Next-generation battery materials startup Group14 Technologies today announced $169 million in new funding and plans to build a manufacturing facility in Spain, expanding a production network that includes Washington state and South Korea.

“In order to be a global player in a global industry, we need a global footprint, which means it’s not about picking one specific region and going all in,” Group14 CEO Rick Luebbe told GeekWire. “We really need to grow all regions.”

The startup has developed a silicon-carbon material that replaces graphite in lithium-ion battery anodes, enabling higher energy density and faster charging, according to the company. The material already ships primarily to consumer-electronics customers, while the company pursues automotive and data center applications, Luebbe said.

The funding came from a European investor, Luebbe said, but he did not name the firm. It extends the company’s $463 million Series D round and brings Group14’s total funding to nearly $1.5 billion.

The new facility will be located in Sagunto, near Valencia, with production targeted for mid-2029. Luebbe said the site offers clean energy, skilled labor from the chemical industry and proximity to automotive customers, given that Spain is the second-largest vehicle producer in Europe after Germany.

Group14 already has a presence on the continent, acquiring Germany’s Schmid Silicon Technology Holding GmbH in 2023 to secure a European source of silane gas, a key ingredient in its battery material.

Just as the U.S. has been working to bolster its domestic battery manufacturing and reduce its reliance on Chinese supplies, Europe is doing the same, Luebbe said. The company wants to be part of that solution and is eager to make its move.

“Building chemical plants takes a long time, and so you’ve got to think ahead and be able to establish that global footprint and development strategy,” Luebbe said. “We’ve learned a lot in the lifetime of Group14.”

Group14 was founded in 2015 and six years later began operating its first commercial-scale factory, called Battery Active Materials-1, or BAM-1, at its headquarters in Woodinville, Wash.

In 2023, it broke ground on BAM-2 in central Washington’s Moses Lake with funding that included $100 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The site has two modules that at full capacity will be able to produce up to 4,000 tons of silicon-carbon battery material annually, enough for at least 200,000 electric vehicles.

The company originally aimed to start production by late 2024, a target later pushed to early 2026. Group14 laid off an undisclosed number of Washington workers in July 2025 and furloughed additional employees at Moses Lake in January as it shifted resources toward South Korea. The company’s total headcount is approximately 383 employees.

Luebbe said this week that the company is now targeting mid-2027 to bring the first module online, following equipment installation and commissioning. The second module does not yet have a firm completion date.

“It’s a very complicated infrastructure, and it takes a lot longer than we had anticipated to do the final installation and commissioning,” he added.

The company has at least secured the power it needs. It previously contracted sufficient clean energy to run the site, as well as a planned silane gas facility. Since Group14 began its development, data center deployments have accelerated in the region and projects are competing for clean electricity from hydropower dams.

While BAM-2 has been delayed, Group14’s BAM-3 site in South Korea — which originally began as a joint venture with SK materials — has been producing anode material since 2024. The facility has been scaling up and expects to reach its 2,000-ton annual capacity within about six months, Luebbe said.

Group14 is shipping primarily to consumer-electronics customers, which qualify new materials faster than automakers. Luebbe also sees a growing opportunity in data-center battery backup units, where silicon-anode batteries could help smooth rapid spikes in AI-server power demand.

“I’m anticipating data center batteries, battery backup units, to be the second biggest market for us behind EVs,” he said.

Emerald Nuclear today announced a $2.1 million award from The Research Council of Norway to support its efforts to bring nuclear energy to the shipping industry and offshore power. The Seattle-based startup is developing high-temperature gas reactors that use an encapsulated fuel designed to resist meltdowns.

“This award will enable Emerald Nuclear to work directly with our marine partners to validate integration of our technology with their state-of-the-art marine power distribution and control systems,” said Wesley Deason, co-founder and CEO.

The funding supports Norway’s Marine Nuclear Propulsion System Pilot project, which is being led by Emerald Nuclear’s Norwegian subsidiary.

Shipping accounts for roughly 3% of global carbon dioxide emissions, making it a significant target for lower-carbon energy solutions. Some ferries serving shorter routes are adopting hybrid-electric propulsion. Shipping companies are exploring methanol, ammonia, biofuels and other alternatives to heavy fuel oil, but their climate benefits depend on how those fuels are produced and used.

Nuclear reactors have powered U.S. Navy submarines for more than 70 years. Now, a new wave of companies is working to expand nuclear power’s role in commercial shipping and other marine applications.

The award supports an early development step for Emerald Nuclear, with substantial work remaining before commercial deployment. The company has yet to build its first reactor, and its plans will require additional financing, regulatory approvals and a reliable fuel supply. The startup has previously received an undisclosed amount of funding from angel investors.

Emerald Nuclear has five employees, most of them in Norway, and is targeting two applications: offshore ships that help construct facilities like oil platforms and wind turbines and lay deep-sea cables, and floating power plants for remote communities. Each reactor is designed to produce 5 megawatts (6,705 horsepower), according to the company.

Bringing nuclear to the marine environment poses several significant challenges. They include safety issues, regulations for vessels traveling internationally, management of nuclear fuel and waste, and the way shipping companies frequently buy and sell vessels.

Deason said the company’s approach helps address those concerns:

• The reactor will use TRISO fuel, which consists of a uranium-containing kernel surrounded by protective carbon and silicon-carbide layers. The uranium is in short supply, but Deason is confident it will be available by the time the company is ready to deploy.
• Nuclear regulations are still being developed for international vessels, though initial deployments will be within a single country’s jurisdiction.
• Emerald Nuclear will have seaside manufacturing, providing easy access for ships and floating power plants that need installations, repairs and exchanges of fresh and spent fuel.
• The company will lease, rather than sell, its systems, allowing customers to swap nuclear in or out depending on their needs.

Emerald Nuclear is designing its technology “to integrate with the unique power needs of the ship, but also to meet the ways that the maritime industry does business,” Deason said.

Other companies pursuing nuclear ship propulsion include Core Power, newcleo and Blykalla. Core Power, Westinghouse, Saltfoss Energy and Prodigy Clean Energy are also developing floating nuclear power stations. Russia’s state-owned Rosatom already has nuclear-powered icebreakers and a floating nuclear power plant in operation.

Prior to launching Emerald Nuclear, Deason, a nuclear engineer, worked for Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp. (USNC) developing reactors for space-based applications.

During his tenure at the Seattle company, a professor from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology approached USNC about applications for the maritime sector. USNC declared bankruptcy in October 2024 and the deal wasn’t pursued. But the idea interested Deason and Hallgeir Juliebø, a Norwegian entrepreneur who had been a consultant with USNC. The two co-founded Emerald Nuclear in 2024 and Juliebø serves as chief commercial officer.

Emerald Nuclear has signed a lease for an engineering center in Norway, where it’s designing and building its first prototype, a non-nuclear thermal device that will be used for the Marine Nuclear Propulsion System Pilot project.

Other partners for the project are VARD Group, Vard Electro, Island Offshore, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Imperial College London and Maskindynamikk, bringing together nuclear technology, ship design and integration, vessel operations and academic research.

The startup will build its first nuclear reactor, named the Gem Microreactor, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, with 2030 as its goal for completion. Emerald Nuclear will integrate equipment from Peregrine Turbine Technologies in Maine to convert the reactor’s heat into electricity.

The target for the first commercial deployment is 2031, on a Norwegian offshore vessel.

Deason is hoping to open a manufacturing site in the future in Western Washington on Puget Sound with an initial focus on floating nuclear power systems that replace diesel generators. That phase of growth is roughly targeted to the early 2030s.

Seattle-based ag-tech startup Strella has landed $4.25 million to expand the reach of its technology that monitors produce to prevent spoilage and food waste.

The investment extends the company’s Series A round and brings its total funding to $26.25 million.

CEO and co-founder Katherine Sizov launched the startup in Philadelphia in 2019 and relocated its headquarters to Seattle four years ago to be closer to Washington’s fruit orchards.

