA, raised $24 million in a seed round led by Eclipse to build fully autonomous, cabless Class 8 electric haulers for freight. Energy Impact Partners also participating. Link.

• Exergy3, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, raised ~$13.3 million in seed funding for its ultra-high temperature thermal energy storage designed to help decarbonize industrial processes. Axeleo Capital led, with Bayern Kapital, Kibo Invest, Scottish Enterprise, Zero Carbon Capital, and Old College Capital participating. Link.

• Fasal Bio, an eight-year-old startup based in Zagreb, Croatia, that develops renewable composite materials replacing fossil-based plastics while working with existing manufacturing processes, raised ~$8.2 million in a round led by BlackPeak Capital. Link.

• TheStorage, a three-year-old startup based out of Tampere, Finland, raised ~$4.2 million in a seed round led by Voima Ventures to store renewable energy as heat using sand-based systems for on-demand delivery to industrial processes. Momentum and previous investors Superhero Capital and 2C Ventures also participated. Link.

Fun (and fast) diversions

I once ran a 3:07 marathon, well short of breaking the 3 hour mark which I hoped to achieve that day (almost a dozen years ago). Now, for the first time ever, people are breaking the 2 hour mark in the marathon, which nets out to running 26.2 miles, each at a <4:35 average mile pace. I never even ran a single mile that fast; as a solid high school track guy, the best I managed was 4:40 or so.

Here’s a nice visualization of the evolution of marathon times over the past century plus. Interesting to see some big drops followed by plateus. Recent advancements owe as much to shoe technology as anything else (not to take anything away from the record breakers). Link.

Have a nice week ahead,

— Nick

Climate systems in the Arctic are approaching critical tipping points and there is no coordinated, system-level plan to prepare for and respond to these risks.

The Arctic Stabilization Initiative (ASI), a new stage-gated research program, has raised $6.5 million to advance the research needed to assess the safety, efficacy, and feasibility of Arctic-targeted climate interventions.

Image credit: Hector John Periquin

Every country that sits on a major earthquake fault line maintains a disaster risk management and response plan. They do this despite not knowing when the next earthquake will strike or how severe it will be. Forecasting earthquakes is notoriously challenging despite decades of intensive research into precursors and fault mechanics. The same reasoning extends to many other domains. Stakeholders across disciplines and jurisdictions invest readily to study risks and develop preparedness for pandemics, floods, hurricanes, and many other types of disasters. The higher the potential damages and consequences, the higher the benefit of robust preparedness.

Many of the most advanced disaster early warning systems only offer minutes of advanced notice. Other systems designed to monitor catastrophic risks and inform preparedness - whether tsunami DART buoys, hurricane satellite tracking, flood gauge networks, or volcanic seismic/GPS monitoring - offer valuable, even if short, warning windows. Such efforts require significant resources, including scientific and technical infrastructure, as well as dedicated human and financial capital. Given the prevalence of such systems, the absence of comparable infrastructure for one area of concentrated disaster risks is striking.

Introducing ASI: Advancing science and assessing how to reduce dramatically underserved risks

Preparing for, responding to, and reducing disaster risk requires two components. The first is establishing preparedness measures: the evacuation routes, the flood barriers, stockpiling relief items. The second is the coordination protocol, the agreements between governments, institutions, and communities that determine who acts, how, to what extent, under which circumstances, and on what authority. Despite the scope, scale, and the urgent need to prepare for and respond to these risks, neither core component of risk management exists for the Arctic.

The Arctic Stabilization Initiative (ASI), incubated within the Advanced Research for Climate Emergencies (ARC), a program of Renaissance Philanthropy, has raised $6.5 million in philanthropic funding to launch a systems-level research program to advance the research required to assess and address some of the most severe and near-term risks in the Arctic (and on the planet). ASI will evaluate the feasibility, efficacy, risks, and benefits of a portfolio of potential Arctic-targeted climate interventions via a stage-gated research program, focusing on how and under what conditions response options could work, drive the most impact, how they might interact with cryosphere systems, and whether a portfolio of approaches could help stabilize core components of the Arctic’s climate system. This news was also covered in Heatmap News this morning.

ASI’s goal is to deliver the formal scientific benchmark and predictive tools needed to assess the safety and efficacy of Arctic-targeted interventions to a coalition of governments, Indigenous Peoples, and multilateral institutions positioned to use them. ASI will work to convene this coalition of parties.

The initiative is led by Charlotte DeWald, PhD, a climate scientist whose research on cloud ice formation pathways and the biological, chemical, and physical systems that link the ocean to the atmosphere informs ASI’s mission. Ryan O’Donnell also serves as Senior Strategic Advisor to ASI. A former U.S. diplomat and disaster response leader, O’Donnell has spent a decade working in disaster-preparedness and response operations, and co-designing climate resilience initiatives with Indigenous Peoples. O’Donnell will lead ASI’s engagement with Indigenous Peoples, whose lands are directly affected by Arctic climate risks, and the governments and multilateral institutions whose partnership is needed for successful initiatives.

Why the Arctic is mission critical

The world is dramatically underprepared for a confluence of potentially catastrophic risks concentrated in the Arctic. Arctic stability regulates food production, water availability, and livable conditions worldwide. It loses more heat to space than it absorbs, in contrast to lower latitudes, which receive more heat from the sun than they lose to space. But the Arctic is warming at roughly four times the global average, and up to seven times faster in some subregions. It’s also home to two of the most imminently at-risk climate systems on Earth, namely the Greenland Ice Sheet and thawing permafrost. A third feature of the Arctic is also under acute pressure: the Arctic sea ice extent has declined ~12% per decade since 1979.

These Arctic climate systems are at severe, imminent risk of destabilization, especially considering the higher Arctic warming rates. They are also tightly coupled and influence each other in complex, potentially compounding and cascading ways. The threshold which, if crossed, risks “tipping” these Arctic systems (as well as many others globally) into states of irreversible destabilization, is between 1.5 and 2°C of global mean warming. That’s a temperature range the world could enter within the next decade, possibly even before 2030. Given how closely interconnected these systems are to each other and the rest of the Earth’s climate, a triggered tipping point in one or more exacerbates destabilization risk across the Arctic and the globe.

The potential near-term consequences of destabilization in these Arctic climate systems include:

1. The Greenland Ice Sheet: Loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet could drive up to 0.25 meters of sea level rise by 2100. The freshwater it’s already releasing is measurably slowing Atlantic Ocean circulation, with downstream consequences for weather across Europe, monsoon systems in South Asia and the Sahel, and coastal sea-level rise.

2. Permafrost thaw: Permafrost across Arctic regions has already shifted from acting as net a carbon dioxide and methane sink to a net source. The greenhouse gasses it previously stored are being released at accelerated rates, as warming drives more rapid thaw. By 2100, cumulative greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost could rival the total historic emissions of the United States, and these additional releases could drive a feedback loop whereby warming begets more warming.

3. Arctic summer sea ice extent: Arctic summer sea ice functions like an air conditioner for the planet. Its loss has already contributed to global warming roughly equivalent to a quarter of what global carbon dioxide emissions over the past thirty years have driven. As reflective ice gives way to dark open water, the Arctic absorbs more solar heat, accelerating every other feedback in the system. Multiple models project the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in summer by the mid-2030s.

The Arctic is best understood as a complex and critical component of Earth’s climate system that serves a societally necessary climate regulating role. It also constitutes an increasingly acute, near-term, and potentially cascading risk profile. Multiple Arctic systems are destabilizing on an accelerated timeline, with consequences that reach far beyond the region itself. The long-term consequences of a destabilizing Arctic are staggering. High end estimates place the economic toll of severe and sustained Arctic destabilization at $70 trillion over coming centuries.

Why this program doesn’t exist yet

Even under the most optimistic decarbonization scenarios, the world will likely breach the 1.5°C threshold within the decade, if not by 2030. We’re entering an “overshoot” period in which Arctic climate systems, as well as many other global climate systems, will be exposed to pressures that risk serious, systemic destabilization, regardless of how fast greenhouse gas emissions fall and carbon removal capacity scales. Decarbonization and carbon removal are absolutely necessary. But they are no longer sufficient on their own to manage near-term risks considering the processes such as ice loss and permafrost thaw already underway. Some climate systems, like coral reefs, may already be in irreversible decline.

Researchers have proposed several categories of approaches to stabilizing the Arctic alongside ongoing decarbonization and carbon removal efforts, from methods that increase atmospheric reflectivity, to those that thin heat-trapping cloud layers, to approaches that reinforce Arctic ice structurally. Some efforts have examined interventions individually, but no systematic effort has evaluated whether, under which conditions, and in which combinations a portfolio of interventions could help stabilize core Arctic climate systems.

There are structural reasons for this gap in research. Intervention approaches are often too applied for most academic research mandates, too uncertain for governments to fund unilaterally, and too complex and potentially consequential for any single institution to pursue without broad scientific and stakeholder engagement and a coordinated governance and coalition-building strategy. As a result, the field lacks a well-resourced research program to work on parallel fronts to create shared benchmarks and agreed-upon criteria governments would need before making decisions, and the mechanisms to sequence work and disseminate findings so that early results make findings actionable for scientists, governments and multilateral institutions.

As Dr. Christina McCluskey of the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, and a member of ASI’s Scientific Advisory Board, describes:

ASI is that program.

What’s the plan?

The first intervention ASI will advance through its stage-gated framework and evaluation process is Mixed-Phase Cloud Thinning (MCT). About 60% of Arctic clouds are mixed-phase, meaning they contain both ice crystals and supercooled liquid water. For most of the year, these clouds trap more heat than they reflect. MCT aims to enhance ice formation in these clouds to reduce their heat-trapping effect, allowing more surface heat to radiate into space. Early models suggest the approach could cool the Arctic by roughly 1°C. It is also operationally analogous to existing cloud‑seeding practices in the U.S. and Canada, which offers technical and regulatory precedent that could lower political and social‑license barriers.

Phase I of ASI will leverage existing data and observations, to evaluate whether and to what extent specific interventions, such as Mixed-Phase Cloud Thinning (MCT), could help stabilize Arctic systems like sea ice and permafrost. Dust emissions and biological ice-nucleating particles from the ocean surface support ‘natural experiment’ approaches, or naturally occurring perturbations to Arctic clouds that are detectable from satellite and ground-based sensors. Analyzing how these events alter cloud phase and outgoing heat across different seasons and regions could support an estimate of MCT’s minimum potential efficacy and help identify where and when MCT could help slow sea ice loss and support stabilization. Phase I findings determine what follows. The program advances if three conditions hold: MCT remains plausibly effective in at least some target regimes, decision-critical uncertainties can be identified and addressed with additional evidence, and early screening has not revealed disqualifying large-scale concerns.

Dr. Matthew Shupe, a senior research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado and NOAA, and also a member of ASI’s Scientific Advisory Board, notes:

Alongside Dr. Matthew Shupe and Dr. Christina McCluskey, ASI’s Scientific Advisory Board also includes Dr. Graham Feingold of the NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory.

The defining decade for the Arctic, and the planet

ASI was established on the premise that we have under 10 years to build a tipping point risk management approach, and was designed to produce findings within that period that governments, multilateral institutions, and Indigenous rights-holders can evaluate and act on. Some findings may establish that specific approaches carry risks that outweigh their potential benefits, or that certain interventions are not feasible at the scales that matter. That too constitutes the evidence base responsible governance requires. ASI will produce that evidence base while the findings can still shape what comes next.

Thanks for reading. I’ve been thrilled and humbled to support ASI over recent weeks and months, and look forward to continuing to do so, as they advance their research and technical intervention and governance development efforts.

For any inquiries, whether press or science-related and otherwise, you can respond directly to this email or email me at nicholas.vanosdol@renphil.org.

— Nick

Hi there,

Happy SF climate week to all making the trip and attending events over the course of the coming week. I’ll be up in the city Tuesday through Thursday bopping around; drop me a line by responding to this email and maybe we can link up or hop to events together. I’ll also report out in a future edition on some of the main themes and what I heard.

Also, tune back in here Tuesday for some major program news from a new, bold initiative I’ve been supporting closely, and increasingly so in coming weeks. It’s awesome and we’re excited to launch it to the world more publicly and share the vision with people like you.

Finally, I have a new podcast up with the inmitable Silas Mahner after a long podcasting hiatus. You can listen to that here. Lots of insight into the current climate tech landscape, especially with respect to recruiting and storytelling, which are two of Silas’ specialties.

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• It’s worth resisting the idea that the general public has lost interest and patience to remain concerned about climate change, let alone committed to combatting it; a recent Gallup poll reveals that U.S. adults are more concerned about it than ever (albeit margianlly). Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• Two Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) studies published this month have substantially narrowed the range of scientific uncertainty, in a direction that should unsettle anyone paying attention. The first used direct ocean mooring data from four independent North Atlantic arrays to document an actual, instrument-measured decline in the Atlantic overturning circulation over the past two decades, rather than a signal inferred through proxies or fingerprint methods. The second filtered a large ensemble of climate models against observed South Atlantic salinity data and found that the models aligning most closely with reality are the ones projecting the steepest future weakening, a constrained estimate of 51 ± 8% decline by 2100 under a moderate emissions scenario, roughly 60% worse than the previous multi-model average. One researcher who has studied this system for 35 years now says the probability of passing the AMOC shutdown tipping point by mid-century is above 50%. Link.

Energy market x Iran war updates

• The U.S. military put a naval blockade on Iranian ports on Monday, shutting down Tehran's oil export routes and adding another layer of pressure to energy markets already struggling since the conflict began. No Iran-flagged vessel made it past the U.S. blockade in the first 24 hours of enforcement. Later in the week, oil prices cratered as the Trump administration crowed about having reached a deal to reopen the straight. Over the weekend, prices are rising again, however, as the ceasfire in the straight didn’t last the weekend. Reckon it’s reasonable to expect more of the same whiplash for some time. Link. Link. Link.

