Hello!

Welcome to The Saturday Morning Newsletter, a concise and casual digest of current events, optimistic news stories, and other interesting tidbits to round out your week. The concept is simple: 15 articles, essays, companies, ideas, podcasts, videos, or thoughts that caught my attention this week for their potential to significantly impact our future.

I want this to be a collaborative effort, so if you see examples of things that truly impact our future, let me know here. I’ll give you credit for sharing them.

Let’s get started.

---

#1: Dandelion Energy

Description: Dandelion Energy is a residential geothermal heating and cooling technology provider.

Why Is This Company Interesting?? Dandelion Energy raised $40M in venture capital funding this week. Dandelion is the nation’s leading provider of geothermal power, having installed more residential ground loops than any other company. As geothermal energy becomes more and more popular, Dandelion is in the perfect spot to ride the wave upwards.

#2: Marvel Fusion

Description: Marvel Fusion is a nuclear startup using laser technology to create fusion reactions.

Why Is This Company Interesting?? Marvel Fusion raised $63M in venture capital funding this week. Moritz von der Linden stated, “Fusion has to come fast and has to come cheap”. The startup will soon build a demonstration facility in collaboration with Colorado State University as a test case to prove its technology. Fusion energy has come a long way in the last 5 years but still has quite a way to go.

#3: Sublime Systems

Description: Sublime Systems is a developer of a new type of low-carbon cement.

Why Is This Company Interesting?? Sublime Systems raised $75M in venture capital funding this week. Sublime Systems uses electrification to manufacture low-carbon cement capable of performing as well as normal cement. For those of you who don’t know, cement production is one of the most carbon-emitting actions out there. Finding a good solution to reduce these emissions is critical.

#4: Reflect Orbital

Description: Reflect Orbital uses in-space reflectors to reflect sunlight down on solar farms on Earth.

Why Is This Company Interesting?? Reflect Orbital raised $6.5M in venture capital funding this week. Reflect’s technology creates more solar energy after dark by reflecting the sun’s rays from space back onto Earth. Space commercialization has lowered the costs for this technology to become viable and will create more renewable energy for the world.

#5: Cyclic Materials

Description: Cyclic Materials is a startup recycling rare earth elements from electric vehicles, wind turbines, and electronics.

Why Is This Company Interesting?? Cyclic Materials raised $53M in venture capital funding this week. Recycled rare earth elements require around 36% of the CO2 emissions to produce compared to newly mined material. Diverting material back into the supply chain reduces the need to create new mines. Rare earth elements are critical to the modern world and finding a way to recycle them will create a more reliable, lower emitting source.

APSA: Belief in Divine (Versus Human) Control of Earth Affects Perceived Threat of Climate Change

John Kane and Samuel Perry, in their working paper, dissect the influence of religious conservatism and its association with American’s skepticism towards climate-related science and policy. Their study focuses on the belief in divine control (rather than human) over Earth’s future climate reducing belief in humans’ responsibility for climate change as well as concern about its severity. While initial, their results establish a causal link between religious belief and climate change attitudes in the US.

Ember: Solar Power Continues to Surge in 2024

Globally, we’re on track to install 29% more solar in 2024 than we installed in 2023. That comes even after there was 87% growth in 2023 compared to 2022. Granted, China continues to install more than half of the world’s solar power, but most countries continue to grow their installed capacity in 2024 compared to 2023. This is great progress and only continues to exponentially push the world closer to climate targets.

Carbon Credits: DOE Supercharges the U.S. Battery and Critical Minerals Industry with $3 Billion Boost

This week, the United States Department of Energy announced over $3B in funding for 25 battery projects across 14 states. This builds on the current administration's commitment to strengthen the United States' critical minerals and battery supply chains. The $3B in funding grants help expand EV and energy storage production. These efforts are important to bringing critical supply chains back to our country, providing further security and access to these materials.

Visual Capitalist: The Largest Producers of Wind Energy, By Country

Wind power installations reached a new peak in 2023, increasing renewable energy’s share of total global power generation to 30%. The driving force behind this wind power expansion is China, accounting for nearly 66% of global capacity additions in 2023. As we’ve seen in solar and wind, China’s renewable energy shift has taken the world by storm as they continue to crush targets. Hopefully other countries will soon follow suit.

