GreenTech

It’s been more than a year since Tesla agreed to open its Supercharger network to electric vehicles from other automakers, like General Motors and Ford. But Tesla’s network of nearly 30,000 fast-charging plugs in the U.S. and Canada still remains unavailable to non-Tesla vehicles, according to a New York Times report.  The delays come amid

Do you have a much-loved jacket with a torn sleeve or pair of grubby kicks gathering dust at the back of your closet? Tingit, a startup out of Lithuania, wants to help people restore their used clothing to its former glory with its newly launched repairs marketplace. The platform lets you use your phone to

Wind and solar power have become so cheap to install, and at times so abundant, that utilities don’t know what to do with it all. Sometimes they’ll even pay the owners of other power plants not to generate electricity. In response, scientists and engineers have been racing to find inexpensive ways to store that power

Life sciences investor BEVC is raising a $25 million fund aimed at climate-related startups, according to an SEC filing. BEVC is new on the scene, having been founded just last year in Berkeley, Calif. Its three co-founders all have backgrounds in the life sciences, and its first two investments, Radar Therapeutics and Insamo, were also

Until recently, saving the world usually didn’t involve turning a profit. But as the world has warmed, a range of startups and investors have emerged that have squared the circle, making a clear business case for reducing humanity’s impact on the planet. We’re excited that Rebecca Hu, co-founder and CEO of Glacier; Allison Wolff, co-founder

There are by now plenty of carbon accounting and emissions management platforms. However, startups tracking emissions problems have tended to go for the lowest-hanging fruit first: the direct greenhouse gas emissions from sources owned by a company. In the parlance of the climate industry these are called “Scope 1.” “Scope 2” emissions are all about

Cindy Taff was standing out in the flat expanse of Starr County, Texas, in early 2022 when she felt it. “It was literally vibrating the ground,” she told TechCrunch. “That was an ‘ah-ha’ moment for me.” Her startup, Sage Geosystems, was testing equipment used to harvest heat from deep in the earth. The team had

“It’s not the heat that gets you, it’s the humidity,” said a dad, somewhere. His kids might be rolling their eyes, especially if they’ve spent any time in the desert Southwest during the summer, but their dad is at least partly correct: Not only does high humidity make people less comfortable, it also strains air

Slag is the molten runoff created while producing steel in a traditional blast furnace. The material has been prized as greener cement alternative for creating concrete, the Earth’s most abundant human-made material. The runoff is facing supply chain issues, however, as the steel industry looks to greener methods of production. Increasingly, steel producers in the

Chances are you’ve been there: Your formerly hot shower suddenly turns cold, darkening your mood in the process.  Maybe someone in your household took an extra shower or you did a few too many loads of laundry. It’s a classic case of supply not meeting demand. Michael Rigney thinks he can predict when a household

The humble garage is so steeped in Silicon Valley lore it’s almost cliché. Yet that’s exactly how Caleb Boyd and Kevin Bush started Molten Industries: in the garage of the Stanford professor’s on-campus home, where Kevin rented an apartment. It had everything they needed: space and, most importantly, power. The two wanted to break methane’s

The steam that condenses on your bathroom mirror may not seem like a big deal, but for architects and builders, it can be an enormous headache. “Moisture control is something that is a major pain point,” Derek Stein, founder and CEO of Adept Materials. “If you just google your favorite home builders’ name and then

The challenge of integrating renewable energy sources into the grid is a fast-unfolding startup opportunity. U.K.-based Axle Energy jumped on the chance to accelerate grid decarbonization when the business was founded early last year. The global spike in energy prices triggered by the Ukraine war had pushed the idea of building software to support the

It’s incredibly easy to dump carbon into the atmosphere and accelerate climate change. It’s a lot harder to take it out. Startups are experimenting with massive industrial systems to draw the pollutant out of the air, with facilities costing hundreds of millions of dollars to construct. That has some other founders thinking, why not use

Farms produce a lot of data. From machines to irrigation systems, farms generate a lot of information that could be helpful to both them and the companies that serve them. Traditionally this data has been siloed across different formats making it hard to read and build off of. Leaf is trying to change that. New

