Good Morning
What we’re reading this week:
The GreendicatorÂ
Top Deals of the Week
![Arc One Hits the Water Arc One Hits the Water](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%2F5981a77b-672b-4622-b9b4-796b8c5102ca_3840x2560.webp)
Industrial battery tech startup Morrow Batteries raised a $74M round from Ã… Energi, PKA, Siemens Financial Services, and more (FN)
Electric boat startup Arc raised a $70M Series B from Eclipse, a16z, Lowercarbon Capital, and Menlo Ventures (TC)
H55, a Swiss startup providing electric propulsion technologies for the aviation industry, raised a $45M Series C led by ND Capital, Tippet Venture Partners, RTX Ventures and private investors (FN)
Traceless Materials, a plastic alternative startup, raised a $36.6M Series A led by United Bankers and Swen Capital Partners (EU)
Drone-enabled power line upgrade startup Infravision raised a $23M Series A led by Energy Impact Partners (BW)
Pexapark, a Zurich-based energy investment platform, raised a $21.1M Series C led by Telstra Ventures (EU)
Spanish renewable energy company EiDF Solar raised $21M in financing from Alpha Blue Ocean (BW)
Ayro, a Paris-based manufacturer of wingsails for cargo ships / yachts (the sails reduce the boats’ emissions), raised a $20M Series B led by Blue Ocean (FN)
Resourcify, a waste management and recycling platform, raised a $14.7M Series A led by Vorwerk Ventures (TC)
Digital rock analysis startup GeologicAI, which supports the discovery of the critical minerals required for the energy transition, raised a $10M Series A extension from Export Development Canada (BW)
AI energy transition company Continuum Industries raised a $10M Series A led by Singular (FN)
Peregrine Hydrogen, a climate technology startup providing proprietary technology for co-producing clean hydrogen and valuable commodity chemicals, raised a $7.8M seed round led by Bidra (FN)
Power amplifier startup Falcomm raised a $4M round from Squadra Ventures (TC)
Mona Lee, a solar installation company, raised a $3.25M seed round led by Ludlow Ventures, Shrug VC, and more (FN)
Green Theory
Ready to breathe clean air?
If you’re more than 50 feet from a gas-burning machine right now, congratulations. You can take an extra-deep breath! In US homes and garages, on driveways and next to sidewalks, sit 500 million gas machines that power residential life.
Ever-burning and exploding: furnaces, stoves, water heaters, and gas cars all guzzle up fossil fuels—spewing pollutants in and around our homes, not to mention greenhouse gas emissions.Â
Roughly half of the 9 million global deaths from pollution come from the combination of road transport and home energy. An Iowa-sized population is killed by home energy pollution each year, including a St. Louis, Missouri-sized population of infants. That’s before we start to account for car pollution.Â
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In the US alone, just personal driving pollution kills the equivalent of the entire population of Pacifica, or West Hollywood, CA, each year. Inside the home, over 1 in 3 US households has a gas-burning stove. These indoor particulate-poopers helped cook up over 1 in 9 childhood asthma cases.Â
These 500 million machines are killing us.Â
No matter how much solar, wind, storage, and other renewables we pack onto the grid, if these machines keep burning gas, we haven’t decarbonized. Though systems-level effort is required to transform the utility grid at scale, kitchen-table decisions will drive the energy transition of the US household. The best part: we already have the tech to electrify these consumer, residential machines.Â
How do we get from 500 million machines to zero?Â
In the US will need to retire and mostly replace:
220 million personal gas vehicles in the US
40 million gas ovens
50 million gas stoves
60 million gas water heaters
70 million gas heating furnaces
10 million recreational gas boats
5 million portable gas generators
60 million gas grills
10 million gas fireplaces
Though there’s about 1.5 gas machines for every person in the US, the decision-making power over electrifying these machines is concentrated in the hands of relatively few.
Only about 40% of people live in an owner-occupied home. The majority of Americans, therefore, don’t live with someone who has final say over electrification of their heating and cooking.Â
On the flip side, two-thirds of unique households are owner-occupied, so these 40% of the population take up most housing units (over 67 million), and probably most of the gas-burning machines.Â
It’s (possibly) up to you!
If you have the privilege to choose—choose electric.Â
Last week, we discussed how financing, credit, and permitting can make electrification unnecessarily difficult. After all, when you go electric, you’re helping clean up not only your own home, but your community, and beyond—society should make it as easy as possible.Â
![Points scored](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%2F9a590b54-8e7d-414a-9754-6b6d7c20ebee_1152x742.png)
Still, for those who can afford the upfront cost, or access the right incentives, electric machines make money over time. For this class, getting cleaner, faster, more efficient technology is an upgrade, not a sacrifice. Further, we likely find the highest concentration of gas machines with these wealthier households, given the similar income gaps in home and car ownership.
While home electrification for renters and low-credit households will require new financial products, the US households with the most power to upgrade their appliances today also own most of the appliances we collectively need cleaned up.
The Closer
No context needed. (Source)