Microsoft, JP MorganChase, and a consortium that includes Alphabet, Meta, Shopify, and Stripe have signed multimillion-dollar agreements to pay paper mill operators to install carbon scrubbing equipment and capture at least hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide. The captured gas will be transported to saline aquifers more than a mile underground for permanent storage. This strategy, known as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS, is attracting a surge of interest from big tech. While momentum is building, experts have raised concerns about the approach and its broader implications.
Meanwhile, Kairos Power is emerging as a standout among next-generation nuclear startups. Unlike many peers, the company already has prototypes under construction and holds permits for several reactors. Its reactors use molten salt for cooling and heat transfer, in contrast to the high-pressure water systems used in today’s fission plants. Kairos Power aims to deliver commercial units that are cost-competitive with natural gas and designed for safer operation, even in the event of total power loss. The company features on an annual list of notable climate tech firms to watch.
This edition also spotlights a narrated feature on the uncertain fate of millions of frozen embryos created through IVF. Their numbers continue to rise due to advancing technology, the growing popularity of IVF, and improved success rates. An embryo is a ball of roughly a hundred cells, yet many argue it carries a special moral status due to its potential for life. With no consensus on that status, patients, clinicians, embryologists, and lawmakers are left to wrestle with what these embryos mean and who bears responsibility for them. The story is available via MIT Technology Review’s narrated podcast on major platforms.
The must-reads round up a broad sweep of tech headlines: OpenAI plans to let ChatGPT produce erotica for verified adults and has formed a wellness council, while reporting explores how easy it is to form relationships with an Artificial Intelligence chatbot. Other investigations detail a covert surveillance network called First Wap, YouTube’s handling of Israel-funded ads in Gaza, and Instagram’s new teen-focused age-gating that will also apply to its chatbots. Additional items include Waymo bringing driverless taxis to London next year, the fallout from a race-based kidney calculation that hurt Black patients, nonprofits using Artificial Intelligence flood forecasting to aid farmers, advances in brain-computer interfaces, and the resilience of tech internships. A quoted reaction from Senator Josh Hawley underscores heated debate over OpenAI’s policy shifts, and a final piece revisits B.F. Skinner’s pigeon research as an antecedent to modern Artificial Intelligence.
