The Impact Innovator | Issue 261
In this week's The Impact Innovator edition:
Microsoft Corp. is buying credits for CO2 captured at two Danish power plants and then stored beneath the North Sea in a sign that corporate emission-reduction goals can help spur carbon storage technology. The tech giant’s deal with Orsted A/S helped the utility in its bid to secure backing from the Danish government to trap CO2 from the biomass-fired power stations. It’s a key step for the scaling up of a technology that will be crucial for Europe to reach its goal of net zero emissions by 2050. Orsted will be paid by the Danish government for every metric ton of CO2 that it stores, with a target to trap 430,000 tons a year. Additionally, Microsoft agreed to buy credits for 2.76 million tons of carbon removal over a period of 11 years.
Manufacturer 3M will work with Canadian carbon capture company Svante Technologies to develop products that can trap and permanently remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the two said Tuesday. Burnaby, British Columbia-based Svante manufactures solid sorbent-based filters and rotary contactor machines that capture large-scale emissions from existing infrastructure, either for safe storage or for further use.3M Ventures, the venture capital arm of 3M, recently participated in Svante's Series E financing, which raised $318 million to accelerate the manufacturing of filters. St. Paul, Minn.-based 3M said the partnership will drive the companies' shared commitment to find materials science-based solutions to achieve net zero emissions and fight global warming. Eby said 3M's deep expertise in filtration technology gives the company confidence to scale these carbon-adsorbing solutions with the necessary speed to combat climate change.
The head of the world’s leading carbon credit certifier has announced he will step down as CEO next month. It comes amid concerns that Verra, a Washington-based nonprofit, approved tens of millions of worthless offsets that are used by major companies for climate and biodiversity commitments, according to a joint Guardian investigation earlier this year. In a statement on LinkedIn on Monday, Verra’s CEO, David Antonioli, said he would leave his role after 15 years leading the organisation that dominates the $2bn voluntary carbon market, which has certified more than 1bn credits through its verified carbon standard (VCS). Antonioli thanked current and former staff, and said he was immensely proud of what Verra had accomplished through the environmental standards it operates. He did not give a reason for his departure and said he would be taking a break once he left the role. Judith Simon, Verra’s recently appointed president, will serve as interim CEO following Antonioli’s departure on 16 June.
The announcement follows a difficult period for Verra, which has seen the environmental integrity of their carbon standard satirised by the comedian John Oliver and journalistic exposés about the integrity of their carbon credit certification process. In January, a nine-month investigation by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and the investigative group SourceMaterial found Verra rainforest credits used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations were largely worthless, often based on stopping the destruction of rainforests that were not threatened, according to independent studies.
A typical semiconductor fab uses 10 million gallons of water a day, and in the process of making chips it contaminates that water with chemicals and other toxic materials. That’s a big cost for the factory and an environmental problem. In cleaning up industrial wastewater, and allowing it to be recycled for use, Boston-based Gradiant has built a fast-growing business. Gradiant said Wednesday it had reached a $1 billion valuation — the first water-technology startup to attain that milestone — with $225 million in funding led by billionaire John Arnold’s Centaurus Capital and New York family office BoltRock Holdings. The new investment brings the company’s total funding to more than $400 million. More importantly, the company’s revenue approached $100 million last year and is expected to double this year, nearing $200 million. Among its customers are semiconductor giants TSMC and Micron, pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and GSK, Coca-Cola, and mining firm Rio Tinto. Because Gradiant’s early costs were so low — half the cost of existing technologies, Bajpayee says — customers were willing to give the startup a try.
Frontier, the group of corporate giants helping to expand the carbon removal market, just unveiled its largest deal by far. Buyers working through Frontier have binding contracts for $53 million with the startup Charm Industrial to remove 112,000 tons of carbon dioxide between 2024 and 2030. That's big in the nascent market for various technologies and methods that can remove CO2 already in the atmosphere. Rapid growth and cost declines for the expensive tech are key for removal to become a real weapon against global warming, which is hardly a sure thing. The contracted volumes are roughly 10 times the amount of permanent atmospheric removal worldwide to date, per Frontier. And those 112,000 tons outweigh the combined, smaller contracts negotiated through Frontier for future removal with roughly a dozen startups thus far, which amount to roughly 9,000 tons. Charm uses waste biomass from farming and forest management, and heats it to extremely high temperatures to create "bio-oil" that's permanently injected underground. It has delivered roughly 6,000 tons of removal thus far under prior contracts.
