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Hey everyone, welcome back to FutureProof, your weekly dose of tech, sustainability, and “wait, they’re stillapproving new oil fields… in 2025?”
No newsletter last week - I was up the walls with deadlines (the kind where caffeine becomes a food group), but we’re back, charged, and ready to roll.
This week’s lineup is a belter:
10 years after Paris, we’re finally seeing the curve bend.
AI goes green, and possibly physics-defying.
IKEA delivers the future (literally), and it’s electric.
Solar is now so cheap it’s breaking economists’ spreadsheets.
And a brick battery that stores sunshine like it’s Tupperware.
Let’s get into it.
As ever, FutureProof exists to remind us that progress is happening, much faster than the doom merchants would have you believe. If that sounds like your kind of rebellion, read on. And share it with anyone who could use a little climate optimism (or a break from LinkedIn humblebrags).
These are this week’s stories:
Climate
Ten Years On: The Paris Agreement Actually Worked (Sort Of)
A decade ago, the world was barrelling toward 4°C of warming by 2100. Today? We’re down to 2.6°C - still terrifying, but undeniably progress. Solar capacity has exploded 15 times faster than forecast, renewables now power over 40% of global electricity, and clean energy investment is trouncing fossil fuels two-to-one. The sun didn’t just rise, it won.
Highlights:
Global solar doubled every 3 years and now beats every IEA forecast from 2015.
20% of new cars sold globally are electric, six years ahead of target.
83% of the global economy is now covered by net zero laws or targets.
Why This Matters: The last decade proved momentum is real, clean tech isn’t hypothetical anymore; it’s eating fossil fuels’ lunch, and the crumbs are financing the next wave.
Kismet: China’s clean energy sector now makes up 10% of its GDP - triple the growth rate of its overall economy. The climate dragon went green while the West was still arguing over wind farms. 👉 Full story here
TotalEnergies Gets a Legal Slap for Greenwashing in Paris
Well, well, well. Turns out claiming you’re “a major actor in the energy transition” while expanding oil production isn’t just bad optics, it’s illegal. A French court ruled that TotalEnergies misled consumers about its climate commitments, in a landmark case brought by Greenpeace, Notre Affaire à Tous, and Friends of the Earth France.
Highlights:
TotalEnergies found guilty of “misleading commercial practices” for its 2050 carbon-neutral claims.
Ordered to scrub the phrase “major actor in the energy transition” from its marketing and post the ruling on its website for 180 days.
Sets a new legal precedent in France, tightening the noose on corporate climate disinformation.
Why This Matters: This judgment shows the era of consequence-free greenwashing is ending - courts are catching up, and fossil giants can’t hide behind shiny sustainability slogans anymore.
Kismet: Total must pay a symbolic €8,000 fine to each NGO - pocket change, sure, but it’s the public shaming that really stings. As one activist quipped, “They wanted to be seen as green heroes; now they’re case law.” 👉 Full story here
AI News
Extropic’s ‘Thermodynamic Computing’ Promises AI Without the Energy Hangover
While everyone’s panicking that ChatGPT will melt the grid, a Boston startup called Extropic just unveiled hardware that could slash AI’s energy use by up to 10,000x. Their new “Thermodynamic Sampling Units” (TSUs) don’t crunch numbers like GPUs - they literally sample from probability distributions using physics itself. It’s the first scalable probabilistic computer, and it might rewrite the rules of computing efficiency.
Highlights:
New hardware and algorithm combo (TSU + Denoising Thermodynamic Model) uses orders of magnitude less energy than GPUs.
Extropic’s open-source library thrml lets anyone simulate this hardware today.
Could end the “AI energy doom” narrative by making generative AI workloads radically more efficient.
Why This Matters: If this works at scale, AI won’t just be smarter, it’ll be sustainable, turning the biggest climate liability in tech into an efficiency revolution.
Kismet: Sam Altman’s rumoured next data-centre plan needs 250 GW of power, roughly a third of the US grid. Extropic’s chips, if real, could make that look like building a nuclear reactor to toast a slice of bread. 👉 Full story here
NotebookLM Gets Goals — Google’s AI Note-Taker Just Leveled Up
Google quietly dropped a monster upgrade to NotebookLM, and it’s the biggest leap yet. The AI notebook now lets you set custom goals and roles - so it can act like your research advisor, marketing strategist, or even a game master. Under the hood, it’s powered by the full 1-million-token Gemini context window (yes, that’s 8x bigger), a 6x memory boost, and 50% better response quality.