• According to the IEA, global oil consumption dropped 3.4% in March, the most severe quarterly contraction since the financial crisis, COVID aside, with demand expected to fall further to approximately 100.4 million barrels per day in April, a low point stretching back over three years. OPEC's own production figures tell a similar story: a record 27% output drop in March concentrated across Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Link. Link.

• Japan committed $10 billion in financial assistance to Southeast Asian nations dealing with the energy supply crunch from the Hormuz conflict, a move that serves multiple strategic purposes: countering Chinese regional influence, securing supply chains Japan depends on, and building goodwill in a part of the world whose energy resilience matters to Tokyo. Link.

• The European Commission is preparing a set of non-binding recommendations for member states aimed at cutting fossil fuel demand during the Middle East energy crisis, covering things like mandatory remote working days, public transport subsidies, and reduced VAT on heat pumps and solar panels. Two binding legislative proposals are also being developed: one to reform electricity grid pricing, another to enshrine that electricity is taxed below fossil fuels. Link.

• Germany put together $1.9 billion in energy price relief for households and businesses as global markets remain under pressure from the conflict. Link.

Elsewhere in energy and industry

• March marked the first time renewables overtook natural gas as the single largest source of U.S. electricity, with wind, solar, hydro, and bioenergy collectively, alongside nuclear, accounting for more than half of total generation, per Ember data. The milestone carries a seasonal asterisk, but the structural capacity growth is real. Link.

• Fervo Energy, the enhanced geothermal systems company, filed an S-1 with the SEC for its planned Nasdaq IPO under the ticker "FRVO," with J.P. Morgan, BofA Securities, RBC Capital Markets, and Barclays as lead bookrunners. Link.

• The SunZia Wind project in New Mexico, 3.5 GW of capacity connected to California via 550 miles of new transmission line, the largest renewable energy project ever built in the U.S., has started testing its 916 turbines ahead of full commercial operations later this quarter. The early impact is already detectable: California has reset its all-time wind generation record eight separate times over the past month. A genuinely remarkable thing to have pulled off in the current political environment. Link.

• Georgia-based Suniva is planning a $350 million, 4.5 GW solar cell factory in Laurens, South Carolina. Link.

• Rivian and Redwood Materials announced a partnership to deploy more than 100 second-life Rivian battery packs as a 10 MWh storage system at Rivian's Normal, Illinois manufacturing plant, cutting peak demand costs while demonstrating what a circular battery lifecycle can look like in practice. Link.

• New England's grid-scale battery buildout is moving at a pace that's hard to keep up with. A 250 MW facility in Medway, Massachusetts, operated by VC Renewables, a Vitol subsidiary, is now the region's largest after coming fully online in late February, a title it took from the 175 MW Cross Town battery in Gorham, Maine which had only been running since late November. Jupiter Power is already developing a 700 MW facility at a former oil storage site in Everett, Massachusetts, targeting completion in 2028–29. Link.

• Here’s one I’d misssed last month: Battery technology startup 24M shut down after 15 years and laid off its staff, after raised $500 million across 13 rounds. The company once held a unicorn valuation and had licensing relationships with companies including Norway's former battery giant Freyr. A post-mortem from Battery Burn Book pointed to two structural failures: targeting the wrong end markets, and running R&D reactively rather than anticipating where the technology needed to go. Link.

• Caterpillar acquired Monarch Tractor, the autonomous electric tractor startup, in what represents a big step by the equipment giant into electrified precision agriculture. Link.

• Vermont's first neighborhood-scale geothermal project is on track to break ground this summer at an affordable housing development in Hinesburg, using a shared borehole loop to heat and cool 36 units. Vermont Gas Systems will bear the approximately $275,000 in upfront infrastructure costs, recovering the investment through a monthly per-unit access fee of $25–$35, a utility-ownership model that removes the capital barrier for nonprofit housing developers and could serve as a template for the Northeast. Link.

• Fermi America, the data center company that raised $746 million in its October IPO on the promise of building the world's largest data center, may be in trouble. No tenant has been secured, no meaningful vertical construction has started despite an original April 2026 target, and CEO Toby Neugebauer exited abruptly on April 17, with shares dropping up to 31% in extended trading. Even on an optimistic construction timeline from here, the first buildings wouldn't open until May 2027, a full year behind original projections. Link.

Fission and fusion

• Amazon-backed X-energy launched its IPO roadshow targeting $16–$19 per share and up to ~$814 million in proceeds for its high-temperature gas-cooled reactors. Link.

• The U.K.'s national wealth fund committed up to £599 million to Rolls-Royce to support development of the country's first small modular reactors. Link.

• South Carolina's state-owned utility Santee Cooper gave itself a two-year window to decide whether to proceed with a $2.7 billion plan to restart two partially built AP1000 reactors at the V.C. Summer plant, with next steps due in June. Link.

Policy

• The Trump administration announced a full reorganization of the US Forest Service: headquarters out of DC and into Salt Lake City, all nine regional offices dissolved in favor of 15 state-aligned offices, and 50-plus research facilities consolidated to a single location in Fort Collins, Colorado. The institutional expertise being removed is precisely what has historically served as a check on extraction industry pressure on public lands. Link.

• The full settlement terms governing the Trump administration's roughly $928 million buyout of TotalEnergies' offshore wind leases are now public, and they don't reflect well on the government's side of the deal. Total was permitted to satisfy its "new investment" obligation by documenting oil and gas expenditures it had already committed to independently, including its Rio Grande LNG terminal, for which a final investment decision came last September. The company collected nearly a billion dollars in public funds without making any genuinely incremental investments. Legal analysts have also flagged that the cancellation process appears to have bypassed a statutory requirement for a formal hearing. Link.

• The Senate voted 50-49 to open land adjoining Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness to copper-nickel mining, handing a win to Chilean mining giant Antofagasta and its U.S. operation Twin Metals Minnesota. The mechanism, the Congressional Review Act, by which this move was conducted, makes this particularly troubling beyond the immediate outcome. Once applied to a federal land management plan, it bars any "substantially similar" rule in the future, potentially indefinitely. And the CRA's reach here could extend to hundreds of other resource management plans dating back to 1996. The Boundary Waters is the most-visited wilderness area in the U.S., anchoring an estimated $16 billion annual recreation economy in the surrounding region. Trump is expected to sign. Link.

• Microsoft has paused new carbon removal credit purchases, landing a serious blow on a sector where the company had previously been responsible for something like 80% of total industry procurement volume. Microsoft's appetite had already been tilting toward nature-based credits over engineered removal; this pause compounds the pressure on the CDR pipeline significantly. Paul Gambill and I saw this coming, to a degree. Link.

• In better news for carbon removal, the Department of Energy has confirmed it will keep up to $1.2 billion in Biden-era funding flowing to two direct air capture hubs—Occidental Petroleum's South Texas project and Climeworks and Heirloom's Project Cypress in Louisiana —both of which had previously turned up on a leaked internal list of grants being targeted for cancellation. Link.

• On May 5, Richland County, Ohio voters will decide whether to overturn a county-wide ban on utility-scale wind and solar projects. The case is being watched closely: more than 450 counties and municipalities across 44 states now carry similar restrictions, and Ohio's Senate Bill 52 has made the state a particular flashpoint. Notably, the campaign to overturn the ban is leading with a focus on property rights and job creation, rather than climate arguments. Link.

• Anti-data center sentiment continues to percolate and advance. Maine became the first state to officially enact a statewide ban on new large data centers (those drawing more than 20 GW), pending governor's signature, with a moratorium running through late 2027. In Missouri, a community responded to an approved local project by voting out every incumbent council member who supported it. At least 11 states now have moratorium legislation in motion. Link. Link.

• Delta Air Lines removed its 2030 target to source 10% of jet fuel from sustainable aviation fuel and downgraded its net-zero 2050 commitment from a "goal" to an "aspiration." IATA projects SAF will cover just 0.8% of global aviation fuel this year; Delta's own SAF use in 2025 was roughly 0.5% of consumption despite a six-fold volume increase over two years. Link.

Transportation 

• China's EV exports roughly doubled in Q1, rising 124%, with analysts suggesting the global energy price surge from the Hormuz conflict could accelerate that further as gasoline costs climb internationally. Chinese lithium battery exports also jumped 50% year-on-year in the same period, partly driven by front-loading before an export tax rebate reduction that kicked in April 1. Link. Link.

• Uber added $200 million to its Lucid Motors investment and raised its vehicle purchase commitment to at least 35,000 EVs for robotaxi deployment, up from the 20,000 previously announced. Link.

• Lyft, meanwhile, is building an 80,000-square-foot warehouse in Nashville to handle servicing, charging, and maintenance for Waymo's autonomous fleet. This is a deliberate pivot away from owning the vehicles toward running the operational layer behind them. It stands in contrast to Uber, which, as above, is investing directly into robotaxis. Link.

• Tesla received its first regulatory approval to operate Full Self-Driving software in Europe, a market milestone for the company which offers a brighspot in the face of two consecutive years of declining sales on that continent. Link.

• Hyundai's U.S. EV sales climbed 40% between February and March, driven by rising gasoline prices pulling consumers toward electric vehicles. CEO José Muñoz noted the company's sales mix has recovered to pre-tax-credit levels despite the $7,500 federal EV credit having been eliminated, and that dealers who were recently telling Hyundai to produce fewer EVs are now requesting more inventory. Link.

Honorable financing mentions

• Stegra, based out of Stockholm, (formerly H2 Green Steel), which aims to produce near-zero emissions steel using green hydrogen and renewable-powered electric arc furnaces, raised €1.4 billion (~$1.65 billion). The Wallenberg family led, joined by Temasek, IMAS, Altor, Hy24, and Just Climate. Link.

• Slate Auto, based out of Troy, MI, which develops low-cost electric pickup trucks, raised a $650 million Series C. TWG Global led. Link.

• Mazama Energy, based out of Frisco, TX, which develops next-generation geothermal systems engineered to reach ultra-high subsurface temperatures, raised $100 million. I couldn’t get my hands on investor details all that quickly, so I stopped trying. Link.

• Wayve, based out of the U.K., which trains end-to-end autonomous driving systems on sensor data rather than pre-built maps or proprietary hardware, raised a $60 million Series D extension. AMD, Arm, and Qualcomm participated. Link.

• Subra, based out of Denmark, which develops superconductor solutions for zero-loss power transmission and fusion energy applications, raised €40 million (~$47.2 million) in a Series A. Novo Holdings led. Maj Invest and SPRIND participated. Link.

• Zanskar, based out of Salt Lake City, which uses AI to locate previously undetected conventional geothermal resources underground, closed a $40 million development capital facility structured as a revolving line of credit for project development, among the first such instruments built specifically for early-stage geothermal. Just Capital and Spring Lane Capital led, with Tierra Adentro Growth Capital also participating. Link.

• Ulysses, based out of San Francisco, which builds networked fleets of autonomous surface and subsea vehicles for ocean exploration, monitoring, and infrastructure protection, raised a $38 million Series A. Andreessen Horowitz led, with Booz Allen Ventures, Harpoon Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, ReGen Ventures, and Superorganism also participating. Congrats, Will and team! Link.

• pH7 Technologies, based out of Vancouver, which uses an electrochemical process to recover metals from low-grade ores and waste streams, raised a $32 million Series B. Fine Structure Ventures led. Link.

• NanoTech Materials, based out of Houston, which develops coatings that reduce heat transfer and improve fire resistance in buildings and infrastructure, raised a $29.4 million Series A. HPI Real Estate & Investments led. Link.

• Critical Loop, based out of Los Angeles, CA, which combines battery storage, on-site generation, and its Cygnus software-defined power controller into a modular platform that can get industrial customers onto the grid in days or weeks rather than years, raised a $26 million Series A. Conifer Infrastructure Partners and Hanover led, with Better Ventures, my team at Climate Capital, Adapt Nation Capital, and Cyrus Ventures also participating. I podcasted with the CEO previously, which you can listen to here. Link.

• Sepion Technologies, based out of Alameda, CA, which develops polymer coatings for battery separators to improve energy density, charging performance, and safety, raised a $10 million Series B led by Fine Structure Ventures (as with pH7 Technologies above). Link.

What else I’m reading, listening, and watching

• This interview with the CEO of Stardust, a stratospheric aerosol injection company. Link.

• This article exploring the socioeconomic nuances of the data center build out. Link.

• This article on the data center build out and AI generally as the new status symbol. Link.

• All these short stories and poems, including some of my own, and books. Link. Link.

• This Austrian crime series, which offers shades of True Detective (my fav). Link.

Hope to see some of y’all this week,

— Nick

Hello,

In non-energy, and sustainability news, for the lovers of the written word generally, I’ve got two new short stories and a poem out of late, with more poems coming in May. Read em’ here, here, and here—gold star if you send thoughts back my way, particularly thoughtful criticism.

Now, on to our regularly scheduled program. Today, we’ve got news of another major climate tech bankrupcty, as well as some developing threads surrounding blowback and public resistance to AI and data center development, which has big implications for energy and climate tech generally (among plenty of other sectors). All that and more in this roundup, not to mention some more positive stuff to offset the duldrums.

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• More than half the U.S. is now in drought, with near-record spring temperatures, a particularly pronounced drought across the Western U.S. and historically low snowpack, and Midwestern wildfires already underway. Link. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

Energy market x Iran war updates

• President Trump agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran, sending oil prices below $100 per barrel for the first time since the war began in earnest. The deal allows ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz under coordination with Iran's military, with both Iran and Oman able to collect tolls. Prices remain well above pre-war levels, and a full recovery in Gulf energy exports is expected to take months given widespread infrastructure damage and a global scattering of tanker fleets. Plus, the ceasfire already appears to be on shaky ground and WTI futures are back over $100 in the Sunday overnight trading session, at least as of this writing. We’re nowhere near out of the woods here yet, folks. Link. Link. Link.

