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In an industrial park in North Las Vegas, near an Amazon warehouse and a waste storage facility, a new carbon removal plant is beginning to pull CO2 from the air and store it permanently. Called Project Juniper, its the first integrated plant of its kind in the U.S., meaning that it handles both carbon capture and storage in one place. (As a bonus, it also generates clean water.) Clairity Tech, the startup behind it, designed the new plant after raising a seed round of funding led by Initialized Capital and Lowercarbon Capital last year. After spending the last few months setting up the facility, it ran its full system for the first time last week. Founder Glen Meyerowitz, who previously worked on rocket and spacecraft propulsion testing at SpaceX, pivoted to carbon removal in 2022. As I look at it, this is really the existential threat of our time and the most important problem that needs to be addressed, he says. In order for the world to have any chance of meeting climate goals, CO2 needs to be captured from the air at a massive scale at the same time as the economy decarbonizes. As Meyerowitz researched the space, he saw an opportunity to take a slightly different approach than some other companies. The Clairity direct air capture reactor in Nevada [Photo: Clairity] First, Clairity uses a different material to capture CO2 from the air. Its in the same family as baking soda, Meyerowitz says. The materials are produced in millions of tons per year for a range of applications. Its abundant, cheap, and after its filled with CO2, it takes relatively little energy to remove it. Unlike some other chemicals used for direct air capture, it doesnt degrade, so it can also be used longer. The plants are cheap enough to build that they dont have to run continuously to make economic sense. That means that its also possible to run on cheap, intermittent solar power from the grid. (The caveat: The company will be competing with data centers that also want to run on renewable energy and may be willing to pay more.) Sorbent cartridge being inserted into adsorption station [Photo: Clairity] While many companies in the space plan to inject CO2 into underground wells, that system isnt ready yet in the U.S. Clairity is starting with another direction: adding the CO2 to materials. For example, if its combined with fly asha byproduct from coal power plantsit can be used to make lower-carbon concrete. It won’t be the first direct air capture company to use CO2 in concrete: A startup called Heirloom previously partnered with a cement company. But Clairity is unique in that it handles both steps itself. The CO2 can also be injected into other waste materials to permanently store it. Building an underground storage well costs millions of dollars, and the process of getting regulatory approval is slow; building the companys ex-situ mineralization equipment costs less than $70,000. Its at a much smaller scale, but it allows the company to begin storage now. We can actually deliver credits today and not from some future project, Meyerowitz says. Theres also the potential to make more money by selling value-added products rather than only selling credits for storage. The company expects to be one of two facilities in the world to deliver certified credits for carbon stored this year. The other, 4,000-plus miles away in Iceland, is Climeworks, which partners with a company called CarbFix to inject its captured CO2 into Icelands deep rock formations and naturally turn the CO2 into stone. Clairity chose Vegas as its first location for a few reasons. First, the particular sorbent it uses to capture the CO2 works best in an arid climate (some others, like Climeworkss, are better in humid climates). Nevada has abundant access to renewable power. The state has relatively little arable land, so there are more potential locations; the company plans to expand in Nevada and other parts of the Southwest. And because the companys process generates clean water on the side, theres also a potential market to sell that water to local utilities. (The water is produced when the company heats up its sorbent to release the captured CO2; water comes out at the same time and is separately stored.) You can imagine that in water-stressed Las Vegas, thats a really interesting side benefit, Meyerowitz says. For now, its operating on a tiny scale. Project Juniper can capture 100 metric tons of CO2 a year; society generated more than 40 billion tons of CO2 last year. Clairity’s cost right now is around $700 per ton of captured CO2which will need to dramatically decline to be feasible over the long term. (Federal tax credits currently help with the cost, and may be more likely to stay in place than some other climate-related incentives because of strong Republican support.) Despite the challenges, Meyerowitz believes it’s possible for the startup to scale up to an ambitious goal: 10 megatons of CO2 removal in the next decade, or 100,000 times more than its first project.
