8 ms·

Ask HN: What is the business opportunity of climate change for startups?

• rmah 10y ago
  Low energy, high efficiency cooling technologies for home, office, transportation, etc. Security technology (monitoring to riot control) to help governments deal with the social upheaval.
• prawn 10y ago
  I live in South Australia which is very dry and gets very hot. Through summer months, it can be a challenge to keep gardens alive and houses cool. There are likely opportunities around smarter approaches to marketing/selling a variety of things to the public: insulation, reflective film on windows (could quote and install without anyone being home), smarter irrigation, on-demand xeriscaping, garden audits, delivery of healthy/refreshing mocktail jugs to offices, etc.
• baron816 10y ago
  The biggest problems brought on by climate change will be 1) water shortages 2) crop failure and 3) flooding of low-lying areas, probably in that order. The "solutions" for 1 and 2 (water desalination and vertical farming) are being worked on by plenty of organizations. A few are also working on fast and efficient construction of housing, but I think that's where the biggest business opportunity lies. People are going to need housing even if we're able to avert disaster, and there's billions of people around the world who are already in need of stable shelter. If you could figure out how to quickly build a cheap and safe high-rise apartment building using relatively unskilled labor and that could be expanded as necessary or even deconstructed and moved, then you would have a world changing, multi-trillion dollar company.
  • bmh_ca 10y ago
    Or water cities.
  • ThomPete 10y ago
    Good thinking too.
  • anentropic 10y ago
    hasn't that been true forever though? isn't the problem that these people can't afford even cheap housing, and no one is buying it for them? these are already current social problems and don't appear to be enough of a business opportunity to be getting solved by capitalism
    • ThomPete 10y ago
      I think the point is that access to clean water wont just be a problem for the poorest.
    • baron816 10y ago
      I'm not really talking about the poorest of the poor who don't have any skills, although I'm sure there are plenty NGOs who are interested in finding cheap housing solutions for them. I'm talking about those who are emerging from poverty and have found a place in the economy. Climate change will pull them back down into poverty if the place they've settled in is flooded, or no longer has access to clean water, or can't grow enough food. Climate change isn't going to just affect the poor, it will affect the rich too--people who live in places like Southern Florida and New York City. If thousands or millions of those people get displaced, they're going to want to find a decent place to live quickly, and will have funds (either savings, insurance, or from government aid) to afford it. And you're also forgetting the #1 rule of economics, lowering the price for something means more people can afford it. There is a price point where everyone can afford housing, it's just that for many that point is very near zero. Still, the closer you get to zero, the more people fall under that umbrella of being able to afford it.
      • notahacker 10y ago
• josh_fyi 10y ago
  An example: Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar for climate change advocacy. And on the side, made up to a billion dollars from climate change business -- much of which was based on e Energy Department grants! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environment/03gore.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environmen...
• occam65 10y ago
  As historically cooler climates warm up, opportunities shift. A huge amount of industries where geography plays a crucial role will be affected. Vineyards, for instance, will be entirely changed. The trick is to find an industry currently tied to a specific climate, and predicting where the change in climate will take the market. I haven't thought about it a ton myself yet, but that's the line of thinking I've been on...
  • ThomPete 10y ago
    This is some good input and exactly what I was hoping for. finding the trajectories which allow for building businesses based on the change in climate.
• JSeymourATL 10y ago
  Bad Air is a Big Problem-- that's an opportunity. > http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140812-california-climate-change-global-warming-science/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140812-calif...
