| By Jennifer Zabasajja, Loni Prinsloo, and Linda Lew Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD plans to invest in as many as 300 fast-charging stations in South Africa by the end of 2026 as it ramps up efforts to expand globally, Executive Vice President Stella Li told Bloomberg TV an interview. BYD is also in the initial stages of building out dealerships in the country, she said. The company that holds about a fifth of the world’s electric vehicle market share is “double and tripling” down on building out its dealership network and fast-charging infrastructure in South Africa, she said.  Stella Li Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg “This is big money, this is a big investment,” Li said referring to the charging facilities. South Africa “is an important market for us.” The company is grappling with a fierce China price war that is eroding its market dominance at home. The EV behemoth experienced its first monthly sales decline in 18 months in September, losing the title of China’s best-selling brand in the period. Read the full story on Bloomberg.com and subscribe to Green Daily for more exclusive content on electric vehicles. By Todd Woody Professor Omar Yaghi won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for a scientific breakthrough that his startup is now on the verge of commercializing. Its technology harvests water from the atmosphere in an increasingly arid world, with the global recognition set to give it a boost. “He has always been highly regarded in the scientific community, but the Nobel Prize gives us additional validation in the business world and simplifies the communication of what we are doing,” said Samer Taha, chief executive officer of Atoco, the Irvine, California, company Yaghi founded in 2020. Taha expects the Nobel to also spark interest among investors, though Atoco declined to comment on the company’s fundraising efforts.  Nobel Prize winner Omar Yaghi is the founder of Atoco. Photographer: Atoco Atoco, which will start taking orders for its water harvester in the second half of 2026, is targeting data centers as the artificial intelligence boom stresses water supplies across the US. The company is also focusing on supplying water to green hydrogen plants and communities in drought-afflicted regions of the world. The harvesters don’t require electricity and can produce ultrapure water using just ambient sunlight or waste heat from data centers and other industrial facilities. Read the full story, and go even deeper with our 2024 profile of Atoco. A Bay Area startup has turned on the world’s largest industrial heat battery. Rondo Energy is helping power Holmes Western Oil’s enhanced oil recovery system. Holmes replaced one of its natural gas-fired boilers at a project in Kern County, California, with a 20-megawatt solar array paired with Rondo’s 100-megawatt-hour battery, which heats up clay bricks with electricity to generate steam that’s then used to force oil from the ground. Critics argue that deploying clean tech to produce fossil fuels prolongs the life of carbon-emitting infrastructure. Rondo investor Andy Lubershane, a partner at Energy Impact Partners, views it differently. For clean tech startups like Rondo, “it’s hard to find a customer to do your first commercial project,” he said. “Having a partner like Holmes that has an interest in decarbonization” is critical to scaling technology. Using renewables and a heat battery lowers the carbon footprint of the project.  Rondo’s heat battery in operation. Photo courtesy of Rondo New scientific research shows emissions cuts pledged in the context of the Paris Agreement moderated the planet’s warming trajectory to 2.6C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, from previous forecasts of as much as 4C. Singapore’s parliament passed a bill introducing a fixed levy on departing flights to cut emissions and support the use of sustainable aviation fuel by airlines.  A Tesla Cybertruck is reflected in a side view mirror Photographer: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg There’s always big ideas in the climate technology space, but it can be hard to get your head around all the different types of technologies making waves. What’s real and what’s low-carbon smoke and mirrors? This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi teams up with venture capitalist and Catalyst podcast host Shayle Kann to talk about which climate technologies are working, and which are going nowhere. Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday. | 