• Average U.S. gas prices hit $4.14 per gallon this week. Diesel is up to $5.65, creeping toward the all-time record of $5.82 from 2022. Link.

• Brown University researchers estimate the Iran war has added roughly $17 billion in fuel costs to the U.S. economy so far, or about $129 per household. Link.

• The University of Michigan's preliminary April consumer sentiment index dropped to 47.6, the lowest level since records began in 1952. One-year inflation expectations jumped to 4.8% from 3.8%, while five-to-ten-year expectations rose to 3.4%. Link.

Elsewhere in energy and industry

• Battery recycling startup Ascend Elements filed for Chapter 11 despite having attracted over $1.1 billion in funding since launching in 2015. A $316 million federal grant was pulled by the Trump administration last October, compounding financial pressures. Link.

• Fervo Energy locked in a three-year deal with Turboden America for 1.75 GW of turbine capacity across its next-gen geothermal projects. Combined with the Cape Station development in Utah, which is set to begin generating power later this year, Fervo's pipeline now tops 2.2 GW, which would more than half-again the entire existing U.S. geothermal fleet. Reminder, this is one of the main companies from the past 5-7 year climate tech cohort that’s poised for and actively eyeing an an IPO. Link.

• Xcel Energy won regulatory approval in Minnesota for what would be the nation's first utility-owned virtual power plant. The $430 million Capacity*Connect program would deploy up to 200 MW of batteries in small increments across customer sites over two years, giving Xcel both an economic incentive and a framework to measure what distributed energy is actually worth to the grid, how to monetize it, and how to work with a variety of stakeholders to actually make it happen. Link.

Fission and fusion

• India's Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor achieved first fission after more than two decades of construction, joining Russia as only the second country to operate a commercial fast breeder reactor. The design converts India's abundant thorium reserves into usable fuel, long-sought step toward actual operation, though that itself remains many steps away. Link.

• China poured first concrete on a new Hualong One reactor in Zhejiang province, moving from license to construction start in just six months. Link.

• ARPA-E is committing $135 million over 18 months to fusion energy development, a record bet for the agency in this area. The move comes as Trump's 2027 budget proposes trimming the DOE's broader fusion sciences program from $805 million to $755 million. Link.

Pushback

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home was attacked twice this week, which, taken together with mounting resistance to AI in regulatory circles as well as as evidenced by another shooting incident referenced below, shows how quickly the AI and data center development narrative is spiraling out of control and sparking significant resistance (to put it mildly). Specifically, one suspect was arrested for hurling a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's residence and threatening violence outside OpenAI's San Francisco offices earlier this week. Two days later, surveillance footage captured a second apparent attack on the property: a Honda sedan stopped in front of the home early Sunday morning and a passenger appeared to fire a round at the building before fleeing. Link. Link.

• A gunman fired more than a dozen shots into an Indianapolis city councilmember's home, leaving a note on the doormat reading "no data centers." Councilmember Ron Gibson voted the previous week to approve construction of a 75 MW data center. Link.

• OpenAI also shelved its Stargate UK data center expansion over concerns about British energy costs and the regulatory environment. Other Stargate builds in the U.S., Norway, and the UAE are moving ahead, raising questions about the U.K.'s competitiveness for large-scale AI investment. Link.

• A Wisconsin city is holding what's believed to be the first-ever municipal vote on banning data center construction. Last week, we wrote about continously advancing efforts to put a moratorium on data center development in the state of Maine. Data center bans entirely are also under consideration in some jurisdictions. Link. Link.

• A community north of San Diego killed a proposed 320 MW battery installation after residents pushed back on siting large-scale energy storage near homes and within 1,600 feet of a major hospital. Developer AES withdrew its application for the project, which would have ranked among the largest standalone storage facilities in the U.S. Link.

Policy

• The EU is easing methane rules on imported gas as European governments scramble to secure alternative supply during the Iran conflict. Link.

• The EPA rolled out revisions to the Biden-era methane rules under the Clean Air Act for oil and gas producers. Administrator Lee Zeldin framed the changes as correcting regulatory overreach; others called the loosened flaring restrictions a major step backward for public health and the climate. Nothing too new to see here, folks. Link.

• New Jersey lifted its decades-old ban on new nuclear construction, becoming the sixth state in ten years, and the second in 2026, to scrap such restrictions. Governor Sherrill signed the bill at Hope Creek generating station, which together with the neighboring Salem plant delivers 40% of the state's power and the vast majority of its zero-carbon electricity. Link.

Transportation

• China's EV and hybrid exports surged 140% year over year in March to a record 349,000 units, as spiking fuel costs from the Iran conflict boosted global demand for EVs. BYD shipped roughly a third of the total, followed by Geely and Chery. Link.

• U.K. EV sales hit their highest level ever in March at 86,120 registrations, with plug-in hybrids also up 47%. Analysts attributed the surge to consumers looking to insulate themselves from volatile global fuel prices amidst the ongoing Iran war. Link.

• Tesla delivered 358,023 vehicles in Q1, short of analyst estimates but up from Q1 2025. Link.

• U.S. EV charging deployment hit new highs in 2025: DC fast charger installations jumped 46% to 23,000 ports and Level 2 networks added over 113,000. That said, the momentum is cooling; project activity in early 2026 is tracking 15% below last year through February, even as total port counts are higher, pointing to fewer but larger deployments. The demand picture has also softened: U.S. EV sales dropped 38% in Q4 2025 after the federal tax credit expired, and Q1 2026 came in at 216,399 units, down 27% year over year. Link.

• Volkswagen is pulling the plug on EV production at its Tennessee plant, pivoting the facility to gasoline models that move in higher volumes. Link.

Honorable financing mentions

• Xoople, based out of Madrid, raised €112.6 million (~$131.7 million) in a Series B to build geospatial data infrastructure that lets AI systems model and forecast physical-world changes. Nazca Capital, MCH, CDTI, Buenavista Equity Partners, and Endeavor invested. Link.

• Portal Space Systems, based out of Seattle, closed a $50 million Series A at a $250 million post-money valuation, co-led by Geodesic Capital and Mach33, to make solar thermal propulsion systems for spacecraft. Link.

• Satellites on Fire, based out of Buenos Aires, raised a $2.7 million seed round led by Dalus Capital to use satellite imagery and AI to spot wildfires in real time and model their spread. Link.

Hasta la vista,

— Nick

Hi,

Spring is assuredly sprung in the Northern Hemisphere, a fact I can divine not just from calendars but from my allergies to pollen and from continued and sustained high temperatures in the Western U.S. Here’s where else signs of spring are cropping up (or aren’t) across climate, energy, and sustainability circles:

ONE STORY IN (TWO) SENTENCE(S) AND A CHART

• Here’s one that’s further off the beaten path: Owing to the splendor and spiritual significance of cherry blossoms, when cherry blossoms bloom in Kyoto, Japan, is the subject of the most meticulously kept, longest-standing climate data. Bloom’s in recent years have been coming earlier and earlier. Link. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

Climate science

• JPMorgan's institutional clients are increasingly focused on climate tipping points, particularly the weakening of Atlantic ocean currents (AMOC) and what that could mean for European winters and migration. The bank's climate advisory head said it's "quite possible" the world is shifting from a linear to an accelerated nonlinear phase of climate change. More on that second point coming in a longer form article soon. Link.

• NOAA's March termination of an atmospheric dataset has alarmed researchers who rely on it to model long-term Arctic sea ice thickness trends, creating a gap in one of the world's key ice-monitoring systems. Link.

Energy market x Iran war updates

• Oil prices are now over $110 a barrel after President Trump failed to assuage concerns regarding the timeline of the conflict in Iran last week, even equivocating with respect to whether reopening the Strait of Hormuz is a key U.S. military objective. Trump has since taken to social media to harp on promises of continued strikes against Iran, including on its energy infrastructure, provided no deal is reached. I wrote more about the longer term implications of prolonged conflict in this piece. Link.

• Oil price moves in March represented the largest-ever monthly gain, while aluminum also approached a four-year high following Iranian strikes on major smelters in the UAE and Bahrain. The Gulf accounts for roughly 9% of global aluminum output. Link.

• The IMF has cautioned that a prolonged Middle East conflict would drive up prices and slow growth globally, warning that highly indebted nations would have little fiscal room to cushion the blow. Link.

• U.S. consumer sentiment dropped to a three-month low in March as rising gas prices and war-related market volatility weighed on households, according to the University of Michigan survey. Link.

• Slovenia became the first EU nation to ration fuel amid the Iran-driven energy shock. The European Commission followed by encouraging remote work and reduced travel across the bloc while pushing member states to accelerate renewables deployment. Link.

• U.S. LNG exports hit a record high in March, with shipments to Asia more than doubling month-over-month as buyers scrambled for alternatives after the Middle East conflict knocked nearly 20% of global LNG supply offline. Link.

Elsewhere in energy and industry

• Gas turbine manufacturers are backordered through the end of the decade as data center and power plant demand outstrips supply. Wood Mackenzie data shows turbine prices heading toward $600/kW by late next year, up 195% since 2019, with 110 GW of global orders against only ~65 GW of manufacturing capacity. Link.

• U.S. solar installations totaled 26.5 GW last year, a 22% decline year-over-year, though solar remained the most-added generation source in 2025. Link.

• Italy's parliament is debating legislation to extend the life of its coal plants to 2038, 13 years past the original shutdown deadline, as the country imports nearly all of the natural gas that supplies 40% of its electricity and heating. Sign of the times. Link.

• The European Commission approved a ~$6.9 billion aid package under an Italian-government led scheme to accelerate green hydrogen production, a space that has suffered considerably of late. Link.

Policy

• The Trump administration's Endangered Species Committee voted unanimously to exempt Gulf of America oil and gas operations from Endangered Species Act protections, citing national security. Conservationists warn the move threatens the Rice's whale, the Gulf's only year-round resident large whale, and the Center for Biological Diversity has amended its lawsuit to challenge the decision. Link.

• Maine is moving to freeze construction of data centers above 20 MW until November 2027 to study the AI boom's impact on its grid. Electricity costs in the state jumped nearly 60% between 2021 and 2026. There will likely be more such moritoriums in states to come; often, one state setting the precedent unleashes a wave of copycats. Link.

• Indonesia's forest loss jumped 66% in 2025 to an eight-year high, driven by loosened environmental protections and a push for national food and energy self-sufficiency. Link.

Transportation

• Waymo now completes over 500,000 paid robotaxi rides weekly across 10 US cities, a tenfold increase from May 2024. Its fleet exceeds 3,000 vehicles, and CEO Tekedra Mawakana is targeting one million weekly rides this year. J.P. Morgan analysts project the company could capture 7% of the U.S. rideshare market by 2030. Link.

• General Motors idled its Factory Zero EV plant in Detroit again, sending 1,300 workers home as EV demand weakens in the U.S. The pause comes less than three months after a prior round of layoffs and shift reductions at the $2.2 billion facility. Link.

Fission and fusion

• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission renewed Diablo Canyon's license, allowing California's last operating nuclear reactors to continue running through at least 2030. Link.

• Holtec completed a key restoration milestone at the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, bringing the reactor to operating temperature and pressure for the first time since its 2022 shutdown. The system will now undergo further testing and preparation for fuel loading. Link.

• Japan's Kyushu Electric Power is restarting the 890 MW Sendai No. 2 reactor, which would bring all four of its nuclear units online and cut LNG consumption by an estimated 390,000 tonnes per month. Link.

• Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Realta Fusion are partnering to design and manufacture high-temperature superconducting magnets to accelerate Realta's path to commercial fusion power plants, which is presently targeted for the mid-2030s. Link.

Honorable financing mentions

• Eclipse, based out of Palo Alto, raised $1.31 billion across two funds targeting physical sectors including manufacturing, energy, and transportation. Link.

• Valar Atomics, based out of El Segundo, raised $450 million ($340M equity, $110M debt) at a $2 billion valuation to build clusters of small reactors for energy-intensive sites like AI data centers. Link.

• Also, a Palo Alto-based Rivian spinout that makes small EVs for consumers and commercial delivery, raised $200 million at a $1 billion valuation led by Greenoaks Capital, with Prysm and DoorDash also participating. The company announced a DoorDash partnership focused on autonomous deliveries. Link.

• Starcloud, based out of Redmond, Washington, raised a $170 million Series A at a $1.1 billion valuation to build solar-powered data centers in space. Benchmark and EQT Ventures co-led. Link.

• Voltify, based out of Philadelphia and Israel, raised a $30 million seed round to retrofit diesel locomotives with battery-electric powertrains that recharge while in motion. Aleph and Fortescue co-led. Link.

• TerraSpark, based out of Luxembourg, raised $5 million in pre-seed funding to work on space-based solar energy transmission to Earth. Daphni, Sake Bosch, better ventures, the Hans(wo)men Group, and Karaoke Club invested. Link.

Til’ next time,

— Nick

Hey there,

Last week, we featured some news about America’s blossoming battery manufacturing capacity. This week’s featured chart zooms out to appreciate how much continued progress the world is making in terms of battery energy storage system deployment, and that’s just on the utility-scale side, not residential or in vehicles themselves. Read on →

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• Since 2012, when the first lithium-ion batteries were connected to power grids, more than 267 GW of battery energy storage system capacity has been deployed; future projections are even rosier, and past projections have universally been conservative. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

Climate science

• A new study published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Letters found that a decline in low-level cloud cover over the past two decades has driven half of the increase in Earth's energy imbalance over that time period. The research attributes about 74% of the cloud decrease to human-driven factors, including cloud feedback from ocean warming (40%), greenhouse gas emissions (21%), and reduced aerosol emissions (14%), while natural climate variability accounts for just 3%. The researchers note that, on average, climate models accurately simulate recent low-cloud cover trends, meaning these effects are already accounted for in existing warming projections. But it was certainly news to me. Link.

