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MONITOR

I talked with an early climate investor why ocean startups are growing big

Over at Tough Tech Today, I sat down with one of the earliest climate investors who’s now focused on maritime opportunities: Adam de Sola Pool. In the future, nearly anything that can be done on land will be feasible in the ocean, from habitation to electric charging stations for long distance travel. de Sola Pool is a special advisor at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, which devotes its work researching complex ocean systems to better understand how to mitigate coral bleaching, rising tides, and species extinctions. The results of this research may illuminate new solutions to these tough challenges.

Post-NIMBY nuclear

Most regions in the U.S. feel like they have energy regulations that have drifted from NIMBY (“Not In My Back Yard”) to BANANA (“Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything”). But here comes Idaho Strategic Resources exploring new mining capabilities by greenlighting the next development phase of Radiant Industries’s modular microreactor. The companies will study how Radiant’s Kaleidos units can provide base-load behind-the-meter power for remote sites. One Kaleidos unit is the size of shipping container and refuelable every five years. Regulatory, environmental, and defense communities will be keeping an eye on how this plays out. Even though another mini-nuke co., Oklo, IPO’d and faced some headwinds, it’s looking like nuclear energy is back in business. This is courtesy A.I.’s nearly insatiable energy needs, among several other factors. (My buddy, Charles, mentored the Oklo team way back when. Now Sam Altman is their headliner investor.)

It’s a plane, it’s a satellite, it’s… VLEO craft

It’s passé to have a constellation of satellites over Earth. Starlink showed that more is better, and other organizations have begun building their own constellations. Starlink also showed that closer (to the Earth’s surface) is quicker – just ask anyone who has used Hughes Network satellite Internet compared to a SpaceX dish. What’s less common is to put satellites twice as close to the Earth’s surface than these aforementioned constellations. Very Low Earth Orbit brings the satellites closer still (about halfway closer) and governments in particular are excited about the “400 percent improvement in your sensor performance for electro-optical, infrared and all sorts of applications,” said Spence Wise, Redwire senior vice president for missions and platforms. I suspect commercial entities, too, may enjoy the breezy quick orbits of air-breathing, dart-like VLEO craft, because it could mean much faster acquisition of geospatial hyper spectral images and faster comms relays for other remotely operated and autonomous craft.

BLIPS

The key to preventing crashes is to know what you don’t know – got that, robo car? OpenAI created/destroyed new companies overnight, such as it does during its Big Update events. More robotics-focused venture capital firms are emerging, with Teradyne Robotics Ventures being the newest – congrats on the launch, Eric Truebenbach.

EVENT

It’s time to “reindustrialize” America, so reads the Techno Industrialist Manifesto. So, yes, there’s now a conference for that this June in Detroit. You might see me there.

DEBRIEF