People still care

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