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 <i>profoundly</i> 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 are massive.<p>It has made most of the climate intelligence analysis we'd like to do, and for which data is available, intractable. And what we can do is so computationally inefficient that we figuratively burn down a small forest every time we run an analysis on a non-trivial model, which isn't very green either.<p>(This is definitely something I'd work on if I had the bandwidth, it is a pretty pure deep tech software problem.)
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.<p>How much energy is wasted by people travelling to and from their bullshit jobs? How many flights they need to take each year for holidays in order to heal from the accumulated stress of their mind-numbing jobs? How much surplus consumption do these bullshit jobs generate? How much plastic is thrown on the side of the road and into the ocean because people are too concerned about their own survival to give a crap about the environment and the future of mankind?<p>It's quite clear that if we all had less money and worked fewer hours, we would produce less greenhouse gases and live healthier, more fulfilled lives. Unfortunately, the current system is only good at depriving money from some of the population (while giving others a huge surplus) and it only ever demands more hours of work from everyone... So it barely even solves half of the first problem while making everything else worse.
> Tesla for home appliances: re-inventing home appliances (water heaters, induction stoves, clothes dryers, etc) to create better consumer experiences using specific advantages of electric technology.<p>> Tesla-like experience for home energy management: smart hub, including smart charging, load shifting, software-based load shedding for improved resiliency, and better circuit-level energy use measurement.<p>With how Tesla vehicles are rated, and the unanimous lack of confidence in "autopilot" I've witnessed in owners, no way in hell am I do I want to "Teslify" everything in my home. In order to prove that there's something wrong with the current consumer experience, you have to bring an example to show it. So far, I've only seen ways to further add more surveillance and advertising into everyday people's lives, not to mention the increased disposability of appliances. No thanks.
The agriculture section is disheartening. What is the VCs worlds' obsession with cellular ag and mushrooms? Totally missing the forest for the trees here.<p>Global calorie supply is dependent on the Haber-Bosch process i.e. Nitrogen fixation.<p>The next big agricultural breakthrough will be some form of nitrogen fixation:<p>1. That is not affected by a reduction of fossil fuels<p>2. Is on par with Haber-Bosch in terms of elemental Nitrogen application<p>3. Does not require a massive shift in consumer preferences<p>Also, the food industry is heavily reliant on energy sources that are not easily replaced by renewables. It needs dense energy like diesel and natgas. So there's another topic that should be funded.
The missing thing: international incentive structures.<p>Today, most things are done the most economical way. And that might involve emitting carbon.<p>A country which regulates the emissions of carbon will end up producing goods and services using carbon free methods - but those methods will often be less economically efficient than the carbon producing method, even at scale.<p>So any country that goes all in on the carbon-free world will end up economically worse off -- it's goods won't be competitive in the global marketplace. A government cannot subsidize itself to competitiveness in all markets.<p>Solve that problem, and the world will decarbonize itself almost overnight.
Here are some of my unsolicited and harebrained climate startup ideas. I’m poor and I can’t afford to pursue any of these but I believe a carbon-neutral future will require these things:<p>* Cheap EV chargers for people who don’t own houses. Young people are the most likely to be open to EVs, but they’re also the least likely to own a house. Charging is a major barrier to entry. Create something so cheap and ubiquitous that charging is not a concern. For example chargers built into lamp posts.<p>* Figure out UHVDC to enable clean energy surpluses to be sold internationally. Reliable UHVDC networks will allow clean energy projects to service more geographic area, making them more competitive. Eventually, storage might not even be necessary, since dark/non-windy regions can always pull from regions with wind or sun. And when fusion power comes online in a few decades, huge energy surpluses will be very profitable.<p>* Passive carbon capture via nuclear barges. We’ve had nuclear reactors in the water for decades, let’s put them to use capturing carbon.<p>* Floatovoltaics. Land isn’t always cheap. Put solar panels in other places. There are other positive side effects as well, such as reducing algae blooms and reducing evaporation.
Lately i've been thinking that right now may be a great time to start an oil company. Cost of solar is going down so capturing c02 and turning it into fuel is looking like a viable option. People would pay a premiun for carbon neutral fuel. Most climate companies, focused on carbon capture, tried to make the most efficient carbon capture possible, but what if one focused on scalability and reducing manufacturing costs instead? A device that loses 90%+ of the energy when converting sun to fuel, would be viable if the cost of the machine would just be low enough, and scaled up enough. Such a device would in theory have a near 0 cost of operation once installed, so with a long enough life span it would be profitable.
