Talking Climate Tech 018 redux

🪨 Thermal Storage Startups | 📉 Tariff Tab | ♨️ Local Geo | ⚡ Flower Power

Issued to subscribers 4th April 2025.

Off we go on the tariff rollercoaster again...

💸 Startup News

Thermal energy storage this week. We looked at that in Newsletter 004 I hear you cry! You are right we did - Rondo, MGA Thermal and Kyoto. There are plenty more startups and scaleups in Thermal Energy Storage, it's a huge global market opportunity.

Let us not forget, that heat is 49% of final energy use, bigger than Transport and Power. If we can manage, store, and time-shift renewable generation to thermal, and add in some waste heat, we will be making a major impact on commercial and industrial process heat emissions.

More often than not, we are talking about decarbonising industrial process heat with this type of thermal storage. In the UK approx. 90% of this is below 150℃, so within the scope of thermal storage and heat pumps.

There are a lot on my radar globally, but we are going for x3 from Europe this week, because, well you know why!

🇬🇧 Caldera - Raised approx £10m Series A, with big hitters GEA coming on board. News here on that Series A announced this week.

🇩🇪 Kraftblock - Raised approx €20m Series B and continue to scale in Europe with containerised thermal storage - 85% recycled secret black rocks in a box!

🇫🇮 Polar Night Energy - Raised approx €8m funding, this one is all about sand, in much larger installations, definitely not mobile. They are also exploring power-heat-power solution.

🔎 Deeper Dive

Trump Watch 💥

Where to begin this week! 🤯 More on Tariffs below. In the meantime let's dip into some non-tariff news.

Deep-sea mining in international waters - yep that's likely coming soon by another stroke of the EO big marker pen, bypassing UN policy and protection measures. Expect irreparable damage to the seabed and ecosystems. More Here.

More scientific community pushback on the wrecking ball of shock-and-awe EOs, cuts, closures and changes - 1,900 top US scientists sign an open letter identifying health, economy and national security concerns.

Tesla 'brand challenges' continue, and now the damage is seeping from Automotive into its Powerwall business, oh dear. More here. 📉

What's coming next from the Oval Office? Expect the benefits of climate change pitch. 😔

Tariff Tab 📉

That's the only thing happening in the world this week right!? As usual, DJT sucking the air out of the room to hog the limelight.

His performance with his 'big board' would be hilarious, if it wasn't going to affect millions of people and crash economies. Like a cheap gameshow host, he revelled in the bingo scorecard session.

Everyone else, not so much - especially his favourite barometer for political approval, the stock markets:

A flavour of the carnage - Apple lost $300bn market cap alone in a single day. 90% of its manufacturing is in China, and tariffs are going to be approx 54% or more.

It's not all about the big guys of course, Apple will be fine, US consumers won't. Every country is affected, including those who really shouldn't be, in the Global South - good interactive map here.

Who's got what? As you might expect, Russia got....0% 🤔

European Union 20%, UK 10%, Japan 24%, China 54%

The process is so flawed it's mind-blowing. Small island nations with just seals and penguins have been hit with tariffs! And then there is the schoolboy economics that has become a laughing-stock of professional economists globally. More on that here.

JD Vance's thoughtful input while everyone is looking at their pensions - we shall see, I suspect not JD...

"It's just one bad day"

Trump's comment overnight - we shall see, I doubt that will be any time soon if at all Don...

"$7 trillion of investment could flow into the country once the tariffs take effect"

The thing is, America doesn't always make great products, which is what export markets and regulations indicate. No one wants to buy big gas-guzzling cars and pick-ups, chlorinated chicken and hormone-feed beef. 🤔

Trump seems to think the US will return to the good old days of US manufacturing, with huge factories and abundant sector employment. Manufacturing isn't like that anymore - digitisation, automation and robotics are the way with cross-border integrated supply chains for components...all now subject to tariffs.

Plus US workers expect higher wages than those workers from off-shore supply chains, especially with expected inflationary pressures...from tariffs.

🏡 Konfab News

No news here this week - writing this at a pace so I can go and pack my bags 😄

While I do that, in the meantime have a look at this - it will blow your mind!

😃 Good Stuff

Senator Booker 👏

Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) yielded the Senate floor Tuesday evening after a record-breaking speech - 25 hours and 5 minutes in total, never sitting, eating, or leaving the small square of space for the duration of the speech. 🫡

❓Why it matters - DOGE, Economy, Ukraine, Democracy, Freedoms - plenty of time to get through a lot of topics! The Booker comittment, and the numbers tell you people needed this - a starting point, a spear-tip - something to coalesce around and encourage those in power to recognise them, and their concerns:

• 25 hours and 5 minutes total length of Booker’s speech
• 1164 pages of prepared material
• More than 200 stories from Americans shared in the speech
• 350 million-plus likes on @SenatorBooker’s TikTok livestream of the speech
• More than 28,000 voicemails of encouragement on Senator Booker’s phone
• 300,000 plus: largest number of people viewing Senator Booker’s Live Stream across just his platforms at once

You might not want to watch the whole 25 hours back...but you could dip into a few selected highlights here thanks to Richard Delevan and Wicked Problems. 🙏

Local Geothermal ♨️

It's not changing the world in one hit, but it could really help change the city and peoples lives - through the potential extension of Southamptons Heat Network and Geothermal facility, lowering cost heating and cooling, and helping alleviate fuel poverty.

Currently serving more than 58 commercial and public sector customers and hundreds of households, the heating facility produces over 70GWh of energy a year.

You might recall me giving the old [1986!] geothermal centre a round of applause a few months back on LinkedIn. Thrilled to have this progression for geothermal in the city! More on the announcement here.

Pylon of the Month ⚡

It's that time people, here is your tower of power this week - another beauty from the RIBA final 6 shortlist:

Quite the looker, let's dip into a more eloquent description from RIBA:

Flower Tower expresses the transmission of energy through forms associated with nature. In elevation, the Flower Tower reads like a bouquet of flowers or leaves. The bunching together of several ‘stems’ creates structural stiffness at the base. These stems are tied together by connecting plates and horizontal bridges which allow access to maintain the cables. Arcs defined by the cable clearance swings generate curving ‘leaves’, which splay out from the stem. The earth wire is held by a spike or ‘flower’ at the top of the tower.

Almost poetic...form and function at one with nature, just in time for Spring. Well as much as it can be at one with nature bearing in mind its a tower of steel carrying 132kVa or more!

Thanks as always, let's keep pushing forward with all things climate tech and the real-world solutions that meet our climate challenges.

Remember, the momentum is unstoppable despite everything you might see and hear! 🌍

Stay warm, cool and safe wherever you are 🙏

Kane

Before You Go...if you like what you've been reading so far...

This is a one-man team with some amazing collaborators and subject matter experts, help us keep pushing the message and insights forward...

Here are some ways you can help…

🎁 Sharing is caring!

Forward this newsletter to 1 friend or colleague today and encourage them to subscribe! (sign up here).

🙌 Got more friends?

Of course you do, send it to as many as you like! 🚀

Konfab is free to its subscribers, but it does take a lot of time, energy and a fair bit of coffee to make it happen! 🥺

If you would like to support me, I could always use an extra cup... ☕ ⬇️