Strella uses IoT devices to measure gases including ethylene, a plant hormone released by ripening fruit, and machine vision to monitor the produce. Its software interprets the fruit’s real-time conditions alongside data such as country of origin, packing date and varietal type.

The 19-person team serves customers in 26 countries and provides information to growers of apples, pears, avocados and citrus. It recently added kiwifruit to the lineup.

“Our vision is to become the system of record for quality in the food supply chain, or the ‘guardian angels’ of produce as it passes from hand to hand,” Sizov said.

The company works with all of the players in the supply chain, including farmers, produce packers, shippers, distributors and retailers.

“The next step for us is to begin stitching all the pieces together to become a one-stop shop for quality and tackle the food waste problem at scale,” Sizov said.

The United Nations estimates that roughly 33% of food intended for humans worldwide is lost or wasted, totaling $940 billion in annual economic losses. Waste in the U.S. is even worse, at about 40% of edible food and $218 billion each year.

The funding was led by SilverBlue, with participation by LeVert Ventures, Beta Milouot and PeakBridge. 

Helion Energy, the Everett, Wash., startup racing to build the world’s first fusion plant, is expanding its semiconductor development and manufacturing efforts. The company today announced a letter of intent with the U.S. Department of Commerce for up to $175 million in funding for a three-year program to support R&D tied to semiconductor technology for commercial fusion energy.

The funds are available through the CHIPS Research and Development Office. Under the deal, which remains to be finalized, Commerce would receive a $175 million non-voting equity interest in Helion.

Helion is also putting $50 million of private investment toward the semiconductor effort.

The semiconductor initiative has two focal areas:

• More than $100 million will support R&D and manufacturing in Everett, focused on next-generation, high-voltage semiconductors and advanced packaging, which integrates multiple semiconductor devices into modules for use in its systems.
• About $80 million will support R&D for next-generation semiconductor development in partnership with GlobalFoundries, a chip manufacturer with operations in Vermont, New York and overseas.

Helion is working to build a power plant that produces energy from fusion — smashing together small atoms in reactions akin to those that create the sun’s energy. Dozens of companies globally are chasing fusion, but none so far have shown that their technology can make more energy than is required to produce fusion in the first place.

Helion’s system uses powerful electrical pulses to form and compress plasma — an electrically charged gas — to create fusion conditions. As the plasma expands against the machine’s magnetic field, it induces an electrical current in surrounding coils. The system is designed to recover electricity directly rather than using heat to drive a steam turbine.

High-voltage semiconductors — which are designed to control electricity at high voltages without breaking down — play an essential role in the system and need to operate at optimal efficiency to capture as much energy from the system as possible.

“The CHIPS Act goal, but also specifically our component in it, builds out the high-voltage semiconductor supply chain here in the United States, both on the R&D as well as the manufacturing,” said David Kirtley, Helion’s CEO, in a GeekWire interview.

The work in Everett is expected to create more than 100 jobs. Helion’s workforce already includes a small team of semiconductor experts, and the company will be hiring for roles including materials scientists, semiconductor engineers, technicians and assemblers.

“This investment expands domestic research, secures critical supply chains, and creates high-paying American jobs,” Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said in a statement.

Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act with leadership from Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell, and President Joe Biden signed it into law in August 2022. The law included $52.7 billion for semiconductor manufacturing, research and related activities.

Helion has raised more than $1.5 billion from investors. The $50 million for semiconductor work includes private funds already committed to the company and new cash; Kirtley did not specify how much additional funding it’s receiving, but said it includes new investors.

Helion’s expansion into semiconductor work comes as it continues fine-tuning its fusion technology at its Everett facility. At the same time, Helion is building Orion, its commercial-scale fusion plant in Malaga, Wash., near the Columbia River. It has an agreement to supply Microsoft with electricity from the facility and is targeting initial operations in 2028.

“So that’s still the plan,” Kirtley said. “We’re building Orion components and operating our other systems internally, and the work continues in parallel with all of this.”

The company has semiconductors available for use in Orion, primarily sourced from overseas vendors, he said. Kirtley expects some chips developed through the initiative to be used in Orion, potentially late in its construction.

The semiconductor effort adds another development track as Helion pursues the daunting goal of commercializing fusion energy.

“As soon as the award kicks off, we can build out the manufacturing capacity and the testing capacity, and in a parallel, do the research and development into the next generation of semiconductors as well,” Kirtley said.

Endurance Energy says its prototype marine geothermal power system generated more electricity than it consumed during a recent deployment 300 miles off the Oregon coast — though the milestone lasted just 8.7 seconds.

The Seattle-based startup landed its 3-ton power plant on the seafloor near a natural vent releasing water at about 538 degrees Fahrenheit. The team operated the system remotely through a fiber-optic network running along the seabed.

The expedition marked Endurance’s fifth deployment to the ocean floor where it tested Adélie — a 100-kilowatt geothermal generator named for a penguin.

The company is part of a broader race to harness geothermal energy, using heat from water or steam under the Earth’s crust, converted into electricity. But while companies such as Fervo and Sage Geosystems focus on terrestrial sites, Endurance is the first commercial venture pursuing undersea sources.

“The main question we had is can the system generate more power than it uses,” Andrew Redd, Endurance’s founder and CEO, said in a statement about the expedition, which began last month.

“Adélie did,” he added. “Goddard’s first liquid-fueled rocket flew for two and a half seconds. Our first net-positive run lasted about nine. Our approach is to make it exist, then make it good.”

The test produced only a brief burst of surplus electricity, reaching a peak net output of 16.5 kilowatts. Challenges with the technology and a failure of a power cable cut the dive short.

The team also drilled what it called the world’s first geothermal well. At a site about 5,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, its machinery created two bore holes that tapped into hydrothermal fluid. It capped one hole and drilled a roughly 2-inch wide, 52-foot deep geothermal well at the other. While the well delivered hot fluid, it wasn’t suited for testing the energy system, sending the team to the natural vent.

Endurance said the expedition included voluntary environmental monitoring. The team mapped the seafloor to select the least disruptive test site, sampled water before and after operations, surveyed marine life and monitored sound.

While the startup has made rapid progress, its approach faces significant challenges: high pressure and corrosive conditions, mineral buildup inside equipment and the risk of costly repairs to seafloor machinery. And although many population centers sit near coastlines, the systems would still need expensive subsea cables to carry electricity over potentially long distances.

The company has raised $63 million from investors and has roughly three-dozen employees.

This winter, Endurance plans to deploy Gentoo, a refurbished and upgraded version of Adélie designed to generate more power for longer periods.

The company is also developing its first commercial project in Tonga, with the goal of delivering its first electricity in 2027.

Taylor Swift was pilloried online over the climate impacts of her private jet travel for the Eras Tour and to see Travis Kelce, now her husband, play in the 2024 Super Bowl. Her representatives said she paid to offset the tour-related emissions, but the uproar highlighted a bigger problem: Aviation is a serious source of carbon dioxide, and it’s tough to fix.

Flying accounts for roughly 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and that share is expected to rise as other sectors adopt cleaner power.

The trouble is that jet fuel is so good at what it does. It holds enough energy to fly a plane nonstop from New York to Singapore. Cleaners sources likes batteries can’t begin to match that range, and hydrogen fuel faces hurdles including fuel storage and transfer and the need for aircraft redesigns.

That leaves aviation with one top alternative for today: sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF.

Instead of pumping more oil from underground, SAF uses carbon already on the earth’s surface. Manufacturers — including two in the American West — are making the fuel from sources such as cooking oil, animal fats, oil-rich plants, farm and forestry waste, or even captured carbon.

“SAF really fits a need that we have today and long into the future,” said Ryan Spies, managing director of sustainability at Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines. “SAF is the answer because it’s a drop-in fuel. That means we don’t have to change our planes, we don’t have to change what’s happening at the airport.”

