Good Morning
What we’re reading this week:
US, EU and Japan unveiled a $20B plan to wean Indonesia off coal (AX)
EV maker VinFast is considering a US IPO that could raise $1B+ as soon as January 2023 (BBG)
Who Will Win the Race to Generate Electricity From Ocean Tides? (NYT)
The Greendicator
Top Deals of the Week
BeZero Carbon, a two-year-old London startup that helps companies purchase and manage carbon offsets, raised a $50 million Series B round led by Quantum Energy Partners (S)
Cell-based meat company Vow raised a $49.2M Series A led by Blackbird and Prosperity7 Ventures (TC)
WeaveGrid, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose software helps utilities better integrate electric vehicles into their grids by coordinating charging times, has raised $35 million in funding led by Salesforce Ventures (BBG)
RoadRunner, a startup providing sustainable waste management solutions, raised a $20M Series D extension led by Fifth Wall (PRN)
Induction stovetop startup Impulse raised a $20M Series A led by Lux Capital (TC)
Freight Farms, a container farm startup, raised a $17.5M Series B-3 led by Aliaxis and Ospraie Ag Science (PRN)
Kenyan EV assembly startup BasiGo raised a $6.6M round led by Novastar and Mobility54 (TC)
Electric Era, a three-year-old Seattle startup that aims to install a network of fast-charging EV stations at or near convenience stores, raised a $4 million round from Blackhorn Ventures and others (TC)
Impacked, a New York startup that is trying to build a marketplace for sustainable CPG packaging, raised a $2.5 million seed round led by TenOneTen Ventures (TC)
Thallo, a blockchain-based carbon credit exchange platform, raised a $2.5M seed round led by Arcan and Friendly Trading Group (BW)
Green Theory
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22 years overdue
In 1978, new President Jimmy Carter announced a push to put the US on track for a rapid increase in renewables. His administration set the ambitious goal of 20% renewable energy by the year 2000. 22 years after this deadline, or twice as long as his goal proposed, we’re just about there…if you only look at electricity production, and count solutions beyond wind and solar. By other Department of Energy measures, however, the US had hit just 9% in 2000 and is still below 13% renewables in energy today. Nonetheless, the Carter Administration’s 4 years saw 4 doublings of the installed solar capacity: something no other term saw until President Barack Obama, in 2008-2012. Most dramatically, in the time since 1978, solar panels have gotten about 50% more space efficient, and costs have fallen by over 97%.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbe84e2ed-4375-4552-ab0d-84143e8f5927_1000x705.png)
Some see this plummeting in cost and footprint as a reason to keep waiting to deploy renewables. Why build a solar farm today if we could build the same one with two-thirds of the land and less money for materials in 10 years? One troubling cost of doing nothing: in a country with over 3x the average global emissions per capita, the US loses over 50,000 people to fossil fuel combustion pollution annually. The death toll was likely higher in absolute and relative terms back during the Carter Administration. If it wasn’t time to rapidly manufacture and install the hardware needed to power a clean economy back then, perhaps it is now. Either way, how many lives could be saved by having pursued a more rapid plan?
If not then, then when?
Take roughly the middle year between Carter’s announcement and 2000: 1990. The 6.2 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, and approximately 50,000 US residents whom it killed, occurred with about 7% of renewables in the mix. If Carter’s vision could average out to have achieved 10% renewables in 1990 and kept growing by 1% each year until 2000, perhaps more than 41,000 people could have been spared, in offsetting fossil fuel share. The relative cost may look cheaper tomorrow, but deploying renewables in place of fossil fuels saves lives today, and tomorrow, too.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F32d44520-e800-42af-9945-b73b45e414bd_1338x886.png)
Now or never
Maybe the question of when to pour less money or scientific pursuit into longshots, and focus more on scaling up what we have proven, was harder to answer in 1978. Today, though, wind and solar are more affordable than fossil fuels. Saving money, human lives, or the environment, different motivations align on clean energy as a critical climate solution that’s socially protective and financially sound. Combining confidence in a more rapid transition presenting lower costs using current technology, and that at current rates of development, 1.5℃ warming is likely to occur before 2030, the time to act on what we know (the clean energy solutions of today) is now.
The Closer
“California's Sierra Nevada snowpack is looking fat right now 😍❄️!”
📸 @nasa
📅 Yesterday