Good Morning
What we’re reading this week:
Cimateer’s Biomass Overview
Kodama Systems’ Solution to Biomass Excess
The Greendicator
Top Deals of the Week
![Prime Roots freshly sliced plant-based deli meat Prime Roots freshly sliced plant-based deli meat](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F079c59c2-731a-4713-9963-db0e56a8048c_600x400.jpeg)
Driveco, an EV charging company, raised $258M in equity funding from APG, Mirova, and Corsica Sole (FN)
Gradiant, a global end-to-end water treatment solutions provider, raised a $225M Series D at a $1B valuation led by BoltRock Holdings and Centaurus Capital (BW)
AMP Robotics, a Denver, Colorado-based startup creating robotic systems that can automatically sort recyclable material, extended its Series C to $99M after a new investment from Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund (TC)
Noveon Magnetics, a sustainable rare earth magnet manufacturer, raised a $75M Series B led by NGP and Aventurine Partners (FN)
Ideal Semiconductor, a six-year-old startup based in Bethlehem, Pa., that makes power chips that manage power consumption in devices ranging from washing machines to internet servers, raised a $40 million Series C round. Applied Materials was one of the investors. Reuters has more here.
Luup, a Tokyo-based startup that offers electric bicycles, scooters and other vehicles for commuters to rent and ride, raised $33.5 million in funding from earlier backers ANRI, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial’s SMBC Venture Capital and Spiral Capital (F)
Modern Hydrogen, a startup decarbonizing natural gas into clean hydrogen, raised a $32.8M Series B-2 led by NextEra Energy (BW)
Kelvin, a ten-year-old Brooklyn company that designs and installs HVAC systems that it claims can help decarbonize buildings and reduce operating costs without requiring buildings to replace existing systems, raised a $30 million Series A round led by 2150. ESG Today has more here.
Berkeley-based plant-based meat startup Prime Roots (they make deli-style cuts from koji mycelium) raised a $30M Series B from True Ventures, Pangaea Ventures, Prosus Ventures, Top Tier Capital, and more (PRN)
Alloy Enterprises, a three-year-old startup based in Burlington, Ma.. that uses a manufacturing method that streamlines the production of aluminum parts at scale without using aluminum powder, raised a $26 million Series A round led by Piva Capital. More here.
Climate action platform Cloverly raised a $19M Series A led by Grotech Ventures (PRN)
Mitiga Solutions, a five-year-old Barcelona startup that says it uses AI to predict extreme weather such as wildfires and volcano eruptions, raised a $14.3 million Series A round led by Kibo Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Quilt, a startup building a ductless heat pump system, raised a $9M seed round led by Lowercarbon Capital and Gradient Ventures (BW)
StepChange, a one-year-old Bengaluru startup that helps enterprises manage their ESG compliance, raised a $4.1 million seed round co-led by BEENEXT and Global Founders Capital (E)
Sustainable performance fibers startup Werewool raised a $3.7M seed round led by Material Impact and Sofinnova Partners (FN)
Obeo Biogas, a startup that specializes in the design, construction, and operation of biogas systems specifically tailored for dairy farms, raised $3 million seed round. Diagram Ventures led the transaction. More here.
Climate Tech VC, a leading climate tech newsletter, raised $1.75M in pre-seed funding from John Doerr and others (CTVC)
Figorr, a startup that enables businesses to keep track of key data about highly perishable products such as such as location, humidity, and temperature, raised a $1.5 million seed round led by Atlantica Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Green Theory
Fossil Fuels: Infrastructure-scale Cigarettes
Though the link between cancer and cigarette smoking was proven in the 1940s and 1950s, US cigarette sales continued to grow steadily until the peak in 1963. In the 60 years it’s taken to continue unraveling the lies spread by the tobacco industry, the population of US smokers has remained relatively stable. What took the government and society so long to act?
In 2023, there’s more laws around tobacco sales and production, but we’re plagued by the continued disinformation of the fossil fuel industry, and many cottage greenwashing industries that it enables.
Dr. Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway’s Merchants of Doubt (2011) laid out the strong link between the pseudo-scientific forces blocking action on both smoking and climate: individuals and think tanks seeding doubt in diverse, peer-reviewed consensus on both topics.
The devastating public health impacts of each deception display a most toxic conflict of interest—company & industry interests in conflict with the broader society’s well being.