>Low or zero emissions concrete<p>Feels like there's already options there.<p><a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a40785162/microalgae-carbon-neutral-cement/" rel="nofollow">https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a4078516...</a><p><a href="https://cen.acs.org/materials/Chemex-goes-global-carbon-neutral/98/i42" rel="nofollow">https://cen.acs.org/materials/Chemex-goes-global-carbon-neut...</a><p>Although I'm betting it's better to just radically cut demand rather than try to invent a really good carbon-neutral/negative concrete. If we could sink a whole bunch of carbon into concrete though (significant carbon capture -> magic? -> concrete), that would be cool though.<p>That's a really uncomfortable fact with a lot of climate issues: it's way better to just not do the thing instead of trying to find a neutral/net-negative carbon process for the thing.
Some thoughts:<p>1. We know for a fact that mangroves can mitigate tsunami damage. I've been looking into this and a lot of tree-planting programs really suck and are basically failures. Additionally mangroves are <i>tropical</i> plants and -- so far -- I am failing to find an alternative for colder climates.<p><a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051028141252.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051028141252.h...</a><p>2. We certainly need energy solutions and I'm happy to see people work on that, but we could use more companies working on <i>passive solar</i> solutions as well. Most passive solar solutions are best implemented from the get go (from breaking ground on a new building), but some can be added after the fact. There is likely lots of low-hanging fruit in that second category.<p>3. Middle-eastern countries and their architectural traditions have many practices that help mitigate heat levels inside buildings and even at street level. These seem to be largely unknown outside such countries and we are missing a huge opportunity to export or adapt such traditions to other places to try to adapt to hotter temps.
Attempting to solve climate change with virtue-signalling consumption and production is worse than useless. That doesn't mean such things are necessarily bad startup ideas, though, but few things turn me off more than this sort of thing.
I am 10+ years in the Climate arena and it surprises me that most innovations ignore human behaviour: I see a gap.<p>I see two folk types here: the Climate scientist and the carbon life cycle Analyst.<p>How come social sciences (I am in particular hinting at behavioral research) have not been found yet a source of value?
Really, the big win is going to be "efficient air conditioning for poor countries" and "using materials other than concrete to build."<p>Everyone loves AC. The more money you have the more you use it.<p>And everyone in poor countries uses concrete to build.<p>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!
I'm going to throw this out there: most of the promising companies in this space are likely going to get their seed funding from federal grants rather than incubators like YC. You may not be seeing deal flow because your product is unattractive to them in comparison.
> Tesla for home appliances: re-inventing home appliances (water heaters, induction stoves, clothes dryers, etc) to create better consumer experiences using specific advantages of electric technology.<p>I mean heat pump water heaters already exist [346] and they're reasonable in most everywhere (they put extra load on the furnace in cold climates in the winter but can still be a win overall). The main advance here might be more "smart integration" with the grid, but that is going to have to be a national level thing.<p>[346] <a href="https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/heat-pump-water-heaters" rel="nofollow">https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/heat-pump-water-heaters</a>
> These startups offer commercial solutions to decarbonize society or remove carbon from the atmosphere. By doing this at speed and scale, we have a fair chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. The financial opportunity of doing so is massive: an estimated $3-10 trillion in EBITDA will be up for grabs. As one example, Tesla has pushed the car industry to go electric while making $75B in annual revenue at a 60% annual growth rate.<p>I didn't go further than that. They prove in one paragraph that they haven't understood the climate problem <i>at all</i>.
> In the not-too-distant future, vehicles will charge when excess solar is available<p>Emporia Energy's smart EV charger can already do this. So can our $9 smart plug.
Disclosure: I work there.
