Still pumping

Hello from Germany,

Hope you’re all keeping cool out there. It’s hot here in Europe but not as hot as the heatwave a few weeks ago that killed 10,000+ people. Grim opener, sorry, but sometimes we gotta remember the urgency of what’s at stake in a world with an actively, acceleratingly changing climate.

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• U.S. oil production has continued to hit new all time highs last year (and likely this year_, preserving the country’s status as the world’s largest oil producer. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• Global sea surface temperatures hit a record high for the time of year, with both the Copernicus Climate Change Service and Copernicus Marine Service independently confirming daily SSTs of 20.86°C and 21.0°C respectively on June 21, edging out the prior records set in 2023 and 2024. Link.

• Western Europe recorded its hottest June ever at an average of 20.74°C (69.33°F), more than three degrees above the 1991-2020 baseline, per Copernicus. Link.

Grid and power demand

• PJM Interconnection, the nation's largest grid operator, set a new all-time system record with more than 168 gigawatts of demand on July 2 during the heat dome, surpassing a past record of 166 GW. Prices per MW soared up to $28,000 during the heatwave. Link.

• Google and Amazon both released annual sustainability reports showing the AI buildout swamping their climate goals. Google's greenhouse gas emissions rose 18%, its largest annual increase on record, while electricity demand jumped 37% (roughly 3.5x pre-pandemic levels) and water consumption climbed 34% to 10.9 billion gallons. Amazon's emissions grew more than 16%, with purchased-electricity emissions up 34%, though it also deployed an additional 21,000 Rivian delivery vans. Link.

• Spain has already surpassed its annual record for negative-priced solar hours just six months into the year, forcing solar farm owners to pay users to take midday power. At least four Spanish solar projects or companies have gone up for sale at steep discounts as the generation glut outpaces grid, battery, and offtake capacity, a mismatch that has only grown since the April 2025 Iberian blackout, with grid operator Red Eléctrica increasingly ordering solar farms offline. Spain has vowed $34+ billion in grid upgrades by 2030. Link.

Nuclear fission and fusion

• Aalo Atomics became the fourth startup to reach criticality under the Trump administration's reactor pilot program, splitting atoms at its test reactor in the early hours of July 4. It follows Antares Nuclear (Idaho National Lab), Valar Atomics (San Rafael Energy Lab in Utah), and Deployable Energy, whose "nuclear battery" Unity went critical at INL roughly 150 days after project kickoff. These companies all helped make good on the DOE’s goal of getting three test reactors critical by the country's 250th birthday. Link.

• Valar Atomics separately claimed another new first recently, namely powering an Nvidia Blackwell chip through its Ward 250 test reactor. The startup says this marks the first time advanced nuclear power has run AI hardware (emphasis on “advanced”). Link.

• Realta Fusion says it became the first private company to publicly demonstrate direct electricity generation from a fusion reaction, using its Wisconsin test reactor to produce usable power without converting heat into steam. Link.

• Alongside the technical milestones, fusion fundraising is accelerating → 56 companies raised a combined $4.5 billion over the 12 months ending in July, a 69% jump over 2025's total, per the Fusion Industry Association's annual report. Cumulative funding since 2021 now stands at $14.2 billion, a sevenfold increase, and twice as many companies are competing as when the report debuted six years ago. Link.

• Holtec International announced the Palisades crew has completed "the last of the major projects" in restoring the decommissioned Michigan nuclear plant, calling it a "watershed moment." Only testing, verification, and operational readiness work remain before what would be the first-ever restart of a permanently shuttered U.S. nuclear plant. Link.

• Standard Nuclear, a two-year-old Oak Ridge, TN-based producer of advanced nuclear fuel for SMRs and microreactors, is seeking up to $383 million in a US IPO at a valuation of as much as $3.55 billion. The company has raised $182 million to date from investors including Decisive Point, Chevron Technology Ventures, StepStone Group, XTX Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz. This follows in a slew of nuclear-related IPOs and SPACs, though not all of them have been overwhelmingly successful. Link.

Elsewhere in energy and electrification

• Fervo Energy drilled a 19,448 feet deep well with a 7,500-foot lateral span at its flagship Cape Station project in Utah. It completed this new well in just 21 days, matching Phase I drilling times while going ~35% deeper on average with 50% wider lateral extension. Link.

• Baker Hughes inked a deal with geothermal developer Mantle Reach Power to support construction of up to 500 megawatts of new generating capacity, lending its drilling technologies to "de-risk and deliver" on geothermal's promise. Link.

• Federal regulators approved the environmental review for Ormat Technologies' 60 MW Pearl geothermal project in Nevada's Esmeralda County, the latest in a series of approvals for Ormat's Nevada expansion. Link.

Policy

• In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court's conservative majority allowed the president to fire commissioners of independent federal agencies without cause, overturning the 91-year-old Humphrey's Executor precedent. The case centered on Trump's March 2025 firing of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, but the implications span energy and climate regulation generally. FERC and the NRC, agencies whose credibility rest on technical expertise and insulation from short-term politics, can now be remade by any incoming president at will. Link.