Ever since a government experiment proved in 2022 that fusion isn’t as far fetched as it once seemed, physicists, engineers, and investors have been growing increasingly bullish on the technology’s ability to deliver on its long held — if frequently delayed — promise of providing nearly limitless amounts of emission-free power. The latest exhibit of

The energy transition is a marathon, not a sprint. But opportunities for acceleration are growing. Swedish startup Greenely* has just spotted one. It’s closing an €8 million Series A funding round to expand its energy management platform into neighbouring Nordic countries (so around $8.7M at current exchange rates). The energy tech startup is serving around

In the lithium-ion battery world, the race to the bottom isn’t as ominous as it sounds. Battery manufacturers are under pressure from automakers to lower prices while maintaining or improving performance. They’ve largely delivered, with battery pack costs dropping from $780 to $139 per kilowatt-hour over the last decade, according to BNEF. That’s allowed electric

Farmers have got to do something about pests. But nobody really likes the idea of using more chemical pesticides. Thomas Laurent’s company, Micropep, thinks the answer might already be in the plants themselves. Micropep is exploring how naturally occurring compounds, known as micropeptides, might work as an entirely new class of pesticides. If the startup

After hearing that a U.S. Navy submarine ran into an underwater mountain, Joe Wolfel was surprised to find out just how little both government and commercial organizations knew about the ocean floor. It stuck with him throughout his time in the Navy and years later he launched a company to try to fix it. Wolfel

Nathan Rosenberg, the founder of farm automation platform Farmblox, said if there is one thing to know about trying to sell technology to farmers, it’s that you can’t tell them what to do. “[Farmers] are multigenerational,” Rosenberg told TechCrunch. “It is not a profession, it’s more a community, a way of life, and you need

The onshoring of battery manufacturing for EVs started as a trickle during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then it turned into a tsunami. In 2019, just two battery factories were operating in the United States with another two under construction. Today there are about 34 battery factories either planned, under construction or operational in the country. U.S.

Air traffic for many airlines ground to a halt after a buggy update from CrowdStrike took down Windows computers around the world. At the time of publication, nearly 3,500 flights have been canceled worldwide, according to FlightAware. While the IT outage is causing headaches for travelers, it may also have an unexpected effect on the

Proponents of nuclear fusion have long promised to create nearly limitless power here on earth by harnessing the same reaction that powers the sun. Today, fusion’s biggest hurdle is ensuring that any fusion power plant produces more power than it needs to operate. The second is ensuring that it has enough fuel to run. Many

Rice is the staple crop of more than half of the world’s population. Demand is growing with the rising population in South and Southeast Asia. However, a significant portion of rice farming still relies on traditional cultivation methods that lead to substantial methane emissions, which are a major contributor to climate change — methane is

The founders of HERO Software didn’t start out to help small tradespeople in construction with a platform. They started out to fight the climate crisis. But in doing so, they stumbled on a way to help the whole business. Now, the company has closed a €40 million Series B financing round, and plans to expand

Commonwealth Fusion Systems is shipping a pair of its specialized magnets to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the startup exclusively told TechCrunch. The move comes years before CFS anticipates starting its demonstration reactor, SPARC. It’s the first such deal, though possibly not the last, suggesting that the fusion sector has matured to the point where it

Fast-food chain Whataburger’s app has gone viral in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, which left around 1.8 million utility customers in Houston, Texas without power. Hundreds of thousands of those people may remain without power for days as Houston anticipates a heat wave, with temperatures climbing into the mid-90s. Amid frustrations with the local utility

The easiest way for a person to eat carbon dioxide is by consuming vegetables. David Tze wants his startup’s protein to be a close second. Tze’s company, NovoNutrients, has been working on a way to use microbes to turn carbon dioxide into protein that can be used in food for humans and feed for animals.

Solo founder Cat Jones took the plunge on setting up a travel business right around the time the pandemic was hitting Europe in March 2020. Fast forward to summer 2024 and her curated package tour business, Byway, is announcing close of an oversubscribed £5.04 million Series A round (around $6.4M at current exchange rates). Jones’