Right now, I feel like a kid in a candy store. These comment threads are a gold mine. I will be approaching many of you to learn and get to know you. I hope that that is fine. To let you know beforehand that I'm not spamming, I would like to tell you that I will be sending emails from either brajeshwar@oinam.com or brajeshwar@valinor.earth<p>Since 2018, I have been learning and experimenting with Climate-related activities along with Climate Scientists. The notable ones include building an aeroponics farm inside Bangalore city and delivering rare herbs to a few known cookhouses (YC interviewed and rejected us on this). The other, where I missed most of the involvement but a few, was a prototypical installation of a Vanadium Redox Battery.<p>In 2022, I went all in, and our team figured that most folks (individuals and companies) outside of the ones involved in Climate just want to get things done and don't know what to do about it. We also realize that to be commercially viable while fighting climate change; we need to get involved end-to-end. We started with data and the sexy tech, but we don't even mention that now when talking to potential customers.<p>Some well-known and "successful" climate-tech companies have already started on that path -- building an end-to-end channel -- then sell, up-sell, and side-sell their services, tools, and solutions. Think of how Microsoft owns the channel and introducing a new product is just showing up.<p>We are still very early and have a lot to learn, and act/do. My best wishes and luck to all those doing one or the other thing toward fighting Climate Change.
YC was very early to climatetech with a RFS for water back in 2017.<p><a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/request-for-startups-water/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/request-for-startups-water/</a><p>Most people don't equate watertech with climatetech, but climate change is primarily a water crisis—flood & drought—and we need more entrepreneurs in watertech.<p>If you are building something in watertech, ping me, I'm happy to help.
> By doing this at speed and scale, we have a fair chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change.<p>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.
The list feels like "this is everything you can try" rather than "this is everything you should try".<p>Some of these are "let's take an unrelated industry and try to cram <i>climate</i> into its story", others are ideas that are doomed to fail. And the "if only forests existed forever they would be a better carbon sink" argument is so flawed I am disappointed to see it at all.<p>But, also a lot of good projects to work on in there.
Probably the biggest environmental win would be to make arcologies: ecologically integrated cities.<p>> Arcology, a portmanteau of "architecture" and "ecology",[2] is a field of creating architectural design principles for very densely populated and ecologically low-impact human habitats.<p>> The term was coined in 1969 by architect Paolo Soleri, who believed that a completed arcology would provide space for a variety of residential, commercial, and agricultural facilities while minimizing individual human environmental impact. These structures have been largely hypothetical, as no arcology, even one envisioned by Soleri himself, has yet been built.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology</a><p>You would include the "Living Machines" designed-ecosystem technology of John Todd, et. al. to process waste and produce food and (some) medicines on site.<p><a href="https://www.toddecological.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.toddecological.com/</a><p>I dunno if you could make a startup out of it though.
Climate tech doesn't have to be crazy futuristic ML models or whatever in order to be useful.<p>For instance, I love the Purple Air air quality sensors, which crowdsource data and use a simple existing technology. (See <a href="https://map.purpleair.com/" rel="nofollow">https://map.purpleair.com/</a>). This example may not be "revolutionary" enough for YCombinator, but I'm a fan.<p>Personally, I'd like to see a company that focuses on solar hot water heating. Water heating is usually about 1/3 of a home's energy usage. In several countries, especially in the middle east and in Africa, standalone solar hot water systems are the most common way water is heated. But in the US, solar hot water is nearly non-existent. I'm not talking whole-house solar panels, but rather a small system that you can buy for $~4-5k. There's an opportunity lurking there somewhere.
> Problems & Ideas:
> Home pre-wiring<p>Ductwork for cables?<p>The problem unsolved in practice is post-wiring. A neat device would be a robotic remote controlled drill that can work itself through brick walls vertically from floor to floor (including steel-reinforced concrete ceilings) and in curves if needed.<p>Hugely expensive toy, but creating no dirt, compared to classic methods of adding more wires.
Curious, anyone working on automation in the mining space? I'm interested in jamming out with people about doing work in the industry. Or using airships in places like africa to transport minerals from mines to regional hubs (e.g. to avoid the huge delays on roadways currently happening between DRC and Zambia).
Anyone wants to kick around ideas? Particularly interested in use cases for technology to improve regenerative agriculture / permaculture operations and water management in the global South (esp. India). You can find my E-mail address in my profile.