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E-Commerce
Every year, American cars hit a staggering 1 million large animals like deer and elk. In Californiaa roadkill hot spotvehicle collisions with animals cost more than $200 million every year.To address the problem, experts have long advocated for wildlife crossings that either span over high-speed freeways or burrow under them to help animals cross over safely. (The worlds largest wildlife crossing is set to open in 2026 in California, where it will help reconnect habitats bisected by the 10-lane 101 Freeway.) Other strategies involve reducing traffic or closing roads altogether at peak animal crossing times. Now, a new solution might be on the horizon, and it is mounted on the culprits themselves: cars.December 2024 marked the beginning of an ambitious experiment on the Japanese island of Amami Oshima. The island is known for its beautiful beaches, its handwoven silk, and a particularly dark-furred species of rabbit known as the Amami rabbit. Since 2004, the Amami rabbit has been an endangered species because logging and urban development have reduced its forest habitat, but also because the animals are often hit and killed by cars. According to Japans Ministry of the Environment, incidents involving Amami rabbits have increased for seven consecutive years, culminating in 147 deaths in 2023 alone.Three years ago, a team comprised of designers, government officials, researchers from three different universities in Japan, plus one automaker, set out to find a solution. The automaker? Nissan. The solution? A high-frequency alarm that is mounted at the front of the car to warn animals of its presence. The project, which was funded by Nissan, has been dubbed Animalert, and it is the brainchild of Tokyo-based ad agency studio TBWA\Hakuhodo.[Image: Nissan]An alert is bornThe story began while TBWA\Hakuhodo was working on a marketing campaign to promote the sound that Nissans EV cars make to alert pedestrians. (Stripped of the loud engines that come with their fuel-powered counterparts, electric vehicles are twice as likely to hit pedestrians.) Back in 2010, Nissan was one of the first automakers to introduce this kind of alert, which is known as a Vehicle Sound for Pedestrians, or VSP. But as Shuichiro Tsuchiya, project lead at TBWA\Hakuhodo, notes, not many people know they exist (hence the marketing campaign).[Image: Nissan]The team was brainstorming ideas when the news came out that Amami rabbits were being killed by cars at unprecedented rates. Almost immediately, they thought: could the vehicle sound for pedestrians be adapted to warn not just humans but animals, too?To find the answer, the team embarked on a journey that would end up taking more than three years. If the experiment proves successfuland enough automakers jump on the bandwagonthe technology could be expanded to work on other animals, and help reduce roadkill worldwide.A double-whammy marketing campaignAccording to Japans Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, more than 120,000 animals were killed on Japanese roads in 2022. The most commonly affected species were dogs and cats, closely followed by raccoon dogs, birds, and deer.Rabbits, in particularly those who live on Amami Oshima, were not on the list. Nonetheless, they were the perfect species for a pilot. Deer and other animals are scattered all over Japan, which would have made testing a new alarm with them difficult. We would need devices for hundreds of thousands of cars, Tsuchiya told me. The team only had one car at their disposal: a Nissan Sakura.Instead of launching a nationwide experiment, they narrowed down their focus on Amami Oshima, which covers about 275 square miles. The contained environment helped increase the teams chances of encountering rabbits. And becauselets not forgetthe project still doubled as a marketing campaign, it helped them weave a compelling story. That of a conscientious automaker working to save rabbits lives. Fine-tuning the sound From the very beginning, TBWA\Hakuhodo partnered with the Ministry of Environment and the Amami City Government, which helped speed up government approvals. They also partnered with three universities, particularly Masachika Tsuji from Okayama University of Sciences, who has previously studied sound as an animal deterrent. (Most recently, his team helped install speakers at three major airports in Japan, where each speaker emits high-frequency waves designed to deter birds from flying near the runways.)Together, the team worked to find the right range of high-frequency sounds. The exact frequency remains undisclosed, but the resulting sound is one that rabbits have never heard before because it doesnt exist in the natural world. Its almost like they encounter a ghost, Tsuchiya says.The team performed two initial tests. First, they ran tests at Nissans R&D lab, to determine the most suitable position for the speaker that would emit the sound. Then, they traveled the island, where they placed a speaker in a field where rabbits are known to live t gauge their initial response.The first