• Arctic wintertime sea ice has tied last year's record for its lowest-ever winter peak extent according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Sea ice reached its high point on March 14 at roughly 14.29 million square kilometers, a statistical tie with last year's all-time low of 14.31 million km². Only 5% of the oldest, thickest sea ice recorded in the 1980s has survived to the present day, and summertime sea ice cover has been halved, shrinking by roughly 12% per decade. Link.

• Seventeen states broke records for their hottest March temperatures as a massive heat wave has swept the western U.S. Some places saw temperatures 30 to 40° F above historical averages. Climate attribution models suggest this latest heat wave would likely not have been possible without human-caused climate change. Link.

Energy market x Iran war updates

• Oil prices soared again this week after falling sharply at the beginning of last week as Tehran dismissed the 15-point US proposal to pause the war and issued its own counterproposal; JPMorgan analysis found that the month of March has been one of the largest drawdowns on global oil inventories on record. The last cargo ships that left the Gulf before the war have nearly all reached Asia, which is likely to face the first visible demand losses in April, followed by Africa, then Europe. Link. Link.

• Repair costs from damage and shutdowns hitting fossil fuel infrastructure in the Middle East could amount to at least $25 billion, according to Rystad Energy. The costliest attack hit Qatar's Ras Laffan Industrial City, where destruction of LNG trains has reduced capacity by 17%, and full recovery will likely take five years due to high demand for gas turbines needed for data center electrification and coal plant retirements. Link.

• Reuters estimates that at least 40% of Russia's oil export capacity is also halted following Ukrainian attacks on energy infrastructure and the seizure of tankers. Link.

• In general, as oil and natural gas prices surge, Asian countries including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand are turning back to coal. South Korea has lifted limits on coal fleet utilization, Thailand has restarted decommissioned coal units, and Japan is planning to lift limits on coal output. Indonesia, the world's largest coal exporter, reversed plans to cut production from 790 million to 600 million tons and is now allowing miners to increase output. The Newcastle coal benchmark is up ~20% since the war. In Europe, Italy's energy minister is flagging the possibility of reactivating reserve plants, and Germany's energy mix has already seen a 2% coal spike. I flagged this dynamic as likely more than two ago in this piece in these pages. Link.

• The Philippines declared a national energy emergency to deal with continuing energy market disruptions from the Iran war. The government now has new authority to plan for rationing and prevent fuel hoarding, and may spur Manila's plans to bring a nuclear power plant online decades after a nearly complete facility was abandoned. Link.

• Taiwan and Japan, two of East Asia's biggest economies that have become increasingly dependent on LNG over the past decade, are scrambling for alternatives after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz cut off LNG shipments from Qatar. Specifically, Japan is temporarily lifting restrictions on coal-fired power plants and will begin releasing 53 million barrels of oil (roughly one month of consumption) from its national reserve. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi also asked the IEA for another coordinated release of global oil stockpiles to hedge against prolonged disruptions. Link. Link. Link.

• In the U.K., home rooftop solar sales are up 54% month-over-month and heat pump sales are up 50%, as consumers look to respond to rising energy costs. Similar trends are emerging globally in response to the Iran war's impact on oil prices. Link.

Elsewhere in energy and electrification

• The U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Commerce announced a public-private partnership with SoftBank Group and SB Energy to build 10 GW of new power generation, including at least 9.2 GW of natural gas, to power new data center development. The project will be located at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Pike County, Ohio, with SB Energy and AEP Ohio also partnering to build $4.2 billion in new electrical transmission infrastructure. SB Energy committed to paying for the transmission buildout and a $40 million Community Benefits Agreement. Link.

• BYD outlined plans for at least 20 new dealerships in Canada. At least three Chinese automakers are on track to start selling cars in Canada by the year’s-end. Link.

• The largest offshore wind farm being developed in the U.S., Dominion Energy's 2.6-GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, began delivering power to the grid this week. The project started sending electricity to Virginia's wires days after Ørsted's Revolution Wind project off Rhode Island also began producing power for New England’s grid last week. The Coastal Virginia project is expected to be complete in early 2027, barring additional assaults from the Trump administration. Link.

• Previously, Constellation Energy hoped that the nuclear reactor at the former Three Mile Island power plant could be ready to generate electricity by 2027; now, the company has updated its timelines given that it may not be able to connect the plant to the power grid until 2031, even if the plant itself is ready prior. Link.

Policy

• India submitted its new national climate plan, aiming to cut emissions intensity by 47% from 2005 levels by 2035 and lift the share of installed clean power capacity to 60% from 52.6%, where it stands currently. Reactions from analysts are generally positive, though some noted the targets should be relatively easy to meet and could, as is typical, be more ambitious. Separately, new analysis found that India's carbon emissions grew at their slowest pace in over two decades in 2025, with power sector emissions falling 3.8% due to record renewable energy expansion and slowing power demand growth. Link. Link.

• TotalEnergies dropped its net zero target, announcing a 2050 vision in which oil and gas will still represent about 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day of production. The company says roughly 50% of its energy would come from low-carbon electricity (~500 TWh/year from ~400 GW of renewable capacity), about 25% from low-carbon energy molecules (biogas, hydrogen, e-fuels), and the remaining quarter from oil and gas. Link.

• Senators Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveiled legislation to place a moratorium on the construction of AI data centers. The bill aims to give the government time to create federal safeguards as towns and counties across the country, including in Missouri, Indiana, Georgia, and North Carolina, have passed temporary bans on datacenter buildout, and at least 11 states are considering similar policies. Link.

Honorable financing mentions

• Scalvy, based out of Austin, Texas, raised a $13.9 million Series A co-led by Silicon Badia to provide modular power distribution units that deliver and manage electricity across data center racks. Climate Capital, where I work part-time, also invested. I interviewed the CEO of Scalvy, Mohamed Badawy, on Climate Capital’s podcast last year. Link.

• Helix Earth, based out of Houston, Texas, raised $12 million in an oversubscribed Seed 2 round led by Veriten for its proprietary liquid-gas chemistry designed for the commercial HVAC market. Link.

Fin,

— Nick

Hey folks,

We’ve got a Tuesday evening send this week because yesterday was my birthday and I didn’t feel like working too much. Has been a busy period for news and updates, though, so we’re back on the horse today. Hope your week is off to a good start.

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• Crude oil shipments through the Straight of Hormuz remain close to zero-bound (as do LNG and fertilizer shipments) since the beginning of the month. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• The 11-year span between 2015 and 2025 was the hottest 11 year-span on record since 1850, according to the World Meteorological Organization. The agency also warned the problem may worsen in 2026, with meteorologists predicting an El Niño event later this year that will push already-warm temperatures even higher. Link.

Energy market x Iran war updates

• U.S. President Trump announced a five-day halt to strikes on Iran following what he described as productive conversations with Iranian authorities, roughly one day after threatening to obliterate the country's power plants, including the Bushehr nuclear plant, if Iran didn't fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz. That said, after oil prices fell by ~10% yesterday, they’re back on the rise today, as much remains unclear about the near- and medium-term trajectory of conflicts in the region and the ensuing energy market disruptions. Link.

• Iranian attacks have knocked out 17% of Qatar's LNG export capacity, sidelining 12.8 million tons per year of LNG for three to five years and causing an estimated $20 billion in lost annual revenue. European gas prices are roughly double their pre-war levels. Link.

• The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has removed roughly a fifth of the global LNG supply from the market, posing perhaps the largest threat to energy networks across Asia, where countries like Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh generate a third or more of their electricity from natural gas. Asian utilities across the region have scrambled to buy remaining cargoes at record spot market prices, with many turning back to coal-fired power plants. South Korea, for one, is lifting its cap on coal-fired power generation to offset LNG losses. Link. Link.

• Sri Lanka declared every Wednesday a holiday for public institutions to conserve fuel, the latest in a series of belt-tightening measures by Asian countries; ~90% of all oil and gas flowing through the Hormuz last year was bound for Asia. This week, Slovenia also became the first EU country to start rationing fuel. Link. Link.

• Brazil could face fertilizer supply problems if the Middle East conflict does not ease soon, the nation's farm minister said, noting that urea prices spiked within days of the war starting, with some sellers suspending sales despite holding pre-conflict inventories. Link.

• Scandinavian airline SAS said it would cancel 1,000 flights in April because of high oil and jet fuel prices. Link.

Transportation

• Chinese EV startups Nio, Li Auto, and XPeng are all now profitable in stark contrast to many legacy automakers globally. Link.

• Rivian announced an over $1.2 billion investment from Uber through 2031, along with a deal for Uber to purchase between 10,000 and 50,000 autonomous R2 robotaxis. The fleet is slated to come online in San Francisco and Miami in 2028 and scale to 25 cities by 2031. Link.

• KKR-backed Zenobe Energy acquired San Francisco-based Revolv, which operates 13 fleet-charging facilities in California, as it looks to build a national electric-truck charging network. Link.

• Honda said it would cancel plans for three electric models it had planned to produce in the U.S. and that it would record its first annual loss, joining Stellantis, Ford, and GM in taking major hits to their profits, due in part to EV underperformance. Link.

• Global EV adoption helped avoid 2.3 million barrels of oil consumption per day last year, according to BloombergNEF. That figure is projected to more than double to 5.25 million barrels per day by 2030. EV sales as a share of total new car sales are still increasing globally, most rapidly in developing countries. Link.

Batteries and renewables

• The U.S. has achieved self-sufficiency in grid battery manufacturing for the first time, according to the US Energy Storage Coalition. By the end of this year, US factories are expected to produce 145 gigawatt-hours of finished grid storage systems annually, which is more than double the ~60 GWh of projected domestic installations. The country is also on pace to hit 96 GWh of dedicated battery cell manufacturing capacity by year-end, up from effectively zero at the close of 2024. Link.

• Tesla inked a $4.3 billion deal to buy lithium iron phosphate batteries from LG Energy Solution. The three-year agreement will see LG produce LFP prismatic cells at its Lansing, Michigan, factory starting in 2027, feeding into Tesla's next-generation Megapack 3 energy storage systems assembled at its Houston Megafactory. Link.

• Tesla is also looking to buy $2.9 billion of solar manufacturing equipment from Chinese suppliers, including Suzhou Maxwell Technologies; Musk recently promised to deploy 100 gigawatts of solar manufacturing on American soil by 2028. As of the start of this year, the U.S. had about 65.5 GW of solar manufacturing capacity. Link.

• The market capitalization of China's top battery manufacturers (BYD, CATL, and Sungrow) has soared by $70 billion since the start of the Iran war and resultant oil market instability. BYD recently upgraded its fastest chargers to provide 600 miles of range in nine minutes, four times the speed of a typical US charger, with thousands already installed in China and Europe. Link.

• China also announced that in January and February, production of wind turbines and lithium batteries for energy storage rose 28.7% and 84%, respectively. Link.

• Form Energy agreed to sell 12 gigawatt-hours of its iron-air (rust-based) long-duration batteries to data center developer Crusoe, with deliveries starting next year. Link.

• The Trump administration signed a $1 billion agreement with TotalEnergies for the French energy giant to abandon two offshore wind projects and redirect those funds toward fossil fuel infrastructure. Link.

Policy

• An alliance of 24 states and dozens of cities and counties filed a lawsuit against the EPA's repeal of the Endangerment Finding, the legal doctrine underpinning most federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The case may well reach the Supreme Court. Link.

• New York Governor Kathy Hochul proposed rewriting the state's climate law, requesting new emissions targets and more time to meet them. If successful, New York would be the first state to renege on its climate goals. More than half the state Senate has rebuked her plan, with 29 Democrats penning a letter saying they categorically oppose rolling back the law. Link.

• Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island announced an investigation into methane emissions from oil and gas facilities in the Permian Basin after satellite data revealed actual emissions were four times higher than EPA estimates. Link.

• Australia's second-biggest coal-producing state will ban new mine applications and impose rules to reduce methane emissions from existing projects. Link.

Fission

• X-Energy, a 17-year-old small modular nuclear reactor developer based out of Rockville, Maryland, filed for an IPO to capitalize on the positive tailwinds for SMRs given AI-related energy demand. The company has raised over $1.8 billion from investors, including Jane Street, Ares Management, Amazon, ARK Invest, and Emerson Collective. Link.

• The Natural Resources Defense Council came out in support of nuclear power for the first time in its history, filing comments supporting the restart of Iowa's defunct Duane Arnold nuclear plant. Link.

Other fundraising and financing activity

• Partech Impact Fund, based out of Paris, held a final close of $346 million (€300 million) for its inaugural Article 9 impact fund. It will invest in European B2B technology companies focused on decarbonization and cleaner mobility, among other objectives. Link.

• 360 Capital, based out of Paris and Milan, completed a first close of €85 million (~$99 million) out of a planned €100 million fund to invest in early-stage deeptech companies and climate tech companies. Link.

• UVC Partners, based out of Munich, held a first close of ~$89 million toward a $173 million growth extension fund to invest in European deeptech and climate tech companies. Link.

• GVC Gaesco Resilient Infratech Ventures Fund, based out of Barcelona, launched an $81 million fund targeting capital-intensive technology companies across energy storage, industrial electrification, automation, and data infrastructure in Europe. Link.