The fuel remains in limited supply and use — only 1% of Alaska Air Group’s fuel is SAF, for example — but efforts are underway to expand production and adoption worldwide.

Twelve’s captured-carbon approach

In tumbleweed country in central Washington, a startup called Twelve opened its AirPlant One facility last year and began commercially producing SAF from captured carbon dioxide this summer.

The site sits in an industrial stretch of Moses Lake in a largely agricultural area. Its neighbors include a fertilizer producer and battery materials manufacturer Sila. Low-cost, carbon-free hydropower has drawn businesses to the region, though data centers are creating competition for the energy.

To manufacture SAF, Twelve takes delivery of carbon dioxide that’s captured as a byproduct of ethanol production. The greenhouse gas is stored in a giant white tank. From there it’s pumped through insulated silver pipes that carry it through devices that remove oxygen and add hydrogen taken from water, producing the hydrocarbons that serve as fuel. The largely outdoor facility is shiny and new, with equipment stretching skyward.

The startup’s technology can make a variety of low-carbon products, including naphtha, a plastics precursor also produced at AirPlant One.

The site is designed to make up to 50,000 gallons of SAF, which is branded as E-Jet. The company is ramping up to that volume, said Nicholas Flanders, CEO and co-founder of Twelve.

“Even when we’re at that full capacity, there’s a lot more customer demand than we can make at AirPlant One,” he said. AirPlant Two, a much bigger facility that would make tens of millions of gallons a year, is already in development. Flanders did not provide a timeline or location for the site.

Old refinery finds a new purpose

About seven hours east of Moses Lake by car, Montana Renewables is producing SAF with a different approach. It makes the fuel at a century-old oil refinery that has been partially converted to renewable fuel and naphtha production.

“That’s the most economical way to to produce renewable fuels like SAF,” said Matt Upmeyer, vice president of commercial for Montana Renewables.

The facility uses feedstocks including used cooking oil, beef tallow from rendering plants and camelina, a lesser-known cover crop that helps farmers restore soil and also produces an oily seed.

Montana Renewables began making SAF in 2023, and by the next year was the largest SAF producer in North America, Upmeyer said, “which is a pretty cool stat.”

The company can produce 60 million gallons of SAF a year in Great Falls, Mont., and aims to reach 200 million gallons by the end of 2028.

That growth is significant, but the need is much higher. The U.S. government set a goal a few years ago of producing 3 billion gallons of SAF annually by 2030. A recent academic study involving researchers at Washington State University estimates the country could potentially reach 2.1 billion gallons by then. That total counts SAF from all U.S. producers, including Phillips 66, World Energy, Neste and LanzaJet.

By comparison, U.S. airlines use about 20 billion gallons of fuel a year, and that number is rising.

Cleaner fuel carries a premium

Cost is arguably the biggest hurdle to SAF adoption. The fuel is more expensive than traditional jet fuel, but the gap fluctuates because geopolitics moves oil prices. It should get cheaper as production scales, though demand will remain high.

Spies offered rough estimates for price comparisons. SAF made from fats, oils and greases — the most common form today — trades at less than double the price of jet fuel, he said. SAF from captured carbon, like Twelve’s, has the greatest environmental benefit, Spies said, but is “multiple times more expensive.”

Policy can help close the gap. The U.S. has used “carrots” such as a tax credit of up to $1.75 per gallon, created in 2022, but that was cut to $1 with President Trump’s return to office. Europe has opted for “sticks”: a requirement that 2% of jet fuel be SAF starting last year, which rose to 3.6% in the United Kingdom this year.

Customers are signing fuel purchase agreements, which can lock in prices and create demand that encourages more production. Alaska Airlines and Microsoft partnered with Twelve in 2022 to support its fuel’s development and use, helping create demand for the Moses Lake plant’s output.

Getting customers to sign these long-term deals “is really important for securing project financing,” Flanders said.

Measuring SAF’s climate benefits

While SAF is the best near-term fuel for reining in aviation emissions, it still produces carbon dioxide when burned. But unlike petroleum-based jet fuel, which releases carbon that would otherwise stay trapped underground, SAF recycles carbon already in circulation in plants, animals and the atmosphere.

And there are other strategies for curbing aviation’s impacts that can compliment SAF, including designing more efficient planes, preventing contrail formation, and using flight plans that reduce emissions.

Most SAF produced today provides an 80% reduction. By Twelve’s calculations, if a plane used straight E-Jet, it could slash the flight’s carbon emissions up to 90% compared with jet fuel (there are some carbon costs for production and transportation).

Twelve’s Flanders put the benefits in perspective.

“To have 90% lower emissions when you fly, that would mean taking a domestic flight would have the same emissions per passenger mile as taking the London Tube,” he said. With flying on par with taking the train, “it really can change the impact of aviation on the environment.

Sources and references

Interviews:

• Nicholas Flanders, CEO and co-founder of Twelve
• Ryan Spies, managing director of sustainability at Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines
• Matt Upmeyer, vice president of commercial for Montana Renewables
• Cody McNaughton, plant manager for Twelve’s manufacturing facility
• Michael Donaldson, director of environment, health and safety at Twelve’s manufacturing facility

Sources:

• “Sustainable aviation fuel is taking off. What is it, exactly?“, Canary Media, Nov. 21, 2024
• “Pragmatic assessment of meeting the 2030 U.S. sustainable aviation fuel goal,” Biomass and Bioenergy, March 2026
• “Europe Widens Its Lead Over US, Asia in Switch to Cleaner Jet Fuel,” Bloomberg, Aug. 13, 2026

Insights from Attempted Intelligence, Episode 2, hosted by Matt Duren, SVP of AI and data, KnowBe4 and Harlan Parrott, VP of AI innovation, KnowBe4.

AI data centers are one of the most debated topics in the world right now. Some people worry about the energy and water it takes to run them. Others see the foundation for the next wave of AI advances. Both camps have a point.

When Deeanne King came to the Pacific Northwest in 2020 — relocating from Kansas after Sprint merged with Bellevue, Wash.-based T-Mobile — she fell in love with the region’s natural beauty. In her role as executive vice president and chief people officer, she also helps lead sustainability efforts for the telecom giant.

“The outdoors is my happy place,” King said. The region’s lakes, inland sea and trails, she added, are “a good reminder of what we’re all working to protect.”

T-Mobile has been ranked among the greenest companies in the U.S and globally. It’s making notable progress toward climate goals at a time when numerous corporations are scaling back or abandoning their carbon targets.

Keep reading to learn more about King’s sustainability journey. Her quotes have been edited for clarity and length.

What gives you the most hope for the planet?   

People. Hands down. I get to work with some incredibly smart, curious, and committed people, and one thing I’ve learned is that when you put a hard problem in front of people who care, they find a way. They challenge the status quo, they try something new, they learn, and they keep going. I’ve never seen our teams walk away from a problem because it was hard.  

I’m also encouraged by the growing recognition that sustainability and good business can, and should, go together. Building more efficiently, using resources more thoughtfully, and reducing waste can make a business more resilient while also being better for the planet. Those things don’t have to compete.  

And I see that mindset in our employees. People want their work to matter. They want to contribute to something bigger than themselves. When you combine that sense of purpose with ingenuity and a willingness to work together, I think there’s tremendous reason for hope.  

What’s one habit you’ve changed personally because of environmental concerns?  

I’ve gotten much more intentional about cutting down on single-use things, and my reusable water bottle is probably the simplest example. It goes everywhere with me now.   

It sounds small, but I think that’s actually the point. Once you make one change part of your routine, you start noticing other opportunities: what you throw away, what you reuse, what you buy, and what you probably didn’t need in the first place. Those small choices add up.  

Coffee with any sustainability leader, past or present — who do you pick?   

