“We are a licensed and regulated life insurance company that is entirely denominated in Bitcoin: we take premiums in Bitcoin, we pay claims in Bitcoin, we do reserving in Bitcoin, we have our solvency calculations in Bitcoin, and we do our financials in Bitcoin. I think to live up to what Satoshi’s whitepaper talks about—Bitcoin as a currency and economic engine, a means of exchange—it cannot all be held on our hardware wallets and buried in our backyards. Currency is movement, it’s use, it’s exchange. We believe that a crypto economy is the future. If you believe that, financial services will be needed for that economy. We see Meanwhile as building a fundamental cornerstone of Bitcoin financial services and helping to bring that vision to life.”

“A decade ago, the race to introduce a popular zero-emissions vehicle was anyone’s to win. “Go back to the 2010s, and the two technologies—electric and fuel cell—were very much talked about in the same breath,” says Colin McKerracher, head of the transportation team at BloombergNEF. Today, though, batteries are the clear front-runner. In 2023, global sales of battery electric vehicles topped 10 million, plus about 4 million plug-in hybrids. In that same period, only about 14,000 fuel-cell vehicles were sold worldwide. That means for every hydrogen-powered vehicle sold, 1,000 battery-powered ones were hitting the road. And the gap is widening, with EV sales growing by around a third in 2023 and sales of fuel-cell vehicle shrinking by roughly the same percentage. One of the central draws for fuel-cell vehicles is the speed and ease of fueling up at stations. Building those stations, though, has proved to be a challenge. Overall, hydrogen fueling infrastructure is seeing modest growth globally—but things have been going in the wrong direction in some key markets, including the hydrogen enclave that is California. Shell closed down all its hydrogen fueling stations for passenger vehicles in the state earlier this month, though the company will still operate some for heavy-duty vehicles. That follows similar closures across the state in late 2023.” (MIT Technology Review)

“The US Department of Defense has been an early adopter of solar power at its own facilities, especially out West where abundant space is available. Now the agency aims to deploy its buying power towards parts East. Earlier this month the DOD hooked up with the General Services Administration in a scheme to draw more renewable energy resources from a wide swath of the US, covering 65 million people in 14 Atlantic and Midwest states along with the District of Columbia, all with the aim of transitioning its facilities to 100% carbon free electricity.” (Clean Technica)