Highlights:
Users can now define custom “goals” - from “treat me like a PhD candidate” to “build a campaign strategy.”
Massive upgrade to context handling and conversation memory (finally, no more “who are you again?” moments).
Chats and research sessions now auto-save securely for long-term projects.
Why This Matters: This transforms NotebookLM from a note summariser into a genuine AI collaborator - one that remembers, reasons, and adapts to how you actually work.
Kismet: NotebookLM just became smarter and greener - so, fewer reruns of the same queries means less wasted compute, less wasted energy, and fewer excuses for bad research. 👉 Full story here
Google Earth AI Just Got Superpowers — And a Wider Audience
Google’s Earth AI is levelling up. The platform now combines decades of planetary modelling with Gemini’s reasoning engine to help cities, NGOs, and companies predict floods, track droughts, and even spot algae blooms before they poison water supplies. The update links multiple Earth AI models - weather, population, satellite data, into one unified framework called Geospatial Reasoning, giving analysts near-instant insight into what’s happening where.
Highlights:
Earth AI’s predictive models can now pinpoint which communities and infrastructures are most at risk from climate disasters.
WHO Africa is using it to predict cholera outbreaks; Airbus and Planet use it to map vegetation, deforestation, and power-line risks.
Gemini-powered analysis is rolling out to Google Earth Pro users in the US, with broader access via Google Cloud.
Why This Matters: Earth AI turns decades of static satellite data into a living planetary nervous system, one that could help humanity anticipate crises instead of merely reacting to them. No word on if this was used with hurricane Melissa.
Kismet: During the 2025 California wildfires, Google’s AI alerts reached 15 million people in LA. The next step? A world where AI doesn’t just warn us about disasters, it helps prevent them. 👉 Full story here
Electromobility
IKEA Proves You Don’t Need Diesel to Deliver (Or Charge Extra to Go Green)
IKEA Canada just hit a monster milestone: 72% of its home deliveries now arrive via electric vehicle, overtaking diesel for the first time - and customers didn’t pay a cent more. The company built out a $3.75 million national charging network (with a modest $1.17 million top-up from Canada’s ZEV infrastructure fund), letting its logistics partners GoBolt, RXO, and Metro Supply Chain deliver furniture emissions-free.
Highlights:
72% of home deliveries completed by EVs in August - goal is 90% by 2028.
90 charging ports now installed across all 17 IKEA Canadian sites.
Customers pay zero premium for zero-emission delivery.
Why This Matters: It’s proof that electrified logistics isn’t some luxury perk, it’s operationally sound, financially smart, and already here at retail scale.
Kismet: Each electric delivery saves IKEA roughly the cost of a Swedish meatball combo in diesel, multiplied across thousands of trips, that’s one very full sustainability smörgåsbord. 👉 Full story here
Kia’s Electric Van Just Drove 693 Kilometres (430 miles) Fully Loaded — And Straight Into the Record Books
Kia’s new PV5 Cargo electric van has smashed the Guinness World Record for longest distance driven by a light-duty EV with a full payload, clocking 693 kilometres (430.84 miles) on a single charge. That’s nearly two days of continuous driving without plugging in, hauling its maximum load the entire time.
Highlights:
The PV5, with its 71.2 kWh battery, ran for 22 hours and 30 minutes non-stop.
Range only drops around 1.5% per 100 kg of added payload, efficiency diesel vans can only fantasise about.
Built on Hyundai’s E-GMP platform, the PV5 is part of Kia’s new Platform Beyond Vehicle line, with seven body types coming, including camper and wheelchair-accessible versions.
Why This Matters: It’s proof that electric commercial vehicles aren’t a “someday” technology, they’re outperforming diesel in endurance, payload, and total cost, all while cutting emissions to zero.