I’d choose Chief Sustainability Officer Kara Hurst at Amazon. T-Mobile joined Amazon and hundreds of other companies in signing the Climate Pledge, committing to reach net-zero carbon by 2040. And there’s something Kara has said about that work that really resonates with me: “We cannot go at this alone.”  

I couldn’t agree more. The biggest challenges we face aren’t going to be solved by one company, one industry, or one really smart person. We have to find common ground, share what we’re learning, and be willing to work together toward something bigger than any one of us.  

I’d love to sit down with Kara and compare notes on what’s working, where we’re getting stuck, and where companies like ours can work together to move faster. And knowing me, we’d probably end up talking about people and leadership too, because ultimately, ambitious goals only become real when you have people who are willing to question how things have always been done and figure out how to get there.  

What’s an underrated solution that deserves more attention?   

Making sustainability practical. Sometimes we gravitate toward the giant, breakthrough idea, and we absolutely need those. But there is also enormous opportunity in doing the basics really, really well and using data to figure out where small changes can add up to a very big impact.  

Take buildings. They aren’t necessarily the first thing people think about when they think about climate innovation, but managing HVAC systems more intelligently produced nearly $5 million in estimated energy savings for T-Mobile in 2025. As of 2025, we have 132 community solar projects in our portfolio, providing an estimated lifetime total savings of $60 million in energy costs. You can reduce energy use, lower costs, and do something positive for the planet.  

What’s one metric you watch obsessively as a sustainability leader?   

I don’t know that I would use the word obsessively, but I absolutely believe in measuring whether the work is actually making a difference. One number I’m particularly proud of is that in 2025, T-Mobile’s total emissions were 50% lower than our 2020 baseline. That’s meaningful progress, especially because our business hasn’t been standing still.  

The scope of the climate challenge is daunting — how do you approach this work?   

You can’t let the size of the problem become the reason you don’t start. That’s true of climate change, but honestly, it’s true of almost every really hard problem I’ve encountered in my career. When something feels enormous, I focus first on what we can control. What’s the next decision? What’s the next action? What can we make better today? Then you keep going.  

I’m also a big believer in being willing to learn along the way. Take smart risks, look at the data, listen to people, adjust and keep moving.

What impact do you hope your work has in 20 years?  

As a mom, I think about the world we’re handing to the next generation. Of course I want my children, and someday, their children, to inherit a healthy planet. But I also want them to inherit the belief that when something matters, you don’t wait for somebody else to fix it. You figure out what you can do, you bring people together and you get to work.  

Seattle-based TriMagnetix has landed new funding and commitments totaling $1 million to continue developing a semiconductor chip that, according to initial lab testing, consumes 800 times less energy than a traditional chip to process the same amount of data.

The startup uses nanomagnetic technology that requires only electrical pulses rather than the constant power stream traditional chips need, dramatically reducing electricity consumption and heat generation. The design also makes the chip resistant to radiation, and it’s built to integrate with existing computing infrastructure.

The startup has made additional progress beyond the new funding:

• TriMagnetix is partnering with WaveWorks Technologies on its first paid pilot.
• It has joined the Plug and Play Semiconductor Accelerator.
• It was recently accepted into the Nvidia Inception program, which offers support including access to tech experts, introductions to Nvidia’s corporate clients and marketing.

Earthbound data centers struggling to curb energy use and heat output are seeking more sustainable chips, but the startup is particularly interested in satellite applications.

The Pacific Northwest, home to companies including Starcloud and SpaceX, is the “satellite capital of the world,” said Lucas Hahn, co-founder, president and chief strategic officer of TriMagnetix.

Satellite companies have told him they want semiconductors that are energy efficient and resistant to the radiation experienced in space, Hahn said. That makes TriMagnetix’s devices “a no-brainer.”

In addition to Hahn, the startup’s other employee is Madison Hanberry, who launched the TriMagnetix in 2023. Hanberry, who has served as chief of research and development, is transitioning to CEO. His sister, Aspen White, is also a co-founder.

The chips made so far by TriMagnetix are not the high-performance graphics processing units, or GPUs, used for applications such as AI and 3D animation. Nor are they simpler central processing units, or CPUs.

“It’s replacing specific compute in certain devices at a very low level,” Hahn said. “So not quite CPU yet, but it is at the core level doing similar things.”

TriMagnetix has contracted with the Washington Nanofabrication Facility at the University of Washington to use the site’s fabrication equipment. It aims to have a product available for commercial sales within the next year.

The round was led by Acequia Capital with participation from Athenaeum Ventures. Actuate Ventures has also committed to the round. The combined total from the three firms is $1 million. Last year, the startup received a $200,000 investment from climate venture fund SNØCAP.

Replicating the power of the sun to generate clean energy is hard enough, but Helion Energy just achieved another rare feat: making it onto the iconic “Jeopardy!” clue board.

During Tuesday evening’s episode, the $800 clue was featured in a category titled “Y Combinator” and read: “Helion says it’ll build the 1st power plant using this process, fission’s opposite with no uncontrolled chain reactions.”

Three-day champion Greg Monson, a videographer from Portland, Ore., buzzed in first with the correct response: “What is fusion?”

The shoutout didn’t go unnoticed in Everett, Wash., where Helion is based. CEO David Kirtley shared a video of the moment on LinkedIn, writing that it was “surreal to see Helion featured on Jeopardy! last night. And in great company with Y Combinator!”

Kirtley added, “Clean, safe, reliable power is getting a little more mainstream.”

Helion is a Y Combinator alum, having gone through the famed Silicon Valley accelerator’s Summer 2014 batch. Other correct responses in the category included Airbnb, The Athletic, Coinbase, and Twitch.

The game-show spotlight comes as Helion races to master fusion, which produces energy by smashing together light atoms. No one has been able to create a commercially viable amount of energy from fusion here on Earth, though notable progress is being made by research institutions and private companies.

Helion has generated plenty of momentum of its own in the process. In June, the startup announced $465 million in new funding, bringing its total capital raised to more than $1.5 billion and its valuation to 10 times that figure.

The company also recently expanded into a new 15,000-square-foot office in downtown Seattle and pushed its total headcount past 800 employees. Helion currently holds the No. 2 spot on the GeekWire 200 ranking of top Pacific Northwest startups.

Some climate tech startups tied to the AI boom are still attracting investors, but deals are fewer overall and times are tougher for companies addressing sustainability issues that don’t align with data center needs.

Concerns about those trends inspired a one-time Washington state initiative called the Opalene Climate Challenge, which was led by the nonprofit VertueLab. The effort announced six investments from a pool of nearly 40 applicants.

The program planned to partner with the state to secure matching dollars, but organizers realized it would take too long to raise the needed capital. Instead, they relied solely on philanthropic donors.

“The imperative was to get the money out to these climate tech startups who are doing extraordinary work but are confronting that pinch in capital,” said Allison Arnold, co-director of the Opalene Climate Challenge.

Sustainability startups that develop hardware or physical products can face a more difficult path to scale than software companies because they typically require more capital, longer development cycles and time-consuming work to manufacture, test and deploy their technologies.

The challenge aimed to fill an early-stage funding gap with recoverable grants from donor-advised funds. Successful investments will return proceeds to the donor’s fund or another designated nonprofit.

Five of the six winners are commercializing technologies developed at the University of Washington or Washington State University. Many of the startups have participated in mentoring programs such as the Cascadia Clean Tech Accelerator or UW’s CoMotion Labs Climate Tech Incubator, or received investments from the E8 angel group.

“Those entrepreneurs who have actively sought out the resources in our ecosystem have had greater success. For most companies, it takes more than just the money,” Arnold said. At the same time, she added, “money is what has been missing in our corner of the country. We don’t have the type of risk capital that’s available in places like Silicon Valley, Boston or New York.”

