The Government Wants These Clean Tech Companies to Die. Their Founders Say: Not So Fast

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By CHLOE AIELLO AND SAM BLUM, Inc. 

Excerpt: Inside the fallout from the Department of Energy’s slashing of $8 billion in loans and grants, and how the companies affected aim to ‘Trump-proof’ their businesses. ...Jim Kesseli...was particularly rattled when one of Brayton’s hard-earned Department of Energy contracts was terminated last month. ...The research and development contract was issued by the DOE, and was initially meant to fund a three-year project researching various utility-scale energy storage solutions. ...Kesseli islooking to find new assignments for five people as a direct result of the contract’s cancellation. ...Nearly $8 billion in funding, cancelled...Since Donald Trump was sworn into office again, U.S. energy policy has drastically veered toward fossil fuels—and away from renewables. The policy has left scores of clean energy startups on precarious financial footing, or scrambling to make up for projected revenue streams that have disappeared. ...Tiya Gordon ...has a term to describe the startup’s ethos that is befitting the hostile climate for renewable startups: They want to, she says, make a “Trump-proof model.”... 

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