Kismet: The record route wound through Frankfurt city traffic, roundabouts, and 370 metres of elevation gain, yet the van still went 693 kilometres. Somewhere, a fleet manager just dropped their clipboard into a puddle of diesel. 👉 Full story here
The Yangtze River Just Became the World’s Largest Electric Trade Corridor
China has done it again, and this time, it’s floating. The Yangtze River, which carries a third of the nation’s freight, is rapidly transforming into the world’s biggest electrified shipping corridor. The latest milestone: the Gezhouba, a 13,000-ton all-electric bulk carrier powered by 24 MWh of swappable battery modules, capable of hauling cargo 500 km per charge. Charging and battery-swap stations now dot the river, from Chongqing to Shanghai.
Highlights:
The Gezhouba runs 500 km per charge and can swap modular 2 MWh battery containers in minutes.
Ports along the Yangtze now integrate renewable generation, high-voltage grid links, and ship charging.
The corridor moves from pilot to mainstream, with inland bulk carriers now standardising electric propulsion.
Why This Matters: Maritime freight is finally electrifying - not just the tugs and cranes, but the ships themselves. What once carried coal and oil now runs on the clean power replacing them.
Kismet: China’s grid already beams 30 TWh of renewable power a year directly into the Yangtze corridor via ultra-high-voltage lines. In effect, the world’s dirtiest river trade route just became its cleanest battery. 👉 Full story here
Clean Energy
Rooftop Solar + Smart Pricing = Free (or Even Profitable) Power
Aussie households are turning their rooftops into mini power plants, and their wallets are thanking them. Retired navy admiral Mark Purcell once paid A$250/month for electricity. Now he earns nearly A$300/month selling power back to the grid via solar, batteries, and real-time pricing from Amber Electric, one of several fast-scaling “smart grid” startups rewriting the energy market.
Highlights:
Amber Electric adds 5,000 new users a month, giving customers live access to wholesale electricity prices.
Similar firms like Tibber and Octopus Energy now serve over 1 million EU customers (myself included!), driving bills down, not up.
Rooftop solar already supplies 13% of Australia’s electricity, with home batteries booming thanks to a A$2.3bn subsidy scheme.
Why This Matters: This is what the energy transition actually looks like: decentralised, consumer-driven, and cheaper than fossil-fuel business-as-usual.
Kismet: Negative electricity prices, once a grid operator’s nightmare, now mean some Australians literally get paid to charge their EV. “Filling the car” just became a revenue stream. 👉 Full story here
The Global Solar Boom Rolls On - With or Without America
While Washington backpedals, the rest of the world is bathing in sunlight. China has now installed more than half of global solar capacity, covering areas the size of Chicago with panels and batteries, while nations from India to Saudi Arabia to South Africa are joining the rush. Solar module costs have plunged 90% in a decade, making it the cheapest power source in human history, and yes, even petrostates are cashing in.
Highlights:
China doubled its solar and wind capacity goals and now supplies 84% of new power demand from renewables.
India surpassed 243 GW of clean capacity, more than half its total power mix.
Saudi Arabia targets 130 GW of solar by 2030, freeing up oil to export instead of burn!
Why This Matters: The solar surge is happening regardless of U.S. policy whiplash, proving that the clean energy transition has momentum the fossil lobby can’t smother.
Kismet: Analysts say the world already has 4× more solar than the IEA thought we’d have by 2035 - and most of it built while politicians were still arguing over gas subsidies. The sun, it seems, doesn’t wait for elections. 👉 Full story here
Beyond the Solar Panel: Bill McKibben’s Bright Idea for the AI Age
Bill McKibben’s latest Substack essay starts with a sobering truth - yes, we’re finally winning on clean energy (solar, wind, batteries), but we’re still losing the broader climate war. The Systems Change Lab’s latest data shows record heat, surging deforestation, and creeping coal use. Yet amid the gloom, McKibben spotlights a spark of genius: let hyperscalers pay for heat pumps. Instead of building new fossil plants to power data centres, Big Tech could fund home heat pump upgrades, freeing up electricity, cutting emissions, and lowering bills for millions.
Highlights:
The world spent $2 trillion on clean energy in 2024, double fossil fuel investment.
China surpassed 1 terawatt of installed solar this year — 1,000× more than in 2010.
McKibben’s “heat pump for electrons” plan could offset 3 GW of new data-centre demand in Pennsylvania alone.