The winners were featured at an event Thursday at the Seattle Climate Innovation Hub. Recipients of $100,000 awards:

• Airbuild, also the winner of the $5,000 Audience Choice Award, uses microalgae to turn wastewater treatment plants into fertilizer factories
• Ocean produces low-cost, low-carbon bamboo panels for roofing and other building applications
• ZILA BioWorks offers plant-based resins and epoxies to replace high-carbon alternatives

Recipients of $25,000 awards:

• Azotera produces low-cost ammonia for energy storage and farm applications
• Climate Solutions International offers a software platform that helps government employees analyze factors such as climate resilience, cost and carbon emissions for proposed infrastructure projects
• Emerald Battery Labs builds sodium-ion batteries to replace lead-acid batteries in commercial fleets and data centers

NEW YORK — Even as the environmental toll of the AI data center boom and geopolitical strife loomed over Climate Week NYC, business, nonprofit and government leaders gathered at hundreds of events across the city to look for hope in collaboration and chart paths forward.

At The Climate Pledge Hub in Midtown Manhattan, executives from organizations worldwide that have vowed to cut their carbon emissions to net zero by 2040 met Thursday for a conversation on scalable climate solutions.

“There was a period of time where it was like, ‘Well, we don’t know how to do some of this,'” said Kara Hurst, chief sustainability officer for Amazon. The sustainability sectors have evolved. “The innovation has skyrocketed,” she added. “The number of people working on these industries is phenomenal, and so the solutions are available.”

Hurst was joined on the panel by Jason Knauf, CEO of The Earthshot Prize, a 10-year initiative launched in 2020 by Prince William, the Prince of Wales. The effort recognizes 15 finalists each year for their work on environmental solutions and selects five winners who each receive a $1.4 million (1 million British pounds) award.

Franco Rodríguez Viau, CEO and co-founder of Satellites on Fire and an Earthshot finalist this year, also participated as a special guest.

I moderated the session, which is available on GeekWire’s “Positive Charge” podcast and will be released as a video. Here are five highlights from the conversation:

AI boom vs. climate goals

Across Climate Week, attendees discussed serious concerns about the impacts of AI data centers — from the construction of new gas power plants to the carbon-intensive concrete and steel used in building them. The scale is massive. Amazon alone is spending $200 billion this year on data center expansion, and last year the company’s carbon emissions rose 16%.

The surge leaves many wondering whether net-zero goals for 2040 remain achievable. Hurst acknowledged the difficulty.

“So that is a real challenge,” Hurst said, “and we’re here to meet the moment. I’m not saying that it’s going to be easy, and I’m not saying it’s going to be linear. But we’re going to put everything we have behind that.”

To counter those impacts, Amazon has invested in 700 renewable energy projects worldwide that can generate 42 gigawatts of power and continues to add facilities. The company is also procuring lower-carbon building materials, including mass timber.

“We are absolutely committed to our goal of 2040,” Hurst said, “and it is challenging.”

Power in numbers

Panelists said the key to addressing climate change and reaching carbon goals lies in partnerships that aggregate buying power to invest in and adopt clean technologies.

“We’re all trying to go as fast as we can at this climate challenge to decarbonize our operations, to change our businesses, to change the world,” Hurst said. “And here we have a collection of individuals trying to do the same with innovative solutions. So what we’re trying to do is partner up, highlight those and make them visible.”

That includes The Climate Pledge, which Amazon co-launched and has grown to more than 700 signatories, as well as the Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA), a buyer group supporting low-carbon maritime shipping.

Amazon Web Services, Earthshot and investment firm Plug and Play recently launched Velocity, a collaboration helping late-stage climate tech companies find customers. The program has two focus areas: materials innovation in sectors including fashion waste and construction; and energy independence spanning batteries, grid technology and other infrastructure.

Four Velocity winners will each receive up to $100,000 in AWS credits and their solutions will be promoted to Climate Pledge signatories.

And beyond its cash awards, Earthshot mobilizes a global network to help its portfolio of thousands of sustainable solutions find support through investors and corporate customers, as well as policy support for wider adoption.

Climate change as a unifying force

Addressing climate change is undeniably difficult and politically divisive, but Knauf said focusing solely on polarization misses the larger point. “The biggest story in the world right now is that this set of issues is the unifying mission in human history,” he said.

While climate impacts are felt acutely at the local level — whether from rising sea levels in Bangladesh’s Sundarbans mangrove region or along the beaches of Miami — the shared threat can bring people together rather than pull them apart, he added.

“Be open-minded. Talk to people who disagree with you. Don’t shut them down. Find common ground. Invite people in,” Knauf said.

Both Knauf and Hurst emphasized the need to lead with shared values that transcend politics. People across the political spectrum ultimately want a “healthy, livable planet for your children with clean air and clean water,” Hurst said.

Youth-led breakthroughs

Rodríguez Viau and two friends co-founded Satellites on Fire in Argentina at age 16 after family friends lost their homes to wildfires. Through interviews with firefighters and forest rangers, they learned that slow detection in remote areas was allowing blazes to turn catastrophic.

In response, they built a system using AI to analyze data from 13 satellites every five minutes, instantly sending location alerts to first responders via WhatsApp or text message.

“AI that we developed …. is nowadays detecting fires hours faster than NASA, which is the most used system globally for wildfires,” Rodríguez Viau said.

The startup, which launched in 2020, is operating in 21 countries on five continents and continues to expand its footprint.

Positive tipping points

Historically, the climate sector has focused on negative tipping points, such as the Amazon rainforest degrading until swaths of lush jungle turn into dry savanna. But new research from Earthshot and the University of Exeter in England highlights positive tipping points, such as solar power becoming so cheap that adoption grows exponentially.

The study identifies 51 sustainability objectives — restoring wetlands, preventing and composting food waste, and shifting to electric vehicles, to name a few — that can trigger rapid, favorable shifts to address critical environmental challenges.

“There’s some positive systems that if we actually put all of our efforts together and focus over the next few years, we know we can tip them into irreversible positivity,” Knauf said.

The final word

The session closed with a question asking what message or action should listeners take with them.

Knauf: “Invite people in. Let’s grow this movement. Let’s stop pushing people away. And use it to support each other and feel like we’re part of something bigger.”

Hurst: “When you find something that works, publish a case study. And when you find something that doesn’t work, talk about it also. Because we can move really fast when we know what the solutions are, but we can move really, really fast when we know what doesn’t work and we can avoid it.”

Rodríguez Viau: “I was listening when you were speaking about the 2040 goal, and I was thinking, ‘I don’t know if we will reach the goals that we want to reach or not, but at least I want to feel that I did everything I could.'”

Editor’s note: The Climate Week panel and this episode of Positive Charge were sponsored by The Climate Pledge and Amazon.

Sources and references

Interviews:

• Kara Hurst, chief sustainability officer for Amazon
• Jason Knauf, CEO of The Earthshot Prize
• Franco Rodríguez Viau, CEO and co-founder of Satellites on Fire

Additional sources:

• “The new tipping points playbook: The Earthshot Prize and the University of Exeter reveal how to make environmental repair unstoppable”, The Earthshot Prize

The team at Seattle-based Nimbus Aerospace had planned to finish testing its quarter-scale prototype earlier in the summer, but struggled to schedule one of the few pilots skilled in remote-controlled flight.

“Not many people wanted to fly this thing,” said Adrian Groos, co-founder and CEO of Nimbus. “It was a $1 million-plus model that was significantly bigger than anything else most people have flown, as well as heavier.”

The startup is developing a hybrid-electric aircraft with high-lift wings designed to improve fuel efficiency. Nimbus plans to build a six- to eight-passenger aircraft with a 1,500-mile range that uses half as much fuel as a comparable conventional plane.

In June and August, the startup conducted two test flights of its NX1 prototype at the Pendleton Airport UAS Range in Oregon. The aircraft, which has a 15-foot wingspan and weighs 200 pounds, flew for 3 minutes 42 seconds in the first flight and 6 minutes in the second.

The tests achieved their goals of demonstrating the company’s manufacturing capabilities and the aircraft’s aerodynamics and stability, Groos said.

