Crypto News: Billionaires blotting out the sun

Today's newsletter looks at an idea taking hold in Silicon Valley: dimming the sun to turn down the heat, and the sci-fi inspiration behind it. You can read and share a full version of this story on Bloomberg.com. For unlimited access to climate and energy news, please subscribe.

By Sophie Alexander

Silicon Valley is developing shiny solutions to cut carbon emissions. But an increasing number of investors and founders are planning for a bleaker future where we need to cool the Earth by blocking the sun. They see two potential fates, and both are premises of science fiction novels: Kim Stanley Robinson's 2020 The Ministry for the Future and Neal Stephenson's 2021 Termination Shock.

These novels came up regularly as I explored the growing Silicon Valley fascination with what's known as solar geoengineering or solar radiation management.

In The Ministry for the Future, unheard of heat kills millions in India. With no other option, the country turns to geoengineering to protect its citizens from climate change. Termination Shock explores what happens when a billionaire decides to block the sun by building the world's largest gun to shoot sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere before the worst effects of a heating planet kick in.

While dimming the sun to cool the Earth is an incredibly controversial idea, it's becoming a go-to area for tech philanthropists.

"We have no opportunity for survival on this planet unless you reflect back sunlight," said Chris Sacca, a venture capitalist who's invested in Uber, Twitter and Instagram, at a 2023 event in New York. "If we don't do it as a species, it's all over."

He's just one of the tech elite funding research, experiments and small deployments of the technology. Proclaiming that it's geoengineering or doom might sound dramatic. But deploying it might not be so far-fetched.

"If there is a planetary emergency and if we need to bring the global temperatures down within a couple of years, the only option is solar engineering," said Govindasamy Bala, one of the first researchers to model the impacts.

The problem is while we know solar geoengineering would almost certainly cool the globe, we don't know very much about the societal and environmental impacts beyond that. The tech world's move fast and break things mentality is concerning in the face of conducting a planetary experiment. But for some in Silicon Valley, we're not moving fast enough.

Termination Shock was the inspiration for Make Sunsets, a startup that launches sulfur dioxide-filled balloons and sells "cooling credits." The company is a thorn in the side of a lot of the academics and nonprofit leaders I talked to, who see it as little more than a political stunt that's eroding trust.

Neal Stephenson told me he hoped anyone inspired by his book would read the whole thing because there's no "happily ever after." But Luke Iseman, Make Sunsets' co-founder, says he's just trying to do something to solve climate change while everyone else drags their feet.

Read the full story, including a list of who's funding research and startups looking to block the sun. Subscribe for even more key climate and energy news.

3.1C

The amount of warming the world is headed toward before the end of the century based on current policies. Little progress has been made to cut emissions, raising the stakes of radical climate interventions.

"These technologies introduce new risks to people and ecosystems, while they could also increase power imbalances between nations, spark conflicts and [raise] a myriad of ethical, legal, governance and political issues."

The European Commission

The bloc announced a framework last year to assess climate risk, including potential dangers of re-engineering the atmosphere.

BloombergNEF's annual Pioneers competition for innovative startups is accepting applications until November 1. The awards have been run for more than a decade, and the challenge areas for 2025 include decarbonizing light industry, improving climate adaptation and building next-generation energy storage. You can read more about this year's winners.

As Republican and Democratic canvassers make their final push to get out the US vote, the famed tech investor Vinod Khosla has been making the case for Vice President Kamala Harris with a very specific audience in mind: Elon Musk. On the social media platform owned by his fellow billionaire, Khosla has pressed the case in a series of X posts that former President Donald Trump is the wrong candidate for the future of the planet. Although Khosla is a former Republican, he says in an interview that he will be voting for Harris. But he doesn't expect tech investors to see much fallout no matter who wins. "I don't think there'll be any difference in policy between the two when it comes to tech."

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After two weeks of number-crunching, it now seems clear that investors in catastrophe bonds emerged from Hurricane Milton relatively unscathed.

In fact, holders of the bonds may be looking at returns of as much as 12%, according to Zurich-based asset manager and catastrophe-bond specialist Plenum Investments AG.

Before Milton struck just south of Tampa on Oct. 9 as a Category 3 hurricane, the market for catastrophe bonds had been bracing for losses as steep as 15%, dwarfing those triggered by Hurricane Ian two years earlier. In the event, losses from Milton will likely be closer to 1%, possibly even less.

Plenum managing partner Dirk Schmelzer said that even though Milton made landfall close to the metropolitan area of Tampa, losses from the storm were smaller than anticipated because it had a smaller hurricane-force wind field, a lower storm surge and a much higher traveling speed, which meant less time to inflict damage.

A damaged building after Hurricane Milton in St. Pete Beach, Florida. Photographer: Tristan Wheelock/Bloomberg

Fast-moving wildfires are becoming more common. And they're responsible for nearly 80% of homes and other structures destroyed in conflagrations in the US over the past two decades, according to a first-of-its-kind study.

Canada is pulling back EV subsidies at an awkward time. Government officials looking at large budget deficits are now reining in the use of taxpayer cash, right as automakers like GM are planning to ramp up production and sales.

Russia won't have enough Arctic-ready ships. Its facing a deficit of ice-class cargo vessels for its gigantic Northern Sea Route project, according to Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev. Shipyards have the capacity to construct only 16 more Arctic cargo vessels by 2030 out of at least 70 needed.

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