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Discovery Loop

discoveryloop.com

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Re: Discovery Loop

#231

Post by gfarah »

Marha01 wrote: post #209
podgietaru wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of these problems don't seem scientific at all, but rather a problem of political will. As you said, Solar power is incredibly economical. There are plenty of ideas around putting them over farms, or parking lots en-masse to provide cleaner energy. Access to clean drinking water, while certainly scientific in some situations, is also a problem of political will and money. Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure…

> As you said, Solar power is incredibly economical. Not if you include the cost of needed storage.

Yes It is. Even including batteries:

https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/lcoe-and-valu...

Re: Discovery Loop

#232

Post by jarpschope »

frollogaston wrote: post #213
darth_avocado wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make Solar Energy Economical Isn’t it already?

People on HN keep saying it is, but I'm still not seeing it. Companies are building datacenters in vast, sun-blasted deserts and still choosing to power those with natural gas. This in turn makes people complain about emissions pledges being reversed, but if it were economical, no pledge would be needed. Of course, USA has cheaper oil/gas than other countries. But if you look elsewhere, rich countries are subsidizing…

I don't think you have an updated view of energy production.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/07/20/how-globa...

In the chart for section 3, how many countries have seen their share of electricity being generated by fossil fuels increase in the last 5 years? Only Canada.

Take a look at the charts for Pakistan, Australia, Nigeria, and China for the last few years. Pretty dramatic drops for fossil fuels generation.

Re: Discovery Loop

#233

Post by UncleOxidant »

frollogaston wrote: post #213
darth_avocado wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make Solar Energy Economical Isn’t it already?

People on HN keep saying it is, but I'm still not seeing it. Companies are building datacenters in vast, sun-blasted deserts and still choosing to power those with natural gas. This in turn makes people complain about emissions pledges being reversed, but if it were economical, no pledge would be needed. Of course, USA has cheaper oil/gas than other countries. But if you look elsewhere, rich countries are subsidizing…

> poor ones are basically not using it.

I don't think that's true: https://rmi.org/resources/the-global-souths-cleantech-revolu...

Re: Discovery Loop

#234

Post by wavemode »

flakiness wrote: post #7

To be honest, this feels more like a lifestyle business (aka hobby) than a startup. They truly deserve it, but I don't expect a huge success as a business. That said, I hope they write cool papers with various peers across the industry without worrying too much about the competing dynamics. That'd be a blessing for humanity, and good for their spirit.

It can be both. Bell Labs performed a lot of speculative research while still producing economically valuable technology.

Re: Discovery Loop

#235

Post by UncleOxidant »

Marha01 wrote: post #209
podgietaru wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of these problems don't seem scientific at all, but rather a problem of political will. As you said, Solar power is incredibly economical. There are plenty of ideas around putting them over farms, or parking lots en-masse to provide cleaner energy. Access to clean drinking water, while certainly scientific in some situations, is also a problem of political will and money. Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure…

> As you said, Solar power is incredibly economical. Not if you include the cost of needed storage.

That's going to drop a lot as sodium-ion batteries go into large-scale production.

Re: Discovery Loop

#236

Post by gtirloni »

jszymborski wrote: post #218

> Scientific discovery is bottlenecked. Yah, by funding and how we award it, not by an imaginary lack of undergrad and grad students. Scientific funding requires a shotgun approach and many national science funds try to pick winners as opposed to funding broadly. When the folks who researched bacteria in volcanic vents or the molecular biology of the Gila monster they never could have imagined the industries and mark…

LLMs can't materialize funds or political will so let's stick to running GPUs hot and publishing papers. The citations will be amazing. /s

Re: Discovery Loop

#237

Post by vanviegen »

jszymborski wrote: post #218

> Scientific discovery is bottlenecked. Yah, by funding and how we award it, not by an imaginary lack of undergrad and grad students. Scientific funding requires a shotgun approach and many national science funds try to pick winners as opposed to funding broadly. When the folks who researched bacteria in volcanic vents or the molecular biology of the Gila monster they never could have imagined the industries and mark…

Yes! But if science is bottlenecked by funding, making it cheaper might help?

Re: Discovery Loop

#238

Post by frollogaston »

jarpschope wrote: post #232
frollogaston wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People on HN keep saying it is, but I'm still not seeing it. Companies are building datacenters in vast, sun-blasted deserts and still choosing to power those with natural gas. This in turn makes people complain about emissions pledges being reversed, but if it were economical, no pledge would be needed. Of course, USA has cheaper oil/gas than other countries. But if you look elsewhere, rich countries are subsidizing…

I don't think you have an updated view of energy production. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/07/20/how-globa... In the chart for section 3, how many countries have seen their share of electricity being generated by fossil fuels increase in the last 5 years? Only Canada. Take a look at the charts for Pakistan, Australia, Nigeria, and China for the last few years. Pretty dramatic drops for fossil fuels gen…

They cherrypicked 15 countries. And still, some of those still had renewables decrease since 2000 like Nigeria, others saw an increase but it's still way less than fossil, and others like China are heavily subsidizing solar. I don't doubt that it's economical for individuals when the govt is subsidizing it.

Re: Discovery Loop

#240

Post by snowwrestler »

kube-system wrote: post #148
canes123456 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A public benefit corp shouldn’t be a start up. The primary goal of a start up is to grow as quickly as possible which is rarely benefits the public. Very silly to call every non start up a lifestyle business. It’s just a business. Start up are the weird thing that almost always an obscene waste of time and money, but sometime creates google.

A PBC is not a charity or a non-profit. PBCs are for-profit businesses with the goal of making money. In day-to-day business they're indistinguishable with other for-profit corporations, including fundraising and investment. The only real practical difference is that they give directors a little more leeway in their fiduciary duties to say "no" to doing evil things. The advantage to a PBC is protecting founders from…

> The only real practical difference is that they give directors a little more leeway in their fiduciary duties to say "no" to doing evil things.

I’d like to provide maybe a clarification here that there is zero existing fiduciary duty in regular corporations to say yes to evil things, or even to turn a profit at all. A for-profit C corporation can legally sell stock, lose money every year, and go out of business, if the board of directors approves that strategy. Fiduciary duty exists primarily in areas of accurate communication and the avoidance of crime, fraud, etc.

A B corp basically is a C corp, but one that has formally published that their strategy includes a commitment to some social benefit. But if a C corp wanted to publish the same message to shareholders it could, and shareholder recourse would basically be to either try to replace the board, or sell the stock.

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