🌋 Vol 183: Rocket science is going underground

Hi there,

Critical Energy, founded by SpaceX alum Spencer Jackson, raised $22 million this week to turn rocket-engine know-how into modular turbines for geothermal power plants. 

The startup wants to factory-build the machinery that converts underground heat into electricity, rather than relying on huge bespoke turbines that can take months - or years - to assemble on site. First up: a 2.5MW project planned for 2027, followed by a larger 5MW module for next-gen geothermal players drilling deeper for more heat.

Geothermal has long been the hot ticket hiding beneath our feet: clean, constant, and massively underused. And if the world wants 24/7 power for data centres, industry, and increasingly electrified everything, we’ll need more than solar panels and good intentions.

In this week’s edition: 

🇦🇺 Australia’s opened the world’s first carbon refinery
🍴 Foundation Alloy scored $22M for high-performance metals
💧 Is lab-grown aquatic moss the answer to freshwater methane emissions?

AgriFood x Climate

🏭 Solar Foods secured €77.8 million in grant and loan financing from Business Finland to scale Solein, its gas-fermented protein made from carbon dioxide and electricity, with the funding being used to construct, commission and ramp up its industrial-scale Factory 02 facility in Lappeenranta, Finland.

💶 Netherlands-based Vivici secured €12.5 million from the European Innovation Council Accelerator to scale production and commercialisation of its precision-fermented, animal-free whey protein ingredients.

🌾 Belgian agtech Rainbow Crops raised €9.7 million in an oversubscribed seed round led by LIFTT and LIFTT EuroInvest, with participation from AIF, PINC, VIB, Corteva, and Maia Ventures, to advance its AI-powered multiplex gene-editing platform that develops climate-resilient, high-performing crop varieties

✅ The Protein Brewery secured landmark EU Novel Food approval for Fermotein, its fungi-derived protein ingredient, making it the first whole-food mycelium ingredient authorised for sale in the EU.

🧫 Tufts University spinout Deco Labs is turning canola oil industry leftovers into cAlbumin, a plant-based albumin replacement that could dramatically cut cultivated meat media costs.

🧪 Faraday Earth is using AI-optimised plasma to make green ammonia without Haber-Bosch, aiming to turn air, water and renewable electricity into decentralised, lower-carbon fertiliser at a target cost of around $500/ton.

Biodiversity x Climate

📊 A new UN University report warns that AI’s climate impact is being underestimated because most assessments focus on model training emissions while overlooking the much larger energy, water, land and e-waste footprint of everyday AI use, especially image and video generation.

💧 Edinburgh Napier University is leading Mossthane, an ARIA-funded project to test whether lab-grown aquatic moss and methane-eating bacteria can be used as a nature-based biofilter to cut freshwater methane emissions, starting with fieldwork on Scotland’s River Tweed.

🏞️ A study led by the University of Surrey found that urban parks can cool and clean surrounding neighbourhoods well beyond their boundaries, with Stoke Park in Guildford cutting morning PM10 pollution by more than 11%, reducing temperatures by 6.5%, lowering noise by 5.41 dB, and improving thermal comfort by up to 8.5°C in shaded and grassland areas.

🌳 An Adelaide University and Flinders University study has found that street trees deliver up to $1.50 in benefits for every $1 invested, with urban planting programmes improving public health, cooling cities, cleaning air, lowering energy costs and lifting property values.

📉 Research from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology using 20 years of data from space observation has found that photosynthesis across UK ecosystems is declining as hotter, drier conditions disrupt plant productivity, raising concerns for carbon capture, biodiversity and climate resilience.

🇮🇩 A new satellite-data study has linked global plastic waste trade to worsening air pollution in Indonesia, finding that redirected imports after China’s 2018 waste ban increased PM2.5 levels near dump sites by an average of 3.3% as open burning rose.

Carbon x Climate

🇮🇳 Bengaluru-based Alt Carbon has signed a three-year agreement for Microsoft to buy 36,920 metric tons of carbon removal credits from its enhanced rock weathering projects in India, using crushed basalt on farmland to lock away CO.

🤝🏼 US-based Anthropic has become the first AI startup to join the Frontier carbon removal coalition, committing to buy durable carbon removal credits as part of efforts to address the growing climate footprint of AI infrastructure and help scale early-stage carbon removal technologies.

Energy x Climate

🌋 US startup Critical Energy raised $19 million seed funding in a round led by Susa Ventures and Upfront Ventures, plus $3 million in venture debt from Silicon Valley Bank, with participation from MaC Venture Capital, Susquehanna Sustainable Investments, Humba Ventures, Scribble Ventures and Underground Ventures, to build modular turbine systems for geothermal power plants, with the funding being used to deliver its first 2.5 MW project by 2027 and scale toward larger geothermal modules.

🔋 UK-based Octopus Energy Generation and France’s ZE Energy have jointly invested in ZE Energy’s Sessa Aurunca battery storage project in Campania, Italy, a 98.5 MW / 895 MWh system designed to store excess renewable power and feed it back to the grid.

🪨 Europe’s HyCavern project, coordinated by SINTEF Industry and supported by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, has launched a 15-partner consortium to develop mined, lined rock caverns for large-scale underground hydrogen storage, with the three-year programme focused on validating safer, scalable and more geographically flexible storage for Europe’s future hydrogen economy.

👀 The US Department of Justice has sided with Elon Musk’s xAI in an NAACP lawsuit seeking to stop its use of dozens of unpermitted natural gas turbines near its Memphis data centres, arguing the power supply is critical to AI innovation and military operations, while opponents say the turbines breach air pollution rules and harm nearby communities.

Materials x Climate

🍴 US-based Foundation Alloy raised $22 million in a Series A round led by Voyager Ventures, with participation from Trust Ventures, Yamaha Motors, America’s Frontier Fund, Overlap Holdings, Material Impact, Engine Ventures, El Cap and Kanematsu Corporation. It will use the funds to scale its solid-state alloying technology and ramp up production of its high-performance metals for customers across automotive, aerospace, defense and manufacturing.

📦 Jealsa has partnered with Tetra Pak to launch the first carton packaging for shelf-stable tuna, replacing cans and jars with a lighter, recyclable carton format designed to improve convenience, reduce transport emissions and lower packaging impact.

Mobility x Climate

🛥️ Denmark’s Kvasir Technologies secured €10 million Series A funding from European Energy, EIFO, Mærsk Growth and Footprint Fund to commercialise its technology that converts agricultural and forestry residues into climate-neutral drop-in marine biofuel.

🪫 Finnish startup eMabler secured €5.5 million Series A funding in a round led by Greencode Ventures, with participation from Swiss Post Ventures and Rethink Ventures, to scale its API-based EV charging software platform and expand into Central Europe.

🚚 Australian electric trucking company New Energy Transport raised A$5 million from Melt Ventures and existing investors, to deploy electric trucks on Australian roads with the aim of accelerating the decarbonisation of heavy logistics.

🚛 Berlin-based NexDash secured €2.5 million from EIT Urban Mobility to scale its “Neo-Carrier” model for electrifying road freight, with the funding supporting its acquisition-led rollout of electric truck fleets, AI-powered logistics platform NexOS and zero-emission freight operations across Europe.

From the Community

🔥 On 22nd June, FoodHack and ClimateHack ambassadors are teaming up to host a free meetup in Istanbul.

🥵 Summer Weather x Climate

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Editorial and curation by Nicola