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On ‘precariously low’ oil stockpiles, China’s ammonia milestone, and a PFAS destroyer
Risk-averse but deep-pocked institutional investors join the party.
On nuclear waste, a Nevada solar farm, and lithium-harvesting nanorobots
On Yucca Mountain, Europe’s inverter boom, and Romanian offshore wind
Investors are piling into startups that promise to solve hard problems using little energy. But that doesn’t mean the answer is ‘yes.’
Physicists have spent decades trying to apply the laws of quantum mechanics to the physical world in the form of quantum computers, devices that promise to solve some of the hardest problems in biology, chemistry, and materials science at unfathomable speed. Many experts say this technology is finally on the cusp of commercial viability. Physicists and software engineers are understandably excited. But so, too, is another group that might raise eyebrows: climate investors.
Investment in quantum startups rose to $12.6 billion in 2025, six times the prior year’s total, according to McKinsey. The consultancy forecasts that the technology could drive up to $2.7 trillion in economic value by 2035 as it spurs efficiency and revenue gains across sectors. Climate tech venture capitalists understandably want a piece of that pie.
Examples abound. Lowercarbon Capital participated in the quantum startup Oratomic’s gigantic $300 million Series A, announced earlier this month. Just a few months prior, Breakthrough Energy Ventures led quantum pioneer Sygaldry’s $139 million Series A, which also included participation from Singapore-based climate-focused investor Earth Venture Capital. And earlier this year, Planet First Partners led a $200 million later-stage round for quantum company Photonic Inc., now valued at over $2 billion.
They’re hardly the first VCs to argue that the worlds of quantum and climate are closer than they might initially appear. Prelude Ventures has backed Atom Computing since its 2018 seed round, all the way through its $100 million Series C last month, while Berlin-based VC World Fund has supported IQM Quantum Computers — which went public via SPAC about three weeks ago — since 2022. All say that quantum computers will be dramatically more energy efficient than today’s so-called “classical computers,” reducing costs and electricity usage across applications ranging from artificial intelligence workloads and transportation logistics to power grid optimization.
That advantage stems from the fundamental nature of the system’s architecture. The physics is extraordinarily complex, but the basic idea is that unlike a standard computer, which encodes information as zeros and ones, quantum computers rely on units called “qubits.” Rather than representing a single binary value, qubits can “be both a zero and a one, or any state in between at the same time,” Idalia Friedson, Sygaldry’s co-founder, told me.
That mind-bending proposition totally changes the way computers problem-solve. Rather than sequentially testing one possible solution after another, quantum computers can evaluate many possibilities simultaneously, hopefully allowing them to solve challenges such as molecular simulation, materials discovery, and drug design exponentially faster than is currently possible.
This tech won’t replace today’s computers, which experts told me will almost certainly remain more practical for everyday tasks such as browsing the internet, making spreadsheets, and word processing. Rather, the future of computing will likely be a hybrid in which classical computers handle the bulk of the work while quantum computers address specific, complex problems.
For its part, Sygaldry is building quantum-powered AI servers that can plug directly into existing data center infrastructure, combining quantum processors with classical chips in the same machine to expedite both model training and inference. The startup is also unique in its effort to combine multiple types of qubits — yes, there is more than one kind — within the same system, matching each qubit type to the problem it’s best suited to solve.
“You can create a qubit by using photons, which are actually like light particles, by trapping ions, by creating artificial atoms,” Friedson told me, explaining that each type has its pros and cons. “Some are fast, some are less expensive, some are more manufacturable or scalable. But by and large, no single type of qubit meets all of the characteristics needed for commercial high-performance computing.” Thus, Sygaldry is taking a mix-and-match approach, pairing different types of qubits with the AI workloads they’re best adapted to handle, ultimately aiming to extract more from our existing data center infrastructure and curb the AI boom’s runaway energy demands.
But as with all breakthroughs that promise faster, better, cheaper AI, the spectre of Jevon’s paradox looms large. This is the observation that as technologies become more efficient and cheaper, total resource consumption often rises rather than falls as lower costs spur demand.
When I asked BEV’s Christian Garcia, who led the firm’s investment in Sygaldry, about whether he worries that quantum companies could contribute to an uptick in overall AI energy demand, he told me it seemed a little outside his remit. “I almost feel like it’s a question for a philosopher to answer,” he said, explaining that he has no way of knowing what the advanced computing industry will look like decades down the line. Instead, he’s focused on the shorter-term problem companies like Sygaldry purport to solve: Grid bottlenecks are constraining AI growth.
“Even as algorithms get more efficient, and even as GPUs get more efficient, the demand for tokens is outstripping the ability to bring power online,” Garcia explained. “And so we view investing in new computing platforms as a way to solve power challenges in a lot of ways, and I think that’s bread and butter for us.”
Mark Cupta, the Prelude investor who has backed Atom Computing since 2018, expressed a similar sentiment. “Regardless of what [quantum computing] is used for, it will use less energy as a baseline,” he told me. “Could it discover great things? Yes. Could it also break things? Absolutely. We’ve gotten comfortable with that.” Climate-positive applications that particularly excite Cupta include designing novel compounds to better capture carbon dioxide out of the air or industrial smokestacks, discovering more efficient catalysts for the energy intensive Haber-Bosch process used to produce ammonia-based fertilizer, and perfecting the chemistry behind solid-state batteries, which could be safer, longer-lasting, and far more energy dense than standard lithium-ion cells.
