The science is settled. Human activities that emit greenhouse gasses (GHGs) are warming the planet and causing devastating climate change. Current GHG emissions must be halved by 2030 and net-zero GHG emissions must be reached by 2050 to contain global warming at a sub-catastrophic level. As fossil-fuel-based energy production is a leading cause of GHG emissions, clean energy technologies play a vital role in a sustainable future for the planet.
The cost of solar and wind energy has fallen considerably over the past decade and no longer yields a significant cost disadvantage compared with fossil fuels. Next-gen renewable technologies such as waste-to-energy, sustainable fuels, fusion energy, geothermal, wave, and tidal, etc. are still at a nascent stage but can be expected to follow similar declining cost principles as they scale. Next-gen advancements in energy storage are also vital in matching the intermittent supply of renewable energy with inflexible demand.
The Alternative Energy industry is dominated by stationary energy storage startups. They have also received the most amount of funding. The majority of the pre-seed and seed-stage startups are from the third-gen renewables segment. Most of the early and growth stage startups are from the bioenergy and sustainable fuels and stationary energy storage segments.
The capital-intensive nature of this industry has led many Alternative Energy startups to raise significant funding at very early stages of their operations. This appetite for cash has also prompted many startups to seek public funds fairly quickly—sometimes even while the business is at a conceptual stage—mostly through unconventional methods such as special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deals and over-the-counter (OTC) listings.
Oil and gas and other fossil fuel energy companies are increasingly adopting alternative energy to meet their sustainability commitments. While these initiatives are still mostly conventional renewable energy generation projects such as solar and wind, some companies, especially oil and gas supermajors, are also gradually exploring next-gen alternative energy solutions like bioenergy and sustainable fuels.
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