• Montis VC, based out of Warsaw, Poland, held a €50 million (~$58 million) first close for a new fund to invest in early-stage startups focused on energy and industrial systems. Link.

• Halcyon, based out of San Francisco, raised $21 million in Series A funding for its AI-powered energy information platform addressing the US electricity sector. Energize Ventures led. Link.

• Cocoon Carbon, based out of London, raised ~$15 million in Series A funding to convert steel mill byproducts into a low-carbon cement substitute. 2150 and Brick & Mortar Ventures co-led. Link.

• Ormat Technologies, based out of Nevada, raised a total of $1 billion in convertible debt to expand its geothermal business; the round was originally announced as a $750 million transaction. Link.

• Fervo Energy, based out of Houston, closed $421 million in non-recourse debt financing for the first phase of its Cape Station geothermal power plant in Utah, marking another successful step towards the company’s upcoming IPO. Link.

• Frore Systems, based out of San Jose, raised a $143 million Series D round at a $1.64 billion post-money valuation for its liquid-cooling systems for data centers. MVP Ventures led the round. Link.

• Utility Global, based out of Houston, raised $100 million in Series D funding for its industrial decarbonization platform. Ara Partners and APG Asset Management invested. Link.

• Solugen, based out of Houston, raised $50 million for its low-carbon nitrogen fertilizers derived from organic waste for agriculture. Idealist Capital and Canada Growth Fund invested. Link.

• Maersk Growth, the logistics giant's corporate venture capital arm, announced it will wind down operations and stop making new investments as Maersk refocuses on its core business. Link.

Adios,

— Nick

Hey there,

Yes, the title is a play on “Infinite Jest,” the encyclopedic novel by David Foster Wallace that operates as a nigh-perfect schism: you either love it or you hate it. Clocking in at ~900 pages with 388 footnotes, many of which have to do with the storyline itself as opposed to citing references or offering additional but not entirely necessary details, reading the book, as I did a few years back and likely will again soon, simulates what I imagine the experience of trying to digest the entirety of an IPCC report or other similar climate science synthesis reports would be like. All that’s to say that keeping up with the latest in climate science, especially if endeavored across all climate science, would be a Sisyphean affair. Still, the headlines of recent climate science are relatively clear: Global warming may well be accelerating. Let’s discuss what that means and what it requires of us.

The above is a quote from Andy Jankowiak, a NASCAR driver who quipped it casually over his headset to his crew towards the end of a race. He proceeded to make good on that commitment, pushing his car to the max with complete disregard for other drivers and any semblance of control. At max velocity, he careened into other cars and scraped against and along the wall while pieces of his car flew off—all without taking his foot off the pedal—until he did, indeed, see the checkered flag and crossed the finish line (the checkered flag denotes the final lap of the race). While he didn’t win, the “strategy” vaulted him and his team from tenth place into fifth. You can watch a replay here.

Reckless abandon may have a place in NASCAR racing; indeed, a modicum of it is likely a prerequisite for participation. It shouldn’t, however, characterize technological development or the way we manage our relationship to the foundational systems on which society depends.

Last month, a paper in Geophysical Research Letters reported that since 2015, the planet has warmed faster than ever previously recorded. Specifically, the rate of change of global warming, that is, not the warming itself, but the rate at which warming is accelerating, has nearly doubled since 2015. At the risk of pedantry, to spell that out a bit more, we’re dealing not just with a question or consideration of velocity, i.e., the direction and rate of warming, but of acceleration, i.e., the rate of change of that velocity.

Sitting here in Silicon Valley as I write this (where it is also currently ~90°F in Winter), there’s more “acceleration” conversation outside of climate circles than within them. If you spend much time online or in the tech and venture capital-adjacent spaces where I sometimes swim, you’ll quickly hear a cacophonous rabble of technologists, investors, and their hangers-on who spend a lot of breath talking about acceleration in the computational capacity and abilities of each new and improved AI model. The vision of those who celebrate “accelerationism” is perhaps best characterized by the belief that AI and advances in other technologies will solve more problems than they will cause. Sure, there may be a thin, albeit super fat, tail in the distribution where an artificial superintelligence leads to doom, deciding, for instance, that humans are superfluous if not detrimental to its designs.

For many, that seems to be a risk worth taking. But I’m not here to opine on the probabilities of that one way or another. Still, it’s not lost on me that we’re entering an accelerationist paradigm, one in which we’re either explicitly or implicitly taking the “until I see God or the checkered flag” attitude, across several seminal domains.

While the jury is out on the real risk distribution of more advanced AI, there’s far less uncertainty regarding the evolving nature of climate risk. I am also confident that most people aren’t cool with espousing the “God or checkered flag” attitude with respect to Earth’s climate and how we prepare for, mitigate, and manage climate change. But even as there is growing recognition of the risks of acceleration in climate change (just read the raft of comments on this recent New York Times article if you need some encouragement around whether climate risks are entering the common knowledge), as of yet, the lion’s share of investment and work in climate continues to focus on mitigation and adaptation. Those are very necessary pillars of climate work. And we urgently need to build another pillar focused on near-term climate stabilization, i.e., a confluence of strategies to arrest climate change acceleration.

Disambiguating climate destabilization

More important than AI accelerationism and everything that “movement” subsumes is the physical reality of what accelerating climate change portends. There is notable pushback against the results of the paper referenced above, which found that warming rates over the decade since 2015 have nearly doubled. As much debate as there is on this topic—about whether and to what extent climate change is accelerating and how much of the observations surrounding acceleration are driven by El Niño periods vs. not—we need look no further than the drivers of warming and climate change to appreciate why rates of change are increasing:

Greenhouse gas emissions: Emissions of most major greenhouse gasses globally remain at or close to all-time highs. Annual carbon dioxide emissions have increased more than 50% in my lifetime (since 1995 or so). And rates of increase for emissions of other, more powerful greenhouse gasses, like methane, are even higher: in terms of relative increase, atmospheric methane concentrations have increased much more than carbon dioxide concentrations have since 1800 (methane concentrations are up more than two-fold compared to a roughly carbon dioxide’s 50% increase.) The relationship between higher rates of emissions and faster rates of warming and climate change shouldn’t be particularly opaque.

Loss of natural reflectivity: As the planet warms, we also see losses of reflectivity that exacerbate warming; as reflective surfaces and particles are lost, more energy is retained in Earth’s net energy balance. The Arctic summer sea ice extent is a well-documented example, and a similar pattern holds across many Arctic and Antarctic regions. Reductions in the summer Arctic sea ice extent already account for ~25% of observed global warming.

Sourced from the Introduction to Modern Climate Change, 3rd Edition by Andrew E. Dessler

Loss of human-induced reflectivity: Another factor driving additional warming is the reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions. When sulfur dioxide emissions, whether from coal power plants, ships, or otherwise, enter the troposphere (the lower atmosphere), they oxidize to form sulfate aerosols, tiny particles that scatter incoming solar radiation back into space. Sulfur dioxide pollution is decreasing globally as ongoing efforts to reduce it continue, given that it is an air pollutant that’s deleterious to human and animal health. Still, the loss of the artificial shield that atmospheric sulfate aerosols previously provided is estimated to have “masked” ~0.4°C of the ~1.5°C of warming that’s already latent in Earth’s climate system. Put differently, the world is already much hotter in terms of retained energy than it seems or feels. We’ve just engineered a substantial atmospheric cooling effect to offset some of that warmth. Now, we’re consistently diminishing that cooling. 

Diminishing buffers: Alongside the loss of artificial or additional cooling from sulfate aerosols, many other ecosystems and climate systems that have historically acted as buffers against greenhouse gasses and the warming they drive may be approaching or at their “carrying capacity.” The world’s oceans are a good example: so far, the ocean has absorbed 90%+ of the excess heat introduced into Earth’s climate system by anthropogenic global warming. Other ecosystems, ranging from rainforests to peat bogs, are also exhibiting signs of stress and of being at capacity, as it were, to continue acting as buffers. There are limits to the extent to which any of these systems can offset climate change; beyond those limits, the impact of additional warming will accrue and compound elsewhere across Earth’s climate system.

Additional reinforcing feedback loops: Many elements of Earth’s climate system are complexly interconnected and coupled. Changes in one invariably impact many others. As global warming proceeds or even accelerates, climate change not only becomes more pronounced. It also risks “tipping” many stabilizing systems out of equilibrium. Some of what we’ve discussed above, such as the loss of sea ice or the shift in ecosystems’ ability to function as buffers against additional warming, is emblematic of this risk. And there are many other such systems, changes in which could accelerate warming and climate change even further. Another good example is thawing permafrost; at present, Arctic permafrost stores 1,460-1,600 billion metric tons of organic carbon. If even a fraction of that carbon is released as warmer temperatures thaw permafrost, it will set back greenhouse gas reduction efforts and could hasten other tipping points, forming a vicious cycle.  

There are dozens of other such reinforcing feedback loops I could introduce, but I don’t imagine it will necessarily help my overarching project, which is to create a desire to do something more than it is to engender despair. Further, it is worth noting that truly “runaway” warming is unlikely, as explored in much more scientific detail than I can muster here. That said, with respect to tipping points and their feedback loops, the risks of significant change to Earth’s climate, well beyond what we’ve seen from global warming and climate change thus far, aren’t particularly remote, either. As described in an excellent report, “Parasol Lost”, from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries:

While the best estimate for when the 1.5°C warming threshold will be reached points to 2035, recent analysis suggests it could happen on or even before 2030. Further, some tipping points, such as large-scale die-off of coral reefs, may have already been breached. Taken together, all of the above threaten to drive step changes in climate change and its impacts. It’s possible we’re already on a path to cross thresholds that tip the Earth into an irreversible, fast slide into a permanently altered state. The graphic below, taken from the same report mentioned above, visualizes this risk well:

Ultimately, the changes to Earth’s climate that this version of climate change could reap are too chaotic to predict perfectly. But they will almost certainly render the Earth far less supportive of human and non-human flourishing than it is in its current state, to say nothing of what it was like circa 1800. As such, the paradigm of action we need to shift into is one of stabilization, of arresting acceleration and destabilization. This requires responses beyond mitigation, adaptation, and carbon removal, all of which, even taken together, and even if deployed at much larger scales, won’t suffice to meaningfully reduce the risk of accelerating and cascading climate change we’ve outlined thus far. 

There are quick wins within mitigation and adaptation that should be prioritized, given that they deliver benefits faster than reductions in long-lived atmospheric carbon dioxide do. Examples include reducing methane emissions and halting deforestation; we should emphasize these as much as in the near term, if not more than, scaling cleaner energy and electrification (not that these things should be in competition, anyway). Further, we will need to take even more proactive steps to evaluate how to intervene directly in regions such as the Arctic to stall the loss of reflective sea ice and ice sheets (as one example among many). Fortunately, that work—whether we call it climate interventions or stabilization—is coalescing and gaining traction as we speak, and I’m excited to tell you more about programs I’m helping develop soon as they have concrete news to share. 

Whereas acceleration is the first derivative of velocity, the second derivative of it is “jerk.” Acceleration is more familiar to us because it is associated with reasonably quotidian experiences, like hitting the gas in a car (especially in an EV!). While we don’t think of “jerk,” i.e., the acceleration of acceleration, as much, it’s probably time to start, as there’s a chance it becomes an apt analogy for the changing shape and scope of climate risk. Climate change is already such a complex, global, and often abstract concept that it’s tough for people to wrap their minds around it, let alone to remain enduringly concerned about it, or, even more ambitiously, dedicated to doing something about it. We will need to build the muscles to conceive and communicate about it as such, though, as that’s a foundational capacity to being able to then elevate a step further to respond—whether with technology, policy, investment, or otherwise—to the even more complex epoch of climate change that we’re stepping into. On that front, if not on many others, I’ll gladly commit to not lifting pen from pedal until I see God or checkered flag.

Hi there,

Hope all my Northern Hemisphere-based folk are excited to welcome in spring later this week. Hopefully, the vibes improve for the better in the Middle East soon, too, where continued hostilities between the U.S. and Israel and Iran are pushing oil futures towards $100 again in Sunday night trading as I write this. More on that and lots more across energy and sustainability follows below:

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• Fertilizers are another core commodity group that features global supply chains with significant Middle Eastern export concentrations, portending disruptions given the ongoing conflict in and around Iran. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• Multiple forecasting groups have released updated models and results from them that suggest a strong El Niño may develop in late 2026. The current median forecast is for an El Niño that’s stronger than the 2023/2024 one and potentially on par with the 2015/2016 one. El Niño can temporarily boost global mean temperatures by as much as 0.2°C, though the peak warming effect typically lags 3-4 months after the event peaks, meaning this will likely impact 2027 temperatures more than this year’s. Link.

• The war in Iran is unleashing severe pollution across the Tehran metro area, home to ~18.5 million people. The UK-based Conflict and Environment Observatory identified over 300 incidents posing environmental risks from the hostilities, with the Israeli strike on oil depots outside Tehran representing the largest pollution incident so far. Link.

• As oil prices globally remain elevated, the International Energy Agency's member states unanimously agreed to release 400 million barrels from emergency oil reserves (its largest-ever release) to cushion the supply disruption from the Middle East war. The U.S. will contribute 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Link.

• Early evidence of oil market-related demand destruction is cropping up in Asia: last week, the Thai government asked state agency employees to work from home to save gas. Link.

Power

• Global long-duration energy storage deployment surged 49% from 2024 to 2025; China dominated most of that build-out, according to a new Wood Mackenzie report. Link.

• China's CATL reported $10.4 billion in profit for 2025, up 42% from 2024, beating expectations and driving a 10% share price bump. The battery giant’s results were buoyed by rising grid-scale battery demand and insulated from mineral price swings by its upstream lithium investments. Link.

