Another hot year with higher emissions

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Hi there,

Hope all the U.S.-based W2 warriors enjoyed the long weekend. Quick heads up → this will be the last edition of these market news curation newsletters in which I also cover a series of fundraising rounds. In the future, I’ll only include funding rounds that really stand out to me. Lots of other newsletters cover rounds well; if you’re curious which ones I read, feel free to shoot me an email for recs.

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ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• It’s hard to take just one story from Nat Bullard’s annual slide deck (replete with 200 slides), but the below, which visualizes how electricity has become the leading form of (useful) energy delivery globally, stands out as my favorite after careful consideration. Link to full deck here.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rose 2.4% in 2025 after two years of declines, per new estimates from the Rhodium Group. Emissions from fuel use in buildings rose 6.8% as colder winter temperatures drove space heating demand, while higher natural gas prices and growing electricity demand boosted coal-fired generation, driving a 3.8% rise in power sector emissions. Link.

• 2025 was the third-warmest on record based on data that extends back to the 1800s, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. The past 11 years have been the 11 hottest on record; last year's average was 1.47°C above preindustrial levels. Link.

• Tesla confirmed its Texas lithium refinery is now operational, marking a major milestone for the company's U.S. battery supply chain. The facility converts raw spodumene ore directly into battery-grade lithium hydroxide onsite, bypassing intermediate refining steps commonly used elsewhere in the industry. Link.

• An unlikely coalition, including Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, and all 13 governors of PJM states, signed a "Statement of Principles" on Friday, demanding reforms to bring new generation onto the grid while protecting consumers. The plan envisions procuring $15 billion of new generation in the region through a "reliability backstop auction" outside regular capacity auctions, with payments spread over 15 years. Link.

• Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney opened the door to more imports of Chinese EVs. Canada will now allow up to 49,000 Chinese EV imports as per its “most-favored nation tariff” rate of 6.1 percent, increasing to 70,000 EVs by year five. Time to drive to Vancouver to get my second car. Link.

• EV sales in the U.S. dropped 41% year-over-year for November, reflecting the impact of disappearing federal tax credits. Link.

• A federal court lifted President Donald Trump's stop-work order on the Empire wind project off the coast of New York, marking the administration's second defeat this year as his latest attempt to halt construction of offshore turbines on the East Coast also foundered. Another New England project, Vineyard Wind, has also sued the administration. Link.

• A U.S. judge also ruled Orsted can resume development of the Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island while it challenges the government's latest stop-work order. The project is almost 90% complete, and CEO Rasmus Errboe noted the project will enter power generation mode in weeks. Link.

• BP will write down its green energy business by as much as $5 billion as the company, which recently replaced its CEO, pivots back toward its core fossil fuel business and paring back clean tech plans. Link.

• Both France and Spain substantially increased their imports of Russian Liquefied Natural Gas last month. Spain increased its Russian LNG imports by 27%, while France increased its imports by 18% in December. Link.

• Microsoft announced one of the largest soil-based deals to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Under a 12-year agreement, the tech giant will purchase 2.85 million credits from the startup Indigo Carbon PBC, which sequesters carbon dioxide in soil through regenerative agricultural practices. Link.

• Wyoming is inching closer to building what could be the U.S.’s largest data center project, after commissioners in Laramie County unanimously approved construction of a complex designed to scale from an initial 1.8 gigawatts to 10 gigawatts. The facility, called Project Jade, will be built by data center giant Crusoe, with neighboring gas turbines provided by BFC Power and Cheyenne Power Hub. Link.

• Thea Energy became the first awardee of the U.S. DOE’s Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program to complete its design review for a fusion pilot plant. Link.

• Next-generation nuclear companies Oklo Inc. and TerraPower LLC will need to invest more than $14 billion in new reactors to support Meta Platforms Inc. data centers, delivering about 690 megawatts of fission capacity from TerraPower and 1.2 gigawatts from Oklo over the next decade, according to estimates from BloombergNEF. Link.

• The EPA is scrapping the decades-long practice of calculating the health benefits of reducing air pollution by estimating the cost of avoided asthma attacks and premature deaths to justify clean-air rules. The Trump administration also plans to stop tallying the health benefits from curbing fine particulate matter and ozone. Link.

• At least 25 data center projects were canceled last year following local opposition in the U.S., accounting for at least 4.7 gigawatts of electricity demand. At least 99 data center projects nationwide are now being contested by local activists or residents, out of about 770 planned data centers nationwide. Link.

• Japan began a deep-sea rare earth extraction trial that Reuters calls "the world's first attempt to continuously lift rare-earth seabed sludge from 6 km (4 miles) deep onto a ship." Link.