experiment worked and the rabbits that were there left the field almost immediately. So, the team installed the speaker on the car, and took to the roads. Amami rabbits are nocturnal, so the team ran tests at night. So far, they have tested the speaker over the course of five nights, driving the car at 6 miles per hour between 10 p.m. and midnight. Each time they drove, they recorded the view in front of the car with a drive recorder, so they could analyze it later.The ripple effect So far, they have encountered about 100 rabbits. Tsuji, the professor, explains that the team also tested the sound on other animals including deer, wild boars, and birds. He says that the car-mounted alarm only lasts for a fleeting moment (as long as it takes for a car to pass by). That time is long enough to deter animals, but not long enough to harm them. And since sound gets absorbed by trees and grass, it only affects animals on or near the road. So far, the results are promising, but more research is necessary before they can make concrete claims or publish a paper. The team is yet to identify the exact radius within which Animalert would be most effective. (In the artificial conditions of a lab, they say it can go as far as 160 to 200 feet.) Also, they are yet to test the technology while driving at the local speed limit, which is about three times the speed they used during testing.For an animal alert like this to be effective, critical mass is key. Eventually, the team is hoping to develop various high-frequency sounds that can force other animals, like deer, to flee the road as a car approaches. These sounds could be switched on by the driver based on the animals that live in the area. Or more aspirationally, they could be automatically adjusted by the cars GPS.But for the technology to really make a dent and reduce roadkill worldwide, it would have to be implemented by as many automakers as possible. Like so many problems plaguing the world today, this is a problem that can only be addressed if competitors band together to solve the same goal.Still, Animalert is a promising start to a solution that could easily ripple across the industry. It would save many livesand many dollars, too.
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E-Commerce
As shoppers have turned to cheaper alternatives to beat inflation, retailers from CVS to Target and Walmart have invested heavily in their private-label brands over the past year, wrapping store-branded products in new design-forward packaging. A new report finds that retailers efforts have paid off. Private-label goods accounted for one in every four food and nonfood grocery products purchased in the U.S. last year, according to a report from the Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA), which also found that sales of private-label products in the U.S. topped $270 billion in 2024, a record. Once purposefully packaged with no frills to convey their low price, retailers’ private-label products have gone from generic discount off-brands to colorfully packaged, beloved brands in their own right designed to appeal to a wider consumer base and higher-income shoppers. [Photo: Target] Target, a leader in the private-label space, recently updated its Up&Up brand to more colorful packaging courtesy of the design agency Collins. It’s a brand that’s been around for a long time, has lots and lots of items, but it needed a refresh, Rick Gomez, Target’s chief commercial officer, said on the company’s most recent earnings call. And so we went in and invested in the brand, redesigned all the packaging graphics, took about 40% of the line and did product improvements, new fragrances, more sustainable packaging. To Gomez, it was a no-brainer. That’s what we think you need to do to keep brands contemporary and relevant, he said. [Image: Walmart] Competitors have taken notice. Late last year Walmart introduced Bettergoods, a private-label brand with bright, color-on-color packaging; product offerings include plant-based, organic, and gluten-free food meant to appeal to the high-income shoppers who’ve increasingly turned to Walmart since inflation spiked. Walmart said last year that high-income shoppers represented the majority of its share gains, telling Fast Company that the Bettergoods brand had a high repurchase rate. CVS’s private-label brand, Well Market, also launched last year and showed the trend extends to pharmacies too. [Image: CVS] While national brands accounted for more sales overall in 2024$1.3 trillion compared to more than $270 billion sold in store-brand products, according to the PLMA reportthe growth of private-label products has proven key for retailers aiming to lure customers into their stores. Sales of store-brand products in the U.S. rose nearly 4% from 2023 to 2024, while sales of national brands grew just 1% in the same time period, according to the report. Once viewed as cheap knockoffs, private-label brands have become mainstays for consumers and retailers alike.
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E-Commerce
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