Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Announces $2B Fund to Invest in Climate Tech Companies

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150 pointssethbannon86 comments

Suppose the investments turn out to be wildly successful. They turn $2b into $200b. They could still fail at the goal of slowing global warming.

The accounting value of an equity, especially a growth stage company, is never the same as its economic value. When in history has accounting (like a price) measured something real / believable about the environment?

One way to look at this is what is the environmental impact of Tesla? Amazon would have love to have invested in Tesla. That would have made this fund. Anyone would. But just because their accounting values goes up so and so, doesn't mean that's a measurement of their environmental impact.

My point is, equities are ill suited incentives for even economic profits, let alone environmental "profits."

> My point is, equities are ill suited incentives for even economic profits, let alone environmental "profits."

What is your alternative proposal?

It's not like Amazon's $2B investment in climate tech is mutually exclusive with government initiatives or other climate research. It's another angle to approach the problem, using the tools they have at their disposal. I don't understand the desire to assume the most cynical takes on this initiative.

> I don't understand the desire to assume the most cynical takes on this initiative.

Because of Amazon's (poor) history when it comes to exercising corporate social responsibility?

They could pay taxes and we could, as a nation, decide how best to coordinate efforts to fight climate change.

> They could pay taxes

It's false to claim that Amazon doesn't pay their taxes. Amazon pays taxes on profits according to the tax law, just like every other company. Amazon employees pay taxes on their paychecks, just like every other company's employees. Amazon's customers pay taxes on their purchases, just like customers of every other company's customers. Amazon generates a lot of tax revenue.

> and we could, as a nation, decide how best to coordinate efforts to fight climate change

Like I said: Amazon's climate change actions are not mutually exclusive with government initiatives to combat climate change.

It's a false dichotomy, not to mention specious argument, to suggest that Amazon's $2B investment in climate change is somehow preventing the government from also investing in climate change intitiatives.

I don't trust the nation to coordinate tying shoes much less fighting climate change. Our federal system is broken and our populace is generally ignorant on scientific matters relying on it to bring sweeping changes at this point in time would be a critical misstep.

I think the best think individuals can do at the moment is vote to bring in new blood on both sides of the aisle, subsequently vote reform on local levels and for education reform then wait a decade or two and then vote to reform our federal systems.

In the meantime backing long term thinking companies and boycotting bad acting companies because the private sector is going to have to shoulder the fight until we fix the government. In the meantime

Are you implying that Amazon is not paying the taxes they're legally required to?

If not, then I don't think the problem is solved by saying they "could pay taxes" since they already are, but rather that the government could be levying more taxes on businesses like Amazon.

This is an odd position to take given that, as a nation, we have failed spectacularly to address climate change in any way whatsoever. Will Amazon paying more in taxes substantially change the political economy of climate legislation somehow?

Don't invest, subsidize, and expect no investment return (the return is climate change is mitigated). More DARPA, less VC fund. Identify critical technologies needed to rapidly decarbonize transportation, the supply chain, and the electrical grid, and directly subsidize them if they are not yet cost competitive with fossil use. Capitalism primitives (in this case, equity investment) are not always optimal tools for engineering solutions. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has saved >100 million lives by donating vaccines to the developing world. Donations, not investment.

Also a path to consider is lobbying and political activism. If Amazon has aligned itself with driving carbon out of the economy (their historical PPA efforts and this fund seems to communicate such a stance), they should be using their dollars to support political representation that will codify this into law (more aggressive subsidies for low carbon technologies & mobility electrification, and implementation of a carbon tax).

> What is your alternative proposal?

According to the "The Largest Public Statement of Economists in History": a carbon tax and dividend [0].

The technology of markets is one of price signals and feedback loops, generally on time horizons between nano-second HFTs and quarterly earnings reports. Ecological events, occurring on the scale of decades or centuries, require governments (or other forms of collective action) to create artificial price signals for those externalities.

At any rate, I agree that there's nothing wrong with this initiative. Every bit potentially helps; I don't see this diverting resources from other efforts.

[0] https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/

> At any rate, I completely agree that there's nothing wrong with this initiative. Every bit potentially helps; I don't see this diverting resources from other efforts.

That was the point I was trying to make. Amazon's $2B investment isn't mutually exclusive with government efforts to combat climate change. It's additive.

The knee-jerk reactions to Amazon's climate initiatives from the HN comments are disappointing.

