👋 Happy Saturday! This weekend’s highlights include a presentation on the state of decarbonization in 2025, a handy reference on tribology, and leftovers from our weekly research in hardware and manufacturing news.
Interesting Notes: The State of Decarbonization
Before American Dynamism, the big investment trend was around climate and ESG. ESG investing was all about backing companies that cut carbon emissions, treated workers well, and followed ethical and regulatory rules. Not everyone was a fan, but that was the pitch.
If you want to understand the current state of decarbonization in 2025, check out Nat Bullard’s annual presentation, Decarbonization: 2021 Things, The Complex, Reagents. We call it the Super Bowl for energy nerds—only with more charts and no commercials.
If you’re skeptical about renewables, just look at history—every energy source dominates until something better comes along and takes its place.
Some key takeaways that stood out:
Data centers in Virginia already account for a quarter of the state's electricity use. To put that in perspective, the average U.S. household consumes about 10,000 kWh per year. That means 1 TWh could power ~100,000 homes for a year. In 2023, Virginia’s data centers used 33.9 TWh—enough to power over three million homes!
The trend holds abroad as well: in Ireland, data centers consume 21% of the country’s electricity, more than all urban households combined.
EV sales surged nearly 25% year-over-year in 2024, with battery electric vehicles outselling plug-in hybrids by a 2:1 margin. PHEVs are growing faster and in China, this shift is especially pronounced.
- Interesting to note: Japanese automakers are losing market share not just in China, but in broader Southeast Asia.
Interesting Chart: Friction and Wear Compatibility for Metals
A summary of a life’s work by Ernest Rabinowicz: metal parts in contact or sliding interfaces should be incompatible to prevent galling and wear. Tribology studies friction, wear, and lubrication, where "compatible" and "incompatible" surfaces define how materials interact at the atomic level.
A handy design rule of thumb: use cadmium-plated shoulder screws for aluminum pivots.
We found this chart from @emm0sh, highly suggest giving him a follow!
Event: Hardware FYI Dinner in Costa Mesa, CA 🍽️
Last week, we kicked off the year with our first event—a private dinner with Cofactr in San Jose, CA! It’s always great to meet readers in person and talk shop over a good meal.
Manufacturing & Startup News
- taiyaki.ai, founded by two Stanford grads, converts text and image prompts into 3D models, prints them, and ships to your door.
- Battery swelling and burns:
- Fitbit has been fined $12M over burns caused by its Ionic smartwatch.
- Apple will pay $20M to settle a lawsuit regarding Watch battery swelling, while denying any wrongdoing.
- On the topic of space:
- The UK government has invested ÂŁ20 million in Orbex to build and launch the first UK-manufactured and UK-launched orbital rocket.
- Intuitive Machines has delivered its second lunar lander to Cape Canaveral for an upcoming Moon mission.
- Kall Morris Inc. successfully demonstrated its debris removal technology on the International Space Station.
- India has successfully tested its first scramjet engine, engines used in hypersonic applications which travel at over Mach 5.