• diafygi 10y ago
  I'm in a climate change startup, and here's how I look at it: 87% of the energy sources we use are fossil-based[1] and will need to be replaced with non-fossil alternatives in the next 30 years. That's trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure and technology growth opportunity for clean energy and energy efficiency[2]. The next Google will be an energy company[3]. To answer your question more specifically, in order to actually pull the 87% energy transition off, clean energy sources face huge financial and engineering challenges. This presents a lot of business opportunities for tech startups that can improve efficiencies for those clean energy companies. Energy efficiency, electric self-driving vehicles, solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, public transit, etc. all need to grow by 100x in 30 years, and a huge chunk of that growth will be software driven. The advanced energy industry is already a $1.4 trillion industry (larger than airlines and fashion industries)[4]. So there is, right now, a ton of market size for climate change tech, and it will grow by several orders of magnitude over the next few decades. Now is one of those rare moments where you can save the planet and have a business model. For example, my startup is a SaaS company that is used by tons of distributed clean energy resources to smooth out the process of collecting energy data for feasibility analyses. We shave about 5-10% off the installed cost of energy audits and distributed solar, and make money doing it. So if you're interested in doing tech startup in climate change. Do it! We need all the help we can get. If you're interested in the Bay Area professional clean energy scene, check out the calendar https://bayareaenergyevents.com/ https://bayareaenergyevents.com/ (I run it) and start showing up to stuff! [1]: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11951 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11951 [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/aug/31/citi-report-slowing-global-warming-would-save-tens-of-trillions-of-dollars https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97... [3]: http://www.pvsolarreport.com/the-next-internet/ http://www.pvsolarreport.com/the-next-internet/ [4]: http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2016/03/advanced-energy-hits-record-revenue-nearly-1-4-trillion-2015/ http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2016/03/advanced-energy...
  • ThomPete 10y ago
    Amazing! Thank you so much for taking the time to write this. Great to see some of the thinking that goes into the industry. and your company is exactly the kind of companies I was thinking when it comes to software. Very interesting stuff and best of luck (You could use some help with the design though ;) so much potential to visualize and do interface work there) I am in NY so Bay Area is only when I have meetings.
• cdoelling 10y ago
  This from Peter Wadhams, one of the first people to discover the shrinkage of the ice caps. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/21/arctic-will-be-ice-free-in-summer-next-year https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/21/arctic-w... "As far as I can see, it will have to take the form of some sort of device into which you pump air at one end and you get air without carbon dioxide coming out the other end. It can be done, I am sure, but at the moment we do not have such a device. However, without something like that I cannot see how we are going to deal with the carbon dioxide that is getting into the atmosphere. We are going to have to rely on a technology that has not yet been developed. That is a measure of the troubles that lie ahead for us. I think humanity can do it, but I would feel much better if I saw governments investing in such technology."
  • ThomPete 10y ago
    No one investing in this?
    • TillE 10y ago
      Why would they? Where's the profit? Capitalism (even hip tech startup capitalism) can't solve all problems, particularly not the tragedy of the commons on a global scale.
      • ThomPete 10y ago
        The profit is in the same place as weapon or rockets? Governments.
  • logiclabs 10y ago
    This device, isn't it basically a plant? :-) Seriously though, microalgae carbon capture sounds like it was a good way forward. http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/9/722.full http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/9/722.full
    • AnimalMuppet 10y ago
• tmaly 10y ago
  in the short term, optimizing traffic lights could greatly reduce fossil fuel consumption. The current model uses PLCs but something like a neural net or some other type of machine learning could supplement this system to make it more efficient.
• Mz 10y ago
  Off the top of my head: Passive solar design, smaller homes, solar power, wind power, more efficient methods that use less water or energy to accomplish something, public transit, storm/disaster prep and clean up type things, storm resistant housing such as geodomes and smart city stuff. I am sure there is more.
• niftich 10y ago
  Arctic shipping will eventually be commonplace during the northern hemisphere summer, bringing both sea- and land-based activity to the region for half of every year. Since north of the arctic circle the sun won't set during this time, the there is opportunity to use (some) solar resources throughout the day. I expect solar-assisted propulsion systems for ships, solar-assisted power generation, solar-assisted desalination, greenhouses, heating, etc. to power an arctic boom. But since the region will still be far from hospitable, other industries like prefab homebuilding, insulation, and (paradoxically) resource and/or fossil fuel extraction stand to benefit too.
  • zaroth 10y ago
    I was curious about efficacy of solar at the poles - trading off low azimuth for one long period of constant daylight. I found this report [1] on panels installed at the South Pole, which seemed to indicate that this does work, although the panels never exceed about 50% of their rated maximum power point. A 175W panel there generates about 1500kWh per year. By comparison, I think the same panel in the US would generate about 2200-2500 kWh per year. (1.3m^2 * 5kWh/m2/day * 365) [1] - http://www.southpolestation.com/0809/solarenergyatpole012209rsa.pdf http://www.southpolestation.com/0809/solarenergyatpole012209...
• opiotrek 10y ago
  Selling CO2 limits... oh wait