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Google tests carbon removal financing

Deals of the week

Temperature check

Percent of the week: 5%

Google created a new project financing template for carbon removal, with a deal it hopes can help grow the emerging sector.

Why it matters: The carbon removal industry has struggled this year after the industry's dominant buyer, Microsoft, paused deals.

Driving the news: Google announced its largest carbon removal deal to date Wednesday with Terradot, a startup that plans to deploy climate projects on rice farms in Brazil.

Terradot's projects will deliver Google 1 million tons of carbon removal credits and 1 million tons of methane elimination credits by 2030.

How it works: First, Terradot works with rice farmers to adopt an environmentally friendly irrigation practice called alternate wetting and drying (AWD) that periodically drains flooded paddies and reduces methane emissions.

Terradot then spreads crushed volcanic rock on the same fields to deliver enhanced rock weathering, which captures carbon dioxide.

The methane reduction happens quickly, while the carbon removal is slower, "fitting together like puzzle pieces to limit the peak and duration of global temperature overshoot," Randy Spock, Google's head of carbon removal, tells Axios Pro.

Zoom in: There's also a project financing angle with the two parts.

⏳ Nuclear engineering firm Holtec postponed what was expected to be one of the largest energy IPOs of the year, citing "market conditions." Go deeper

That decision reflects a valuable lesson that investors keep relearning: Bringing a reactor online remains one of the hardest tasks in energy.

🪨 Exclusive: Mazama Energy, a superhot geothermal energy developer, closed $135 million in Series B funding and grants. Go deeper

⚡️ Exclusive: Industrial heat-to-electricity startup Kanin Energy raised $60 million in Series A funding from investors including S2G Investments and the Canada Growth Fund. Go deeper 

🔈Exclusive: Treble Technologies, an Icelandic developer of acoustic simulation, raised $18m in Series A extension funding. Go deeper

🤖 Anthropic's S-1 is imminent, but its sustainability metrics are nascent. Go deeper

🔋 Exclusive: Commercial battery startup Branch Energy raised a $33 million Series B. Go deeper

🏛️ Billionaire energy investor John Arnold is pushing Congress to pass a permitting overhaul this fall to speed construction of new energy infrastructure. Go deeper

🚘 Zach Kirkhorn plans to use more than a decade of experience leading teams at Tesla to help next-gen transformer startup Heron Power scale manufacturing. Go deeper

🔥 Exclusive: Fourth Power, which is developing grid batteries that store energy as heat, has begun commissioning its first demonstration plant outside Boston. Go deeper

1 big thing: Google tests carbon removal financing

Illustration of the words CO2 behind cut out of a sky by a pair of scissors

👉 GO HERE TO CATCH UP on deals this week. 

• Crusoe, a Denver-based data center developer that's been speaking to banks about an IPO, raised $3.9b at a $30.9b post-money valuation. Atreides Management, Mubadala Capital and Valor Equity Partners led. Go deeper

Flashback: Crusoe raises $3.9b in a pre-IPO round, Axios Pro reported Sept. 4.

• Impulse Space, a developer of space tugs, raised $308m in Series D extension funding (round total $808m) from 137 Ventures, Banner VC, DFJ Growth, Linse Capital, Lux Capital and Valor Equity Partners. Go deeper

• EnduroSat, a Bulgarian satellite manufacturer, raised $205m. Riot Ventures and Atreides Management led, joined by the European Innovation Council, GV, Founders Fund and Lux Capital. Go deeper

2. Deals of the week

Illustration of an electric plug in the shape of a lasso around the words "Energy and climate deals roundup"

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

💸 Climate Week and climate costs: Expect plenty of conversation at the annual NYC gathering to focus on soaring energy prices, Amy Harder writes in Future of Energy.

Two reports this week show how affordability is reshaping the energy transition: S&P Global found that the world's most ambitious climate targets are increasingly out of reach, particularly in developing economies where affordability and security are cementing their place as top priorities.

The U.S. Energy Storage Coalition meanwhile framed its entire report around affordability, estimating that broad storage deployment could save the U.S. power system at least $250 billion over the next decade.

🚖 Robotaxi license: Wayve spent nearly a decade developing something radically different: licensing its autonomous tech instead of building cars or running its own robotaxi network.

Now it's working to turn the model into a viable business — just as rivals are starting to copy the approach they once ridiculed, Joann Muller reports in Future of Mobility.

👍/👎 Cybercab review: Our Axios Local colleague Asher Price booked a couple trips in Tesla's two-door, two-seat, no-steering-wheel Cybercab service.

The car felt plenty spacious, and pickups were quick, Price reports in Axios Austin, but it had trouble finding the correct destination. 

☀️ Distributed computing + solar: Rune is building distributed micro data centers that plug directly into solar and wind farms, using energy that would be wasted. 

It's part of the movement that data centers for inference will get smaller and more local as large centralized data centers face community backlash, grid queues and permitting challenges. 

3. Temperature check

Illustration of an ice cream cone with a melted puddle of ice cream that looks like the earth.

With the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury breaking above 5% this week, capital to build energy and climate tech infrastructure is getting more expensive.  

That will hit higher risk technologies and projects disproportionately, as lenders will still back hyperscalers and creditworthy long-term contracts.

4. Percent of the week: 5%

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September 19, 2026

1 big thing: Google tests carbon removal financing