Ask HN: Best companies working on climate in 2020? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Best companies working on climate in 2020?

24 pointsvikoonishmoog17 comments

Best here is likely defined as "has a sensible expected value of actually affecting the problem", so includes things useful today like credit marketplaces as well as exploratory like frontier carbon capture.

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Here are a bunch of promising software companies worth joining, competing with, partnering with:

https://www.aurorasolar.com/ https://utilityapi.com/ https://www.folsomlabs.com/ https://www.sighten.io/ https://www.energytoolbase.com/ https://home.alsoenergy.com/

Climate change is (often/best seen as) an economic problem. Companies that cut the cost of renewable energy are the ones that matter. Soft cost reduction (as opposed to silicon wafers, transformers, etc.) is the best place for software to make a difference.

We at XR global are always looking for developers to work on internal / external tools. But besides dev-work there are many other ways to contribute, be it copywriting, marketing, design work, ... Globally or in your local group.

https://rebellion.global

How as a programmer and data guy I can help?

How about this:

- Change the way we commute: Tesla

- Change the way we work: Zoom and other remote work enablers

- Change the way we eat: Beyond / Impossibe and other meat substitutes

I don't think you can credit Tesla with changing the way we commute if that still involves loads of people driving their own car to work. If far fewer people really needed a car at all, that would be a big positive change for the environment.

That involves a long grind of unsexy stuff like urban planning, public service procurement and mapping bus and cycle routes. It does get to the front page of HN every once in a while, but it's not particularly flashy stuff.

I'd agree on Tesla, one could argue that Toyota hybrids have had more of an impact simply by 2019 sales figures [0].

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcollins/2020/01/15/toyotas-r...

Climate Change AI's paper (https://www.climatechange.ai/paper) lists some key areas in which AI can mitigate climate change. An area of critical importance is time series forecasting. Google's AI fund has backed one company in this space: https://www.myst.ai/

PBS Nova covered some of them here.

https://youtu.be/PeYJTluQ5tM

Come work with us at Salk Harnessing Plants Initiative

The expected value of your individual is high because we need more engineering expertise

https://www.ted.com/talks/joanne_chory_how_supercharged_plan...

I don't see any company actually affecting the problem meaningfully in the short term. There are plenty of renewable, cooling, carbon capture companies out there that may be investigating future tech, but not at the scale that will make a real impact.

Aren't wind and solar marginally the least expensive power and outpacing the growth of things like coal?

I think the technology to solve climate change exists, deployment is the issue and many companies are working on it actively (e.g. SunPower), installing GW of renewable power and/or storage. Even if scale isn't where it needs to be, that's all the more reason to work in the sector because marginal effort will return actual GHG emission reductions since it's not just research anymore.

Yeah, renewables can bid the lowest to the grid. They are gaining traction, but it will still take decades to replace the existing infrastructure. Even then, it won't fix the issue. We'd have to make similar changes to other infrastructure like vehicles and capture existing carbon. Then there's a bunch of other contributors, such as landfills, asphalt surfaces, even things like heat pumps and refrigerators when looking at local issues cities. So it will keep the issue from getting worse, but it won't fix it.

I agree there's a lot of work to be done! What do you suggest folks who are interested in helping to solve the problem do if not researching solutions or trying to economically scale existing ones by working at the companies which are doing that?

I'm just saying that there aren't any companies that I know of that currently can meaningfully affect the issue. Working for companies that are researching future tech is probably the next best thing.

Ah got it. I guess I disagree, I think there are probably over a thousand companies actively working on the issue with the potential to massively reduce GHG emissions. Lots of examples in this thread. General categories are:

- EV manufacturers (eg Tesla) - Solar OEMs (eg SunPower) - Battery makers (eg Avalon) - Battery operators (eg Geli, AMS) - Wind providers (eg Vestas) - Large utilities which are focused on renewables (eg Enel) - Distributed generation companies (eg Sunrun)

The list goes on! GTM is a good news site with the pulse on each industry (https://www.greentechmedia.com)

I also agree that fundamental research (either towards an energy storage breakthrough or a next-gen nuclear breakthrough) are necessary. I think this is a "yes and" situation.

I am a developer. If any One needs help then just contact me via my profile. I am into Python, data and a few other things. Happy to work on challenging tasks.

TESLA

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