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Oxylus Energy achieves ‘beautiful balance’ in producing e-fuels for aviation and shipping

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Oxylus Energy strikes “beautiful balance” to make e-fuels for aviation and shipping

Many airlines and shipping firms say they are going to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but they don’t yet have a transparent path to attain this goal.

Scientifically, divesting these industries of fossil fuels is feasible; economically, it isn’t. Or no less than not yet, the young startup claims. Oxylus Energy believes he holds the important thing to 1 a part of the equation.

The company was spun out of Yale’s chemistry lab last 12 months and is working to perfect the production of so-called green methanol. Currently, most methanol comes from fossil fuels and is used to make petrochemicals, although it might probably even be used as a transportation fuel. Because of this flexibility, green methanol, which is made without fossil fuels, could free many industries from carbon pollution.

“We think this is one of the most versatile chemicals that can really decarbonize the hard-to-reduce sectors of shipping, aviation, and petrochemicals, which currently account for 11% of emissions,” co-founder and COO Harrison Meyer told TechCrunch.

While electric vehicles have entered consumer and heavy trucking, flying and heavy shipping are entirely depending on energy-hungry fossil fuels to make long-distance journeys. Batteries are too heavy, and switching every little thing to green hydrogen would require expensive retrofitting of planes and ships.

Motorsport fans will note that methanol has been used as a racing fuel for many years, and lots of today’s internal combustion engines can burn the substance with minor modifications. Some ocean-going vessels also I made a changeand while a barrel of methanol doesn’t contain as much energy as other marine fuels like diesel, it’s close enough that the industry is seriously considering its use.

Airlines face a rather greater hurdle because they need green methanol refined right into a form that more closely resembles today’s jet fuel, which might drive up the value.

But what2 savings only come when the methanol itself is produced in a low-emission way. That’s where Oxylus comes in.

Green methanol production is pricey today since it is a multi-step process, and each energy-intensive step is carried out using expensive equipment. Just one in every of these steps, the extraction of green hydrogen, accounts for about 16% of the whole cost, in accordance with Lux Research.

Oxylus Energy’s technology bypasses the necessity for green hydrogen by utilizing a cobalt-based catalyst to facilitate the chemical response needed to supply methanol. The catalyst sits inside an electrolyzer, which uses electricity to separate water and carbon dioxide molecules. Once separated, the hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon atoms mix to form methanol (CH3OH) and oxygen (O2). All of this happens at standard room temperature and pressure, which helps keep costs low.

“As is the case in CO2 electrolysis, you’re always fighting to produce hydrogen,” said CTO Conor Rooney. If too many hydrogen atoms mix to form hydrogen molecules (H2), there’s not enough leftover to make methanol. The chemical structure of the Oxylus catalyst helps steer the response in the appropriate direction, allowing methanol to form when hydrogen is released from the water. “You have to have that beautiful balance,” Rooney said.

Methanol produced by Oxylus will be utilized by the chemical industry to supply a spread of common chemicals, including formaldehyde and acetic acid. With some additional processing and refining, it might probably be transformed right into a sustainable aviation fuel.

The startup told TechCrunch exclusively that it recently raised $4.5 million in a seed round led by Toyota Ventures and Azolla Ventures with participation from Earth Foundry and Connecticut Innovations. The funding will go toward constructing a production-scale reactor that the corporate hopes will help prove its aggressive pricing goals.

“At the renewable energy prices that are contractable today, we will be at or below cost parity with fossil methanol,” said CEO Perry Bakas. “The fundamental question is, can we build a system in the next few years? That’s really a time and money issue that we’re really focused on.”

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Columbus says ransomware gang stole personal information of 500,000 Ohioans

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The city of Columbus, the capital of Ohio, confirmed that hackers stole the personal information of 500,000 residents during a July ransomware attack.

In filing In an interview with Maine’s attorney general, Columbus confirmed that a “foreign threat actor” breached its network to access information including residents’ names, dates of birth, addresses, identification documents, social security numbers and checking account information .

Ohio’s most populous city, with about 900,000 people, said about half 1,000,000 people were affected, even though it didn’t confirm the precise number of victims.

The regulatory filing comes after Columbus was the goal of a ransomware attack on July 18 this 12 months by city officials he claimed “thwart” it by disconnecting your network from the Internet.

Rhysida, the ransomware gang accountable for last 12 months’s cyber attack on the British Library, claimed responsibility for the August attack on Columbus. At the time, the gang said it had stolen 6.5 terabytes of data from the Ohio city, including “databases, internal employee logins and passwords, a full server dump of city emergency services applications, and … access from city video cameras,” in response to local news reports.

Rhysida demanded 30 bitcoins, or roughly $1.9 million on the time of the cyberattack, as payment for the stolen data.

Two weeks after the cyberattack, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther told the general public that the stolen data was likely “corrupted” and “unusable.”

The accuracy of Ginther’s statement was called into query the day after David Leroy Ross, a cybersecurity researcher also often called Connor Goodwolf, revealed that the personal information of a whole lot of 1000’s of Columbus residents had been placed on the dark web.

In September, Columbus sued Ross, alleging that it “threatened to make stolen city data available to third parties who otherwise would not have readily available means to obtain stolen city data.” A judge issued a brief restraining order against Ross, stopping him from accessing the stolen data.