Yes, I agree. There are arguably some corporate initiatives that are trivial PR stunts, or attempts to pre-empt government intervention; but $2B is a big chunk of change, and this doesn't seem like either.

From Amazon's perspective, this a good move (and I'm sure as much in the interests of their bottom line as long-term planetary altruism). But from a citizen's perspective, we shouldn't rest on our laurels and assume that corporations and private investment will solve the problem on their own.

The tax & divided definitely seems like an ideal solution, but we can't waste another twenty years trying to convince voters to institute it. Carbon tax & dividend proposals have gone nowhere for twenty years now. Even in Washington, the latest attempt lost by almost 70% against.

Right, and more to the point the point of a carbon tax is to incentive the private sector to decarbonize which will require capital investments in clean tech. The problem isn't going to be solved by everyone reducing their carbon footprint by 10%. Everyone has to reduce their carbon footprint to zero and then we most likely still need to be pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Tax & Dividend isn't necessarily the fastest-acting policy in the world, and I'm keenly aware that we're on a clock; indeed, it seems exceptionally likely we're already beyond an inflection point, and will need something akin to geo-engineering in addition to however we reduce new carbon emissions.

I think a concerted PR effort could move the needle on popularity relatively quickly (which isn't unprecedented on other policy issues: opinions on gay marriage and marijuana legalization both tipped relatively quickly). The fact that it's market-based and doesn't expand government bureaucracy helps sell it to the right, the fact that most working people would come ahead economically helps sell it to the left. But absent that: do you have a better policy solution in mind that is more politically viable? I think the Green New Deal is a pretty good idea, at least in the abstract, but without a major sea change it seems to be DOA as well.

Unfortunately even if we can get everyone to agree that a carbon tax should be implemented, no one can seem to agree exactly how the revenues should be spent. E.g. a flat dividend isn't progressive enough for portions of the left. It seems that's been the big point of contention.

I don't know what the most realistic policy is at this point. Perhaps some mix of continued subsidy for renewable energy & storage, quiet ongoing research into iron fertilization, and pray that we have the technology ready to ramp when the voting public is finally forced to face reality.

Carbon Engineering is my moonshot hope. If synthetic direct air capture fuel ever becomes cheaper than fossil, it would decarbonize many challenging industries overnight, as well as providing a good launch pad for sequestration. (Continued investment in renewable energy makes this more possible)

> E.g. a flat dividend isn't progressive enough for portions of the left

Huh, that's news to me. Can you point to any prominent left politicians/pundits opining that? Is it just that they prefer Green New Deal? Do they object to the "strange bedfellows" of Frank Luntz & co. (if any Republicans like it, it must be a corporate/neo-fascist plot)?

> Carbon Engineering is my moonshot hope.

Yeah, I think we'll need something like this anyway. But with our current tech, it's still orders of magnitude more efficient to not pull the carbon out of the ground in the first place. (One of my crazier/handwavium ideas: massive fail-safe thorium reactor, hundreds of miles away from any human habitation to avoid NIMBY problems, whose only job is to pull carbon out of the air.)

I can't point to any pundits, it's more like carbon tax & dividend bills meet a lot of argument from leftist groups in the press & popular discussion- we should spend the revenue on climate mitigation. No, it should be directly invested in renewables. No, it should be given only to poor people because they suffer more from climate change. Actually, we've been looking for a source of funds for <unrelated progressive program>...

Ah, interesting. My assumption is that "just give it back to people" would entirely sidestep the question of how to spend the funds, but I suppose it suffers from the https://xkcd.com/927/ problem ;)

Really depends on HOW they are investing IMO.

2B in equities won't really do anything other than raise the stock prices for green technologies.

2B in green bonds or direct funding may help to move the needle if the case is that these companies are cash strapped.

But, IMO, the thing that will actually move the needle more than anything else is if Amazon takes that 2B and actually goes out and builds out renewable sources and replaces their delivery vehicles with EVs. Because, simply investing in a company that does green things doesn't guarantee actual change.

It would be a sizable impact if they powered all their services with renewable sources, especially if they don't fall back on the grid (so building out storage for themselves).

> It would be a sizable impact if they powered all their services with renewable sources, especially if they don't fall back on the grid (so building out storage for themselves).

Google uses Tomorrow's ElectricityMap [1] engine and forecasting to schedule and stage workloads based on clean energy availability [2] [3]. I am curious if Amazon would consider doing the same for themselves (and tangentially related, Microsoft as well), but also expose AWS clients to pricing signals to shift client workloads to "cleaner" locations. It would be carbon tax of sorts, but mandated by technology providers instead of government.