But quantum computing could also break many of today’s standard encryption methods, which secure everything from online banking systems and medical records to cryptocurrencies. It could help oil and gas companies with exploration, extraction, and petrochemical processing, helping to make fossil fuel production more efficient and cost competitive with renewables. Or maybe its greatest commercial value lies in, say, helping hedge funds optimize their trading strategies and portfolios — not necessarily a climate-negative application, but a far cry from the breakthroughs many sustainability-focused investors are hoping for.
The technology’s ultimate climate impact will always depend, to some degree, on how and where it’s deployed. Yet when Cupta looks at Prelude’s portfolio of climate tech solutions, he mainly sees the ways that quantum could help them move faster and build superior products. “If you think that the things we’re inventing are going to be better for the world than what came previously, you want to supercharge those things,” he told me.
He’s betting Atom’s platform will prove to be “the most energy-efficient and lowest footprint” approach in the industry. The company builds its qubits from neutral atoms, which have an equal number of protons and electrons and thus no net electrical charge. This system traps them in mid-air using tightly focused laser beams, a setup that allows the atoms to be packed far more densely than many competing designs, which often use micron-scale wires. And because the laser traps are movable, the system can rearrange qubits on the fly to optimize for different tasks.
Neutral atom-based systems are a relative newcomer to the quantum computing landscape, but Cupta believes they have the potential to leapfrog the industry’s dominant architecture: superconducting qubits. Often described as artificial atoms, these qubits are tiny electrical circuits engineered to mimic the quantum behavior of atoms. They underpin the quantum efforts of tech giants like Google and IBM, as well as startups such as Rigetti Computing — founded by Sygaldry’s other co-founder, Chad Rigetti — and IQM Quantum Computers.
But when Cupta was first exploring the idea of a quantum investment, he said nearly everyone he spoke with admitted that if they were “starting from scratch” they wouldn’t choose to work with superconducting qubits. That suggested to him that this approach had become a legacy technology, while Atom Computers’ neutral atoms represented the future. Other investors now appear to be buying that thesis. Last month, the startup announced a $100 million Series C, and is also set to receive $100 million from the U.S. Department of Commerce as part of a $2 billion CHIPS Act investment in quantum computing and manufacturing. For its part, Oratomic — a Lowercarbon portfolio company — is also working to build a neutral atoms-based quantum computer.
Prelude has been wrong about quantum before, as have plenty of other investors. The firm also co-led the Series A and B rounds for the quantum software company Zapata Computing, which went public via SPAC in 2024. The stock quickly collapsed, and within seven months the company had run out of cash and ceased operations. It eventually restructured and reemerged as Zapata Quantum, though its shares are still only worth around $1 on the lightly traded OTCQB market.
There’s also always the possibility that a climate-focused startup could simply reinvent itself, pivoting toward a more promising market opportunity. Consider the case of Crusoe. The AI data center builder and operator now valued at over $10 billion initially pitched itself at the beginning of the decade as a climate tech startup, using natural gas that would have otherwise been flared off to power cryptocurrency mining, thereby reducing emissions. While always an unconventional thesis, sustainability-focused VCs like Lowercarbon, G2 Venture Partners, and MCJ Collective piled in. Since then, the company has greatly expanded its natural gas footprint as it’s pivoted aggressively toward building AI data centers.
All of which is to say, there’s simply no guarantee that a climate tech startup will stay true to its original mission, or that the energy savings and efficiency gains it promises will ultimately materialize. The possibility of a paradoxical outcome is just a part of investing in energy efficiency technologies.
Investors seem to have gotten comfortable with the discomfort. But the public may not have to wait too much longer to see the first signs of what a quantum-powered future could look like. Sygaldry is aiming to “have some meaningful technology by the end of the decade,” Friedson said. “Over the next couple years I expect quantum is going to start reaching these really valuable inflection points that continue to drive adoption.”
On Meta quits, Elon Musk’s solar plans, and federal coal reserves
Current conditions: Tropical Storm Bertha washed out the majority of monitored sea turtle nests in the western part of the Florida Panhandle • Record rain in West Virginia swelled creeks that toppled bridges in the north central part of the state • In the Pacific, Tropical Depression Kiyapo is barreling toward the northern part of the Philippines’ Luzon island.
Aerial view this month of solar panels in China’s Zhejiang Province. VCG/VCG via Getty Images
China just quietly upped its target for renewable energy consumption, ratcheting up the goal 53% by 2030, rising to 1.8 billion tons of coal equivalent from 1.18 billion tons last year. That’s according to the latest five-year plan for renewables the National Development and Reform Commission published on its website. Wind and solar, paired with energy storage, are expected to provide 20% of electricity during the summer and winter evening peak periods, up from 10% currently, according to Bloomberg. By 2030, Beijing wants 300 gigawatts of peak capacity from renewables. Non-electric utilization of renewables, such as for heavy industry, is projected to rise to 150 million tons of coal equivalent from 60 million in 2025. The People’s Republic is betting on novel technologies to start taking off. By the start of the next decade, China wants to increase solar thermal capacity to 15 gigawatts from just under 2 gigawatts at the end of last year. The government wants marine energy, such as tidal and wave power, to go from virtually nothing today to at least 400 megawatts.
