How Boston’s tech companies are coping with climate change

The sector plays a major role in the state’s tech economy, accounting for nearly $1 in $5 invested by venture capitalists in Massachusetts last year. That’s $3.5 billion claimed by clean-tech firms in the state, according to data from research firm Clitech Group, out of $19.5 billion invested in Massachusetts companies by 2022. At least half a dozen entrepreneurs The Boston Globes Tech Power Players 50 list comes from the clean energy sector.

While overall capital investment has fallen sharply amid a slowdown in economic activity, domestic cleaning companies are expanding rapidly. Anthony Deorsey, research manager at Celetech Group, expects venture capital to flow to Massachusetts companies tackling the most critical challenges in energy, from advanced batteries to the ultimate in clean energy—nuclear fusion.

“Given the urgency of climate change, there is little appetite globally for risk taking on these technologies,” says Deorce. “You have some potential global leaders in Greater Boston.

Here are three places to watch.

Potential energy

The chaos in the capital markets caused by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank did not hurt Woburn battery maker Factory Energy, which raised $220 million. Batteries are essential to powering the transportation sector, which generates more than a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

A manufacturer is making batteries safer by replacing the flammable liquid in lithium-ion batteries with a hard plastic-like material. Solid-state batteries like Factorial promise to deliver more energy per pound than current designs.

The plant is building a pilot plant in Methu to produce batteries for trials by automakers such as Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Kia and Chrysler parent Stellar. When it starts up later this year, the plant is expected to produce enough batteries to power 1,000 EVs each year. “We see great potential to become a strong national player in the next five to 10 years,” said Siu Huang, CEO of the factory.

But batteries are not just for cars. Somerville-based Form Energy is building giant batteries to store electricity produced by wind, solar and other intermittent renewable energy sources and connect that electricity to the grid for homes and businesses.

The company, which recently raised $450 million in venture funding, makes its batteries from metals that are not readily available, such as cobalt, which is used in today’s batteries. Iron is one of the most abundant – and cheapest – materials on Earth. It also has the advantage of being non-flammable and non-toxic.

In January, Form Energy signed a contract with Midwestern utility Xcel Energy to build energy storage units in Minnesota and Colorado, each with a capacity of 10 megawatts. Each project could store enough electricity to power about 8,000 homes — and give Form Energy batteries a real-world workout.

The energy revolution

The Cambridge company, meanwhile, is pursuing what could be called the ultimate solar power: fusion. For decades, scientists have dreamed of a nuclear fusion plant to produce safe, clean, and limitless energy. But no one has yet commercialized a technology that generates energy by forcing atoms together—the same process that powers the sun. But Commonwealth Fusion Systems says it expects to turn on a prototype fusion plant in 2025 or 2026, potentially revolutionizing the energy industry.

Commonwealth CEO Bob Mumgaard described the fusion reactor as “a star in a bottle.” But building the bottle — a magnetic field that can contain millions of heat-generating reactions — is the biggest challenge. Any magnet that has the power to do its work will absorb more power than the reactor produces.

A new ceramic material may provide the answer. Commonwealth Fusion, a nearly $2 billion partnership from Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Google and European energy companies Eni and Equinor, is assembling a variety of ceramic magnets that can generate a powerful magnetic field while using relatively little energy and solve the bottleneck problem. .

“Green Metal”

New England is not blast furnace country. Boston Steel in Woburn, however, is developing a process to refine iron ore into steel without spewing greenhouse gases. About 9 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions come from steelmaking.

Steel is made by feeding large blast furnaces with coal called coke, which is rich in carbon. Coke reacts with oxygen to extract iron from the ore, but it also produces millions of tons of CO2. But Boston Metals uses electricity to refine the steel without producing the carbon emissions created by traditional steelmaking — a feat that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, said Tade Carneiro, CEO of Boston Metals.

But with a chromium-based electrode material invented at MIT, the company is releasing small amounts of carbon-free metals known as “green metals.”

“I’m manufacturing steel in Woburn, Mass.,” says Carneiro. “No one knows!”

It’s no longer a secret. Boston Metal has attracted the attention of investors including Gates and metals giant ArcelorMittal. They put about $220 million into the company.

Boston Metals is looking for a site to build its first commercial-scale factory. It may not be in Massachusetts, but wherever he ends up, Carneiro plans to move up quickly. “We will be commercial by 2026,” he says.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at hiawatha.bray@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter. @GlobeTechLab.