For example, if you were so inclined, you'd want to run your workloads during the day in AWS' west coast datacenters (as California generates an enormous amount of energy during the day from solar, and electricity in the PNW is primarily hydro), or Texas when there's a large amount of wind power on the ERCOT grid. You would not want to run your workloads anywhere where coal and natural gas were the primary sources of power.

[1] https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=...

[2] https://www.tmrow.com/blog/announcing-our-partnership-with-g...

[3] https://blog.google/inside-google/infrastructure/data-center...

> But, IMO, the thing that will actually move the needle more than anything else is if Amazon takes that 2B and actually goes out and builds out renewable sources and replaces their delivery vehicles with EVs.

Even better, they're doing that outside of the 2B fund.

Amazon is creating a futuristic fleet of 100,000 electric delivery vans https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-creating-fleet-of-ele...

AWS is committed to achieving 100% renewable energy usage for our global infrastructure https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/sustainability/

It looks good on an annual report though.

How about them delivery trucks and waste cardboard boxes? Those data centers can also generate a lot of emissions. Amazon is throwing spare change at a massing problem they're involved in.

But you’ve gotta admit they’re like 10 times better than the alternative.

I mean, their whole operation is optimized up the wazoo. Imagine the time saved, the carbon emissions saved when folks don’t have to drive to and back to get their stuff.

I’m kind of hooked on this grocery delivery stuff too now, so much time and headache and gas saved.

It just sounds like a PR stunt. They already have data centers which are under scrutiny for energy use and reducing packaging helps their bottom line as well. That's why I say it's 'spare change' for them.

> But you’ve gotta admit they’re like 10 times better than the alternative.

Not if the alternative is bikeable and walkable cities with decent public transport, though.

I think they meant reasonable alternative.

American cities are not (for the most part) bikeable and certainly not walkable. Literally everything is designed to be driven to in a car.

The decent public transport would help, but since it's been made a political issue it's not exactly as easy as just working within the constraints of the system.

OK. Let's say a magic wand is waved, and all of us Americans have bikeable and walkable cities with excellent public transportation. Let's say this happens literally overnight.

How do you expect this would change Amazon's logistics and how favorable they are for consumers? For my part, at the very least, I'm still likely to get a lot of things delivered. Local stores are very rarely cheaper for anything non-immediate and delivery takes much less of my time than going to a store and back.

At a guess, Amazon's still better than this alternative for many scenarios. Maybe not ten times better, but still better.

Perhaps, we should wave this magic wand to make you order less stuff? No tech can save us unless we start to consume less. Also, we should care less about optimising our time which we are likely to waste anyway on netflix and co.

I'm a very strange person in many ways. I personally prefer to be able to make my own choices about how I waste away my free time - Netflix, books, biking, walks, prayer, meditation, yoga, etc. Trading that in for spending more time to get my groceries (or toiletries, or dry goods, or similar) does not sound like an attractive choice to me.

I understand that this is an unusual personality trait. Still, I'm reluctant to give it up.

I don't think this is about "attractive choices". Either our lifestyles (and those who will live after us) are sustainable or not. If they are not, we should consider changing our behaviour.

> Please stop buying stuff. It's bad for the environment. But also keep working - we need you paying your taxes!

If I'm morally not allowed to buy stuff because its bad for the environment, then what incentive do I have to earn more than 40k/year? Do I exist just to pay taxes to the government to fund "more moral" causes than my own consumption?

Is this a genuine question? There is no obligation to make more than 40k. Instead of making more money you could just work less and do what you like/love (as long as it's not bad for environment).

A universal carbon emissions tax would be an effective magic wand to make people order less stuff.

I assume you mean tax paid with money? That's not a solution. Most, if not all the ways that people make money require emitting more carbon and producing more waste. Such tax would lead to fatal feedback loop.

I'd love to see something like a personal carbon quota, same for every person on a planet.

Last-mile logistics in bikeable and walkable cities would be accomplished with zero-emission vehicles like electric cargo bicycles. They're already being used in cities that support them.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andriacheng/2019/12/04/amid-rec...

Dear Jeff Bezos:

Amazon is great and all, but instead can you rebuild all of America to be denser walkable cities, with a great public rail system?

