As the planet warms, climate tech is getting scorching hot
No matter where you live, you are paying attention to our changing climate. Stronger storms, more frequent heat waves, cold snaps, and ever-more extreme wet-and-dry cycles paint the news with the image of a wounded planet in flux. That’s the bad news. The good news is that a mountain of venture capital, and a wave of startups, are piling into the climate tech space all hoping to make a difference — and a dollar.
But don’t take our word for it. Investors are starting to realize that the climate is changing so quickly that companies founded to work on the problem-space will become mature in time for a standard venture fund lifecycle. That is both encouraging, and not, but remains a fact regardless.
Keeping our chins up, where can we find work afoot that could truly help our global home? In a great host of places, thanks to TechCrunch+ keeping its ears open and its pens sharp. Here’s what we’ve focused on recently:
- In the United States, recent actions by its domestic Congress “could unleash billions in renewable energy investment,” we recently reported. And that money will have a great many places to go, thanks to work like:
- EVs, EVs and EVs. The electric vehicle market has gone from joke, to curiosity, to hobby, to massive globe-scaling business in little time. Lately we’ve been tracking the massive dustup between car companies regarding just how to charge their cars batteries. And, speaking of power cells:
- Batteries are a key technology plank in any decarbonized future. Thankfully we’re seeing some pretty big breakthroughs in that area.
- But storing energy is only so important, what about clean power generation? Well, venture investors are pulling out their checkbooks to fund fusion startups en masse. So much so in fact that we recently corralled a half-dozen investors to chat just fusion with us as we work to get to the bottom of whether or not the technology will finally, at last, work.
- That doesn’t mean that it’s all-or-nothing with fusion at the fulcrum point; there’s a lot more going on. Greenlyte wants to yank 1,000 metric tons of CO2 out of the air, Skytree is using space station CO2 scrubbers to help greenhouses work better, the list goes on and on.
TechCrunch+ cares about what is next. And what could be more next than our collective future? We live aboard a single spaceship, flying through nothing while rotating around a massive explosion that lights our skies. We’d best take care of what we’ve got, because it’s not too likely that space travel is going to save us from ourselves. Not this time, at least.
More to come, so stick around! You can also keep up with TechCrunch+ on Twitter, and check out all our recent coverage here.
As the planet warms, climate tech is getting scorching hot by Alex Wilhelm originally published on TechCrunch
