The Saturday Morning Newsletter #18

👋 Hello friends,

Thank you for joining this week's edition of The Saturday Morning Newsletter. I'm Drew Jackson, and today we're exploring 12 articles, essays, companies, ideas, podcasts, videos, or thoughts that caught my attention this week for their potential to significantly impact our future.

Before we begin: The Saturday Morning Newsletter by Brainwaves arrives in your inbox every Saturday, a concise and casual digest of current events, optimistic news stories, and other interesting tidbits about venture capital, economics, space, energy, intellectual property, philosophy, and beyond. I write as a curious explorer rather than an expert, and I value your insights and perspectives on each subject.

Time to Read: 6 minutes.

Let’s dive in!

#1: Verde Clean Fuels

Description: Verde Clean Fuels is a developer of lower-carbon gasoline.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Verde Clean Fuels recently raised $50M in venture capital funding. Verde has two processes, one based on natural gas and another based on biomass. Using a proprietary method, Verde is able to create gasoline with 30% less carbon. If this works on a large scale, this could put a significant dent in future carbon emissions.

#2: Nanoramic

Description: Nanoramic is a developer of the next generation of lithium-ion batteries.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Nanoramic recently raised $44M in venture capital funding. Battery technology has gone through a massive revolution in recent years, but the advances haven’t been fast enough by many standards. Nanoramic is replacing the limiting materials used in current lithium-ion batteries with safer, more environmentally friendly alternatives. These batteries are higher performance, lower cost, and more sustainable.

CNN: World’s First Grid-Scale Fusion Power Plant Announced

Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced this week that they plan to build the world’s first grid-scale nuclear fusion power plant in Virginia by the early 2030s. You may not realize it now, but that’s about the same timetable as the nuclear fission projects (sponsored by Big Tech). This is the first time that these two competing technologies have been slated to be advancing in the same stride.

If this venture is successful, you could see many of the Big Tech AI data center energy sponsorships transition to fusion-based projects instead of fission.

NREL: $6.25M of Wind Energy Aerodynamics Research Funding Available

The NREL has just announced $6.25M in research funding (industry and academia) to understand wind energy aerodynamics further. The research is focused on 2 areas:

• Understanding large turbine aerodynamics (10+ MW) as they operate in unique aerodynamic conditions as they are so large. Data will need to be generated in this field in order to be analyzed to effectively increase the efficiency of these large turbines
• Addressing the dynamics of nonoperational conditions, specifically understanding stress when the turbines are idle, either during installation, maintenance, or during more extreme weather events.

NASA: No More Glaciers in Venezuela

Since 2009, Venezuela has been down to its last glacier. However, the recent climate warming has slowly decreased the size of this glacier over time. During the summer of 2024, this glacier finally melted. Given the current trends, it's not surprising that this event has happened, however, it does signal the ongoing trends of humans degrading our world over time.

The New York Times: The New Climate Gold Rush: Scrubbing Carbon From the Sky

Carbon capture is becoming one of the next big growth areas in climate startups. More than 1,000 big companies have pledged to eliminate their carbon emissions over the next few decades. Because of this, more companies are starting to pay for carbon dioxide removal (around $1.6B in removal credits in 2024).

An important thing to note is there are already a few dozen facilities operational, however even if there were hundreds of plants, they wouldn’t even come close to counteracting 1% of annual carbon dioxide emissions.

Axios Pro Rata: Investor’s Predictions for 2025

Key insights about climate include:

• "The Trump administration will be focused on lowering barriers to new investments in energy sources, and we expect private equity will be positioned to be a first mover in investing in new projects." — John Grand, Vinson & Ellis
• "The U.S. will need a 'more of everything' approach to keep up with increasing energy demands next year, which will require extraordinary amounts of capital." — Darpan Kapadia, LS Power
• "Nuclear SMRs and fusion investment will result in a massive loss of capital for venture investors and will prove to be for this generation of climate-tech what biofuels were for the last." — Tyler Lancaster, Energize Capital
• "Nuclear energy's moment is here—bipartisan support for reactor innovation will only grow as AI demands more power." — Brian Garrett, Crosscut Ventures

Pitchbook: Almost 1 in 4 New Startups is an AI Company

AI startups accounted for 22% of the total companies that received VC financing in 2024. Many investors are starting to think that startups are labeling themselves as AI only as a marketing tool to raise capital.