Signed, Hacker News

Oh come on, I suggested nothing of the sort and you know it. You're not assuming good faith.

My remark is only that if delivery is better for the environment than going shopping, then that is a sign of a badly planned city (in terms of climate impact). Well-optimized delivery will address a symptom but not the cause. The cause is cities built for cars.

Unless you're getting all of your Amazon stuff in a single box in the weekly option, it's not really better. Driving 3 miles once a week to get everything from a store is better than 7 boxes a week + delivery increased truck load.

Don't forget that that delivery truck isn't just delivering boxes for you.

There is an option on Amazon to deliver on a single day of the week.

There's an induced demand factor too, though. People are buying more stuff now because it's easy to get.

I agree with you. It's worth noting 0 emissions is impossible so things carbon offsets exist to counter that when you cant get to 0.

Another way to look at it might be that investing in those companies by yield solutions to them that address what you mentioned above.

That's my hope at least.

Disclaimer: I work at Amazon, views are my own.

Delivery trucks: 100,000 trucks at $70k each = $7 billion investment over 5 years. [1]

Datacenters: 80% renewable energy by 2024, 100% by 2030 [2]

For boxes, I'd agree that there's a lot of room for improvement in reduction in cardboard use and packaging reuse.

Everyone should come to their own conclusions about whether companies are doing enough in each area. For delivery trucks in particular I'd call the investments happening there much more than "spare change".

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/19/20873947/amazon-electric-... [2] https://blog.aboutamazon.com/sustainability/reducing-carbon-...

Agreed. This isn't an investment is climate tech. It's an investment in Amazon's future, which is dependant on the current - consumption focused - status quo.

Amazon has actually done a great job in making manufacturers reduce plastic/clamshell packaging for their products, so the cardboard boxes are definitely a net improvement.

> Amazon is throwing spare change at a massing problem they're involved in.

Yes, the point is that they're investing in efforts to help deal with some of their own externalities. We shouldn't be shaming a company for having the self-awareness to do this to the tune of billions of dollars.

It's not fair to criticize the amount, either, because $2 billion goes a long way to getting technology companies off the ground. Throwing more money at the problem doesn't produce better outcomes at this stage of the R&D pipeline. $2 billion is a lot of money.

Hacker news is a total unnecessary luxury. By using it, you are contributing to the problem. This website consumes resources and energy to run and view.

It's actually a very efficient website ;)

Sure! but even if it's environmental costs are close to 0, it is not 0 and you are using it without an actual need. as GP said, it's luxury

No good deed goes unpunished.

I've sometimes wondered if rather than recycling paper and cardboard we could sequester it, trapping the carbon.

The good news is corrugated cardboard is one of the most recyclable materials, with a high market value for recycled cardboard. It's probably not the biggest problem right now.

> Amazon announced it’s on a path to run on 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of schedule.

A possible silver lining of market domination is the ability to tackle issues like climate change without falling behind competitors who aren't making those harder choices. Unless this is all PR and Amazon is actively burning down their namesake or something?

As long as the market dominator decides that climate change is a problem it needs to solve

It could also be feel good PR to deflect attention on their supply chain: both the political and environmental concerns people might have it they looked too close.

Switch to renewables, then lobby for a carbon tax to crush competitors that haven't switched or can't afford the transition.

If this is the only way to fight climate crisis, so be it.

In some cases, Amazon uses e.g. subsidied wind energy for new data centers. However, this means the renewable energy is not going to neighboring homes, which are instead still using non-renewables.

I think Google is not just being renewable energy, but also building new solar/wind farms to "offset" their use so this is not the case.

Maybe Amazon is doing something similar?

>Maybe Amazon is doing something similar?

Yep!

https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/environment/sustainab...

Disclaimer: Amazon employee, not speaking on behalf of the company, just posting a link to something I am aware of.

Not an economist, but I believe as long as they are willing to pay a premium for carbon-neutral energy, it's a net good thing as it increases the viability of carbon-neutral projects.

Great to see checks getting written for climate projects again! For anyone who may be interested, there's a supportive climate focused community and interesting climate projects over at https://collective.energy (founder here)

"If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted,... CO2 will need to be reduced ...to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that - Hansen et al.(2008)" [1]

Neutral is not enough. So I hope they will be plowing large amounts of the fund into negative-emissions technologies. Either that or make large swathes of the planet into a disco ball.

