Breakthrough Energy

We’re proud to announce a new partnership between Breakthrough Energy Discovery and the Hertz Foundation.    This collaboration brings together two organizations with a shared belief: that scientific innovation and the people behind it are essential to advancing breakthrough climate and energy solutions.     Through this partnership, Hertz Fellows will gain access to our global network of experts, entrepreneurship curriculum, mentorship opportunities, and grant programs. In turn, we will engage with the Hertz Foundation’s extraordinary pipeline of technical talent working at the frontiers of science and engineering.    Together, we’ll co-create programming—from workshops to targeted networking and shared resources—that supports Fellows at critical stages in their careers and helps accelerate transformative solutions.    This is also a model for something bigger: how ecosystems of aligned organizations can connect, collaborate, and unlock greater impact than any one group could alone.    “At its core, this partnership is about the power of ecosystems,” said Ashley Grosh, Vice President of Breakthrough Energy Discovery. “When institutions like Breakthrough Energy and the Hertz Foundation align, we create something greater than the sum of our parts. By opening up our networks, sharing resources, and connecting extraordinary talent, we believe we can accelerate innovation at a scale that no one organization could achieve alone.”     “This partnership highlights the transformative power of strategic collaboration in addressing the world’s most pressing challenges. By connecting the Hertz Foundation’s unparalleled network of scientific talent with Breakthrough Energy’s global platform of climate and energy experts, we are unlocking breakthrough potential and accelerating innovative solutions,” said Wendy Connors, President of the Hertz Foundation.    We’re excited about what this partnership makes possible. Our first joint effort launches this summer with a session focused on how AI can speed up and improve the discovery of new materials. This is just one example of how we’re creating new opportunities to collaborate, share ideas, and accelerate climate and energy solutions. https://bit.ly/43QSZZn

Rodi captures why we’re so energized by the momentum across the BEV portfolio. Meet the teams advancing the energy economy: https://bit.ly/3F0V4bJ

Projects like this show how clean hydrogen can help decarbonize fuels and chemicals that keep our world moving. Proud to back companies like Electric Hydrogen and Infinium, building the tech to make it possible at scale. 

The world’s largest eFuels facility is now under construction—and it’s happening in West Texas.    Infinium’s Project Roadrunner will produce sustainable aviation fuel from waste CO2 and renewable power, helping decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors like aviation and heavy transport. It’s a project that will reduce emissions, create skilled jobs, and drive economic growth in a region built on energy leadership.    For Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, this is more than a project milestone—it’s a demonstration of what catalytic capital can do. Roadrunner was Catalyst’s first-ever project equity investment, designed to bridge the gap between emerging technologies and the infrastructure needed to scale them. Congratulations to Infinium and all the partners driving this progress. This is what accelerating the energy transition looks like in practice. https://bit.ly/4mjEkgN

Electricity powers modern life—and it’s playing an even bigger role in the energy transition. As it accelerates across sectors, the question isn’t just how to generate more power—it’s how to build an electricity system that’s abundant, affordable, and always on. That means innovating across generation, storage, transmission, and demand—at once.    We are funding companies who are doing just that: Fervo Energy is expanding what’s possible with geothermal. By adapting horizontal drilling and fiber-optic sensing from oil and gas, they’re unlocking 24/7 renewable energy in new regions—weather-proof and grid-ready. Form Energy is bringing long-duration storage to life with iron-air batteries that can deliver 100+ hours of clean power. Their West Virginia factory is helping restore local manufacturing capacity in a region that’s lost major industries over time. Antora Energy is turning clean electricity into high-temperature heat for industry, using thermal batteries made from carbon blocks. It’s a practical and scalable way to decarbonize some of the hardest parts of the economy.    Commonwealth Fusion Systems is pushing fusion from theory toward reality. With compact, high-powered superconducting magnets, they’re laying the foundation for smaller, more economic reactors—and a future of abundant, zero-carbon power.    These aren’t far-off bets. They’re real technologies, with real traction, tackling some of the most foundational aspects of our energy system. The future of electricity isn’t just about plugging in—it’s about scaling what works. And that future is being built right now. 

Cement is one of the toughest sectors to decarbonize. Queens Carbon’s approach leverages existing infrastructure, giving the industry a path to cut emissions at scale without overhauling operations. Congrats to the Queens Carbon team on this milestone. We’re excited to see what’s next.  

The first e-Fuels from INERATEC’s pioneer plant are here! ⛽ Our pioneer plant in Frankfurt has started operation – and with that, the very first drops of e-Fuels and e-Wax are flowing. What begins with a single drop marks the start of the Next Era. An era, where climate-neutral fuels and waxes are no longer vision, but reality. After startup, the commissioning lead hands over the symbolic first drop to the site manager, who will lead operation from now on. These first e-Fuels and e-Waxes will be stored in our on-site tanks, getting ready for the first delivery. 🎬 Watch as the first bottle of e-Fuel is freshly tapped at the plant — a meaningful symbol for what’s to come. #FirstDrop #NextEra

This week, we marked a major milestone: the first year of our Southeast Asia Fellows program. Launched in partnership with Temasek and Enterprise Singapore, this regional hub was created to support early-stage innovators working on game-changing climate and energy solutions in Southeast Asia. And already, the results are promising.    Our Fellows are developing technologies to produce low-cost renewable methanol and recycle critical battery materials—solutions that could reshape entire supply chains and accelerate the energy transition.    We’re proud to support them, and grateful to our partners for helping build a stronger innovation pipeline in the region.

CarbonCure Technologies is a powerful example of what industrial decarbonization looks like in practice. Proud to back the team and their work with partners like Pan-United Corporation across Southeast Asia and beyond. 

🎉 Our second DAC plant is live — as covered by today’s BBC News! Read the write up ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eJpcXH-t Watch our clip on BBC News Look East ➡️ https://lnkd.in/ebXUzSXi Say hello to the world’s first fully integrated DAC-to-building materials production process. Located at our partner O.C.O Technology Ltd’s Norfolk site, our DAC system directly feeds their factory with atmospheric CO₂ to create carbon-negative building aggregates which durably store it for thousands of years. 🪨 This manufactured limestone can then be widely used to decarbonise essential building products, including bricks, concrete blocks, tiles, and slabs. Today marks a huge milestone in the Mission Zero story and another breakthrough for the UK’s carbon removal industry. Success is owed to many incredible people and businesses, but our deepest thanks go to the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, whose vision, catalytic funding, and support made this project possible. #DirectAirCapture #ClimateTech #NetZero #GreenJobs