The Impact Innovator | Issue 258
In this week's The Impact Innovator edition:
The European Council announced today that it adopted a series of new laws aimed at enabling the EU to hit its climate targets, including the establishment of a carbon tax on imported goods, and an update to the EU emissions trading system aimed at helping to reduce emissions from several sectors of the economy.?The announcement marks the last major step in passing into law several of the key elements of the?European Commission’s “Fit for 55” roadmap?– the EU’s proposed strategy to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels, and to reach climate neutrality by 2050. Following the approval last week by the European Parliament of the new regulations, they will be published in the EU’s Official Journal before entering into force 20 days later.
Apollo Global Management Inc?(APO.N)?has launched a $4 billion fund to invest in companies looking to transition to clean energy, the private equity giant said on Wednesday.?The fund, ACT Capital, is part of the $50 billion sustainable investment target Apollo?set for itself last year.?Several private equity firms have been raising billions of dollars to expand their footprint in the clean energy space, amid calls for more companies to transition away from fossil fuels.?Wall Street has also been?pressured?by climate activists, who have been asking banks to commit to stopping funding for new fossil fuel projects.?Canada's Brookfield Asset Management?(BAM.TO)?raised?$15 billion last year for it first impact fund focused on energy transition.?ACT Capital will invest in companies globally, Apollo said.
Carbon Capture & Storage Europe, a new alliance established by leading companies and organizations, will aim to advance carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in Europe.??The alliance members include?Aker Carbon Capture,?Baker Hughes,?Bellona,?Clean Air Task Force,?Danish Shipping?as well as other private companies and non-governmental organizations.??The coalition was announced at an event in the European Parliament this week.??Carbon Capture & Storage Europe brings together technology providers, project developers, industry leaders, and environmental organizations that strive to promote the deployment of CO2 capture technologies to decrease industrial emissions and minimize the amount of carbon already in the atmosphere.??CCS Europe also aims to encourage European and national policymakers to build regulatory and financial instruments that will attract investments in the sector.
Ethicstream Inc. ("Ethicstream" or the “Company"), a Greenwich-based climate finance and technology company, announced today that it has signed a deal with Catch Capital Partners (“Catch”) in which Catch will invest $5 million into the Company to advance the Company’s mission to support sustainability officers and developers of premium carbon offset projects. Carbon markets have grown dramatically over the past few years with prices tripling from 2021 to 2022 according to ING. Bloomberg recently projected carbon prices will grow 50X by 2050.
?"We are thrilled to have the support of Catch Capital as we continue to build Ethicstream into a leading player in the carbon market," said Joshua Soloway, Ethicstream CEO. "This investment accelerates our growth as we expand our team and support the development of exciting projects like CarbonEthic’s flagship Dene K’eh Kusan project."
The Company recently announced the launch of its highly anticipated Regulation A offering following the qualification of the Company’s registration statement by the Security and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). Regulation A (“Reg A”) offerings enable private companies to raise up to $75 Million from the public. Like an IPO, Reg A allows companies to offer shares directly to the general public – not just to accredited investors. In its registration statement, Ethicstream disclosed that it intends to raise $10 million. Mr. Soloway noted that “with Catch Capital’s $5 million investment, Ethicstream is already more than halfway to our $10 million fundraising target. It is not often that one witnesses the creation of a new commodity – let alone has an opportunity to invest in that commodity before prices take off. We are pleased to partner with Catch in offering this opportunity to both institutional investors and individual investors."
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Fusion startup Avalanche Energy has closed a $40 million Series A round led by Lowercarbon Capital, with a suite of other backers including Founders Fund and Toyota Ventures.?Why it matters:?If?fusion can ever be commercialized, it heralds a promise of almost limitless power without the dangerous waste associated with traditional fission reactors.
Driving the news:?Avalanche said its seeing fresh successes in testing its small "micro-fusion" reactors, which it says enable "rapid development cycles at relatively low cost."?The big picture:?Investors are increasingly interested in helping forge a pathway to viability for fusion, and there have been?signs of progress?in scientists' decades-long quest to realize its promise. Avalanche is among the startups featured in this?new, in-depth WSJ story?on fusion and its billionaire backers.
London-based carbon accounting platform?CarbonChain?has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round. As to be expected in a Series A round, the capital will be used to help the company scale, both in terms of developing new products as well as expanding its customer base and team size.?CarbonChain’s $10 million Series A round was co-led by Union Square Ventures and Voyager Ventures.?There’s no denying the fact that a great number of us are aware of just how much damage humankind has done to the planet, particularly in the last 123 years. While change is afoot, there’s nothing to say it’s easy to accomplish, and with all the best intentions, even accurate.
Italian climate startup?Energy Dome, which has developed a “CO2?Battery” for storing renewable energy, has closed a €40 million (~$44 million) Series B round — bringing the total raised for its novel energy storage solution to €54 million (or just shy of $60 million).?The round was co-led by Eni Next, the corporate VC arm of Italian energy giant Eni; along with Neva SGR, the VC company owned by European banking group Intesa Sanpaolo. Existing investors also participated, including Barclays’ Sustainable Impact Capital, CDP Venture Capital, Invitalia, Novum Capital Partners and 360 Capital.?Other investors in the round include Japan Energy Fund and Elemental Excelerator.?Storage is important for renewables as major clean sources of energy generation like solar and wind power are variable, since the sun doesn’t always shine nor the wind always blow. This means, not that renewables are useless (as?some right-wing politicians have tried to claim) but that decarbonizing the electricity grid using these alternative (green) sources of power requires innovation in storage tech — which?is where Energy Dome is aiming to step in with its CO2?Battery.