In the meantime, Beijing’s buildout of nuclear reactors continues apace. Per my promise to keep you abreast of all the big milestones, here’s the latest: China General Nuclear just installed the “supermodule” for the CAP1000 — the Chinese version of America’s Westinghouse AP1000 — at its Unit 2 project at the Lufeng Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong Province. The installation this week of a module that’s too big to be transported by rail or boat and thus needed to be fabricated on site “signifies that the construction of the reactor building” for the new unit “has entered a new phase.”
Meta has quit a top corporate initiative to promote clean energy as the Facebook parent company has built out at least a dozen gas-fired power stations to supply electricity to its data centers over the past year. While rivals such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft remain members of the RE100, a project of the British-headquartered nonprofit the Climate Group that former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair co-founded, Recharge News reported that Meta had left the initiative. A spokesperson for the company told TechCrunch it was a mutual decision, though Meta declined to comment on the exact reasoning.
The United States currently has a little over 70 gigawatts of capacity to manufacture solar panels each year. Tesla has plans to dramatically increase that number. “We are just going to multiply it [by] an order of magnitude,” Vaibhav Taneja, Tesla’s chief financial officer, said during an earnings call Wednesday night. “We’re going at a very rapid scale.” It was just one of the various investments the electric auto giant is banking on investors to support as billionaire CEO Elon Musk ramps up spending on manufacturing semiconductors and humanoid robots as part of its artificial intelligence buildout, while also tackling an energy source that the scale of China’s factories has largely brought down to a commodified price. The stock plunged nearly 15% on Thursday as CNBC cautioned that investors are increasingly spooked about spending on artificial intelligence. “Yes, this means that we are doing a lot of things all at the same time,” Taneja said. “And that’s why we just have to go as fast as … humanly possible, make things work in the real world.”
Adding to the company’s woes: The U.S. government is now looking to strengthen regulations on car door hands after federal filings linked electric door failures to at least 15 deaths in Tesla vehicles, Bloomberg reported.
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The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil, surpassed $100 per barrel for the first time since May amid President Donald Trump’s threats to ramp up the U.S. bombing campaign against Iran and a resurgence of attacks from Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, finished out the day of trading at a little over $92 per barrel. Murban crude, out of the United Arab Emirates, soared nearly 20% to more than $107 per barrel. On Thursday, Trump told Axios he was close to a final decision on whether to launch a “massive attack” on Iran, “bigger than ever before.” The threat comes on what the Financial Times clocked as the 12th straight night of U.S. strikes against the Islamic Republic.
A new analysis from the consultancy Wood Mackenzie, meanwhile, showed the limits of Saudi Arabia’s main bypass for the Strait of Hormuz. Riyadh redirected virtually all crude exports through its East-West Pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea after Iran closed the narrow waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf at the start of the war in February. Volumes flowing through the pipeline peaked at more than 4 million barrels per day in March. But by June, that flow declined to about 2.4 million barrels per day, a 41% decline. On the whole, crude exports out of the Persian Gulf fell 82% between January and June. That’s likely due to dropping production as the regional industry struggles to find sufficient outlets for its supply. The Red Sea corridor also also “faces a declared Houthi blockade that, if enforced, could reduce global oil supply considerably.”
The U.S. has 4.2 billion short tons of coal reserves in active mines and another 356 billion short tons in untapped deposits, according to an updated U.S. Geological Survey report the Department of the Interior released Thursday. If extracted and burned in a power plant, the coal could supply the nation’s needs for at least 600 years at the current rate of consumption, the agency said. “American Energy Dominance is more important than ever, and so is beautiful, clean coal’s role in the production of electricity needed to fuel our future prosperity,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in a statement. “Thanks to the USGS’s rigorous and independent assessment, we’re better equipped to manage America’s vast public lands responsibly while supporting energy security and economic opportunity.” Of the 34 coal mines on federal land, 14 are located in Wyoming, followed by Colorado with six, North Dakota and Utah with four mines each, and Alabama and Montana with three mines each. But Wyoming's mines contain 87% of the reserves associated with active mines on federal lands. As I told you last month, the Trump administration put up $850 million to support a coal revival. And the Iran War, as my colleague Matthew Zeitlin wrote in March, is only fueling more demand for coal.
Last month, I told you that Japan was the other country, besides the United States, bucking the global trend toward more, not less, offshore wind. Here’s a good reminder that, in most cases, such trends are directional, not definitive. The 315-megawatt Oga-Katagami-Akita offshore wind project just received its certification from Japanese regulators, “confirming that the design of its wind power generation facilities complies with” technical standards. It’s a major step toward building the array of 21 Vestas turbines off the coast of Akita Prefecture, per offshoreWIND.biz.