The New York Times: What Economists Could Learn From George Costanza

Economists have relied on “economic fundamentals” for the last 25 years, but the US has suffered. Some argue that the most basic mistake is reliance on the theory of comparative advantage. The theory says that countries should specialize in what they are relatively more efficient/effective at and then trade that output for everything else.

Over the last 25 years, the United States has tried to do this with China and other East-Asian countries, but this has resulted in sophisticated industries leaving too (ones we were good at). This has led to a large trade imbalance, only sustainable because the United States has let other countries buy our real estate and corporations. Not to mention, the US has also given out trillions in debt.

As Warren Buffett once warned, “We have, day by day, been both selling pieces of the farm and increasing the mortgage on what we still own.” In the process, we’ve erased millions of livelihoods.

BBC: 3 Philosophy Ideas to Help You in the New Year

For better or worse, 2024 is almost over. The New Year often signals a time for self-reflection and setting goals for the year to come. Here are 3 ideas that could help you through this process:

• Embrace the chance to make a positive change (Hannah Arendt)
• Remember spring is just around the corner (Percy Shelley)
• Don’t try to carry all the worries of the world on your shoulders (Epicurus)

Ars Technica: There’s Hope! Decline in Teen Drug Use Continues, Surprising Experts

The COVID pandemic had some positive externalities, one of which was a decline in teen drug use. This trend has continued since, surprising many experts who expected the trend would reverse now that many of the ripple effects from the pandemic are over.

"Many experts in the field had anticipated that drug use would resurge as the pandemic receded and social distancing restrictions were lifted," Richard Miech, team lead of the Monitoring the Future survey at the University of Michigan, said in a statement. "As it turns out, the declines have not only lasted but have dropped further."

Big Think: 3 Philosophy Classics That Are Better Than Self-Help Books

Most of this article goes as you would imagine: it has a list of the 3 books you should be reading instead of self-help books and gives a bit of rationale for them. I haven’t read any of them, so you’re on your own there. However, I think there is a lot of value in the discussion surrounding philosophy and our world today.

There are two major routes people take when creating new content (whether that be writing, podcasting, speeches, etc.): 1) invent an entirely new idea (or majorly a new idea) or 2) recraft and refresh an existing work (to make it more modern, more clear, a different perspective, etc.).

A vast majority of what we read these days is in the second bucket. There is value in that as it generally means society is aligned on a certain set of ideas or principles that slowly adapt and change over time. Yet, that doesn’t move the needle very much.

I would encourage you to find books/topics/essays/articles/podcasts/movies/videos/people and more in your life that fit in the first bucket—they were new, impactful, and significantly impacted their sector.

Some ideas that came to my head: CRISPR and other major scientific advances (antibacterials, penicillin), IKEA (recommend the Acquired podcast on IKEA), the beginnings of most of the world’s major religions, the founding of empires and major world countries (USA, Roman, Ottoman, etc.), I Have a Dream and other major speeches, and major projects and bubbles throughout history (e.g. Apollo Project, Manhattan Project).

See you Wednesday for Brainwaves,

Drew Jackson

Twitter: @brainwavesdotme

Email: brainwaves.me@gmail.com

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this content are my own and do not represent the views of any of the companies I currently work for or have previously worked for. This content does not contain financial advice - it is for informational and educational purposes only. Investing contains risks and readers should conduct their own due diligence and/or consult a financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Any sponsorship or endorsements are noted and do not affect any editorial content produced.