Nimbus has started engineering a full-scale prototype, with test flights targeted for 2028. The team is still deciding where to build the aircraft, considering Seattle against other locations around the country.

The ultimate goal is to begin delivering aircraft to customers in late 2030.

To get there, the team is working to navigate the Federal Aviation Administration’s certification process as smoothly as possible. The company has built a system called the ACT (AI Certification Tool) Platform to streamline and expedite FAA certification, and a former FAA deputy director of aircraft certification sits on the startup’s advisory board.

While the Nimbus product has a unique hybrid powertrain, components such as landing gear and lights use already-approved, pre-certified parts that will also be cheaper and easier to fix.

“We’re not trying to build a super novel design. That’s just a certification nightmare,” Groos said. “We’re trying to bring an aircraft to market that solves the needs that the people are asking for.”

And what customers want is a plane that burns less fuel and requires less maintenance, he added.

Aviation is one of the most difficult industries to decarbonize. It contributes 2.5% of the greenhouse gases emitted annually, but that percentage is expected to increase as other sectors go low-carbon and air travel increases. In addition to battery- and hydrogen-powered aircraft, sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, is seen as the most promising solution for larger planes.

Washington state is also home to sustainable aircraft startup magniX, though others have shut down. Electric-aviation startup Zunum Aero and Outbound Aerospace folded, and ZeroAvia largely ceased operations in the state earlier this year, though it remains active in the United Kingdom. California-based Universal Hydrogen, which test-flew a hydrogen-fueled plane in Moses Lake, Wash., closed in 2024.

“People created products that weren’t really ready for prime time,” Groos said. That’s particularly the case for hydrogen-powered aircraft — the fuel is in limited supply and the path to certification is uncharted, he added.

Other companies in the hybrid-electric space include Heart Aerospace, Electra.aero and Ampaire.

Groos and Nimbus co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Akim Niyonzima met on LinkedIn and began working on a sustainable aircraft in 2023. The five-person team also includes Chief Marketing Officer Eno Oduok. The startup, a past Techstars participant, has raised about $4 million from an unnamed family office. The company hopes to add six engineers over the next year.

Nimbus is going to move its NX1 to the Pendleton Airport UAS Range hangar, where it will be displayed alongside the Airbus Vahana eVTOL, a prototype all-electric, single-seat aircraft capable of vertical take-off and landing.

At first glance, Meg McCann would not be the obvious choice to run the Seattle Aquarium, one of the city’s top attractions, drawing 1 million annual visitors to the waterfront and supporting critical research in marine conservation.

McCann, a trial lawyer by training, has overseen an organization serving survivors of sex trafficking and held leadership roles with the Washington State Department of Licensing and the state’s Office of the Attorney General. But her love of the ocean, rooted in a childhood in Rhode Island, and her drive to foster systemic change brought her to the aquarium.

“Everything I’ve ever done has been supporting great outcomes for individuals, but at the end of the day, the best outcome for all of us is going to be a healthy planet,” said McCann, who took the role of president and CEO in January.

With the aquarium connecting with visitors from around the world, and based in a city and community that values the environment and embraces innovation, she envisions the institution as a global leader in conservation.

Keep reading to learn more about McCann’s sustainability journey. Her quotes have been edited for clarity and length.

What was the moment you realized you had to work in sustainability?

I grew up in Rhode Island along the ocean, because that’s the only place you can be if you’re in Rhode Island — it’s so tiny. We had to do a class project with a friend, a news report on the state of the bay. So my friend and I went down to the bay with her mom’s camcorder, and we were picking up McDonald’s Styrofoam off the beach and saying, “This is going to be around for the next 75 to 100 years,” preaching to our class.

And it was right around the time that the fisheries in Rhode Island started to close because the water no longer could sustain healthy shellfish. It was one of those moments where it was this direct connection between our own personal habits and the way we’re interacting with the world and the broader impact it can have.

What gives you the most hope for the planet?

There are two things. One is the kids who come through our aquarium. They’re just so joyful and excited and empathetic and infinitely creative. The next big innovation or solution is going to come from this group of people, and we are relying on them to come up with that big innovative solution that’s going to help protect the Earth.

The other thing that gives me hope is the scientists and partners we have at the aquarium. We’ve had the opportunity to participate in species recovery work here in the Salish Sea — to really help figure out where kelp is most likely to grow, and that’s important to the overall ecology — to participate in the recovery of pinto abalone, which is a sea snail that’s critical to the environment.

We are surrounded by really smart scientists who are using different types of technology, new cutting-edge tools and techniques to regenerate the ocean. It’s not a lost cause. There is hope as long as we’re curious and we’re tenacious.

If you could invent one sustainability solution overnight, what would that be?

If there was a way to remove microplastics from our water, that’s what it would be. The way that plastic is being dumped into the ocean and breaking down — you can’t see it because it’s so small. But it’s settling deep into our ocean, at all levels of the ocean. Animals are ingesting plastic and it’s causing all sorts of ecological disruption. And that doesn’t even account for the animals that we’re ingesting as part of the food system. It is changing the chemistry of our water.

What have you changed personally to address environmental concerns?

Since coming to the aquarium, I have learned so much about sustainability and the way you operate an organization. What I’ve been really thinking about when I make a big decision is trying to understand the downstream impacts. One example: We are trying to use less natural gas and remove ourselves from fossil fuel dependency. When we think about how we want to grow our business and how we want to renovate Pier 59 and 60, we’re really thinking about how do we electrify our systems and how do we find alternative fuel sources to support that electricity.

What is an underrated solution that deserves more attention?

It’s building a broad coalition. For example, we have a zero-waste goal at the aquarium as part of our operation. By 2030, we want to divert 90% of our waste out of landfills, and the only way you can divert that much waste is if you enlist the help of everybody — the whole team, and it’s not just the team, but it’s also the million-plus guests who come through our doors.

The other thing along that vein is the Seattle Aquarium is slightly unique because we serve people from all around the world, we’re right next to a cruise ship stop, and we’re a global city with global visitors, and we have people from all over the country. Seattle can be a bit of a bubble of progressive values, and so I forget that other people might not share my same sustainability and conservation values. One thing we’re really paying attention to is how do we invite people in who don’t agree with us? How do we make them feel welcome, and how do we make them feel like they have a sense of agency and ownership?

What’s one metric you watch obsessively as a sustainability leader?

Our energy usage. We are constantly looking for ways to make our systems far more energy efficient. If our energy usage goes down, so does the cost of running the aquarium, which means more money for things like animal health, educational programming, outreach, etc.

The other thing we obsessively watch is our goal around participation in our sustainability engagement survey. Our goal is 90% participation, which means 90% of our staff say they know what the sustainability plan is, they know what the goals are, and they have metrics that tie into those goals. So if you’re the custodial team, if you’re on the guest services team, if you’re on the AV team, you know what that means for you, and our own performance is evaluated based on that.

The scope of climate change is daunting, so how do you approach it?

Recently we’ve been putting cameras on our Pier 59 in downtown Seattle as part of our research. Humpback whales have passed by that didn’t come to the surface, so we only know they came by because we have cameras and sonar and hydrophones. We caught a red octopus trying to steal bait from one of our research stations. We have sixgill sharks passing by. To see what’s happening right under our feet is super inspiring.

The big picture is hard, but there’s the daily reminder of what’s at stake and why it’s important — and the fact that our interventions do work, we just need a lot more of them, a lot more energy behind them. There is a solution, and getting to see that life in action right under our feet is so wild, and it never ceases to amaze me.

NEW YORK — With 2.8% profit margins and the harsh reality of aviation physics, Alaska Air Group needs to be strategic when betting on low-carbon technology. That includes partnering with Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures on sustainable aviation fuel and backing companies developing fuel-efficient aircraft.

Those were two takeaways from Ryan Spies, Alaska Air’s managing director of sustainability, speaking Wednesday at Bloomberg Green New York.