Why This Matters: It’s a rare win-win-win - cut energy waste, decarbonise homes, and power the digital economy without burning a gram of extra carbon.
Kismet: If AI companies helped households electrify, the same tech driving energy demand could finance the solution. Silicon Valley, meet thermodynamics - turns out, you two were made for each other. 👉 Full story here
Storage
China’s EVs Are Becoming the World’s Biggest Battery
With 25 million+ electric vehicles on the road, China’s grid is on the verge of a power-up, literally. The government has launched the world’s first nationwide vehicle-to-grid (V2G) pilot across nine cities, letting EVs sell electricity back to the grid through bidirectional charging. That means cars parked at home, at work, or in shopping centres can now double as micro power plants, smoothing out peaks and storing renewables that would otherwise go to waste.
Highlights:
V2G pilots live in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, with 30 large-scale demo projects running.
Participating EVs can earn up to ¥500/month (€65) in charging vouchers by feeding power back.
Automakers like BYD and Nio now offer V2G-ready models as standard, scaling “batteries on wheels.”
Why This Matters: China’s solar and wind capacity now exceeds coal’s, but grid inflexibility is holding it back. V2G could turn millions of EVs into a vast, distributed storage network that fixes that bottleneck overnight.
Kismet: Shenzhen’s 2,500 participating EVs delivered 70 MWh of electricity to the grid in one month, enough to power 10,000 homes for a day. That’s not a pilot. That’s a preview of the future. 👉 Full story here
Bricks, Not Batteries: The World’s Biggest Industrial Heat Battery Is Live
California just flipped the switch on the world’s largest industrial heat battery, and it runs entirely on solar. Built by Rondo Energy, the 100 MWh system stores renewable electricity as heat in simple refractory bricks, reaching 1,500°C and delivering 24/7 industrial steam to a fuel production plant. Backers include Microsoft, Rio Tinto, and Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, all betting that clean heat is the next frontier of decarbonisation.
Highlights:
Operates at over 97% efficiency, using only brick and wire, no rare metals, no fire risk, no toxic leaks.
Delivers continuous high-pressure steam (>100 bar) alongside existing gas boilers with zero retrofit.
Needs just six hours of solar or wind each day to supply heat around the clock.
Why This Matters: Industrial heat is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise, yet this brick battery proves we can swap gas for sunshine without breaking a sweat. Interestingly I had a fascinating chat with Rondo’s CEO John O’Donnell on the Climate Confident podcast back in November 2022 about their tech.
Kismet: Industrial heat makes up a quarter of all global energy use. If every cement, steel, and chemical plant installed one of these, we’d cut emissions faster than the entire world’s passenger car fleet going electric. 👉 Full story here
Latest blog post
Why You Can’t Drone a Solar Panel
In this blog post, I explored how every refinery fire, pipeline rupture, and Red Sea drone strike exposes the fragility of our fossil-fuelled world - and why distributed renewables are the antidote. You can bomb oil. You can blockade gas. But you can’t drone the wind. Solar panels don’t explode; they endure. Electrification isn’t just about climate targets anymore, it’s about survival strategy.
Highlights:
Renewables overtook coal globally for the first time in 2025, a milestone 15 years ahead of schedule.
Europe’s fossil-fuel import dependency still sits at 58%, costing it an extra €930 billion during the energy crisis.
Electrification is now directly tied to national resilience - Ukraine’s solar microgrids are keeping hospitals running through war.
Why This Matters: The clean energy transition isn’t just a moral or economic case, it’s a geopolitical one. Distributed electrons are the new deterrent.
Kismet: Refineries burn, pipelines burst, and oil tankers reroute. But the sun still rises every morning, and that’s the best kind of energy security there is. 👉 Full story here
Climate Confident:
The 60-Million-Home Challenge: Electrifying the American Dream
In this week’s Climate Confident episode, I sat down with Grant Gunnison, NASA and MIT alum turned founder of Zero Homes, who’s tackling one of climate’s hardest puzzles, how to electrify every home on the planet without bankrupting contractors or confusing homeowners. His answer? A smartphone scan, a digital twin, and a total rethink of how we buy heat pumps, cookers, and water heaters.
