Jane Chen

Well, let’s just say it: New York Climate Week is “the new COP.” As our good friends at Sightline said so well, “Vibe-wise, this NYCW centered more on solutions and getting down to brass tacks, rather than outlining high-level problems.” NYCW is where people go to get things done. Sure, it was a mosh pit of decentralized, self-assembling change, but…like NYC itself, the chaos works. Let’s call it: NYCW>COP.

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🚀Super excited to announce Day Zero Ventures Investment in Zeno🚀 We're thrilled to back Zeno, a company set to revolutionize two-wheel transportation in emerging markets with their innovative electric motorcycle ecosystem. Why we're excited: Massive Untapped Market: • 600M petrol motorcycles globally, growing to 2B by 2040 • 60-80% are 100-200cc commuter motorcycles • No good electric options exist for this segment yet Perfect Product-Market Fit: • African bike taxi (boda boda) drivers cover enough miles annually to circle the globe • Switching to electric can reduce fuel costs by 50-75% Comprehensive Ecosystem Approach: • 100-200cc equivalent electric motorbike • Flexible multimodal charging: swapping, fast charging, home charging • Innovative battery-as-a-service subscription model Exceptional Team: • Michael Spencer (CEO): Ex-Tesla leadership, 15 years in East Africa • Rob Newberry (VP Software): Former Apple & Nest senior engineer • Swaroop Bhushan (VP Engineering): Powertrain expert from Lucid and Harley's LiveWire • Plus ex-engineers from Gogoro, Ola Electric, and Ather Zeno's vision goes beyond transportation. They aim to transform customers' relationship with energy, potentially powering homes, businesses, and supporting the grid in emerging markets. We're excited to partner with Zeno on this journey to electrify the world's fastest-growing vehicle segment. As emerging markets continue to develop and urbanize, Zeno is well-positioned to become a cornerstone of sustainable transportation infrastructure. Read why we invested in Zeno in the 1st comment! Alok Bishoyi Rahul Rajvanshi #CleanTech #ImpactInvesting #ElectricVehicles #EmergingMarkets

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Four years ago, in the thick of the COVID pandemic, Rewiring America shared their #electrification handbook. We at Energize Capital had been investing at the intersection of renewables and electrification since our firm's inception back in 2016. Rewiring America's work crystallized the electrification of everything imperative in a way we hadn't seen before; communicating complicated concepts simply. It inspired our team at Energize to start sharing our own views and thesis on, you guessed it, Electrify Everything.   Fast forward to 2024, we are 5 years into researching and writing about how to "Electrify Everything." We can decarbonize, save people and businesses money, and make the industrial economy more efficient. Critically, electrifying faster with proven technologies like solar, energy efficient devices, batteries … has an outsized impact on the Earth's carbon stock now, not 30 years from now. We think enabling technologies that help us electrify faster can unlock many proven electrification technologies. In the process, they might make a lot revenue and profit. That is a good thing.   Every year, Energize shares the latest Electrify Everything trends we can't stop talking about. We also share 30 companies advancing electrification with digital platforms that we really admire. There are 100s if not 1000s of innovators developing hardware, deeptech, software, and tech-enabled services business models to electrify everything. We love it all. Come join the movement and #ElectrifyEverything. Read on below to learn about the Electrify Everything 2024: The Top 30 Software Innovators! https://lnkd.in/euMeUMZt

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🚀 Form Energy's Iron-Air Batteries: Pioneering Long-Duration Energy Storage ⚡🔋 Last week was the SOSV Climate Summit and one theme that stood out was the decarbonization of the grid. I was fascinated to learn about the work being done around long duration storage solutions (100+ hours) necessary to provide base load assurance given the intermittency of renewable sources like wind and solar. Whilst there are a number of different technologies in the mix from pumped hydro storage, thermal energy storage and gravity energy storage, on the battery front, Form Energy and it's iron-air solution seems to be pulling ahead. The core of the iron-air battery is its electrochemical redox cycle, utilizing iron oxidation during discharge to produce iron oxide (rust), and reversing the reaction during charge to regenerate metallic iron. This process allows the system to store energy for up to 100 to 150 hours, addressing multi-day intermittency in renewable generation. Some of the other advantages of the technology are as follows: 💰 Cost-Effective: Targets a $20 per kWh cost, significantly lower than conventional lithium-ion batteries, enabling affordable large-scale deployment. 🌍 Environmentally Friendly: Utilizes abundant, non-toxic materials (iron, water, air), reducing reliance on rare or hazardous materials, with a lower environmental impact. 🔒 Safe and Non-Flammable: Employs a water-based, non-flammable electrolyte, reducing the risks associated with thermal runaway, a common concern with lithium-ion batteries. 📈 Scalable and Modular: The modular design allows flexible deployment from small projects to large-scale, utility-grade storage solutions, making it adaptable to various grid needs. Form Energy has secured over $1.2 billion in capital since its founding, enabling rapid scaling and innovation. The company’s most recent Series F funding round in October 2024 raised a substantial $405 million, led by major investors like TPG Rise Climate, GE Vernova, Breakthrough Energy and Energy Impact Partners. This latest round will support the development of their manufacturing facility in Weirton, West Virginia, where Form Energy will repurpose a former steel mill into a production hub for its iron-air batteries. I would recommend the following podcast if you want to lean more. And Latitude Media and Canary Media Inc. for the best up-to-date reporting on transition related topics. https://lnkd.in/gmCR5prN

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I love stories like Samuel's about how he switched on to the need for the transition and found his pathway to having impact. Each of us has to find their own light switch and their own pathway. Prof Smil is such a troubling figure. Brilliant, charming, persuasive - yet he has used his skills to discourage us from working on what we all understand is a vast and daunting problem. All light switch, no pathway. For decades he propagated the Primary Energy Fallacy - the idea that renewable energy had to replace all "Primary Energy Demand", even though that is not a measure of demand at all: 2/3 of it is lost en route, mainly waste heat from burning coal, oil and gas. We need to provide energy services, we do not need to burn things. And he hasn't devoted 1% of his brilliance to explaining what we *should* do, rather than what we *shouldn't* do. OK, we get it, it's hard to change big systems fast. So where's the Smil plan? Even if we can't stop climate change dead in its tracks, we have to do the best we can. Every 0.1C matters. My light switch was seeing the damage being done to my beloved high mountain environments - glaciers disappearing, historic climbing routes becoming unusable because of rockfall as the permafrost melts. And my pathway was to help people understand in practice solutions - and not just renewables - that *could*, at least in theory, scale fast enough to make a difference. We now have enough manufacturing capacity to replace 5% of global electricity with solar every year. Soon to be 10%. If you put one grain of rice on the first square of the chess board, and two grains on the second square, you may not yet have enough to feed a Prof Smil, but we all know what happens next. So buckle up, listen to the Cleaning Up Podcast episode with Jenny, and even if you think you can't do much, you can. You could help someone else, early in their career, find their light switch and their pathway! And make sure you tell people your own light switch and pathway story. Narratives matter. https://lnkd.in/gTVyu4-3

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Will sustainability work in a capitalist economy? 🤔 I asked James Joaquin of Obvious Ventures about this and more on TODAY's episode of The Full Ratchet. Check it out at https://lnkd.in/gv-wr7_z

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AI and electrification are driving unprecedented energy demand and creating real challenges as we also work to decarbonize the grid. Thanks to an amazing panel who joined us in front of a packed house at SF Commonwealth Club yesterday! Highlights in the blog post below. #climateweeksf #AI #electrification

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