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I love the fresh start that comes with a new year. And one thing adding a boost to my January is our newest list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies.

In case you haven’t browsed this year’s list or a previous version, it features tech that’s either breaking into prominence or changing society. We typically recognize a range of items running from early-stage research to consumer technologies that folks are getting their hands on now.

As I was looking over the finished list this week, I was struck by something: While there are some entries from other fields that are three or even five years away, all the climate items are either newly commercially available or just about to be. It’s certainly apt, because this year in particular seems to be bringing a new urgency to the fight against climate change. We’re facing global political shifts and entering the second half of the decade. It’s time for these climate technologies to grow up and get out there.

Green steel

Steel is a crucial material for buildings and vehicles, and making it accounts for around 8% of global greenhouse-gas emissions. New manufacturing methods could be a huge part of cleaning up heavy industry, and they’re just on the cusp of breaking into the commercial market.

One company, called Stegra, is close to starting up the world’s first commercial green steel plant, which will make the metal using hydrogen from renewable sources. (You might know this company by its former name, H2 Green Steel, as we included it on our 2023 list of Climate Tech Companies to Watch.)

When I first started following Stegra a few years ago, its plans for a massive green steel plant felt incredibly far away. Now the company says it’s on track to produce steel at the factory by next year.

The biggest challenge in this space is money. Building new steel plants is expensive—Stegra has raised almost $7 billion. And the company’s product will be more expensive than conventional material, so it’ll need to find customers willing to pay up (so far, it has).

There are other efforts to clean up steel that will all face similar challenges around money, including another play in Sweden called Hybrit and startups like Boston Metal and Electra, which use different processes. Read more about green steel, and the potential obstacles it faces as we enter a new phase of commercialization, in this short blurb and in this longer feature about Stegra.

Cow burp remedies

Humans love burgers and steaks and milk and cheese, so we raise a whole bunch of cows. The problem is, these animals are among a group with a funky digestion process that produces a whole lot of methane (a powerful greenhouse gas). A growing number of companies are trying to develop remedies that help cut down on their methane emissions.

This is one of my favorite items on the list this year (and definitely my favorite illustration—at the very least, check out this blurb to enjoy the art).

There’s already a commercially available option right now: a feed additive called Bovaer from DSM-Firmenich that the company says can cut methane emissions by 30% in dairy cattle, and more in beef cattle. Startups are right behind with their own products, some of which could prove even better.

A key challenge all these companies face moving forward is acceptance: from regulatory agencies, farmers, and consumers. Some companies still need to go through lengthy and often expensive tests to show that their products are safe and effective. They’ll also need to persuade farmers to get on board. Some might also face misinformation that’s causing some consumers to protest these new additives.

Cleaner jet fuel

While planes crisscrossing the world are largely powered by fossil fuels, some alternatives are starting to make their appearance in aircraft.

New fuels, today mostly made from waste products like used cooking oil, can cut down emissions from air travel. In 2024, they made up about 0.5% of the fuel supply. But new policies could help these fuels break into new prominence, and new options are helping to widen their supply.

The key challenge here is scale. Global demand for jet fuel was about 100 billion gallons last year, so we’ll need a whole lot of volume from new producers to make a dent in aviation’s emissions.

To illustrate the scope, take LanzaJet’s new plant, opened in 2024. It’s the first commercial-scale facility that can make jet fuel with ethanol, and it has a capacity of about 9 million gallons annually. So we would need about 10,000 of those plants to meet global demand—a somewhat intimidating prospect. Read more in my write-up here.

From cow burps to jet fuel to green steel, there’s a huge range of tech that’s entering a new stage of deployment and will need to face new challenges in the next few years. We’ll be watching it all—thanks for coming along.

Now read the rest of The Spark

Related reading

Check out our full list of 2025’s Breakthrough Technologies here. There’s also a poll where you can vote for what you think the 11th item should be. I’m not trying to influence anyone’s vote, but I think methane-detecting satellites are pretty interesting—just saying … 

This package is part of our January/February print issue, which also includes stories on: 

• This system that’s tracking early warning signs of infection in wheat crops
• How wind could be a low-tech solution to help clean up shipping
• Efforts to use human waste in agriculture

Another thing 

EVs are (mostly) set for solid growth in 2025, as my colleague James Temple covers in his newest story. Check it out for more about what’s next for electric vehicles, including what we might expect from a new administration in the US and how China is blowing everyone else out of the water. 

Keeping up with climate  

Winter used to be the one time of year that California didn’t have to worry about wildfires. A rapidly spreading fire in the southern part of the state is showing that’s not the case anymore. (Bloomberg)

Tesla’s annual sales decline for the first time in over a decade. Deliveries were lower than expected for the final quarter of the year. (Associated Press)

Meanwhile, in China, EVs are set to overtake traditional cars in sales years ahead of schedule. Forecasts suggest that EVs could account for 50% of car sales this year. (Financial Times)

KoBold metals raised $537 million in funding to use AI to mine copper. The funding pushes the startup’s valuation to $2.96 billion. (TechCrunch)
→ Read this profile of the company from 2021 for more. (MIT Technology Review)

We finally have the final rules for a tax credit designed to boost hydrogen in the US. The details matter here. (Heatmap)

China just approved the world’s most expensive infrastructure project. The hydroelectric dam could produce enough power for 300 million people, triple the capacity of the current biggest dam. (Economist)

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter installed 32 solar panels on the White House’s roof. Although they came down just a few years later, the panels lived multiple lives afterward. I really enjoyed reading about this small piece of Carter’s legacy in the wake of his passing. (New York Times)

An open pit mine in California is the only one in the US mining and extracting rare earth metals including neodymium and praseodymium. This is a fascinating look at the site. (IEEE Spectrum) 
→ I wrote about efforts to recycle rare earth metals, and what it means for the long-term future of metal supply, in a feature story last year. (MIT Technology Review)