Space.com: SpaceX's private Polaris Dawn astronauts splash down to end historic spacewalk mission

The historic SpaceX astronaut mission which conducted the first-ever private spacewalk, returned to Earth on September 15th, splashing down off the coast of Florida. Mission commander Jared Isaacman stated, "Polaris Dawn we are mission complete. Thanks for all the big help pulling this mission together." This entire space mission helped increase the popularity of private space entities and proved that they can be just as effective as public entities.

New York Times: There May Be More Than One Way of Making a Planet

The “bottom-up” approach has long been the only proven way that planets form: gas and dust swirling around a young star slowly clump together over millions of years, and its gravity shapes it into a rounded object. Cassandra Hall, an astronomer at the University of Georgia, recently found evidence for a new, “top-down” approach to planet formation: fertile material circling a young star rapidly collapses into a planet (through gravitational instability). This knowledge isn’t incredibly impactful to you or me, but it shows how we’re continually pushing to understand our world, discovering new things every day.

New York Times: Women Entrepreneurs are Hitting a Funding Wall

Female-founded start-ups received 7 percent of pre-seed and seed funding (the earliest funding a start-up raises) in 2023 according to Crunchbase. Yet, more mature companies led by women have hit a funding wall. For women-founded businesses seeking investments past a Series B round (typically the 2nd or 3rd funding round), the share of venture capital dollars was only 1 percent. There could be a variety of different factors influencing this effect, but on the surface, it seems as though female founders are receiving less money than their male counterparts.

Pitchbook: The World’s Top Startup Cities

This week Pitchbook released their rankings for the top cities for startup companies in the world. The top 5 are San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Shanghai. It’s interesting that the top 4 are all from the United States. This may be due to the number of people starting companies combined with the large amount of funding sources present, leading to many companies receiving large amounts of money.

Nature: Does intellectual property rights protection help reduce carbon emissions?

Cheng et. al researched the relationship between intellectual property rights protection and carbon emissions from 116 countries between 2008 and 2020. Their analysis revealed a positive relationship between intellectual property rights protection and carbon emissions, meaning that as intellectual property rights protections increased, carbon emissions also increased. The rationale behind this is the idea that intellectual property promotes technological progress and economic growth.

Here’s a solid guide to expanding your soft skills in the workplace:

1. Make People Feel Important (use the SHR method)

• Seen: Give eye contact, offer a specific compliment
• Heard: Ask good questions, be interested, not interesting
• Remembered: Follow up, remember names, recall something you discussed

2. Hone Your Body Language (using the 7-38-55 Rule)

• People will like or dislike your communication based on:

• 7% words
• 38% tone and face
• 55% body language

• Stand up straight, pull your shoulders back, make eye contact, give a firm handshake

3. Master the 4-Bullet Update

• People are busy, so give a brief update with this outline:

• Here’s what you asked me to do
• Here’s what I did
• Here are the risks/blockers (if any)
• If given more time, I’d do this

4. Record and Study Your Speaking

• 99.9% of people won’t do this, so be the outlier
• Record your calls, replay them, study them - it will improve your delivery drastically

5. Ask Rapport-Building Questions

• Build bonds with these questions:

• What neighborhood are you in?
• Do you have any siblings/kids?
• How’d you meet your partner?
• Any fun upcoming trips?

6. Send “Friday Highlights”

• If you’re new to a team, do this to build trust
• Every Friday, send your supervisor a short email:

• 1. Highlights from the prior week: Big tasks completed, people networked with, extracurriculars
• 2. Upcoming activities for next week: Forward-looking big tasks and networking opportunities

• These highlights will help you build trust, hold yourself accountable, tactfully self-promote, and have everything you need come time for self-reviews

7. Don’t Complain or Gossip. Ever.

• Nobody likes to hear complaining
• When you talk badly about others, people wonder if you talk bad about them too.
• Just don’t do it.

8. Remember ALL the Names

• A person’s favorite sound is their name
• Whenever you hear one mentioned, write it down.
• Later, ask *by name* about them. You will stand out.

See you Wednesday for Brainwaves,

Drew Jackson

Twitter: @brainwavesdotme

Email: brainwaves.me@gmail.com

Submit any interesting articles/links for The Saturday Morning Newsletter here.

Thank you for reading The Saturday Morning Newsletter by Brainwaves. Please ask your friends, colleagues, and family members to sign up.

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.