Are high-margin luxury products really going to decarbonize the world? It seems pretty rare for companies that start on that path to move downmarket, but isn't that what we need to fight climate change?
a few ideas, in no particular order<p>- stop burning fossil fuels to the altar of the crypto crazy<p>- stop burning enormous amounts of fossil fuel to produce AI models that poorly replicate human skills, without asking if someone wanted it<p>- support power efficient devices or appliances. I despise Apple, for a lot of reasons, but the M series is a big step in the right direction.<p>- don't buy Teslas, buy small cars that occupy a small parking space, if you live in a city. Better yet, don't buy a car, car companies will die eventually, better sooner than later, so we can make them a thing of the past like we did with horsecars. All of us would feel dumb riding or buying one of those nowadays, right?<p>- support companies that actually do what they say, "90% recycled material" or "90% carbon neutral" is a brand, it's green washing, it's almost never true for large corporations. It will take the aforementioned Apple at least another 20 years to become really green, as in CO2 neutral and as of their actions had no terrible consequences on real people, in the real World.<p>- The only ADV I was able to endure in the past 20 years was "buy better, wear for longer" by Levis. Which is actually a very good thing to do for the environment and for ourselves as humans. Fast fashion is stupid.
It's a little disappointing not to see investments in regenerative agriculture. Granted, most of the work here isn't in software but in actually...farming...but still, the more energy put in that space, the more we'll see it be used as a standard for how we get our food.
I'm looking for work in this space. 4 years of experience as a DS at a 1m customer electric utility, extensive experience with meter usage data, ML, data pipelines. Traditional background as mechanical engineer so I know physics and stuff.
> Tarpit Ideas<p>> 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.<p>I can't believe how often I hear this reasoning from people: Carbon credits have a double-counting problem? Blockchains prevent "double-spend"! Perfect solution! But as the quote points out, double-counting of carbon credits is not a software problem.<p>At Jasmine, we're tokenizing climate assets but not to prevent "double-spend."
<a href="https://medium.com/jasmine-energy/why-is-jasmine-building-on-a-blockchain-a5a37d98822b" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/jasmine-energy/why-is-jasmine-building-on...</a>
I'm eager to help anyone working in this area, especially if you're needing help with the most green cloud infrastructure: Google Cloud. Miles at SADA.com
I'm not convinced that the solutions to climate change are tech related. If anything, climate change is tech driven.<p>Addressing climate change doesn't really require startups and venture capitalist pump and dump schemes. It requires social and behavioral changes, mainly centered around consumption. Basically everything on this list would increase consumption, manufacturing, construction, road building, etc.<p>There are many, many known solutions to climate change that do not require any new science or technology. We just don't want to do them. Lists like these are really just trying to invent new tech and science that allows us to keep current levels of consumption.
Hybrid water heaters, active anode rods, and adaptive timing seem very revolutionary already. The other revolutionary aspect would be smaller point of use instant heaters that the world except the US use.<p>Tldr; a lot of existing innovation exists that the US isn't purchasing.
I guess "Request for Startups: Climate Tech " is easier to stomach than "Help us perpetuate idiotic mythology, and convince the world PLANT FOOD (CO2, which is 0.008% of our atmosphere, of which we only produce 0.004% OF that 0.008%) is somehow 'bad' so we can push communist policies" isn't it?<p>We'll make a site that says "Hur Durr! Duh globul warming" is you give us... Oh , I don't know... 25 million bucks! Deal?
The best green startup investment: select very productive engineers, and pay them to stop producing. Maybe they can learn an instrument, or take care of their garden. The less they produce, the better for the planet.<p>Of course that's not what a VC wants. But a VC doesn't really want ecology either, they want money. Pretending to be green just happens to be a profitable strategy.
The only thing that would move the needle on a massive societal level is reliable nuclear energy in every city and country. But is that too hard for startups to tackle? Or it doesn’t fit the narrative? Every other climate “tech” just nibbles at the margins if that even. And the byproduct of mass nuclear energy adoption would be that the issue is solved and there would be no more climate mongering amongst the conference crowd. They would have to find another “the sky is falling down” cause. That would also lead to less justifications for war from the war crowd if all the world had true energy security. Maybe that’s why?<p>Reminds me of this previous initiative:<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Independence" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Independence</a>
A great list to start with yet there are still several items missing from their projected speculations. As a core software architect and founder who has built multiple acquired ecommerce systems prior to and since the dotcom bust long ago I feel it prudent to emphasize to those that lack the experience to see what is happening yet again in an even more critical modern societal industry. The coming energy opportunities for those entrepreneurs among us here that possess the appropriate subject matter knowledge across hardware and software is significant, I cannot state it enough, “extremely significant”. Should you have the tenacity and drive to create and build something which others state is not possible then there is no time like the present to start and prove them wrong as every living person NEEDS energy. Who knows, maybe along the way you even enjoy the journey and make a little income too.