• Nearly 10 years after Massachusetts announced plans to buy 1.2 gigawatts of carbon-free hydropower from Canada, the clean electrons are finally set to start flowing into the state. The New England Clean Energy Connect transmission line will begin commercial operations imminently. Link.

• China's leading fusion project, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), announced achievement of a key milestone, namely a "novel high-density operating scheme" inside the reactor itself. "The findings suggest a practical and scalable pathway for extending density limits in tokamaks and next-generation burning plasma fusion devices," study co-lead author Ping Zhu noted. Link.

CURATED DEALS

Larger funding rounds:

• CleanCapital, based out of New York City, raised a $300 million debt financing package to help it increase its clean energy capacity 50% in the next 12 months. The company is the number-two operator of commercial-scale solar farms in the U.S. already. Link.

• Type One Energy, based out of Knoxville, TN, is raising a $250 million Series B at a $900 million valuation, of which it has now raised $87 million. The company is pursuing a stellarator-based approach to fusion and signed a deal with the Tennessee Valley Authority last year to build a fusion power plant at the site of a former coal station. Link.

• osapiens, an ESG software company based out of Mannheim, Germany, has become a unicorn after raising $100 million in a Series C funding round at a $1.1+ billion valuation led by BlackRock-Temasek's Decarbonization Partners. Link.

• Accelsius, based out of Austin, TX, which builds two-phase direct-to-chip liquid cooling systems for AI data centers, raised a $65 million Series B round led by Johnson Controls. Link.

• Hydrosat, based out of Washington, D.C., raised a $60 million Series B co-led by Hartree Partners, Subutai Capital Partners, and Space 4 Earth, to operate thermal infrared satellites and sell imagery and data products for water-resource management, agriculture, and national security. Link.

Medium-sized funding rounds:

• SunLib, based out of Aix-en-Provence, France, raised €25 million (~$29 million) in equity funding from Épopée Gestion for its solar installation services, which it sells via a subscription model. Link.

• Karman Industries, based out of Los Angeles, raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Riot Ventures to build modular thermal infrastructure for giga-scale AI data centers. Sunflower Capital, Space VC, Wonder Ventures, and Pat Gelsinger also participated. Link.

• Mosa Meat, based out of Maastricht, Netherlands, raised €15 million (~$17.4 million) from existing investors, including Invest-NL, LIOF, PHW Group, and Jitse Groen, for its cultivated meat development business. Link.

• Equitable Earth, based out of Paris, raised a €12.6 million (~$14.6 million) Series A funding round to scale its digital nature-based carbon project certification platform. Link.

• SkyFi, based out of Austin, TX, raised a $12.7 million Series A round co-led by Buoyant Ventures and IronGate Capital Advisors to provide on-demand access to satellite imagery and geospatial insights. Link.

• Nuclera, based out of Billerica, MA, which specializes in protein and antibody engineering, raised $12 million in extended Series C funding led by Elevage Medical Technologies and Jonathan Milner. British Business Bank and Gk Goh also invested. Link.

Smaller funding rounds:

• Ammobia, based out of San Francisco, raised $7.5 million in seed funding to scale a lower-temperature, lower-pressure version of the Haber-Bosch process that could cut ammonia production costs by up to 40% and reduce emissions in the process. Air Liquide, Chevron, and Shell invested. Link.

• Material Hybrid Manufacturing, based out of Miami, raised $7.1 million in seed funding in a round led by Outlander VC and Harpoon Ventures to commercialise its HYBRID3D technology that 3D-prints conformal, shape-free batteries directly into devices. It also secured a $1.25 million contract from the U.S. Air Force. Link.

• EvodiaBio, based out of Rødovre, Denmark, raised €6 million (~$7 million) in equity funding led by RA Capital Management's Planetary Health Fund to scale its yeast-based fermentation platform for producing sustainable natural aroma compounds. Link.

• noriware, based out of Lupfig, Switzerland, raised a €4.3 million (~$5 million) seed round to commercialise norifresh™, a plastic-free seaweed-based film for fresh produce ahead of the EU's 2030 ban on single-use plastic fruit and vegetable packaging. Link.

• Verna, based out of London, raised $4 million in equity funding led by NAP and Übermorgen to scale its software that helps organisations plan, manage, and measure the impact of nature restoration projects and to easily make biodiversity reports. Link.

• Amperon, based out of Houston, announced an investment from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, the corporate venture arm of Samsung Group, for its energy forecasting and analytics solutions. Link.

Funds:

• Superorganism, based out of San Francisco, formally announced its $25.9 million first fund to invest in companies working to promote better biodiversity outcomes. Link.

Until next time,

— Nick