Talking Climate Tech 012 redux
Last week's newsletter - Methane Startups, Science Moms, Hydro Godzilla, Beavers and Pylon of the Month!
Clock watching today? It is Friday after all, the end of a long and busy week. I have a countdown timer you might like to add to your digital clock devices ⬇️
Let's crack on...
In last week's newsletter 011 orphan oil wells and methane were topics we touched on. I think oil and gas challenges around methane deserve a deeper dive - I will explore which subject matter expert we can bring in for an interview.
What's the methane issue? Well it's high impact:
🔴 100-year timescale, methane has x28 > GWP than CO2
🔴 20-year timescale methane is x84 > GWP than CO2
Cutting methane rapidly has a huge impact on the GWP and emissions through to 2050. It's the naughty one in the corner that doesn't get as much coverage as CO2. From IEA:
Close to 70% of methane emissions from fossil fuels come from the top 10 emitting countries
Around 40% of today’s methane emissions from fossil fuels could be avoided at no net cost
You can dive into this excellent methane 'super-emitter' map from Kayrros
Cutting methane emissions from fossil fuels by 75% by 2030 is vital to limit warming to 1.5°c
The Oil & Gas Climate Initiative has also created this Methane Library if you want to explore further strategies and solutions in the sector.
💸 Startup News
Sobering stuff. While we wait patiently for Oil&Gas to respond with urgency as usual, I thought it might be interesting to look at some methane-orientated startups:
🇬🇧 BlueMethane - Early stage grant funding approx £500k plus accelerators including Carbon13 and AgFunder GROW. Methane sensing and capture technology for methane emissions from water. Onward conversion to bioenergy. Interesting interview with founder Louise Parlons Bentata here and more BBC reading here.
🇺🇸 Windfall Bio - Seed Round + Series A $37m. MEM [methane eating microbes] chomp through methane for breakfast.
🇬🇧 Mirico - Approx £10m to date. Laser based continuous sensing and analytics solution of methane from Oil&Gas facilities.
🔎 Deeper Dive
Canada 🇨🇦
Trump may not love you, but we do in the UK. So we are sending 7 of our finest over to COVE in Dartmouth, NS.
This Ocean ScaleUp Accelerator is delivered as part of Innovate UK’s Global Incubator Programme, an international collaboration between COVE and Innovate UK, which is a part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Love to see this UK-CAN collaboration continue. Last year I put together a UK resource webinar on Floating Offshore Wind for COVE / Dartmouth University students which included inputs from Windscope on data analytics and ORE on design considerations.
The magnificent 7 includes Verlume [Sub-sea Power], Samudra [seaweed], BioBright [algae] among others. 🙌
Godzilla 🦖
This is technically climate tech related after all hydro delivers huge global electricity - 1,412GW in 2023, and pumped-hydro provides 90% of all energy storage globally.
Dive into the World Hydropower Outlook 2024 report here. They do make a good looking report to be fair. You will see in there our UK startup noted above, Bluemethane is listed in there as collaborator on the g-res tool.
Or you could just check out how cool dams can look when some handy Japanese artists get involved!
Penny for a Billionaire? 💰
Wouldn't be the same without a mention of Elon's scheming. Nothing is safe from the Trump / DOGE hatchet job, even pennies, and soon likely nickels. The US mint said it lost $85.3 million making billions of pennies at 3.7 cents each.
Sounds logical right, some cost savings and energy and manufacturing waste that could be saved. ✅ But, there's always an angle with Elon...
As we move inexorably towards digital payments and currencies, rounding becomes a 'thing'. Hang on, was that Elon making a move recently with VISA for X as a do-all payment app....oh, and of course he is into the multi-trillion $ Gov payment systems and everyone's social security details. 🤔
Depressing Fire-Sale 😔
Los Angeles’s Pacific Palisades wildfire fall-out continues. Original value $2.7m, now listed for $999,000, the property got more than 60 offers.
The whole area is a fire-ravaged mess. What a choice - spend money to rebuild, or sell at a significant loss. Expect more of the same double pain - physical climate change impact followed by devastating loss of homes, equity and land without relevant risk coverage. Insurance is hard to come by in many regions and it's getting rapidly worse. This is climate change. 🔥
🏡 Konfab News
The trip up to London for the Materials & Manufacturing Showcase 2025 earlier this week was a fascinating event for industrial decarbonisation, industrial AI, robotics, and the future of materials and manufacturing across UK Industry.
Too much good stuff to rush through here - I am going to write up a post early next week separately, and here it is:
Kane Watkinson
Conference + Exhibition Visit Report
Recorded another interview, could be some technical issues with the audio, to be confirmed - might need a replay 😬
😃 Good Stuff
Click through and bookmark this, you'll need it - feels distant, yet it's very compelling and heart warming. 🙏
Saved by the Beaver 🦫
Tired of permits, delays and red tape. Get the beavers in. The industrious big-teeth-types in the Czech Republic, saved around £1m in project costs and months of wasted time for wetland restoration. Did it in 2 days. The five acres of wetland created in just 48 hours, is twice the size of the proposed human-made version. 👏
Hearts & Minds ❤️
Super Bowl ads are a big deal, literally in $$ and are quite the national discussion topic. Great to see Science Moms, a nonpartisan climate advocacy group of climate scientists, put out the first ad on climate risks to ever air during the Super Bowl.
When people hear and learn more about the direct impact of emissions and climate change on them, their health and family, we might really start turning the dial. 👏
Pylon of the Month ⚡
We are back and bang-up-to-date. Here is February, hailing from the USA! 🇺🇸
What's the deal then? Quite the adventurers story to get this shot...
I embarked on a journey across frozen terrain in order to take this picture...........After the long trek across streets and eventually rarely traveled hills, I reached the highest peak along this line...
Passion the world-over for electrification and towers of power! 👏
Thanks as always! Let's keep pushing forward urgently with collaboration and real-world solutions that meet our climate challenges.
Remember, despite everything you might see and hear, the momentum is unstoppable! 🌍
Stay warm, cool and safe, wherever you are 🙏
Kane 🌱
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