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Request for Startups: Climate Tech

ycombinator.com

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Re: Request for Startups: Climate Tech

#231

Post by marcosdumay »

nawitus wrote: post #158
manv1 wrote: post #102

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!

You can add a bit of insulation inside the concrete to make the house require less cooling than (any?) wooden house.

Concrete insulates quite well by itself. I don't understand the GP's complaint. It can be improved, and there are several improved alternatives on the market since basically forever, but it's not bad by itself, and it's certainly better than wood.

(I really thought it would be about concrete CO2 emissions at first.)

Re: Request for Startups: Climate Tech

#232

Post by gumby »

chris_va wrote: post #193
gumby wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can read more at www.bluedotchange.com 4 Gt is roughly all the anthropogenic CH4, responsible for about a third (or possibly a half) of temperature rise. After that we will continue at a lower level in order to keep curating the level and as a precaution against methane bursts. 4 Gt of CH4 is considered roughly equivalent to 120 Gt of CO2

Ah, the ISA approach. I could never calibrate the fringy-ness of that idea. Do you have evidence that it works in-situ, or any ideas of how to test this in an observable way? If so, there are folks interested.

It is demonstrated in the lab and we are developing a way to assay what’s going on in the open air. Lot of interesting work in this area.

Re: Request for Startups: Climate Tech

#233

Post by guelo »

dopidopHN wrote: post #210
guelo wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would you happen to have read “ministry for the future” by Kim Robinson ? I just read the chapter where he elaborate on that exact idea. I think it’s absolutely on point with our attitude as a society / specie

Will check it out thanks

Re: Request for Startups: Climate Tech

#234

Post by CalRobert »

brutusborn wrote: post #220
CalRobert wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For consumer purchases of disposable goods you can use a browser plugin like choosefinch.com/ (disclaimer - I work here).

Thanks for the suggestion! Out of interest, do you know if there are any plans to make the impact predictions user-specific? E.g I live in a very isolated city, so transport considerations dictate for some products.

We're very, very early and this is valuable feedback, thanks!

We do indeed have some plans for personalization.

Re: Request for Startups: Climate Tech

#235

Post by CalRobert »

ngoilapites wrote: post #212
CalRobert wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My goal is to make it painfully easy to live in communities where you can walk, bike, or take public transport to all of your daily needs, which is a completely low tech problem with a huge social science component. The first step, I think, is making it obvious when purchasing a home whether you will be able to do this yourself. Want to collaborate? I have a pilot project going for Ireland and am unsure where to take…

This could be an idea: to expand this work and map neighbourhoods according to their "affordances" aka opportunities for a sustainable or climate friendly living. I'd love to engage myself on something like this, I will drop an email after hols, keep it strong!

Thanks! Would love to do same but no contact info in your bio.

Re: Request for Startups: Climate Tech

#236

Post by nadavr »

CalRobert wrote: post #206
ngoilapites wrote: post #189

I am 10+ years in the Climate arena and it surprises me that most innovations ignore human behaviour: I see a gap. I see two folk types here: the Climate scientist and the carbon life cycle Analyst. How come social sciences (I am in particular hinting at behavioral research) have not been found yet a source of value?

My goal is to make it painfully easy to live in communities where you can walk, bike, or take public transport to all of your daily needs, which is a completely low tech problem with a huge social science component. The first step, I think, is making it obvious when purchasing a home whether you will be able to do this yourself. Want to collaborate? I have a pilot project going for Ireland and am unsure where to take…

what is "painfully easy"?

Re: Request for Startups: Climate Tech

#237

Post by m0llusk »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #65

I've worked in "climate intelligence" for many years. The list overlooks one of the largest and most immediate opportunities around that market: the data infrastructure and analysis tools we have today are profoundly unfit for purpose. Just about everyone is essentially using cartography tools to do large-scale spatiotemporal analysis of sensor and telemetry data. The gaps for both features and practical scalability…

Many lessons to be learned from Climate Corporation. They used satellite data and drones to make robust crop insurance and ended up being bought by Monsanto and changing their direction.

Re: Request for Startups: Climate Tech

#238

Post by danrocks »

tdaltonc wrote: post #41

> Tarpit Ideas > Carbon removal credits on the blockchain. Using blockchain technology to solve the double-counting of carbon credits is an attractive idea but in our experience it’s just a technology choice and a small piece of the product you ultimately have to build. I can't believe how often I hear this reasoning from people: Carbon credits have a double-counting problem? Blockchains prevent "double-spend"! Perfe…

I read the linked article and I could not make any sense of it.

Re: Request for Startups: Climate Tech

#239

Post by c54 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #109
c54 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the play that Terraform Industries is engaging in as well. Cost for synthesizing a unit of methane from atmospheric CO2 and water using solar power is set to drop lower than the cost of drilling it out of the ground. https://terraformindustries.com/

> lower than the cost of drilling it out of the ground. Shipping is a huge component of the price of natural gas. So it'll be a long time before they're cheaper than the price of natural gas in Alberta or Siberia, but they'll be able to beat the price in Los Angeles a lot sooner.

That’s a good point, local production cuts out the cost of transportation
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