Aviation contributes 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, but can account for up to 5% of global warming due to additional atmospheric effects, experts say.

Currently, the primary strategy for curbing emissions is using sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF. Made from sources such as used cooking oil, agricultural waste, forestry waste and captured carbon, SAF can be blended with conventional jet fuel. The trouble is that production comes nowhere near matching demand, supplying less than 1% of aviation fuel today.

To address the shortage, Seattle-based Alaska Air Group — parent company of Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines — partnered last year with other carriers and Breakthrough to create a $150 million fund backing SAF innovators. The fund relies on Breakthrough’s experts to identify the most viable feedstocks, smartest chemistries, and strongest economics.

And while SAF has typically been much more expensive than conventional fuels, the Iran War and its impacts on international oil shipping is changing that math.

“Six months ago, sustainable aviation fuel was absolutely more expensive than jet fuel,” Spies said at the event, which is part of Climate Week NYC. “If you went to a producer of SAF today, you can get a pretty competitive price compared to jet.”

The market volatility has also heightened interest in SAF as a tool for U.S. energy independence, rather than just an environmentally friendly alternative.

In January, Pacific Northwest officials from organizations including Alaska Air, Amazon, Boeing, SkyNRG and government representatives launched the Cascadia Sustainable Aviation Accelerator to establish the region as a SAF hub. Startup Twelve is already producing fuel in Moses Lake, Wash., and Montana Renewables has emerged as a sector leader.

While SAF is being deployed today, Alaska Air is also eyeing next-generation aircraft designs. Two years ago, the airline announced an investment in JetZero, a company developing a blended-wing body aircraft that aims to slash fuel use in half. JetZero hopes to fly a prototype next year and begin carrying passengers in 2030, the Seattle Times reported Sunday.

“An aircraft that can carry “200 plus passengers that can reduce fuel usage by 50% through better aerodynamics — that’s a game-changing development,” Spies said.

Alaska Air has also backed Ampaire, a startup Spies called “the Prius of aviation” due to its hybrid-electric drivetrain. The system is currently designed for smaller, eight-seat aircraft, and Spies said the company was excited to bring Ampaire to Hawaii.

Although a blended-wing aircraft would be a noticeable departure from today’s flying experience, climate-related changes coming to the aviation over the next decade will be less obvious as the fuel changes and incremental advances are made.

Advancing aviation sustainability remains a slow process and one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize, Spies said, “because of pure physics.”

Editor’s note: Story updated 9/25 to state that Alaska Air Group’s profit margin was 2.8% last year. The industry on average is about 2.5%.

Seattle startup Ravel announced Thursday it raised $8.2 million to scale its planet-friendly technology for recycling clothing by unwinding the components of synthetic fabric blends.

Ravel has targeted the textile fiber known as elastane, which is also called spandex or Lycra. It’s added to athletic wear, jackets, jeans, underwear, socks, t-shirts, gloves and every other category of apparel. Even in small amounts, elastane makes clothing difficult to recycle.

Ravel has developed a technology for unblending fabrics that include elastane. It turns the recovered ingredient into cost-competitive, recycled plastic pellets that serve as the raw material for making polyester fabrics.

The startup calls its process “purification recycling” and emphasizes that it is energy efficient, uses safe chemicals and does not create added waste or byproducts.

“Even though most of us don’t see it regularly, the ‘behind the scenes’ of materials recovery and valorization is a massive undertaking (and thus massive opportunity),” Ravel CEO Zahlen Titcomb said on LinkedIn.

The investment allows Ravel to transition from its Seattle pilot plant toward commercial-scale operations. It also helps the business validate its solution at production scale with textile partners.

Much of the clothing that is collected for recycling today is downcycled into lower-value uses rather than spun back into new apparel. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has estimated that less than 1% of material used to make clothing is ultimately recycled into new clothing.

As fast fashion accelerates, apparel brands today are making about twice the amount of clothes that were produced in the early 2000s.

Ravel announced in March 2025 that it had raised pre-seed funding, but did not say how much. The company was a finalist for the Sustainable Innovation Award at the 2026 GeekWire Awards.

The seed round was led by One Small Planet with “significant participation” from AP Ventures. Other backers included Overlay Capital and Lichen Ventures, plus existing investors At One Ventures, Collateral Good and BetterWay.

“I’m excited to have found some great folks to roll up the sleeves with,” Titcomb said.

As public concern grows about the environmental impact of AI data centers, the University of Washington is launching a startup incubator to support climate tech innovations addressing those challenges.

UW CoMotion Labs is partnering with Microsoft and the investment network E8 to create a four-month program targeting technologies in areas including backup energy storage, grid improvements, efficient data center cooling, electronics waste reduction and low-carbon building materials.

“This is a really important initiative,” said Karin Kidder, executive director of E8. “The other really great part about this is it’s elevating the Pacific Northwest. There’s so much good work happening here.”

CoMotion has previously run two climate tech incubator cohorts, the second of which wrapped up Tuesday with a public demo event. The new effort is the first to focus on a specific industry within the climate space. Organizers are seeking early-stage applicants with technologies ready to commercialize, deploy as pilot projects or scale.

“Meeting growing demand for digital infrastructure requires continued innovation across energy, water, materials, and cooling,” said Brandon Middaugh, Microsoft’s general manager for sustainable markets, in a statement.

E8, which has invested $77 million in climate startups over two decades, will provide an investor-in-residence to advise founders and a representative on the startup selection committee. Microsoft will share technical and industry expertise and other support. Both organizations are providing funding for the effort, but the UW did not say how much.

In addition, the climate tech investment group Elemental Impact previously launched a Data Center Innovation Initiative to similarly address these challenges and will offer advisory support for the Seattle-based program.

The kickoff for the CoMotion Labs initiative coincides with a poll released Wednesday finding that 53% of Americans are “extremely or very concerned” about the environmental impacts of AI, up from 41% a year ago.

The survey, from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, found that 80% of adults are concerned about data center effects on electric bills, power outages or water supply. The computing facilities are a central issue in the upcoming elections.

When it comes to technologies to lessen the burden of data centers, “these solutions are needed today,” Kidder said. “So I’m hopeful that while some of these solutions may be a couple years out, some may be relevant for today.”

Sarah O’Sell, manager of CoMotion Labs’ climate tech incubators, said one strategy will be connecting startups with partners and customers to speed deployment of new technologies.

“We recognize that climate solutions aren’t necessarily always looking for venture investment,” she said. “They might be looking for a strategic partner or customers or grant funding. There’s all kinds of ways to scale these businesses.”

The 2027 Data Center Innovation Cohort will be based at the Seattle Climate Innovation Hub downtown.

An information session is set for Oct. 15, and applications are due Nov. 15. The cohort begins in February.

More than 40 years ago, the first commercial veggie burger made its debut in London markets as packets of dehydrated ingredients that were mixed with water and shaped into patties. Today’s alternative proteins are unrecognizable in comparison, featuring cell-cultivated meats grown in brewery-style stainless steel tanks, fake sushi and faux burgers that “bleed.”

The sector saw a surge in the early 2020s to become a $1 billion market, but enthusiasm has wilted of late. Beyond Meat, for example, has seen its stock plummet following its 2019 IPO, and only 11% of U.S. households purchased faux meat last year.

Yet repeat purchases remain strong, global demand is rising, and academic research as well as entrepreneurial R&D are advancing the field.

“Any new emerging technology always goes through challenges in scaling, economics, [and] consumer acceptance,” said Rohan Shirwaiker, director of the Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein at North Carolina State University. “The trajectory, I think, is in the right direction.”

Alternative proteins fall into three categories, and they can be combined in some products:

Plant-based: Made from ingredients including soy, beans, peas, lentils and wheat.

Fermentation-produced: Uses organisms such as fungi, bacteria, yeast and algae to act as ingredients themselves or as tiny factories producing compounds including proteins found in milk or eggs, or specific fats.