In what could prove a milestone for an industry that hopes to help address climate change, the Silicon Valley company Ohmium announced Wednesday it has raised $250 million to increase production of machines that can make clean hydrogen and displace fossil fuels.?Some climate experts say burning hydrogen can substitute for burning coal, oil or gas, for example in making steel or cement — without contributing to climate change. That’s been largely theoretical, but real world examples are now growing.?Just four or five years ago, a company working on clean hydrogen from water would not have been able to raise several hundred million dollars, said Daryl Wilson, executive director of the Hydrogen Council. But now there’s rapid growth and demand for it, and a broader recognition that it’s key to addressing climate change, he said.?Ohmium’s role is to make electrolyzers, the devices that take water and split it into hydrogen and oxygen.
In the coming weeks, the Environmental Protection Agency?is expected to propose strict new limits?on emissions from coal- and natural gas-burning power plants, which are responsible for about 25 percent of the country’s greenhouse gases. Those emissions are dangerously heating the planet.?While electric utilities could pursue other strategies to reduce pollution, such as switching to wind or solar power, experts say capturing carbon dioxide and burying it underground might be one of the few options for some large coal and gas plants to keep operating while complying with the new rules.?Carbon capture is already used by a number of industrial facilities, such as ethanol and natural gas processing plants. There are also three coal plants in?Maryland,?Oklahoma?and?California?that use chemical solvents to trap a tiny fraction of the carbon dioxide coming out of their smokestacks, which they sell to companies that make carbonated beverages, among other customers.
The biggest hurdle, experts say, is that it’s almost always cheaper to let carbon dioxide waft into the atmosphere than to capture it. Without government limits on pollution or subsidies, utilities are unlikely to go through the trouble. But last year, that calculus began shifting. Under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, Congress increased existing tax credits that are now worth up to $85 for every ton of carbon dioxide that polluters capture and bury underground, up from a maximum of $50 previously. That has led to growing interest. The owners of at least six coal plants and 14 large gas plants?are conducting detailed engineering studies?to gauge the economic feasibility of carbon capture and storage. Calpine Corporation, one of the country’s largest generators of electricity from natural gas, is exploring plans to install the technology at four large gas plants in Texas and California.
Scientists at the University of Georgia have created a "superfoam" with?two?very valuable potential applications. It could be used not only to clean up oil spills, but also to keep infections from occurring at medical implant sites.?Developed by a team led by Assoc. Prof. Hitesh Handa, the three-dimensional material consists of a PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) matrix which is augmented with graphene nanoplatelets and antibacterial copper microparticles. These additions give the foam a coarse, porous structure which is both hydrophobic (water-repelling)?and?oleophilic (oil-attracting).?When sponges made of the foam were placed in water polluted with oil, they?adsorbed?the oil while not taking in any of the water. Once that adsorbed oil had been removed from the foam, the sponges could be reused multiple times to take up more oil.
In a rural part of Denmark, a cavernous warehouse holds vast vats of bacteria —?what a transatlantic corporate partnership is hoping will be the solution to the cement industry’s huge emissions problem. Denmark’s concrete manufacturing giant IBF and U.S.-based startup BioMason together aim to show that a new kind of cement mix, based on naturally occurring phenomena, can avoid the huge energy requirements and high carbon dioxide emissions that have characterized cement production for centuries. To achieve its strong, cohesive properties, traditional concrete has long relied on a type of cement called Portland, which uses limestone as a base. When that limestone is heated, carbon dioxide is released as a byproduct. Specific types of bacteria, in the right environment, can mimic the crucial properties of Portland cement, but with the carbon cycle reversed. The bacteria draw in carbon dioxide, then convert it into calcium carbonate.?This kind of chemical transformation is what allows coral reefs to grow and solidify underwater. And teams of biologists, technicians and engineers collaborating in Ikast, Denmark, and North Carolina plan to replicate that process —?with a few tweaks. It’s essentially 3D printing with a biological base. This spring, the two companies intend to start cranking out industrial quantities of polished concrete tiles that will lock up carbon for the length of their product lifespans. The tiles are made in small batches, but before they are shipped out to expectant customers in Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK, teams of specialists must spend the coming weeks ironing out any remaining production wrinkles.
Astronomers observed two enormous touching stars in a neighboring galaxy.?Over millions of years, their orbits will begin to decay, leading to a cataclysmic event that will be detectable far and wide throughout the cosmos.?The two stars will eventually crash together, generating massive waves in the fabric of space-time before becoming black holes, a?press statement?reveals.?The new discovery was outlined in a study, published in the journal?Astronomy & Astrophysics, by researchers at University College London (UCL) and the University of Potsdam. In it, they explained how they analyzed a known binary star (two stars orbiting the same center of gravity) using several different ground- and space-based observatories.?The stars, which are located in a neighboring dwarf galaxy known as the?Small Magellanic Cloud, are in partial contact with each other. In fact, one of the stars is currently "feeding" off of the other. They orbit each other once every three days and they are the most massive touching stars observed to date.