Climate

Gritt and MasTec bring bolt-on construction robots to solar sites (opens thenextweb.com)

MasTec will deploy Gritt's bolt-on robotic attachments on utility-scale solar sites in several US states after live-site tests.

Mavria raised $130M across pre-seed and seed rounds at a $1B valuation led by Paradigm (opens wsj.com)

Mavria plans modular data centers that can be shipped by truck, per the Wall Street Journal.

Anthropic joins AI’s natural gas frenzy, buys $3.4B worth of turbines (opens techcrunch.com)

Anthropic bought billions of dollars' worth of natural gas turbines in a deal that could give it buyer's remorse.

SpaceX plans a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility in Starbase, TX, with ~$24B of investment for initial phases (opens bloomberg.com)

SpaceX plans a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility in Starbase, TX, with ~$24B of investment for initial phases, per a public hearing notice — SpaceX plans to construct, own and operate a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility at its company town in Starbase, Texas …

Tesla Hasn't Had a Successful New Product Launch Since JB Straubel Stepped Down (opens cleantechnica.com)

Harbinger raises $240M after expanding into defense (opens techcrunch.com)

The Los Angeles startup, now past $650M raised, builds electric trucks, emergency vehicles and a driverless military platform.

Micora: Rapidly deployed industrial micro-grids (opens ycombinator.com)

Solar + Battery systems set up with 1/100th of the labor anywhere in the world.

Data centers are turning to old jet engines as the wait for power grows (opens techcrunch.com)

Years-long waits for grid access and new turbines are pushing data center builders to once-discarded jet engines, which are less efficient and dirtier.

OpenAI launches the Grid Protectors Program, a US effort for its future data center campuses meant "to reduce electricity demand when the grid is under strain" (OpenAI) (opens openai.com)

OpenAI will pilot the program at an upcoming data center in Effingham County, Georgia, promising to free up to 1,000 megawatts during extreme weather or emergencies.

Omen AI adds liquid know-how in $16 million Aquatic Labs acquisition (opens techcrunch.com)

Two startups tackling the data center water problem are joining forces in a $16 million deal.

Ryhla: Faster power grid connection for your project (opens ycombinator.com)

Ryhla (YC Fall 2026) builds data and models of the distribution grid to speed up grid connections for projects.

Nitroduck designs new colors, flavors, and disease resistance into fruits and veggies (opens ycombinator.com)

Nitroduck delivers CRISPR inside a pollen grain so breeders can move traits straight into crosses, saving years on breeding campaigns.

Filing: Vancouver, WA-based Powerlattice, which makes a power delivery chiplet to reduce AI compute power needs by 50%+, raised $86M (opens geekwire.com)

Powerlattice makes a power delivery chiplet it says cuts AI compute power needs by more than 50%; it raised $31M in 2025.

Viraj Aero: The gas turbine that powers and cools data centers (opens ycombinator.com)

Aeroderivative turbine gensets that make power and water on-site, so data centers don't wait on the grid.

Seattle-area startup Group14 raises $169M, plans battery materials factory in Spain (opens geekwire.com)

Group14 plans a battery materials factory in Spain and now expects its delayed Moses Lake factory's first module online in mid-2027.

Re:Build, which spun out Slate Auto, raises $2.1B (opens techcrunch.com)

The manufacturing accelerator, which spun out Slate Auto, bills itself as "America's answer to Shenzhen."

We made plastic from waste milk, got a ₹10L SISFS grant, and are now looking for investors (opens reddit.com)

Hey everyone, I’m the founder of Mridakranti Pvt Ltd. In this era of AI and tech, we’ve been working on something a little different: making “milk plastic” using protein recovered from waste milk.

Anthropic is burning gas to feed the AI boom (opens theverge.com)

As it prepares to go public, Anthropic's S-1 filing makes generative AI's methane dependency glaringly obvious. "Competition for access to electrical supply and data center locations with adequate power availability is intense." In documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission…

Google illegally cut down 250K trees in Finland for data center (opens nypost.com)

Watching fruit ripen pays off: Seattle ag-tech startup Strella lands $4.25M (opens geekwire.com)

Strella tracks how fruit ripens on its way from growers to grocery stores, to help businesses spot spoilage and waste less food.

Data farmers: Ag-tech startup Aigen grows AI-generated weeds to train its solar-powered farm robots (opens geekwire.com)

With diesel prices up sharply and digital plants speeding up training, the Redmond, Wash., startup is taking on new crops and new customers for its solar-powered weeding robots.

Endurance Energy hits a brief milestone in its quest for undersea geothermal power (opens geekwire.com)

Seattle startup Endurance Energy briefly generated more power than its system used from a small plant on the ocean floor off Oregon; the run lasted 8.7 seconds.