(We need) April showers

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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