In a listing published Monday by TechCrunch on the leak site, Rhysida claims to have transferred 3.1 terabytes of “unsold” data stolen from Columbus, amounting to greater than 250,000 files.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Threads now has 275 million monthly active users

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A phone is seen running the Instagram Threads app by Meta in this photo illustration.

Meta’s social network, Threads, now has 275 million monthly active users (MAUs), the corporate said on Sunday.

“Yesterday we passed 275 million monthly active users on @Threads. We would like to thank everyone who helped us get this far. There is a lot more to do and a lot to fix, but there is something exciting about this place.” he said Adam Mosseri, the director of Meta who runs Threads and Instagram.

Launched in July 2023 to capitalize on the tens of millions of users leaving X after Elon Musk purchased the platform, Threads quickly gained users and has turn out to be one in all the most important text-first social networks today. The platform reached 150 million MAU in April and 200 million MAU in August, which suggests it has gained 75 million active users in only 3 months.

Last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in the course of the company’s conference call following its third-quarter 2024 earnings that one million people were signing up for Threads daily.

While user acquisition on the platform is trending upwards, Threads has been battling plenty of issues moderation issues that frustrated users.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Affirm is launching the product in the UK as the buy now, pay later market faces regulatory changes

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Affirm co-founder and CEO Max Levchin

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) giant Confirm launches in the UK, its first market outside North America.

Its long-awaited arrival comes as UK lawmakers consider latest rules to align BNPL corporations with other traditional consumer credit services, although such rules are usually not expected to return into force until at the least 2026 — long enough for Affirm to achieve traction and gain favor with consumers and regulators alike.

Founded in 2012, Affirm emerged from a startup incubator called HVF, founded by the co-founder of PayPal Max Levchin (pictured above), who eventually took the reins of Affirm in 2014 to fuel its industrial growth. The company has expanded beyond the US and Canada in 2022and has forged lucrative partnerships with major e-commerce corporations over the years — Affirm has been Shopify’s premier financial partner for nearly a decade, not to say Walmart and Amazon, which last yr chosen Affirm as its first Amazon Pay BNPL partner in the U.S. . Recently, Affirm also acquired the mighty Apple as a client.

“Debt normalization”

The BNPL model is easy: customers are encouraged to buy goods on credit, repaying the debt in several interest-free installments, and the BNPL provider makes money from merchant fees. Or, if the customer may require an extended repayment period, the loan may include interest.

The BNPL market has long been on the radar of UK regulators, with existing operators such as Klarna and Clearpay often criticized for encouraging impulse purchases and debt normalization. So far, this has been done by the British Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). certain powers to manage BNPL providersbut there are key exceptions, such as interest-free credit services, where fixed-amount contracts provide for debt repayment inside 12 months.

However, latest rules which are in the pipeline could bring BNPL corporations fully into line with other consumer credit corporations. The Labor government last month announced a brand new BNPL consultation with plans to introduce regulations to “ensure people using BNPL products have clear information, avoid overpriced loans and have strong rights when problems arise”.

It’s clear that Affirm is already attempting to position itself favorably with each customers and authorities. Indeed, for the UK launch, the company notes that its interest-bearing payment options won’t include compound interest – as a substitute, the interest shall be fixed and calculated in full on the original amount borrowed.

It’s also value noting that Klarna began charging late fees last yr in the UK, and this is one area where Affirm goals to distinguish itself – it says it won’t charge late fees or another “hidden fees”.

Directly

It’s been a difficult few years for the BNPL sector. Klarna was valued at over $45 billion in 2021, a figure that quickly dropped by 85% to $6.5 billion following the great post-pandemic “correction” that many corporations have experienced. However, last week news broke that Klarna was being priced rose again to $14.6 billion. It’s been a similarly tumultuous time for Affirm, whose ups and downs have followed a trajectory harking back to its European rival.

After its 2021 IPO, Affirm’s market capitalization reached a staggering $47 billion, but the company’s stock has taken an enormous hit, with its market capitalization dipping below $3 billion in the past yr. However, Affirm’s stock has soared to over $13 billion in 2024, and the company is listed on NASDAQ the company recently reported fourth quarter year-over-year revenue growth of 48% and losses decreased from $206 million to $45 million. Levchin also projected profitability in 2025.

We’ve known for a while that Affirm’s next port of call outside the US and Canada can be the UK, and the company’s chief revenue officer Wayne Pommen is the record holder say it will deal with markets where a few of its largest existing partners are already present.

For a UK launch, it doesn’t have any of the big name brands it has in the domestic market, but the proven fact that it counts the likes of Amazon, Shopify and Apple amongst its US customers means it would not be an enormous deal. For now, nonetheless, Affirm intends to operate in the market through flight booking site Alternative Airlines and payment processor Fexco, and “additional UK and international brands are expected to follow.”

In preparation for today’s launch, Affirm told TechCrunch it has already hired roughly 30 employees, including Ruth Spratt who manages the local branch and at the same time plans to extend employment by the end of the yr. And much like your individual “remote first” ethos elsewhereemployees are usually not tied to a selected physical hub.

The company didn’t confirm its next expansion plans in Europe or elsewhere, but said it will “take the same disciplined approach” it has all the time taken to future expansion.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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