🟢 What would you do with €200m?
(046) And other stories from the front lines of mitigating climate change
Good Morning
What we’re reading this week:
The Atlantic reviews the latest IPCC report
Over 1,000 scientists chained themselves to oil-friendly banks and committed other acts of civil disobedience to protest for the climate
Biden allows sale of higher-ethanol gas in bid to tame costs (BBG)
A winner of the French lottery used their €200m pot of gold to create an environmental foundation to protect forests and boost biodiversity.
EV maker Lucid debuts its latest Tesla rival, a high-performance luxury sedan with a 446-mile range (CNBC)
The Greendicator
Top Deals of the Week
Better Origin’s mini insect farm - the converted shipping container in the back - takes organic waste and makes fertilizer.
Natural Fiber Welding, a seven-year-old, Peoria, Ill.-based maker of plant-based textile materials, has raised $85 million in funding led by Evolution VC Partners. (More)
ComboCurve, a five-year-old, Houston, Tex.-based maker of energy analytics software, just raised $50 million in Series B funding co-led by Dragoneer and Bessemer Venture Partners. (IM)
RaptorMaps, a lifecycle management software for solar, raised a $22M Series B led by MKB with participation from the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund and others.
Leaft Foods, a three-year-old, Lincoln, New Zealand-based plant-based protein producer, has raised $15 million in Series A funding from investors, including Khosla Ventures, NBA player Steven Adams, investor Ngāi Tahu, and ACC Climate Change Impact Fund. Axios has more here.
GoImpact, an ESG and sustainable finance startup, raised a Series A at a $22M valuation led by Oriental Watch Holdings (PRN)
Pylon, a 4.5-year-old, Egypt-based maker of infrastructure management software for water and electric companies, has raised $19 million in seed funding. Endure Capital led the round (TC).
Better Origin, a three-year-old, Cambridge, England-based developer of insect mini-farms, raised $16 million in Series A funding. Balderton Capital led the round (BO).
Charge Amps, a 10-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based EV charging startup, raised around $16 million from Concejo and others (BBG).
Brilliant Planet, a nine-year-old, London-based carbon capture startup that uses algae, has raised $12 million in funding co-led by USV and Toyota Ventures, (AXS).
Green Theory
Coming up for Air
Winding through California’s central coast, the lucky will see the most massive mammals burst through the shimmering surface of the water, and twist gracefully before plunging back into the expanse of the Pacific. As the land west of Highway 1 bows out seaward, Point Sur and its lighthouse encapsulate an era long past, but not out of reach. Modern plumbing never made it up to the lighthouse, and its keepers passed the lighthouse keys through generations, lighting lamps that ran on the bodies of the playful, majestic whales. Up the coast, the boom of the whaling era in California finds a haunting shrine in the cove of iconic Point Lobos State Park: the eerie sounds of passing whales broken up by metallic clanks and grinding winches. Although the Point Sur Lighthouse didn’t quite modernize, it did move past whale oil. The big bust for the blubber-hunt barons coincided with the rise of the climate catastrophe’s leading accelerant: fossil fuels.
Some link this timing to say that fossil fuels saved the whale population. The story goes, dangerously hunted to near-extinction, whales then lost industry’s lust when petroleum products became available. Today, many whale populations recovered remarkably. But could the energy source that’s the bane of climate activists really have spared these marvels of sea mammals? And what can the story of the whale tell us about modern resource management?
Slippery Toils of Oils
The theory of clean replacement of whale oil with kerosine and other fossil fuel products doesn’t hold water. Though this rapid growth of a new energy source changed the boundaries and dimensions of human activity, whale interests didn’t go away. With collapsing whale populations, many business ventures struggled to hunt the needed catch. The industry was understandably dwindling along with the whale populations. Coming up empty handed would have been difficult for a crew, but if the sound bites at Point Lobos are any indication, the catch also sounds extremely taxing. In any case, Richard York explains that, “demand for resources is not fixed at a ‘natural’ level.” Instead the demand for a resource can expand or take new forms, “such as using abundant oil of various types to have more lighting, and…how whale oil came to be used for margarine, in paint, and so forth” (emphasis added). Further, before whaling fell entirely out of fashion, fossil fuels expanded the limits of whaling operations to new waters, threatening the already marginal remnant. On both the supply and demand sides of the whale trade, fossil fuels propped up the market, rather than eliminate it.
Importantly, this change in energy sources reveals the hidden curse of efficiency. As discussed in the piece on Jevons paradox, blending resources will not necessarily lead to a reduction in the use of any resource. For instance, a mix of whale and petroleum lighting wouldn’t clearly lead to less whale hunting. Though, over the last century, several whale populations rebounded, we may not have the same time scale to enjoy a recovery if we keep burning down our fossil fuels. While propositions such as expanding natural gas infrastructure to replace coal, or the hybridization of cars do move us in the right direction, we can’t let the clock run out settling for half-way solutions.
Turning a New Page on the Hunt
Tales of whaling harpoons may sound distant, yet humans still hunt for about half of our fish. From directly killing sea life, to damaging the ocean we share, this archaic collection of food endangers our planet. Cultivated seafood may deliver fisheries from the onslaught, and even marginal reductions in fishing make a difference. Unfortunately, as discussed by a founder of Wildtype–a company cultivating whole cuts of salmon–replacing just 10% of seafood production would already require more bioreactors than have ever been created. To provide the muscle in the bioreactor race, the linked conversation ponders the role of industrial interests ranging from meat to cars, though big pharma’s capital equipment may be best suited to the task. Culture Biosciences attempts to cater directly to this need, and offer an easy launching pad for bioreactor expansion. Regardless of the best route to save fish from the brink, the whale’s mournful call reminds of the risk we face.
Paper presents another lens to reflect on our whaling woes. In a well-managed forest, the use of trees for paper can be performed sustainably. Nonetheless, the context of the term sustainable resource is key. Fisheries are sustainable if they aren’t hunted to their demise; likewise, forests will regrow unless we deplete topsoil, and so on. Despite the digital revolution, demand for paper is only growing, just as Jevons may have predicted. Innovations in recycling extend the water-intensive production of paper to new life, but we can’t overlook the danger in only focusing on downstream efficiencies.
Over & Spout
Seeing whales off the coast brings a delightful feeling of revival and resilience. These legends of the sea spend most of their time cruising the depths, and still pop up to say hello, and reveal their triumphant spouts. In spite of whales’ talent for diving, they indeed have to return to the surface. Playful splashes of fins and acrobatic vaults entertain us, but it is their resurfacing that holds a vital message for us. Just as the whales must come up for air, we must release pressure on our shared home’s abundance.
The Closer
Can’t believe this is real