[1] Young People's Burden: Requirement of Negative CO2 Emissions. https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1609/1609.05878.pdf

Proactively attempting to change the planet to fit our presumed desires seems even more irresponsible than trying to simply negate our effect on the planet. And realistically, the planet was more like an iceball than it is today for a vast majority of the timeline of homo sapiens.

Pre-industrial revolution levels were 280ppm, so a target of 350ppm is still well within "roll back the damage we've done", rather than "mold the planet to our whims"

We've already started geo-engineering, just not intentionally.

Yes, and I said that intentional geoengineering may be worse than intentional. Especially when it is geoengineering beyond the scope of "make it seem like we don't exist"

Even if you view it cynically this is a smart plan. It's good PR, and they've got a better foot in the door for when those climate tech companies start getting a bunch more customers. And one way or another they're likely to start getting more customers, whether it's proactive or reactive.

We need to go carbon negative. Microsoft announced a $1B commitment to go carbon negative by 2030. This sets the course for the rise of air mining technologies.

Interview with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeQxTI-s48A

Carbon Removal Weekly Update on the Microsoft announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J429u4RxkI0&t=21s

Anyone have pointers to interesting companies in the climate tech space? Or tips for finding them?

Also interested in this!

A group of us built the open source website https://climatescape.org for exactly this purpose. You can browse by sector and technology.

Super helpful, thanks!

This whole industry needs a rebrand. Excess carbon pollute my neighborhood parks and community. The majority of the world’s ecosystems are getting less diverse as a result of excess carbon. We’re literally watching a great extinction event in real time.

Yes, it's possible to be a capitalist and an environmentalist.

This won't work. We need real regulation that penalizes polluters so much that it's no longer profitable to destroy the planet. We need social and cultural changes so that it's no longer hip and cool to fly around on jet planes and cars. This is mostly a political issue, not an issue of private industries in search of profits.

Okay so we pass regulations but we still need new technology to make manufacturing and so on cleaner.

Good luck with that. I assume you live in a hut made from naturally fallen trees some where with no heating, air conditioning, running water, sewers, paved streets, computers, etc...

I'm kidding, of course you're not. You're standing on the shoulders of giants, but you think you're flying.

I could not disagree more. The second that renewable energy is a more economic and reliable way to consume energy it will easily become the default because there will be no reason not to. Private companies that could develop/build/scale such technologies and deploy them who seek profit are a viable method because the profit motive can deploy capital to that effect.

Government research and regulations could help speed the development of these technologies and hasten their tipping point through adjusting the cost. This is certainly not just a political issue and culture most often follows the past of least resistance. Telling people to stop consuming energy is a more quixotic endeavor than developing more economic renewables

“ The second that renewable energy is a more economic and reliable way to consume energy it will easily become the default because there will be no reason not to.”

You ignore the realpolitik of climate change. FYI certain fossil fuel producing states invest heavily to disrupt the transition to renewables.

Ask yourself why the Green Climate Fund, probably the most important fund of its type, is based is based in the arse-end or nowhere.

Certain ones do, sure. But not all, or even most. The vast majority of countries do not produce fossil fuels, so they all have an interest in reducing dependence on oil.

I know nothing about the GCF or the geography of Korea, but ~2 hours from Seoul doesn't really seem like the "arse-end of nowhere"?

>Telling people to stop consuming energy is a more quixotic endeavor than developing more economic renewables

Appropriately taxing energy consumption in order to force people to appropriately ration energy consumption for productive endeavors is more realistic than assuming humans are going to discover a preferable energy source than fossil fuels to move mass in a short enough timeframe to make an impact on climate change and pollution.

The biggest incentive for fossil fuel generated electricity is 0.06-0.10 cents per Kwh fossil fuel generated electricity. Electricity is cheap.

There's two ways to make a renewables economy, it's not complicated. The quick way, 200% tax on all fossil fuel generated electricity. The slow way, wait for technology to evolve that renewables become cheaper than fossil fuel. Government could help companies and utilities transition.

> We need real regulation that penalizes polluters

How are you going to penalise the other 7,000,000,000 people that don't live in the USA/EU/Japan? Growing at 3 souls per second.

The only way is to provide a cleaner alternative for base line coal with 100% dispatch ration that is cheaper than coal.

Because that is what the next five billion are going to use otherwise - whether you like it or not.

If you solve this, then - like smartphones - they will line up around the block to buy it and you won't have to convince or police anyone.

Right now, thorium breeder reactors seem the only thing.

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