• The U.S. Department of Energy (“the DOE”) made $1.9 billion in funding available for grid upgrades focused on reconductoring, i.e., swapping old cables for higher-capacity lines on existing rights of way. The announcement came the same day PJM Interconnection's market monitor released data showing data center load growth as the primary driver of rising electricity costs in America's largest power market. Link. Link.

• The U.S. solar industry installed just over 43 GW of panels in 2025, a 14% decrease from 2024, with the utility-scale sector shrinking nearly 40% quarter-over-quarter in Q4. Link.

• France produced a record 521.1 TWh of low-carbon electricity in 2025, representing 95% of total power production, as nuclear reactor upgrades allowed the fleet to generate more power. Link.

• Revolution Wind, a 65-turbine, 705 MW offshore wind farm off the East Coast, has begun generating power for Rhode Island and Connecticut. The project survived attempts by the Trump administration to shut it down; its completion offers a timely counterpoint to the supply insecurity of fossil fuels amidst ongoing geopolitical conflict. Link.

• Base Power, the Texas-based home battery startup that raised $1 billion last October, will install 100 MW of home battery capacity for cooperative utility CoServ outside Dallas–Fort Worth over the next two years. Homeowners can access a whole-home backup battery system for a $695 installation fee and $19/month subscription. Link.

Transportation

• Honda is taking roughly $15.7 billion in write-offs and losses as it recalibrates its EV strategy, becoming the latest auto giant to bleed money as EV uptake slows. Link.

• Global EV registrations fell 11% from January to February, largely due to lost buyer incentives. Link.

• BYD, the world’s largest EV manufacturer, reported combined January and February 2026 sales that were 36% below 2025 levels, signaling a more competitive landscape intraregionally in China even as Chinese companies overtake competitors in many international markets. Link.

• Volkswagen will cut 50,000 jobs in Germany by 2030 as post-tax profits fell 44% in 2025 to €6.9 billion (~$8 billion), the company's worst annual performance since the Dieselgate scandal. CEO Oliver Blume cited geopolitical tensions, U.S. tariffs, and intense competition from China; declining German industrial conditions and higher energy costs are likely also part of the picture here. Link.

• Zoox, the Amazon-owned robotaxi company, announced a multiyear partnership to deploy robotaxis on Uber's network in Las Vegas this summer and Los Angeles in 2027. NHTSA is also seeking public comment on Zoox's application to deploy 2,500 robotaxis without human controls. Link.

• Two U.S.-based companies, Invisible Urban Charging and ATX Smart Mobility, announced a $500 million commitment to deploy integrated EV charging infrastructure across central Mexico, starting with the Bajío industrial corridor. Link.

• Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai’s compensation package now features up to $260 million tied explicitly to Waymo's performance; this is the first time the autonomous vehicle unit has been linked to his pay. Link.

Industry

• Green cement startup Sublime Systems laid off two-thirds of its workforce after the DOE cancelled an $87 million grant. Link.

• Swedish company Stegra needs to raise $2.3 billion to complete its hydrogen-based clean steel plant, more than double its previous estimate. Link.

• Dajin Heavy Industry, a Chinese manufacturer of offshore wind foundations, has begun promoting plans to go public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The Beijing-based company has recently self-funded most of its expansion, including a new assembly plant in Tangshan and direct investments in wind and solar projects across China. Link.

• The DOE is restarting HB-Line operations at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to recycle surplus plutonium and produce uranium-plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for advanced nuclear reactors. The facility, part of H-Canyon, the only chemical separations facility of its kind in the U.S., has been in a managed offline state since completing its last mission in 2018. Link.

Policy

• Meta and a small town in Alabama are fighting over a solar farm; the conflict has escalated into a legislative push to ban utility-scale solar across much of the state. State Senator Greg Albritton introduced SB 354, which would impose a one-year moratorium on new large-scale solar projects statewide, with an exception for the Tennessee Valley Authority. If enacted, it would be the first time a U.S. state issued a blanket ban on solar. Link.

• The Trump administration sued California, accusing it of abusing its Clean Air Act authority to enact EV rules that unlawfully force a national transition to electric vehicles. If successful, the case could impact 17 different states, representing more than a third of the US auto market, all of which follow California's standards. Link.

Other fundraising and financing activity

• Emerald Technology Ventures raised €100 million (~$115 million) for its Global Water Fund II, out of which it plans to invest in startups that are developing water treatment, reuse, monitoring, and infrastructure resilience technologies. Link.

• Breakout Ventures launched a $114 million Fund III, backed by Cortes Capital, S-Cubed Capital, The Kraft Group, Pinegrove Venture Partners, JIMCO, and Korea Omega Investment Corporation, to support early-stage startups commercializing scientific breakthroughs in areas like biology, chemistry, and advanced materials. Link.

• AIRMO, based out of Berlin and Luxembourg, raised a ~$5.8 million seed round to monitor methane and other greenhouse gases from space via shortwave infrared imager and micro-LiDAR systems. Ananda Impact Ventures led. Link.

Be good out there,

— Nick

Much has been and will continue to be made of what dramatically increased oil prices mean for the economy at large, as well as for the economy and industry of decarbonization efforts. The headline impacts of higher oil and gas prices are relatively clear. Oil prices are currently extremely volatile and have increased by more than 50% in short order, representing the most pronounced and rapid rise ever, both in dollar terms and as a percentage. Near-term, higher oil and gas prices portend inflation for almost everything (everything that doesn’t feature a close-to-entirely digital supply chain, that is). There is certainly regional variability with respect to who’s most exposed to those price increases; in the U.S., companies and consumers will feel the impact of higher prices, but are far more sheltered from the loss of Middle Eastern oil and gas exports because the U.S. itself produces more oil and gas than any other country. Most other regions globally aren’t as well endowed with an embarrassment of natural resources.

Still, globally, higher oil and gas prices will drive near-term and likely medium-term inflation regardless of how soon we see a cessation of hostilities in the Middle East, especially considering that the output of something like an oil refinery or liquefied natural gas processing plant can’t be brought back online as readily as a data center, even if constraining factors like the safety of key shipping straights are shored up overnight.

This leads us to a second point. Much will and is already being made of the idea that this inflation should act as a boon for what at present constitute the “meat and potatoes” of decarbonization, namely cleaner energy alternatives and electrification. It certainly should. EV drivers can and deserve to take a smug victory lap (or three) this week and in the coming weeks as long as oil prices remain elevated. Consumers, companies, and countries that have invested in renewables, fission, and other clean firm power generation resources can and should too. But the longer-term prognosis for the current shock to global energy dynamics may not be wholly, or even close to wholly, positive for energy transition and innovation efforts.

Whether and to what extent current dynamics accelerate decarbonization depends on the duration of this latest war in the Middle East and its ensuant disruptions to oil and gas markets as well as to the flows of countless other essential commodities and products, like fertilizer.

While the current oil price is astronomical compared to where it was two weeks ago, if you look at the curve of oil futures contracts with longer-dated expiry (see below), contracts dating out to the second half of this year still price in considerable normalization, as evidenced by markedly lower prices. This situation, where the longer end of a futures curve is below the front, is known as “backwardation,” the reverse of the typical “contango,” where nearer-term prices are lower than longer-term ones, given longer-term contracts account for the additional implied uncertainty of passing time.

Oil futures curve visualized as of earlier this week—the longer end of the curve has risen somewhat since, but overall, the curve remains in a relatively steep state of backwardation

And while the longer end of the curve above in oil futures is now rising as well, indicating a gradual market acceptance that oil prices may not normalize soon, the curve remains steeply inverted from its norm. I raise this for a few reasons. For one, if this current energy shock remains reasonably temporally constrained—i.e., it doesn’t end up lasting all that long—I’m not convinced that it will serve as a massive accelerant to decarbonization efforts, investment, policymaking, etc... To be sure, again, it should. But if current energy market constraints don’t last into, say, the summer, I worry that their acute nature may simply convince stakeholders globally to double and triple down on energy independence efforts, where “energy” means all available sources and includes an invigorated commitment to diversifying oil and gas supply.

European and Asian countries alike will want to expand their options for oil and gas imports from regions less subject to geopolitical pitfalls than the Middle East, paralleling Germany’s record-breaking speed in constructing an LNG import terminal in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Asian countries may be even slower to phase out coal stockpiles and power plants that, at present, provide the bulk of their power and heat production. Countries with oil and gas reserves that haven’t yet developed them and/or don’t currently export much to global markets have plenty of pretext to expand their capacity to do so.

To be sure, much of the above likely holds even if current energy market dynamics persist for a while. Russia’s war in Ukraine also should have been a dramatic accelerant to global decarbonization efforts, especially in Europe, which was extremely dependent on imports of Russian gas through 2022. While there’s certainly been more recognition of the geopolitical and physical energy flow-related problems with that dependence, that European countries and many others globally still important Russian oil and gas while simultaneously supporting and aiding the Ukrainian resistance effort—a reality that may now come into even starker relief again as the U.S. and others ease sanctions on Russia in the context of current energy market dislocations—is ample evidence that decarbonization progress remains far too ponderous.

Further, if the energy constraints we’re currently experiencing persist for a while, their impacts on global markets are far too multivariate (and painful) to necessarily benefit any economic sector, including even oil and gas outside the Middle East. If sky-high prices persist for too long, an inflationary regime could flip into a deflationary one; higher costs borne for too long often lead to demand destruction. Once again, the impact and scars of that scenario will and should underscore the benefits of accelerated decarbonization and energy transition efforts. But they also pose many near-term challenges. For instance, to the extent we see spillover from energy markets to financial markets at large, I worry about the IPO window. Even as some companies that are advancing towards an IPO, like Fervo and its geothermal business, offer a medium- and long-term antidote to present-day problems, an oil price-driven inflationary shock to markets tightens capital conditions and dims the mood for everyone.

Similarly, the enthusiasm that has spurred significant investment into a data center and energy buildout for AI is also threatened by even more constrained energy availability and tighter capital conditions across markets. That no small part of the CAPEX for the data center supply chain has been earmarked by investors in the Gulf states and the Middle East doesn’t help that matter. The less long that hostilities in the region and the ensuing price dislocations they give rise to go on, the better. But a lot of damage, both physical to infrastructure and psychic to trust in return prospects over the next 5-10 years and in the U.S. as an ally that can be expected to honor all or at least most parties’ vested interests, has already been done.

Which brings us to the penultimate point: that all the above risks holding true not just at specific stages of fundraising (IPOs) or for specific sectors (higher-risk infrastructure and technology bets). At a certain point, with enough follow-through, system-wide contagions yield capitulating demand at all stages of private and public-sector business building, investment, innovation, and whatever else your favorite catch-all phrase may be. That means everything from early-stage venture capital to grantmaking and debt in all shapes, sizes, and stages. At the end of the day, when risk is really “back on,” especially after long periods where it was probably underpriced, most everyone “sells” most everything.

If there’s any saving grace to all this, it lies in the fact that major repricing events in commodities force a reckoning. The word “commodities” itself is an abstraction for very physical things our world most depends on, ranging from oil and gas to the lumber and steel that comprise the building you’re sitting in, to the core inputs to all the food you will eat today, and the fertilizer that was used to grow it. Too often, wars overseas remain little more than abstractions without anything to ground us personally in a lived experience of their impact. When, however, impacts are felt day-to-day by people worldwide via increased prices, travel disruptions, or the many other such effects we may well soon experience, it all becomes somewhat more real. We exit the paradigm of abstraction and everything that abstractions absolve our conscience of by virtue of what they obscure.

While most of our experiences will assuredly not be as terrible as the death and destruction to which we subject people in the Middle East, ideally, they’ll still lead to sufficient resistance to finally arrest the cycle of endless ill-fated Middle Eastern wars (which, at this point, feels like a case study in the Freudian concept of repetition compulsion), to say nothing of countless other awful foreign and domestic policies.

Howdy,

We enter the second full week of outright conflict in the Middle East as hostilities between the U.S., Israel, and Iran metastasize across the region. While the duration of the war remains perhaps the key unknown, its impact on energy markets and markets at large is already coming into starker relief. All that and more below:

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• A new paper published in Geophysical Research Letters reports that the pace of global warming has nearly doubled since 2015. Link. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• Crude oil prices posted their biggest weekly gain in futures trading history, with WTI surging 35.63% to close at $90.90 per barrel last week, while Brent jumped ~28% to $92.69 per barrel. Nor is the action done and dusted; WTI opened at ~$110 as of this writing last night, adding another 20% over the weekend, during which futures trading is closed. Whether those levels hold as we head into the week, near-term inflation is assured; expect elevated gasoline prices both domestically and globally, and higher electricity prices abroad, as LNG exports from Qatar and elsewhere in the region are affected as well. The longer oil prices remain elevated, the more likely it becomes that the overall impact flips from inflationary to deflationary, as higher prices for everything that isn’t purely digital risk driving demand destruction. Link. Link.

• Israel targeted Iran's oil facilities for the first time over the weekend, with strikes hitting a civilian oil storage facility in Tehran, bathing the city in toxic pollution. Iran retaliated by striking a desalination plant in Bahrain with drones. Water desalination plants also came under attack in Iran, where the U.S. stands accused of targeting a plant on Qeshm Island, possibly disrupting water supply for 30 villages. U.S. Central Command denied the charges. These attacks on energy and water infrastructure mark a significant escalation in the conflict, as many Gulf nations depend on desalination to sustain tens of millions of people. Link. Link. Link.

• Amidst all the above, Kuwait Petroleum and others declared force majeure—i.e., contractual provision freeing parties from liability when extraordinary, unforeseeable events (such as wars)—on oil sales owing to attacks on regional energy infrastructure and disrupted shipping routes. The more that regional energy companies follow suit, the more imperiled global oil, gas, and chemical supply chains will be for weeks if not months. Link.