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Amini, a Nairobi-based climate tech startup focused on solving Africa’s environmental data gap through artificial intelligence and satellite technology, has raised $2 million in a pre-seed funding round. Pale Blue Dot, the European climate-focused venture capital firm that announced a $100 million fund last week, led the oversubscribed round. At the same time, Superorganism, RaliCap, W3i, Emurgo Kepple Ventures and a network of angel investors participated. Kate Kallot, the founder and CEO of Amini, has worked for several years in artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science and deep tech roles for companies such as Arm, Intel and Nvidia. Kallot, in an interview with TechCrunch, explained how a work presentation on the intersection of natural capital and emerging technologies made her become fascinated by how she could use her experiences in AI and ML, including her work around social impact with the United AI Alliance, to provide a solution to the continent’s lack of data infrastructure, especially around environmental data.
Global venture capital funding for clean energy startups jumped to $12.3 billion last year, up from $1.9 billion in 2019, propelled by investment in battery technology and new government subsidy schemes in the United States and Europe, new data shows. An analysis from consultants Oliver Wyman based on data from Crunchbase showed that investors in North America led the way in recent clean energy investments, providing 57% of last year's total, with European players behind on $3.5 billion. Chinese venture capital funding reached $1.2 billion thanks to expansion of renewables. Investors globally have been racing to fund more climate-friendly technologies as the world tries to shift towards a lower-carbon economy. The United States' Inflation Reduction Act and the European Union's Net Zero Industry Act, which offer public subsidies for green industries, look set to turbocharge that interest, industry experts predict.
Battery technology, storage solutions and renewable technology made up two-thirds of last year's global venture capital investment, according to the analysis. European funding fell in 2022 versus the previous year, which Oliver Wyman linked to recent market volatility, but it said the region's need for new clean energy technology had grown following the war in Ukraine. Venture capital investment into Swedish startups fell, but the country remained the leader in Europe last year, ahead of Germany, the UK and France.
Startup CarbonBuilt said commercial production of its low-carbon concrete has begun at a plant in the city of Childersburg. Blair Block, a local masonry manufacturer, is making the thick gray blocks using CarbonBuilt’s novel technology, which the startup claims can reduce overall carbon dioxide emissions from concrete-making by 70 to 100 percent. CarbonBuilt is among a rapidly growing group of companies and research institutions working to tackle the most carbon-intensive component of the concrete-making process: Portland cement. The limestone and clay fusion is an essential ingredient, but it emits substantial amounts of carbon dioxide when heated. Today, the world makes more than 4 billion metric tons of cement every year. As a result, cement production accounts for between 7 and 8 percent of global CO2 emissions. CarbonBuilt’s own alternative-cement process involves using calcium-rich industrial waste materials, which are then combined with water and aggregates. The mixture is pressed into molds and placed inside a temperature-controlled chamber. The startup then flows CO2 into the chamber, driving a chemical reaction that forms solid concrete and permanently traps carbon in the blocks.
Farmers who grow rapeseed for vegetable oil and biodiesel generate mountains of protein-rich meal byproduct that could significantly enrich the diets of livestock and even humans . . . if only it didn’t taste so terrible. But now, researchers have found a way to engineer rapeseed to make its bitter byproducts easier on the taste buds, opening up new avenues for its use—perhaps even as a replacement for imported commodities like soy in animal and human diets whose production endangers global forests. Specifically, it’s the “pungent, wasabi-like flavor” that makes rapeseed meal so difficult to stomach, explains Deyang Xu, a researcher in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at Copenhagen University and lead author on the new Nature paper. This unpleasant flavor is caused by compounds called glucosinolates—and not only are these unpalatable, they also pose a health risk of goiter in high quantities, “which is also why there is a limit to how much rape seedcake can be put into feed pellets today,” Xu explains. In fact, food regulatory agencies allow only tiny quantities to be incorporated into pig feed, for instance. Yet, the solid byproducts of rapeseed oil-pressing—called ‘rapeseed cake’—is so protein-rich that it represents 50% of all the crude protein produced in the European Union (followed by sunflower seeds, pulses, and soybeans). Seeing the potential of this “huge local protein source,” says Xu, the researchers launched their campaign to make more edible rapeseed cake.
A patch of artificial skin can convert signals from pressure or heat sensors into brain signals – touching this electronic skin after it was connected to a rat’s brain spurred the rat to kick its leg. This could be used to improve prosthetics for people who have skin damage. Weichen Wang at Stanford University in California and his colleagues created a device called e-skin out of an electronic circuit and pressure and temperature sensors, all crafted out of a thin and stretchy rubbery material. The team merged these components into one patch that easily conforms to uneven surfaces, such as a human finger. E-skin works by imitating biological skin, where nerves detect pressure or warmth and then send sequences of electrical signals, or “pulse trains”, to the brain. When it was heated or when pressure was applied to it, the e-skin’s sensors sent signals into the circuit, which converted them into pulse trains. To do all this, the e-skin needed up to 1/60th of the voltage used by older artificial skin devices. This could mean the e-skin won’t heat up as much, making it more comfortable for longer use, says Wang. Any artificial skin that could be used as a prosthetic for people with skin injuries needs to be comfortable enough to wear for a long time.
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1yAlways a great read, Josh!