The Saturday Morning Newsletter #43
Congestion, Cameras, Drones, Bankruptcy, Balloons, and More
👋 Hello friends,
Thank you for joining this week's edition of The Saturday Morning Newsletter. I'm Drew Jackson, and today we're exploring 18 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: TerraPower
Description: TerraPower is a nuclear reactor developer.
Why Is This Company Interesting? TerraPower recently raised $650M in venture capital funding. If you don’t know, TerraPower is one of the biggest nuclear names in the US. They’re currently building one of their initial plants in Wyoming. Their technology uses liquid metal to complete the transfer of heat.
#2: Pano AI
Description: Pano AI is an automated wildfire detection startup.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Pano AI recently raised $44M in venture capital funding. Their software helps detect wildfire threats early, notifying parties of incidents and delivering visual intelligence to relevant parties. This helps support smarter, faster decision-making and wildfire action. Pano is probably the 4th or 5th wildfire prevention startup I’ve written about in the newsletter and I think they’re only going to get more popular.
#3: Look Up Space
Description: Look Up Space develops tools to analyze satellites and debris in orbit.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Look Up Space recently raised $57.7M in venture capital funding. This company would fall into the realm of space safety as they help provide safety and security services to satellites and other space objects (and those being launched into space). Their software helps detect and track small objects in orbit to manage potential issues that will arise from space debris.
#4: Vegdog
Description: Vegdog is a vegan dog food brand.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Vegdog recently raised $9M in venture capital funding. Instead of advising a 7-days-a-week vegan diet for dogs, this company suggests a couple days a week, helping substitute vegan ingredients into the dog’s diet and help reduce the impact of meat in the world.
#5: Sorcerer
Description: Sorcerer is a weather balloon startup.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Sorcerer recently raised $4M in venture capital funding. There is a shortage of weather stations over the oceans and in other places in the world, leaving an estimated 80% of the world with inadequate weather forecasting. The solution? Weather balloons. Sorcerer’s balloons can collect 1000x more data than existing balloons, providing a much superior solution to an existing problem.
Department of Energy: 9 Takeaways from Trump’s Nuclear Executive Orders
The Department of Energy released 9 takeaways from Trump’s 4 recent nuclear-focused executive orders:
Speed up Nuclear Reactor Licensing
Add 300 Gigawatts of New U.S. Nuclear Capacity by 2050
Lay the Groundwork for Faster Reactor Testing
Deploy U.S. Reactors for AI and Military Bases
Explore Fuel Recycling and Reprocessing
Amp up Domestic Nuclear Fuel Production
Bolster the American Nuclear Workforce
Assess Spent Nuclear Fuel Management
Expand U.S. Nuclear Energy Exports
Goldman Sachs: Nuclear Revival?
Besides Goldman now deciding to jump on the nuclear revival train (maybe 4-5 months after most others), I really liked their visualization of the total GW capacity of nuclear in the world. It shows pretty clearly how the rate of development of nuclear energy around the world has basically flatlined after the Chernobyl disaster, a viewpoint I’ve never seen this clearly.
Recharge: How to Make Enough Money May Be the Wind Industry’s Biggest Challenge
Throughout wind energy’s lifecycle thus far, there have been many reasons why developers are struggling: cancelled projects, cost pressures, poor auction results, etc. In order for wind energy to grow as a renewable energy source, it needs to be profitable for developers. That’s going to be a challenging hurdle to overcome.
Yahoo: Solar Bankruptcies Show US Clean Energy Industry Is Teetering on the Brink
The renewable energy industry is allegedly struggling deeply. There are many financial issues, due to elevated borrowing costs, anti-renewable policies, and high tariffs. “Clean energy’s financing struggles arrive at a critical time for the US power industry. Utilities are rushing to meet growing demand from data centers running artificial intelligence applications.” The near future for renewables will be complicated.
The New York Times: California Wildfire Forecast
Scientists have been forecasting that this year’s wildfires in California will be worse than last year. The atmosphere is more dry, ready to burn. The snow has melted earlier than normal, meaning earlier grass growth and drying out, leading to more fuel for fires. The summer will be exceptionally hot. All of these factors are leading to a bigger wildfire season.
The Wall Street Journal: The Future of Weather Forecasting Is Hyperlocal
Due to the onset of drone use in delivery, transportation, communication, and more, the weather prediction methods we use will need to be much more accurate. We need to be able to predict on a neighborhood or borough level—these drone operators need to know minute wind and atmosphere patterns that could upset their flight.
Space: Nuclear & Space
A new report is expected to come out this summer, detailing how nuclear energy has been and will continue to be integrated into the space ecosystem. Almost without a doubt, people at NASA agree that unlocking the abilities to use nuclear energy as an energy source for space will be critical to the next phase of space infrastructure.
The New York Times: Vera C. Rubin Observatory
A new telescope is being created in Chile at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, housing the largest digital camera ever built. The goal of this telescope is to study dark matter, dark energy, and other undiscovered properties of the cosmos.
The New York Times: SpaceX Rocket Explodes
Before starting its 10th flight test, Musk’s Starship rocket exploded after experiencing a “major anomaly”. In his attempts to go to the Moon and to Mars, there have been many pitfalls along the way, potentially signalling that we aren’t fully ready to go into space yet.
FRED: Intellectual Property Growth and Depreciation
Throughout their analysis, analysts at FRED have found that intellectual property is growing as a percentage of capital stock over time. Furthermore, they’ve also found that intellectual property depreciates much faster than most other assets, especially faster than tangible assets. As such, in order to maintain or grow the current percentage of capital stock, we must invest heavily in intellectual property.
Philosophy Now: Ikigai
This high schooler’s account of the world takes a different perspective on ikigai than I’ve seen before, centered around hope. In their mind, given the way the world is today, people are looking for solutions and many are turning toward ikigai, the Japanese philosophy which gives many meaning in life. Why are they choosing it? It offers them hope.
Times Now: 10 Philosophy Books to Question Everything In Life
This article provides the top 10 books that will help us question everything we think we know:
The Prince by Machiavelli
Meditations by Descartes
Utopia by Thomas More
Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy by Simon Blackburn
The Concept of Mind by Gilbert Ryle
What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy by Thomas Nagel
The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant
Pragmatism by William James
Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
Economist: Congestion Pricing in New York
Moral of the story: congestion pricing in New York, while previously facing large opposition, has been a large-scale success.
From an economic perspective, it places the burden of congestion on those who are creating it while also creating tax revenue as a byproduct.
In my opinion, the most interesting part of this was the narrative shift. At first, New Yorkers were adamantly opposed to the congestion pricing. Then, post implementation and adjustment, it’s been a source of overwhelming support. Commute times that used to be an hour are now around 15 minutes.
Public narrative has always fascinated me. It’s interesting how quickly it flip-flops from one end of the spectrum to the other end. I’m not a political scientist in this way, but this would be a fun segment to dissect.
See you Wednesday for Brainwaves,
Drew Jackson
Website: brainwaves.me
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.