• As noted above, Qatar halted LNG production and export operations due to military attacks on QatarEnergy's operating facilities, including the Ras Laffan plant, which accounts for roughly 20% of global LNG supplies. All traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has effectively ceased (as of this writing) due to insurers withdrawing and reports of ships being attacked. Qatar is the second largest exporter of LNG globally, behind only the U.S. European gas prices were up about 40% in trading on Tuesday when Qatar first announced the halt. Restarting gas liquefaction can take weeks. Link.

• Amazon said drone strikes tied to the Middle East conflict damaged two AWS data centers in the UAE and disrupted a facility in Bahrain, knocking services offline and causing widespread outages. Link.

Elsewhere in energy

• China's BYD unveiled its Blade Battery 2.0 system, capable of charging an EV from 10% to 70% in about five minutes when paired with the company's new 1.5-MW Flash Charging stations. Link.

• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted a construction permit for TerraPower's flagship project to convert an old coal plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming, into a next-generation nuclear station. This is the first commercial-scale, fourth-generation reactor to receive regulatory approval in the U.S. this century. TerraPower's design uses liquid sodium metal as a coolant instead of water. Link.

• Facing surging electricity demand and threats to energy imports from China and now the war in the Middle East as well, Taiwan announced proposals to restart at least two of its three shuttered nuclear stations, nearly a year after its last reactor shut down. The government report also said Taiwan may consider building SMRs or, even more speculatively, fusion plants. Link.

• China is making progress on the world's largest commercial compressed air energy storage project. The $520 million Huai'an Salt Cavern CAES demonstration plant is now fully operational and includes two 300-MW units, the first of which came online in December, with the second following in recent weeks. Link.

• The Trump administration's first Alaskan oil and gas lease sale ended without a single bidder for more than a million acres of federal waters in the Cook Inlet, echoing a failed 2022 auction that also drew minimal interest. Link.

• Geothermal startup Quaise Energy is developing a 50-MW "superhot" geothermal plant in central Oregon using novel rock-melting technology and is in the process of raising a $100 million Series B round. The company has already signed a PPA for the initial 50 MW and is working on deals for an additional 200 MW. Link.

• Ocean Winds signed a lease agreement for a 1.5-GW floating offshore wind project in the UK, which would be by far the largest floating wind farm ever built. Two-thirds of global offshore wind potential is in waters too deep for traditional platforms. Link.

Policy

• The EU proposed setting a quota for publicly funded projects to source 25% of their steel from low-carbon sources as part of its Industrial Acceleration Act. Hydrogen Europe warned that the rules don't account for limited direct subsidies for key technologies or similar quotas in other industries, like housing or automotive construction. Link.

• China set a cautious new five-year climate target, pledging to cut carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 17% by decade's end, compared to a previous 18% target through 2025 that was narrowly missed. The goal has frustrated some analysts’ and policymakers’ hopes for tighter policy ahead of President Xi's 2030 peak emissions deadline. Link.

Hydrogen

• Spanish refiner Moeve is moving forward with a scaled-back version of its 2-GW Andalusian Green Hydrogen Valley project, which features a total project value pegged at $1.2 billion. Link.

• The 220-MW ACES Delta green hydrogen project in Utah, the largest in the U.S., is ready to launch with all 40 electrolyzers installed and fully operational. The milestone comes as the sector faces headwinds, including the 45V tax credit slated for phase-out next year and Trump pulling funding for regional hydrogen hubs. Link.

Other fundraising and financing activity

• Amazon, Google, JPMorganChase, Salesforce, and others unveiled a $100 million initiative to reduce emissions of superpollutants, i.e., methane, black carbon, and other refrigerant gases, through 2030. To date, superpollutants are responsible for roughly half of all global warming. Link.

• Galvanize closed a $370 million real estate-focused clean tech fund to invest in renewable energy and efficiency projects in commercial buildings, capitalizing on rising electricity costs. Link.

• Oxa, a UK-based self-driving software startup, raised $103 million in Series D funding from Nvidia's venture capital arm and the UK's National Wealth Fund. Link.

• Rift, based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, which develops circular iron fuel technology to decarbonize industrial heat, raised €83.1 million (~$96.7 million) in Series B funding led by PGGM. The company also secured €30.7 million in grant funding from the EU Innovation Fund. Link.

Take care,

— Nick

Hi there,

This piece was contributed by Tommy Hughes, with editorial overlay from yours truly. Tommy works on strategic accounts at PowerFlex, where he focuses on scaling distributed energy solutions. More of his writing can be found on his Substack.

DEEP DIVE

I have spent the better part of the past year silently tracing a changing digital supply chain across developers, utility executives, county planners, environmental advocates, and a few random conversations with residents who attend zoning meetings to monitor industrial expansion because they’re bored. The prevailing sentiment is not one of shared progress, but of rapid, opaque transformation. We are arguably witnessing the fastest buildout of industrial infrastructure ever, arriving in the form of data centers: windowless fortresses of steel that consume staggering (slightly unfathomable) amounts of electricity, water, and land. This growth is fundamentally rewriting the assumptions that have governed the power sector for decades.

Industry once treated electricity as a dependable, invisible input, someone else’s problem. Today, it, and many of the essential components of producing it, like gas turbines, has and have become the central constraint. Interconnection queues stretch into the 2030s, substations are scarce, and transformer lead times are measured in years rather than months or weeks. Cleanview’s recent analysis of 46 behind-the-meter data center projects, representing 56 gigawatts of planned capacity, indicates that roughly 30% of all planned U.S. data center capacity is now moving toward self-supplied power. Notably, 90% of that capacity was announced in 2025 alone. A niche workaround has become a core strategy. Developers are bringing their own power, not as a temporary backup, but as one option to deliver the foundational reliability and power requirements for project viability. This is the "on-site power arms race," and it is an important frame, beyond all the buzz about AI itself, through which to view all attendant discussions concerning AI, data centers, and all they may or may not enable in coming years. 

“Data Center” Mentions in media, original report from INK Media

1. How time-to-power shapes data center development

In technical discussions, the focus vis-à-vis data center development has shifted almost entirely to a single data point: the energization date. For developers, this date is the primary bottleneck in their project timelines. The shift is driven by fundamental math related to running and iteratively advancing AI. Data centers accounted for around 4% of total U.S. electricity demand in 2023. That figure is projected to grow to 9% by 2030. Data centers are expected to account for 15–20% of all U.S. load growth over the next decade. Furthermore, Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) used for generative AI are estimated to be 10 to 15 times more electricity-intensive than the CPUs used in traditional computing. Hence, in part, how Nvidia, the most prominent producer of GPUs, managed to reap $68 billion in revenues in its most recent quarter, with roughly $62 billion thereof attributable to its data center segment.

The current U.S. grid, which accommodated relatively consistent electricity production, transmission, and distribution for decades, isn’t up to the demands of the growth pattern, let alone on the desired schedule that developers require. Indeed, even before the current infrastructure and AI boom, the grid was already overburdened. Interconnection risk has become a permanent feature of the development landscape, whether for data centers or otherwise, and schedule certainty is increasingly rare. Grid Strategies estimates a 16% surge in power demand over just four years, reaching 90 GW by 2029, while Goldman Sachs estimates data center power demand will grow 160% by 2030.

Recent project‑level data shows how unreliable nominal commissioning dates have become. Sightline Climate’s Q1 2026 Outlook notes that of 110 data center projects slated to come online last year, 26% are delayed, and another 10% quietly shifted their commercial operation dates amid power, permitting, and construction constraints. Looking ahead, at least 16 GW of capacity is nominally scheduled to come online in 2026 across 140 projects, but only 5 GW is actually under construction. Sightline expects 30–50% of those 2026 projects to be delayed, with roughly 11 GW still stuck at the “announced” stage despite typical build times of 12-18 months. Time‑to‑power is now the central development constraint, not an afterthought that can be mortgaged for utilities to figure out later and on their own.

Cleanview’s aforementioned research details how developers are responding. They are procuring whatever generation equipment is available: refurbished industrial turbines, aeroderivative turbines designed for aircraft, reciprocating engines, and mobile gas generators mounted on semi-trucks (or at least, they are working on making these alternatives feasible and integratable). One developer recently placed a $1.25 billion order with Boom Supersonic, a company that has never previously sold a power generation product, simply to secure the turbines the company says it will be able to make. The quest for the perfect energy source has been replaced by a more desperate “anything that hums” policy. 

Of course, the stakes are high. Not just because of competition and the race to build ever more powerful models. Current estimates suggest that AI data centers can generate between $10 million and $12 million in revenue per megawatt of capacity annually. On a gigawatt scale, that represents $10 billion to $12 billion a year. Bringing a campus online even two years ahead of a grid connection can thus yield tens of billions in additional revenue. Consequently, developers are willing to overlook everything from high fuel costs to sophisticated, novel engineering challenges, lower efficiencies, and, lest we forget, little regard for the potential to spike greenhouse gas emissions, to secure power as fast as physically possible.

2. The anatomy of modern data centers

The following “stacks” represent the hardware currently being deployed to these ends. Traditionally, data centers rely on a 2N redundancy scheme (meaning the facility has two completely independent power systems so that if one fails entirely, the other is not only dispatchable, but already running and capable of handling the full load on its own). The “BYOP” era elevates what were once backup components of setups to primary use.

Stack 1: Diesel gensets

A diesel genset is a coupled package of a compression ignition engine and an alternator that produces AC power on demand. In a traditional data center architecture, these units sit downstream of the utility feed as the last resort source, synchronized via paralleling switchgear to share the load during a grid failure. In dense corridors like Northern Virginia, the expected operating envelope is changing, with approximately 4,000 generators now permitted to run up to 500 hours per year for testing and reliability events. During an outage, the critical IT load rides on uninterruptible power supply (UPS) batteries for several minutes while the generators start, reach rated speed, and stabilize voltage. Once stabilized, automatic transfer switches move the load to the generator-backed buswork to maintain continuous uptime. However, this concentration creates significant localized air quality issues, as diesel exhaust contains nitrogen oxides, benzene, and arsenic. A single 1.3 million-square-foot facility in Wisconsin, for example, is permitted to emit nearly 90,000 tons of CO2e, primarily from these testing and emergency cycles. Consequently, while diesel remains the industry standard for reliability, its cumulative environmental footprint is increasingly coming under regulatory scrutiny.

More traditional, “standby” diesel generators for data centers (Central States Diesel Generators)

Stack 2: Gas microgrids

A gas microgrid is a behind-the-meter power plant composed of multiple natural gas prime movers, such as reciprocating engines or aeroderivative turbines, orchestrated by a sophisticated microgrid controller. This controller acts as the system's brain, managing voltage and frequency locally to enable islanding, where the data center operates independently of the utility grid. Cleanview’s research indicates that roughly three-quarters of the identified behind-the-meter equipment, totaling 23 GW, is now natural-gas-powered. Developers favor this stack because gas infrastructure is often more readily available than high-voltage grid interconnections, offering a more predictable energization timeline. Mechanically, these systems use modular engine blocks that can be scaled in increments of capital expenditure as the data center's power demand grows. While these microgrids offer a plausible path to rapid deployment, they tether the digital economy to fossil-fuel infrastructure in the long term. The trade-off for schedule certainty is a complex web of air permitting and pipeline constraints that can become a secondary bottleneck.

Stack 3: Private gas plants

For the largest hyperscale campuses, developers are bypassing modular solutions in favor of utility-scale, on-site gas-fired power plants. These facilities often use heavy-duty gas turbines or combined-cycle configurations to deliver hundreds of megawatts of dedicated baseload power. By building their own behind-the-meter plants, developers reduce the financial risk associated with multi-year utility interconnection delays. These projects are most prevalent in regions with high natural gas production and regulatory environments that favor rapid industrial development. However, these plants are land-intensive and require significant infrastructure, including dedicated high-pressure gas pipelines and cooling water systems. They also require rigorous permitting for noise and air emissions, as they essentially function as private utilities. While they provide the ultimate level of power independence, they represent a massive, long-term commitment to carbon-intensive generation.

Stack 4: Fuel cells

Fuel cells generate electricity through an electrochemical reaction between a fuel, typically natural gas or hydrogen, and an oxidant, rather than through combustion. In current data center deployments, these systems usually utilize Solid Oxide Fuel Cell technology, which can run on the existing natural gas grid while being hydrogen-ready for the future. They offer a quieter profile and a cleaner local plume compared to reciprocating engines, making them easier to permit in noise-sensitive areas. However, their current economic viability depends almost entirely on natural gas, meaning they are not yet a truly carbon-free solution. The modular nature of fuel cell energy servers allows developers to add capacity in small increments, matching the phased build-out of server halls. Despite the forward-looking narrative of a hydrogen economy, the high capital costs and reliance on fossil fuels remain significant hurdles. For now, they serve as a premium, lower-emission bridge for developers facing intense community or regulatory pressure.

Stack 5: Grid interfacing batteries and UPS

The Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is the critical link in a data center’s electrical chain, traditionally providing about 5 minutes of ride-through time using lead-acid or lithium-ion batteries. In the “BYOP” model, these systems are evolving into larger grid-interfacing battery energy storage systems capable of handling more than just emergency transitions. They allow facilities to perform peak shaving, reducing the load on on-site generators or the grid during periods of high demand. They also provide essential frequency regulation and voltage support, smoothing out the volatility inherent in islanded microgrid operations. By maintaining complete uptime reliability, they ensure that sensitive IT equipment experiences no power loss for a single millisecond. As data centers move toward hybrid power, these batteries become a key tool to integrate intermittent renewables with firm on-site generation. They transform the data center from a passive consumer into a flexible, responsive node in larger systems.