Covering “tobacco, acid rain, the ozone hole, global warming, and DDT,” their book chronicles how free-market fundamentalists undermined trust in science, and “skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.” Oreskes expanded on industry deception and the history of science in Why Trust Science? (2021).
In short, she argues that values are inherent in human work, for better or worse. Corporate science contributions are far less trustworthy than diverse audiences reaching consensus in open, transparent, self-critical fields. Doubting Exxon’s climate science, therefore, is different than doubting the consensus on human-caused climate change.
Today, fossil fuels expose us to harmful fumes, and worse. Their deep entrenchment in society was aided by the same mechanisms that protected cigarette profits from curative public health science, for decades.
Sustainable Fumble
No friend to the big oil & gas companies, Oreskes declined an offer to speak at the opening ceremony of Stanford University’s new sustainability school. What do these top polluters have to do with the new school, funded by a $1.1B donation from private equity billionaire John Doerr?
By allowing donations and research funding from oil & gas interests, the inaugural dean—and former oil magnate-endowed professor—left many concerned for the mission of the institution.
Oreskes laid out her complete objection to celebrating a school that would take funding from companies “determined to continue to profit off of a product that is threatening the very viability of our civilization as we know it.” Explaining to Inside Higher Ed, Oreskes was assured in her decision: “There was no way I could say yes.” Her rejection accompanied multiple student, faculty, and alumni protests of the new school’s policies, and a petition with over 800 community signatories. The school’s position could change, but nothing has changed yet.
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A United Vision for Science
Oreskes advocates for a diverse, and self-critical world of science, as free of truth-muddying private interests as possible. If a $1.1B donation can’t buy the new sustainability school freedom from fossil fuel influence, what can?
Continued pressure to protect unpolluted scientific environments perhaps can make the administration change course. Oreskes warns that, though scientists may claim to not be influenced by values, there’s no way to prove that claim, and scientists may come across as less trustworthy, the less transparent they are about their values.
To lead by example, and cure this misconception, Dr. Oreskes shares her own values, and why doing so is important:
Even as we disagree about many political issues, our core values overlap to a great degree. To the extent that we can make those areas of agreement clear, and explain how they relate to scientific work, we might be able to overcome the feelings of skepticism and distrust that often prevail. Particularly distrust that is rooted in the perception of a clash of values.
So let me be clear about my values.
I wish to prevent avoidable human suffering, and to protect the beauty and diversity of life on earth.
I wish to prevent the joy of winter sports, the majesty of coral reefs, and the wonder of giant sequoia trees.
I love thunderstorms, but I do not want them to become more dangerous.
I do not want flooding and hail storms and hurricanes to destroy communities and kill innocent people.
I do want to make sure that all of our children and grandchildren, and generations to come–both in the United states and around the globe–have the same opportunity to live well and prosper that I have had.
I don’t want us all to become poorer, as we spend increasing sums of money repairing the damage of climate change: damage that could have been prevented at far lower costs. I don’t believe it's fair for the profits of a few large corporations to become the losses of us all.
I believe that the government is necessary, but I have no desire to expand it unnecessarily. I also believe, as Pope Francis has stressed, that earth is our common home, that to disregard climate change is to disregard both nature and justice. —Dr. Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science? (2021)
Finding common ground, where our values overlap, is the key to building bridges across ideological divides. Whether or not you share all of her values, Dr. Oreskes has taken an important step by outlining them, along with her powerful contributions to cataloging and exposing the destructive, anti-scientific work of nefarious scientists, and how that differs from open, honest critique.
For Truth, Trust Values over Profits
None of us, like research funded by big oil, are free from bias. And yet, if that bias bends us toward protecting the common good—and not the profits of the few, at the expense of the many—we see the social function of values fulfilling its highest purpose.
In 1963, the average US adult smoked over 4,000 cigarettes. Today, the oil & gas industry has tendrils on almost every roadway, in most homes, and increasingly in our air, water, and on pristine lands, as well.
As major polluters continue to deprive and impoverish society, obfuscating progress and blocking change, at the most danger to the most marginalized, Oreskes' work explains their success, in hopes of unraveling it systemically, and restoring trust in honest, consensus-backed science. At the same time, Dr. Oreskes shows how one small act of resistance can call out the smoke filling the room, even if elite institutions and their leaders try to look the other way for cash.
The Closer
Megafish: a freshwater fish over six feet in length or more than 200 pounds. How many can you name? -USFWS
loved this entry :,)