251–260 of 282 posts
Really, the big win is going to be "efficient air conditioning for poor countries" and "using materials other than concrete to build." Everyone loves AC. The more money you have the more you use it. And everyone in poor countries uses concrete to build. The bad thing is that these two things combine: the concrete box that is your building heats up like a brick oven, making AC work more. Doh!
Air conditioners are already pretty efficient, so you're not going to get huge wins there. But solar-powered air conditioning could be a huge win. You can avoid the DC-AC-DC conversion losses, and avoid any impact on the grid. Most people without air conditioning would be quite happy with air conditioning that only works while the sun is shining.
I get out from this that the days when one could have had a non-Apocalyptic climate change discussion on this forum are now gone for good. Just saying: "we're doing this for the money, because that's where all the money is now going" would have been better, but whatever it works to keep this forum up and ad-free.
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> Does not require a massive shift in consumer preferences This is getting more and more irrelevant by the day. If “climate tech” fails to “fix” climate change (a goal which I believe to be impossible), then it’s not going to matter what people’s preferences are — the choices are going to be made for them and it won’t matter what they like/dislike.
You're confounding the people of today with the people of the future. We've learned over the last couple of decades that the people of today in general refuse to make any sacrifice for the people of the future. This doesn't change when the people of today are negatively affected because any sacrifice is felt in the future and doesn't mitigate the negative consequences of today.
This is is just alarmist talk that was made famous by the likes of the Effective Altruism guys.
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Tesla is indeed a strange choice for a simile, considering that Tesla cars use prodigious amounts of energy compared to other electric cars, or other cars in general. I doubt they're even more environmentally friendly overall than a compact combustion engine car. Tesla made electric cool by building an over the top luxury car, what we really need is the opposite.
There are some cars coming out next year that are more energy efficient than a Tesla, like the Hyundai Ioniq 6, but I don't know of any currently widely available vehicles that are.
The agriculture section is disheartening. What is the VCs worlds' obsession with cellular ag and mushrooms? Totally missing the forest for the trees here. Global calorie supply is dependent on the Haber-Bosch process i.e. Nitrogen fixation. The next big agricultural breakthrough will be some form of nitrogen fixation: 1. That is not affected by a reduction of fossil fuels 2. Is on par with Haber-Bosch in terms of ele…
Projects to run the Haber-Bosch process with clean hydrogen are already underway: https://www.bicmagazine.com/projects-expansions/renewable-su... https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/08/26/avaada-to-invest-5-bi... https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/egypt-... They use electricity from wind and/or solar power to electrolyze hydrogen from water. Then the hydrogen gets combined with nitrogen in the Haber-B…
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I think that's part of my larger point that companies and startups simply cannot solve this problem and are really part of the problem. Governments could mandate and incentivize changes, but companies would come kicking and screaming. > If we can't change human behaviour can we innovate our way out of the problem? Most human innovations have increased climate change. I have little optimism that we can suddenly adjust…
If you ever want to stop wallowing in misanthropic nihilism, I recommend reading books like "More From Less" - Mcafee which shows that capitalism does in fact reduce/moderate consumption. Next look at "Speed and Scale" - Doerr, or "How to Solve a Climate Disaster" - Gates for a giant list of human innovations that will in fact decrease/reverse climate change.
> In a positive note, the author is very clear that market fundamentalism - letting capitalism run amok - is emphatically NOT an answer to the environmental crises, and that we need a strong state to regulate and control the private interests, repair market failures and price the externalities. ... That said, I've already noticed that many proponents of this book haven't noticed these caveats, and instead claim that McAfee suggests unbridled capitalism is "the" answer.
And to be clear, I am not opposed to environmentalism and acting on climate change. In fact it's quite the opposite. I do what I can with composting, recycling, native plant restoration and conservation on my property, and my donations. However, I am indeed quite cynical when VCs suddenly want to ride the green wave, and I don't see much of a coherent plan in the post here aside from a shotgun approach to simply making money through investments of a "hot" area.
Almost all climate tech is greenwashing; superficial solutions. Climate issues require deeper system changes. We need a system which encourages financial prudence and frugality instead of one which encourages financial recklessness, infinite growth, consumerism and bullshit jobs. The problem needs to be solved at the lowest monetary incentive layer. How much energy is wasted by people travelling to and from their bul…
- the economy needs to be kicked into gear
- we need to inspire consumer confidence to spend more
- GDP growth over anything
- employment rate needs to be high
This is systematic need for spinning money by producing garbage and then using a lot of marketing-advertising to inspire people buying that garbage. Mostly so some people can skim off a bit and get ferraris.
It's all so stupid, a much more cooperative and equitable society would mean better life for everyone (including the would be billionaires who would not need to worry about the rabble attacking them and taking away their toys) along with less pressure to the environment.
I get we are genetically wired to survive at the harsh game of life, but we have also made profoundly uncool some things like murder, rape, etc.
We need to make "being rich" or "baller lifestyle" to be uncool. But we cant because a lot of marketing relies on this to sell their garbage.
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There are some cars coming out next year that are more energy efficient than a Tesla, like the Hyundai Ioniq 6, but I don't know of any currently widely available vehicles that are.
A tesla weighs 2-3 times more than a compact car, so that means it must be extremely efficient pound for pound. Nevertheless, I doubt many people, until recently, bought Tesla's because of (ostensible) environmental concerns.
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> Does not require a massive shift in consumer preferences This is getting more and more irrelevant by the day. If “climate tech” fails to “fix” climate change (a goal which I believe to be impossible), then it’s not going to matter what people’s preferences are — the choices are going to be made for them and it won’t matter what they like/dislike.
The only way you will get change at scale before disaster is to help people keep their lifestyle. Climate change is a fixable problem. It is not anywhere near the point that choices will be made for people in the next two to three decades.