Breakthrough Energy Ventures

"GOC Tring 133: Cattle" by Peter O'Connor, aka anemoneprojectors, via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0 license).

ArkeaBio Appoints Dr. Zach Serber as Chief Technology Officer to Accelerate Development of Methane-Reducing Livestock…

Dr. Serber will advance the biotechnology enabling ArkeaBio’s first-of-its-kind solution to deliver a practical, cost-effective way for farmers and producers to reduce emissions and enhance livestock productivity. Dr. Serber’s appointment comes as ArkeaBio accelerates toward product validation and commercial deployment. BOSTON, MA, USA — ArkeaBio, a global agricultural bioscience company … [continued]

ChatGPT generated illustration showing Gates, Bezos, and Branson looming over nuclear, geothermal, and hydrogen infrastructure—symbolizing Breakthrough Energy’s enduring bias toward firm, capital-intensive energy solutions

Beyond CATF’s Biased Analysis: Why Firm Power Isn’t The Full Answer

CATF recently published a report entitled Beyond LCOE: A Systems-Oriented Perspective for Evaluating Electricity Decarbonization Pathways advocating for a shift in how we evaluate energy technologies. At face value, their core criticism, that Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) alone does not capture the full economic complexity of integrating intermittent renewable … [continued]

ChatGPT & DALL-E generated panoramic image of the wilted garden climate venture capital investment portfolio metaphor

Breakthrough Energy Venture’s Wilted Garden Of Climate Investments

Recently I sat down with Laurent Segalen and Gerard Reid, European cleantech investors, on their podcast Redefining Energy to talk about Breakthrough Energy Venture’s big misses. This followed our conversation about the cognitive biases of the billionaires such as Bill Gates which have persisted due to a bubble of confirmation … [continued]

ChatGPT & DALL-E generated panoramic image depicting a billionaire inside a lavish, transparent bubble, floating above a city landscape

Bill Gates And Energy — Redefining Energy Podcast Transcript

Breakthrough Energy Venture’s odd investments, a mixture of sensible, venture-capital aligned start ups focused on climate action with a higher percentage that make no sense, have come under my scrutiny for years. Similarly, trying to figure out why the climate-aware billionaire oligarchs who founded it, including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, … [continued]

ChatGPT & DALL-E generated panoramic image of a big thumbs down over a pile of money

Breakthrough Energy Ventures Has Bad Investment Theses Therefore Bad Investments

Eight years ago, Bill Gates and group of his closest billionaire acquaintances launched an incredibly well funded venture capital group. Its noble mission was funding and supporting transformative technologies aimed at mitigating climate change. Many of its investments are sound and if commercialized, would assist, at least a bit. However, … [continued]

ChatGPT & DALL-E generated panoramic image depicting an abandoned coal power plant with an illusory overlay of small modular nuclear reactors floating above it

What Drives This Madness On Small Modular Nuclear Reactors?

A few months ago, a STEM and economics literate global decarbonization executive for a $4 billion annual revenue logistics business operating in most of the major trading companies of the world asked me “What drives this madness on hydrogen?” They were being peppered with irrational proposals for the molecule and … [continued]