Cell-cultivated meats: Derived from animal cells and grown in nutrient-rich broth, then coaxed into fat or muscle tissue.

Consumers buy alternative proteins because of environmental concerns around climate impacts and the land and water footprint of livestock; health worries about cholesterol and saturated fats; and ethical objections to factory farming. And experts say that as the global population grows, there won’t be enough beef, chicken and fish to meet protein needs.

But there are significant hurdles to adoption. The faux meats are generally more expensive. People are unsure about the technologies used to make the foods. Consumers need to adapt to different flavors and textures and have worries that the alternatives are “ultra-processed” foods.

Nuggets for schools

Rebellyous Foods, a startup churning out faux chicken nuggets for 6 million U.S. school kids, runs its R&D operations out of an office park south of Seattle.

“We want people to feel good about what they eat, and so our products have a relatively short ingredient list,” said Christie Lagally Bradburn, founder and CEO of Rebellyous. That includes soy protein, yeast-based flavoring and salt, oil and water, and a binder called methyl cellulose found in products such as bread and salad dressing.

Despite being derived from plants, the Rebellyous kickin’ nuggets have a meat-like texture absent the gristle and mystery bits. The flavor, Lagally Bradburn said, is often compared to Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. The brand also has spicier options targeting food service at hospitals and correctional facilities.

Lagally Bradburn’s background is in designing manufacturing equipment, including roles at Boeing creating tools to build airplanes faster, better and cheaper. An ethical vegan, she wanted to apply that skill set to replacing meat, and in 2017 she launched Rebellyous to do it. Her goal: an automated, continuously operating system for producing affordable and tasty fake chicken products.

The company developed its Mock 3 system, capable of producing more than 5,000 pounds of faux chicken per hour. The device was installed in a facility north of Seattle, but the operators recently shuttered the site on short notice. So Rebellyous is working with its long-term partner in New Mexico which uses a conventional manufacturing system.

The hope is to find a new home for the Mock 3 while also developing its Mock 4, a smaller, cheaper, simpler device.

“Our goal is to run a financially sound company, to be there for the schools,” Lagally Bradburn said, as well as play a role in addressing climate change, human health and animal welfare issues.

Cricket kibble

While Rebellyous targets human food service, other startups are focused on four-legged consumers. About a decade ago, Anne Carlson was planning a career change when her daughter shared that she didn’t want children due to climate worries.

“I realized that I couldn’t just do a normal job after that,” she said. “Building a better future for her was everything.”

Carlson, a pet-industry veteran, noted UCLA research showing U.S. pets account for 25% to 30% of the environmental impact of domestic meat consumption. That led her to pursue insects as alternative proteins for pets, starting with crickets, then adding black soldier fly larvae.

In 2020, her company, called Jiminy’s, became the first in the country to be approved by the FDA and an association that regulates animal food standards to sell cricket-based dog foods.

“It’s less land, less water and almost no greenhouse gases,” Carlson said of the bug proteins. One acre of land used to raise 265 pounds of chicken protein will provide 60,000 pounds of cricket protein.

Jiminy’s sells kibble, treats and dental chews that provide essential amino acids and show benefits for dogs with allergies and digestion issues. The products typically cost more than animal-based foods, but are cheaper than prescription diets.

The San Francisco Bay Area startup still has to win over owners who are squeamish about insects — but they needn’t be, Carlson said.

“People think that when they open the bag, it’s going to be a bag full of bugs. It is absolutely not that,” she said. The product looks and smells like typical dog food, so “it’s not scary at all.”

Path to profitability

One area of growing concern centers on ultra-processed foods and whether alternative proteins fall under that category.

Shirwaiker, director of the Bezos Center, notes that while some products contain high sodium or fat, processing itself can be beneficial by removing harmful elements, improving texture and preserving nutrition.

“If we are using processing to get the right texture, something that consumers will like without sacrificing the nutrition, I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all,” he said. “So it’s really a matter of perspective and trying to separate process from nutrition in some way.”

Rebellyous and Jiminy’s leaders said they clearly disclose ingredients and keep them simple to put those fears to rest. The biggest hurdle, both said, was bringing down costs while supply-chain prices keep rising.

Even so, the startups are on the verge of profitability, their CEOs said. Carlson said Jiminy’s operates in the black some months and is growing faster than the pet industry overall. Because Rebellyous primarily serves schools, it’s profitable during much of the year, but business slows in the summer, Lagally Bradburn said.

Both founders remain optimistic about the long-term horizon.

“Sometimes when you’re in it, it can be hard to see the forest for the trees,” Lagally Bradburn said. “But the truth is that overall, the world is becoming more sustainable.”

Sources and references

Interviews:

• Rohan Shirwaiker, distinguished professor and director of the Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein at North Carolina State University
• Christie Lagally Bradburn, founder and CEO of Rebellyous Foods
• Anne Carlson, founder and CEO of Jiminy’s

Additional sources:

• “The History of the Veggie Burger,” Smithsonian Magazine, March 19, 2014
• Analyzing plant-based meat & seafood sales, Good Food Institute, 2025 data
• “An Extension Guide to Alternative Proteins,” Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein at NC State
• “Environmental Impacts of Food Production,” Our World in Data
• “This plant-based chicken startup is bucking alt-protein trends with a new production milestone,” GeekWire, Jan. 5, 2026
• “The truth about cats’ and dogs’ environmental impact,” UCLA, Aug. 2, 2017

Lisa’s favorite protein nut balls:

• 1 C old-fashioned oats
• 1 C peanut butter, other nut butter, or combo
• ⅓ C honey
• ⅓ C chopped, roasted nuts (peanuts, almonds, pecans, etc.)
• ⅓ C semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate (chips or chopped)
• 2 Tbs protein powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• ¼ tsp cinnamon 
• ½ tsp salt
• ⅓ C shredded coconut (optional)
• 2 Tbs chia seeds (optional)

1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.
2. Form into balls measuring about 2 Tbs, arrange on a pie tin or plate, chill.

Helion Energy on Tuesday said that it added $35 million to a funding round initially announced in June. The Everett, Wash.-based fusion company originally shared news of a $465 million Series G round.

“After initially closing the round earlier this summer, we are excited to bring on several new investors and to have a round that includes crossover, pension, and sovereign wealth investors,” said David Kirtley, Helion’s co-founder and CEO, in a post on LinkedIn. Kirtley said the investment now totals $500 million.

The company aims to be the first in the world to commercialize fusion, replicating the reactions that power the sun and stars to produce nearly limitless clean energy. It has raised more than $1.5 billion to date.

Last week Helion celebrated the opening of its first office in downtown Seattle as its headcount tops 800 employees.

The company is racing to hit an ambitious timeline, having signed a deal with Microsoft three years ago to supply energy to a Central Washington data center by 2028. The company broke ground on the 50-megawatt plant, dubbed Orion, in July 2025.

But Helion’s timing for hitting that energy target remains uncertain. When it announced the agreement with Microsoft, the company stated that Orion was “expected to be online by 2028 and will target power generation of 50 MW or greater after a 1-year ramp up period.”

Axios recently reported that full capacity might not be hit until 2030, according to a Helion executive. The news site also cited two scientific publications by plasma physicists questioning the company’s ability to produce a sufficient amount of energy from its fusion devices to power the grid, though Helion has responded to concerns raised by both on its FAQ site.

That said, Helion is hustling to resolve technical challenges. GeekWire in May reported on Tiny Merge, a small-scale testbed device the company is building at its R&D facility to answer questions its larger, more expensive prototypes haven’t — questions that need answers before final power plant designs are locked in.

Kirtley, however, remains bullish on the company’s trajectory and the vote of support from investors.

“Technical milestones remain the most important to me and the company,” he said, “but this new funding demonstrates the growing demand for, and confidence in, fusion energy and Helion’s ability to deliver fusion energy to the grid.”