What is green technology? Green tech companies to watch

If the technology of industrialization is at least partly responsible for humanity's impact on the planet, can technology also provide a solution?

This is the purpose of green technology, which aims to reduce humanity's impact on the environment. And to undo the damage we have caused.

Let's dig into where green tech is now, where it's headed, and what the leading green tech companies are up to.

What is green tech?

Green technologies are technologies that aim to improve the state of the environment by reducing or actively reversing the negative impacts of human society on Earth.

This category has many fields. For example, companies committed to a circular economy strive to design systems that allow waste to be reused, effectively creating a closed (or nearly) closed loop of sustainable technologies that minimize waste and pollution. Create.

Companies involved in battery technology are exploring next-generation designs that enable higher energy densities and lower environmental construction costs. These are not only used to power EVs and mobile devices, but also serve as storage for renewable energy methods such as solar, wind, and hydropower.

There are hydrogen and electric vehicle technology companies that can help loosen the grip of fossil fuels on modern society. Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) projects aim to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reduce or eliminate carbon emissions from heavy industry.

All of this sounds very promising, but many of what initially seem like obvious solutions or mitigations to the climate crisis actually have significant drawbacks.

It is also important to distinguish between companies working on these forms of green technology and technology companies with green aspirations. For example, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Meta are technology companies that have committed to achieving net zero operationally. However, not all of these “green technology companies” actually develop and produce the green technologies being discussed.

Some of these efforts should be viewed with skepticism, as many rely on carbon offsets. Carbon offsets allow companies to finance projects aimed at offsetting their carbon-emitting activities. why? A joint research project by the Guardian, Die Zeit and Source Material published in 2023 found that up to 90% of these “carbon credit” initiatives are “worthless” and do not deliver the claimed emissions reductions. It turned out that it didn't work.

Top green tech companies pave the way

There are countless green technology companies out there, some of which should be considered, such as the Google X spin-off. maltaa CCUS specialist working with molten salt batteries. carbifixgeothermal energy company eversource With hydrogen fuel cell developers plus power.

Malta Inc. began as one of Google's X “moonshot” projects and is working on molten salt power storage. This type of battery uses an electrolyte that is frozen at room temperature and can store renewable energy for months at a time. However, it must be heated to 200-300 degrees Celsius to function as a power source.

Carbfix is ​​an Icelandic company working on carbon capture, but is not dependent on immediately finding a commercial use for the captured carbon dioxide. Instead, it effectively injects it into underground rock deposits.

“Carbfix dissolves in water and interacts with reactive rock formations such as basalt to form stable minerals, providing a permanent and safe carbon sink. The Carbfix process captures CO2 and permanently ,” says Carbfix.

However, carbon capture technologies often come under heavy criticism, both because they are too expensive to implement and because they serve as an excuse to delay the transition away from fossil fuel use.

Here we take a closer look at two of the key pioneers of green technology in its various forms.

1.Samsung SDI

Samsung is largely a company that uses net-zero climate goals as part of its marketing strategy, but some of its components are involved in green technologies such as Samsung SDI. The company is a major promoter of solid-state batteries.

These are similar to lithium-ion batteries used in everything from phones to electric cars, but use a solid electrolyte rather than a liquid electrolyte. This means that even if the battery is damaged, its integrity is much better maintained and is less likely to cause a severe fire like a punctured lithium-ion battery.

This makes the battery less protective and reduces the need to manufacture smaller cells in wider battery structures. This leads to increased energy density per unit of volume. Therefore, Samsung SDI is promoting this technology for use in electric vehicles from 2027 onwards.

2. Mosa meat

Dutch technology company Mosa Meat is working on lab-grown meat. This means that although the actual cells in Mosa Meat Steak are exactly like the cells in cow meat, they are not directly taken from a real animal. Instead, cells are grown from cultured samples.

The company's work comes from technology you've encountered before. Mosa Meat was co-founded by scientist Mark Post, who introduced the “first lab-grown” burger in 2013. It was eaten during a press conference in London, and early reports on the experience of actually eating the patty were said to be quite positive. Inverse.

But the hamburger cost an estimated $330,000 to make, and part of the effort over the past decade has been to devise a manufacturing method to significantly lower its cost.

In May 2023, Mosa Meat opened a 30,000 square foot production facility in Maastrict for that purpose, increasing annual production from tens of thousands of burgers to thousands.

Most recently, in January 2024, the company submitted a proposal to hold a tasting event to a Dutch government committee aimed at evaluating these forms of “novel food”.

Although progress is being made, affordable engineered meat products are still a long way off, and even conventional meat replacement companies are currently struggling. Beyond Meat BYND reported a net loss of $70.5 million in 2023, and with continued high prices in the $140-$155 range, Beyond Meat stock is worth about $7 at the time of writing. There is.

But there's still hope that green technologies like Mosa Meat might help lure even the most avid meat fans away from eating farmed animals. According to a study cited by the Breakthrough Institute, livestock farming accounts for between 11.1% and 19.6% of total greenhouse gas emissions.

What is the future of green technology?

Green technology is almost all “future”. Even if your project is already operational, you may want to expand its scope. This becomes a question of which green technologies are the most promising. And as with other areas of technology, expect a lot of buzz around AI in the short to medium term.

As noted in a Next Web report, Pitchbook's analysis suggests that the financing issues that plagued green technology companies throughout 2023 will continue into 2024. However, this represents a broader fiscal outlook and does not necessarily discount the green concept itself.

Abhijit Sunil, senior analyst at Forrester, also predicted that there would be significant movement in rights to repair space at “three global Fortune 200 manufacturers,” which should help significantly reduce e-waste. I am.

conclusion

Green technology will be a key element in the world's efforts to combat climate change. However, the technologies mentioned are diverse and the connections between them are sometimes limited.

However, they often share challenges. Green technologies face recurring obstacles to reducing costs until they can be used on a large scale, and in some cases this becomes an insurmountable problem.

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