• Federal tax credits for wind and solar, some version of which has been in effect in some form since 1978, expired on Independence Day. Link.

• The Interior Department will pay Duke Energy $129 million to abandon its offshore wind lease off North Carolina, less than two weeks after the administration's $765 million deal with Invenergy to quash four proposed offshore wind sites. Duke says it will reinvest nearly all the refund into new generating capacity, potentially including nuclear, natural gas, and grid enhancements. I’m sure this will be contested in courts as other comparable deals have been of late. Link.

• The Trump administration may be nearing a win in its push to soften EU methane rules, after Germany joined a dozen other countries seeking to delay certain requirements and the EU's top energy official signaled recommendations are coming "quite soon." Link.

Industry

• Air Products canceled plans for its $4.5 billion hydrogen project in Ascension County, Louisiana, which would have produced hydrogen from natural gas with carbon capture. Of most decarbonization technologies, both hydrogen and carbon capture seem to have the hardest time of late getting any momentum going. Link.

• United Solar, operator of the Middle East's largest polysilicon plant in Oman (100,000 metric tons/year at full capacity, enough for 40 GW of solar panels, and the largest such facility outside China), closed a $1.6 billion deal with the World Bank Group's International Finance Corporation. The company pitched the investment as an endorsement of its ability to supply material compliant with tightening U.S. and European restrictions on Chinese solar hardware. Link.

Transportation

• Joby Aviation and Toyota created a joint manufacturing venture to produce Joby's electric air taxis, with Toyota now controlling 51%. Link.

• Chinese self-driving software company Momenta launched a Hong Kong IPO seeking up to $751 million, with Mercedes-Benz, BlackRock funds, GIC, Fidelity, and Oaktree lined up as cornerstone investors amid renewed demand for China tech listings. Link.

Other noteable financing rounds

• Proxima Fusion, based out of Munich, Germany, raised ~$469 million in its latest round at a valuation of nearly $2.9 billion, marking the largest private investment in a European fusion company and establishing Proxima as Europe's best-funded fusion company. Backers include Google and German utility giant RWE. Link.

• Quaise Energy, based out of Houston, raised a $144 million Series B led by Prelude Ventures, JERA, and Idemitsu to develop millimeter-wave drilling systems and geothermal power projects for utility-scale generation from superhot rock. The company has raised a total of $230 million. Link.

• Gaussian, based out of London, raised $28 million in a round co-led by BGF and AlbionVC to develop energy intelligence technology for battery packs using magnetic and AI-enabled control systems. Autotech Ventures, DN Capital, and Future Ventures also invested. Link.

• Axle Energy, based out of London, raised a $25 million Series A led by Energize Capital to connect home energy devices to electricity markets so utilities, fleet operators, and manufacturers can better balance grid demand. Accel, Picus Capital, and Eka Ventures also participated. Link.

• Alva Industries, based out of Trondheim, Norway, that makes lightweight, high-torque electric motors for robotics, aerospace, medical device, and defense equipment makers, raised an ~$18.3 million round co-led by Nysnø Climate Investments, Sandwater, and Emerald Technology Ventures, with Samsung Ventures as well as previous investors Statkraft Ventures and EnvisionTech also participating. Link.

• Hephae Energy Technology, based out of Spring, TX, that builds high-temperature drilling systems helping geothermal operators drill precise wells into hotter, deeper rock with less downtime, raised a $17.8 million Series A co-led by Susquehanna Sustainable Investments and Underground Ventures. Link.

• Bohr Energie, based out of Toulouse, France, raised an $11.4 million Series A led by Suma Capital to develop software for renewable energy companies. Irdi Capital Investissement, GSO Capital, and Crédit Agricole and previous investors Varsity, Founders Future, and AFI Ventures also invested. Link.

• Arcturus, based out of Los Angeles, emerged from stealth with an $8 million seed led by Initialized Capital to infuse carbon nanomaterials into metals to improve electrical, thermal, and mechanical performance. 1517, Breakthrough Energy Discovery, Toyota Ventures, and Wireframe Ventures also invested. Link.

• TaiSan, based out of Cambridge, U.K., raised a $6.3 million seed co-led by Eos Advisory and Mercia Ventures to develop lighter solid-state sodium-ion batteries for e-bikes, scooters, and power tools. AFI Ventures, EverQuest Capital Partners, Adeline Arts & Science, and Techmind and previous investors InnoEnergy, TSP Ventures, Exergon, and Heartfelt also participated. Link.

Other cool stuff

• Earth Fire Alliance launched the first three satellites of FireSat, a planned 50+ satellite wildfire detection constellation slated to be fully operational by the 2030s. Unlike existing NASA/NOAA systems that can't spot fires until they span several acres and revisit locations only every ~12 hours, FireSat's six-band sensors (including a dual mid-wave infrared setup) can detect much smaller, lower-intensity blazes and deliver hourly imaging that fits directly into fire agencies' operational workflows. Early adopters include Cal Fire and agencies in Colorado, Oregon, Texas, Australia, Portugal, and Africa; the satellites now enter roughly three months of testing and calibration. Link.

Ciao,

— Nick