Highlights:
Zero Homes replaces in-person assessments with AI-driven 3D home scans, slashing project costs by ~10%.
The platform helps homeowners design and price electrification projects entirely remotely, from heat pumps to induction hobs.
Verified by the U.S. Department of Energy, the tech is accurate enough to replace traditional site visits entirely.
Why This Matters: If the U.S. alone has 60 million fossil-fuelled homes, scaling electrification means scaling trust, tech, and design, not just wiring.
Kismet: Grant’s software doesn’t just model buildings — it quietly rewrites the psychology of home upgrades. No more awkward “stranger at your kitchen table” quotes. Just data, design, and decarbonisation. 🎧 Listen to the full episode
Btw, Grant told me yesterday he has 12 open positions for anyone looking to be involved in his story. If you’re interested, check out the roles here https://jobs.lever.co/zerohomes
Sustainable Supply Chain:
Why Fleet Sustainability Starts With the Small Guys
In this week’s Sustainable Supply Chain episode, I spoke with Naeem Bari, Co-founder, and Chief Product Officer at Linxup, about how telematics - the once enterprise-only tool for big logistics firms, is now transforming small and mid-sized fleets. Think “the iPhone of telematics”: plug-and-play vehicle tracking, AI-powered driver coaching, and real-time maintenance alerts that cut both costs and carbon.
Highlights:
Linxup’s users drove 6% more miles while burning 9% less fuel, thanks to better visibility and fewer idling hours.
Dash cams and driver-scoring tools improve safety while preventing insurance fraud, one customer cut 373,000 idle hours in a year.
AI-powered insights are on the way, automating exception handling and driver rewards.
Why This Matters: Big fleets get the headlines, but the real decarbonisation opportunity sits with the millions of small operators running a handful of trucks, where saving fuel is saving the planet.
Kismet: Between July 2024 and 2025, Linxup’s small-fleet customers cut 1,650 tonnes of CO₂ simply by driving smarter. Sometimes climate action really is that literal.
🎧 Listen to the full episode
Coming Soon to the podcasts
BREAKING: The Sustainable Supply Chain podcast is rebranding. The episode above with Naeem was the final episode under the Sustainable Supply Chain brand. Starting next week, the Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast becomes the Resilient Supply Chain podcast - because a supply chain can’t truly be sustainable unless it’s resilient, nor resilient unless it’s sustainable. Resilience is the new sustainability - and if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that only adaptable supply chains survive.
If anyone wants to reach out to me to talk about the change, suggest topics/guests, etc, feel free. Just hit Reply on this email!
In the coming episodes I will be talking to Richard Savoie, CEO of Adiona, and Addison Stark, CEO of AtmosZero.
Don’t forget to follow the podcasts in your podcast app of choice to ensure you don’t miss any episodes.
Featured Chart
China is well ahead of most of the world in its transition to EVs (though Europe isn’t far behind!).
Lovely virtuous circle. Battery prices fall => they become more attractive to more organisations => demand increases => economies of scale, and learning curve means prices fall => they become more attractive…
Batteries are now having a huge impact on the electricity grid in California. They charge up during the day, soaking in a lot of the excess energy provided nice and cheaply by solar, and then they release that energy back into the grid in the evenings between 6pm to midnight significantly reducing the need for fossil fuel generation at this time by meeting over a quarter of the evening demand. It is like Tivo’ing your electricity (giving away me age now!).
Misc stuff
Would you let ChatGPT do your surgery?
The company whose lift was used in the Louvre robbery, wasted no time in capitalising on it with this ad!
Engage
If you made it this far, very well done! If you liked this newsletter, or learned something new, feel free to share this newsletter with family and friends. Encourage folks to sign up for it.
Finally, since being impacted by the tech layoffs, I'm currently in the market for a new role. If you know someone who could benefit from my tech savvy, sustainability, and strong social media expertise, I'd be really grateful for a referral.
If you have any comments or suggestions for how I can improve this newsletter, don’t hesitate to let me know. Thanks.
*** Be aware that any typos you find in this newsletter are tests to see who is paying attention! ***
And Finally
It is that time of year again - Happy Halloween
What would a doughnut fear?!!!
I can definitely sympathise with this one!
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