The Saturday Morning Newsletter #19

👋 Hello friends,

Thank you for joining this week's edition of The Saturday Morning Newsletter. I'm Drew Jackson, and today we're exploring 11 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: 5 minutes.

Let’s dive in!

AP News: Climate-Friendly Electricity Sees Big Battery Projects Soar Again for 2024

2024 was a great year for battery storage. Over the last two years alone, we’ve seen a doubling in battery capacity in the United States. The ability to store large amounts of electricity in batteries was almost nonexistent a decade ago, and now in 2024 we have over 24 GWh operating nationwide.

Bloomberg: Green Hydrogen Hype Is Giving Way to Reality

According to politicians and business leaders, green hydrogen is a great solution to many problems. However, new estimates suggest a much more muted effect. Green hydrogen projects will remain far more expensive than previously thought for decades to come. Companies commercializing hydrogen are already struggling with canceled projects and sluggish demand.

Department of Energy: DOE's Top Clean Energy Accomplishments in 2024

The Department of Energy had a big year promoting the adoption of renewable energy technologies. Highlights include more employment, grid modernization, domestic manufacturing, rural climate action, promoting lowered costs, expanding the EV charging network, tribal energy support, and other R&D projects.

Modern Diplomacy: A Commentary on Modern Energy Needs

This commentary on the combination of nuclear and batteries is intriguing, but not in the way you would imagine. It gives an excellent portrayal of the world’s energy transitions over time.

It took about a century for humanity to replace 25% of wood consumption with coal, around 80 years for oil to replace 25% of coal in the global energy mix and approximately 90 years to replace 25% of oil with natural gas. Although the transition to wind and solar energy is perceived by a significant portion of the political and economic elite as occurring much faster, it still accounts for less than 5% of the global energy mix.

The New York Times: 2025 Space Outlook

2025 has the potential to be a big year for space. Jeff Bezos will enter the space arena to further compete with Elon Musk. The Rubin Observatory will go online (the largest digital camera in the world). The US under President Trump will increase its initiatives to go to the moon. The two Voyager probes will probably go offline. India’s space program will become part of the global elite. SpaceX will continue to shine.

Space.com: An Abundance of Hydrogen on Earth

A new study estimates that the Earth contains around 6.2T tons of hydrogen present in the rocks and underground reservoirs beneath the Earth’s core. This is around 26x the amount of oil known to be left in the ground. Just 2% of the hydrogen found in the study would supply all of the hydrogen needed to get to net-zero carbon for hundreds of years.

The New York Times: Wall St. Is Minting Easy Money From Risky Loans. What Could Go Wrong?

Since 2015, a massive private credit industry has been formed, comprising billions if not trillions of dollars in risky loans to risky businesses. Due to its private nature, the private credit industry isn’t regulated by the government (unlike banks). This industry hasn’t been truly tested through a recession (a bit through COVID, but not anything crazy), so it’s unclear whether it could weather the storm.

Some predict that this industry, if it fails, could begin the next big recession (2008 style).

Fortune Term Sheet: Outlook for 2025

The outlook for 2025 seems, by many, to be positive. Highlights include:

• The VC world is set for a boom in 2025, aided by the incoming administration’s policies. —Ivan Nikkhoo, founder, Navigate Ventures
• Get ready for the greatest bull market ever—ZIRP is back, and things are about to get frothy and loud. Crypto will roar back to life, monkey pictures and all, while housing prices skyrocket and IPOs flood the market. Seed rounds will flow like it’s 2021 all over again, with more money chasing the next big thing than ever before. It’ll be a wild ride, but let’s hope we’ve learned something from the last bubble—because it’s shaping up to be déjà vu. —Siqi Chen, founder and CEO, Runway
• The one-person $1 billion company is coming. The number of solopreneurs building physical products will explode as the tools to design, manufacture and sell are made increasingly simple with AI. —Annie Kadavy, managing partner, Redpoint Ventures
• As much as everyone is expecting roaring public markets, there will be volatility throughout the year as the new political parties test out some muscle, even if we end directionally upward, it won’t be a smooth ride. —Pegah Ebrahimi, founder and managing Partner, FPV Ventures

PC Magazine: The Average American Spent 2.5 Months on Their Phone in 2024

The headline says it all—we’re spending so much time (on average) on our phones. What’s even more alarming is that this is a 40% increase from 2023. Just in the last year alone, we’ve been spending a noticeably larger amount of time on our phones. No wonder a bunch of New Year’s resolutions are often about spending time on electronic devices.

Fraser Institute: Over 85% of the World’s Population Experienced a Decline in Freedom from 2020 to 2022

Almost all governments across the world restricted their citizen’s freedoms from 2020 to 2022. During the pandemic, human freedoms went down significantly, with a slight rise in 2022. 2023 and 2024 numbers have yet to come out, but there could be more of a normalization back to pre-pandemic numbers.

As we come to the end of 2024 and begin 2025, it’s generally a time to look forward and backward, reconsidering and considering our lives and the directions they are going in.

There’s no advice I could give you that you probably don’t already know, however, here are two pieces of guidance I use in my own life as a quick reminder.

First, be kind to yourself. Shoot for the stars, but be nice to yourself along the way. Give yourself some leniency.

Second, any change is better than no change. Even if you don’t make it to 100% of your goal, but you got at least 0.0001% there, that’s still progress.

Hope your ambitions don’t get the best of you.

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.