Stack 6: Hybrid campuses

Hybrid campuses represent the most complex tier of on-site power, integrating solar arrays, battery storage, and firm fuel generation into a single microgrid. A flagship example is Switch’s Citadel Campus in Nevada, which utilizes 127 MW of solar and 240 MWh of storage to serve the data center directly. These projects are designed to maintain some level of responsiveness to corporate sustainability goals, which have largely taken a backseat to building data centers and powering them at all costs in general, while preserving the reliability required for AI workloads. The technical challenge lies in “firming” the intermittent renewables, which requires sophisticated software to balance solar output with dispatchable gas engines or fuel cells. While these steps can help assuage community skepticism and reduce carbon footprints, they are exceptionally land-intensive and require massive upfront capital.

The physics of 24/7 uptime means that even the most advanced hybrid sites cannot yet abandon firm, combustion-based generation entirely. They serve as a proof of concept for a less gas-dependent data center buildout. These hybrid architectures are also where the largest projects live. Sightline’s data shows that while on‑site and hybrid campuses make up less than 10% of projects by count, they account for nearly half(!) of total announced capacity. Flagship sites like a 7‑GW Lea County campus in New Mexico and a 1.8‑GW gas‑plus‑renewables project in Wyoming are far too large to wait for conventional grid build‑outs; they are effectively building their own power systems first and then hanging compute off the side. Perhaps as a consequence of their complexity, they aren’t all that common yet in the current build-out.

Stack 7: PPAs and direct asset acquisition

Another recent evolution in power strategy is the shift from Power Purchase Agreements to the direct acquisition of generation assets. Traditionally, tech companies signed long-term contracts to buy power from third-party wind or solar farms to offset their dirtier grid consumption. However, as grid capacity has tightened, hyperscalers like Amazon have begun buying shovel-ready projects outright, such as the 1.2 GW Sunstone solar-plus-storage facility in Oregon. This move toward direct ownership allows companies to control the development timeline and ensure that the power is physically available when the data center opens. It signals a fundamental lack of confidence in traditional utilities' ability to deliver promised capacity on a competitive schedule. By owning the fuel and the plant, tech giants are effectively vertically integrating their energy supply chains. This strategy secures long term price stability and carbon-free energy, but it also places the burden of infrastructure management directly on the technology firm.

Soon, but not yet: Small modular reactors

Small Modular Reactors are envisioned as the ultimate solution for carbon-free, high-density baseload power for data center campuses. These reactors are designed to be factory-built and shipped to a site, offering a smaller footprint and, in theory, lower costs than traditional large-scale nuclear plants. However, the technology remains aspirational in the context of the current AI build-out, as no commercial SMRs are yet operational in the U.S. That may well change in the coming years as many startups tout monthly, if not weekly, progress towards demoing their first reactors; a cadre of startups hopes to take reactors critical for the first time before or on July 4th this year.

The cautionary tales of Vogtle Units 3 and 4, which took 15 years and 36 billion dollars to complete (running well over budget, some of the costs of which were passed along to ratepayers), loom large over the industry's nuclear ambitions. This motivates work on SMRs, which ideally, once commercialized, can be produced, deployed, and energized more quickly and with more predictable CAPEX requirements. Still, any semblance of steady SMR deployment will only start in 2027 or 2028 at best, which is already at the longer end of when developers want to develop, finish, and run data centers.

While tech companies are signing early-stage agreements to signal interest and spur development, the regulatory and technical hurdles mean that a vision of many dozens of SMRs dotting the American landscape is only realistically envisioned to start in the 2030s. And that would constitute a remarkable success. For a developer who needs power in 24 months, SMRs can’t be counted on in a construction Gantt chart.

Also ran: Resurrecting nuclear giants

The current operating nuclear strategy for some hyperscalers has also shifted from awaiting future innovation to resuscitating the industry’s vintage giants. This asset reclamation play prioritizes certainty over novelty, as developers realize that the fastest way to secure a gigawatt of carbon-free baseload power can be to tether data centers directly to proven, existing assets. The most significant signal of this shift was AWS acquiring 1.9 GW of nuclear power for its campus from Talen Energy, which is connected (via some complicated metering techniques to avoid approval scrutiny) to the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station in Pennsylvania. By plugging directly into this 1980s-era plant, AWS effectively bypasses the years-long queue for grid interconnection. Even more unprecedented is Microsoft’s 20-year PPA with Constellation Energy to restart Unit 1 at Three Mile Island, a 1974-vintage reactor that was retired in 2019. Ironically, for some tech titans, the path of least resistance to ever-more advanced AI runs through 50-year-old cooling towers.

3. Geographic constraints

The choice of power stack is also dictated by local constraints. Where diesel permitting is permissive, diesel is used. Where gas pipelines are accessible, gas microgrids are built. Cleanview’s data shows that 83% of proposed behind-the-meter capacity is concentrated in just five states. These regions typically offer a combination of available fuel and regulatory frameworks that speed rapid industrial development.

Virginia is a great example. Data centers already consume approximately 25% of Virginia’s electricity, the highest share of any state. The only place in the world with more data centers than Virginia is China at large (and mind you, that’s one state versus a country with 1.4 billion people). Dominion Energy’s 2023 Integrated Resource Plan projects a quadrupling of demand in 15 years, driven largely by data centers. A Virginia legislative audit (JLARC) found that unconstrained power demand will double in the next 10 years, a trend that’s irreconciliable with existing clean energy and climate goals.

Texas has seen an enormous boom in both wind and solar, yet it remains a primary site for gas-heavy data center development due to its independent grid and proximity to gas production. Other fast-growing states include South Carolina, Arizona, and North Dakota, where commercial electricity demand is growing fastest due to large computing facilities.

4) The environmental and social cost

The rapid deployment of on-site power has direct consequences for the communities hosting this infrastructure. Data centers are material infrastructures; they don’t happen in a theoretical vacuum, and are part of extractive digital supply chains that depend on land, minerals, water, and energy.

Water consumption

Data centers are forecast to consume ~450 million gallons of water per day by 2030, up from 205 million in 2016. A typical facility uses between three and five million gallons per day, equivalent to the water needed for a city of 30,000 to 50,000 people. Despite this, a 2022 Uptime Institute survey found that only 39% of data center operators actually measure water usage.

The impact is often underestimated. In northern Holland, a Microsoft data center used 84 million liters of drinking water in 2021, four times higher than the initial projection of 12–20 million liters. Furthermore, roughly three-quarters of the water footprint occurs indirectly at electricity generation sites (cooling thermal power plants), meaning communities far from the data center are part of the water-impact geography. In Northern Virginia, the Occoquan Reservoir, which provides drinking water to 2 million residents, has seen alarming increases in sodium and other salt-related constituents linked to the expansion of impervious surfaces, such as data center roofs and parking lots.

It sounds like a lot, but in macroeconomic water terms, data centers also remain a relatively small slice of total consumption. U.S. agriculture withdraws on the order of 80–100 billion gallons of water per day. Even at 450 million gallons per day, projected data center usage would represent well under 1% of total U.S. freshwater withdrawals. This does not mean it doesn’t matter, particularly in water-stressed regions, but it certainly reframes the discussion: data center cooling is a concentrated, visible load, whereas agriculture is a diffuse and structurally embedded one. Growing alfalfa to feed cows with water from the Colorado River is a much bigger problem than any modal data center’s water consumption.

Land use and noise

Data centers are enormous buildings, often exceeding 100,000 square feet, that provide few long-term jobs relative to their footprint. They are a poor fit for walkable, transit-supportive mixed-use areas. In Chandler, Arizona, noise from cooling systems and backup generator testing led to revised ordinances in 2023 that imposed stricter standards. In Fairfax County, Virginia, new data centers are prohibited within one mile of metro stations to preserve transit-oriented development.

Legal battles are mounting across the country as data center proposals run into a familiar buzzsaw of local resistance, noise complaints, worries about property values and community character, and a growing willingness by counties and neighborhood groups to drag projects into hearings, permitting fights, and court. The politics are catching up to the physical reality: New York lawmakers have proposed a statewide moratorium on permitting for large (20+ MW) data centers while the state studies land use, pollution (explicitly including noise), and rate impacts, a sign that siting is becoming a front-end regulatory question rather than a back-end mitigation exercise. Public opinion is also more fragile than the industry may have originally assumed: a Heatmap Pro poll found only 44% of Americans would support a data center being built near where they live (42% oppose), with “local, tangible” downsides like water and electricity impacts proving especially persuasive, the classic ingredients for zoning boards, injunctions, and drawn-out permitting wars. 

Even when national sentiment is “mildly positive,” backlash intensifies when a project becomes literal, a neighborhood-level fight over who absorbs the costs of the AI buildout and who captures the tax base. Washington’s emerging “BYONCE” posture, effectively telling developers to bring not just their own power, but their own new clean energy, underlines the same land-use tension: if the data center arrives, the enabling infrastructure (generation, transmission, substations) tends to arrive with it, expanding the project’s spatial and political footprint well beyond the server halls themselves. Mind you, all the opposition percolating out there is really no joke, and it’s mounting: at least 25 data center developments were canceled due to local opposition last year! Communities across the country are making it clear in hearings and court filings alike: whatever arrives with the data center had better be clean, quiet, and out of sight to the extent possible. If it could drive up electricity bills, strain local water supplies, or disrupt daily life, well, you’d be surprised at how hard local residents will work to thwart development. Especially if little effort is made to educate and ensure local economic development is in order for local taxpayers.

Environmental justice

New fossil fuel infrastructure is frequently sited in already overburdened communities. In Chesterfield County, Virginia, residents have faced 80 years of coal-plant pollution, and cancer rates are in the 90th percentile nationally. Adding new gas-fired plants to support data center loads exacerbates existing inequities. Moreover, 29% of Virginians reported forgoing basic goods like food or medicine to afford energy bills in 2023; Dominion Energy projects that bills may triple to finance the infrastructure driven by data center loads. That’s an unconscionable added burden to Virginians, sans any direct assurances that the trillions reaped by a relative few as AI booms will somehow trickle back to them. 

5. Governance and corporate tactics

The data center industry is increasingly adopting tactics reminiscent of older extractive industries. This includes veiling corporate identity behind local subsidiaries and using Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) to withhold environmental information.

In The Dalles, Oregon, Google planned a data center on land formerly occupied by an aluminum smelter, co-opting associated industrial water rights. When a local newspaper requested water usage data, the city sued the paper to block disclosure, with Google paying the city’s legal costs. After a year of litigation, the city settled and released the data. This pattern of "proprietary" environmental data is a recurring theme in data center governance.

Environmental impact and permitting processes are almost universally project-by-project. There is no standard requirement to evaluate the regional cumulative impacts of clustered data centers on grid stability, air quality, or water quantity. Local governments are often drawn to data centers as "cash cows" because they generate significant property tax revenue while requiring few municipal services, but this often ignores the long-term public burden of infrastructure upgrades.

6. Utility response: lead, follow, or be routed around

Utilities are currently being "routed around" by the largest developers. When Amazon or other hyperscalers buy gigawatt-scale power projects outright, it is a clear indication that they are losing confidence in utilities as reliable partners for timely delivery, though some of it is also a recognition that it is not entirely fair to utilities either for them to finance assets the most immediate financial benefits of which flow to a relatively select few, as opposed to, say, the general public in any given jurisdiction. This creates a two-tier system. In some regions, utilities and developers coordinate to integrate behind-the-meter assets into regional planning. In others, the system is fragmented, with developers building private, islanded infrastructure that operates independently of the public grid. This fragmentation makes long-term decarbonization more difficult, as it locks in gas infrastructure that may operate for decades, and bifurcates regulatory efforts, capital investment, data, and collaboration / “shared context.”.

However, some grid operators are responding with a more nuanced "conditional access" model. Sightline’s Q1 2026 Outlook notes that regions like SPP and PJM are now offering faster interconnections to data centers that bring their own generation or demand flexibility. By embedding grid-upgrade charges into large-load tariffs and offering non-firm service contracts, operators are effectively allowing developers to connect sooner if they can use on-site capacity to ride through grid curtailments. This represents a negotiated detour where data centers become quasi-utilities, responsible for both their own security of supply and a share of the grid’s broader stability. This trade-off, flexibility in exchange for speed, is becoming a primary middle path for managing AI-scale demand.

The net-net

The shift toward behind-the-meter power is a pragmatic response to a systemic failure to revitalize and upgrade the nation’s electrical grid to both keep pace with growing demand, AI boom or not, and to decarbonize at the requisite scope and scale. That developers are opting for BTM solutions is not a transition driven by a preference for self-sufficiency, per se, as much as by sheer logistical and economic necessity. That this buildout is currently slated to depend on natural gas and diesel in many cases is also a product of logistic and economic necessity (solar and batteries only get you so far), but still augers an indictment of corporate sustainability pledges from tech giants and elsewhere, adding to the long list of “green larping” examples enumerated in Keep Cool previously.

The on-site power arms race will create a massive fleet of fossil fuel generators, decoupled from the grid, powering data centers—a landscape of windowless, private fortresses of power production and the incessant whirr of ever faster, more complex, and increasingly even recursive computation—that will drive additional greenhouse gas emissions for decades. Its decoupling allows for rapid growth, yes, but it also continues to externalize the environmental and social costs onto local communities and the world at large while bypassing the traditional regulatory oversight that governs public utilities. A lot of what’s been discussed here is novel, groundbreaking, revolutionary, even. It’s also a tale as old as time.

For those of you in the weeds of this topic yourselves, both Tommy and I would love additional input to flesh this out further. Let us know where there’s even more nuance and where we may mischaracterize how things are actually shaping up on the ground.

— Tommy & Nick

Sources / references

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