5 ms·

It's amazing to me the impact they seem to be having with...a few million? With all the VC money getting thrown around these days you'd think some of it would g

by leesec 5y ago

It's amazing to me the impact they seem to be having with...a few million? With all the VC money getting thrown around these days you'd think some of it would get tossed towards unproven climate change solutions.

marcosdumay 5y ago
Research is relatively cheap. It also has a very low probability of success (on each initiative) and very long time horizon. Investor really don't like those two. Normally, governments would invest those few millions. But government spending seems to have become almost completely broken recently and isn't generating that kind of result anymore.
boringg 5y ago
Climate tech (ie hardware and software solutions) is a bad fit for VC money outside of carbon accounting software (which adds little value) benefits. As well this direct air capture is slightly better than CCS (read: pretty bad) but is also a red herring in terms of climate solutions that will provide a lot of value. I say this because large amounts of money will get diverted into this kind of investment that hasn't proved to be particularly successful but has an easy to understand narrative.
- jherdman 5y ago
  > Climate tech (ie hardware and software solutions) is a bad fit for VC money outside of carbon accounting software (which adds little value) benefits. Can you elaborate on this assertion?
  - murph-almighty 5y ago
    I think what OP is saying is that documenting the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere does nothing to actually remove it, and hence is of little value to anyone except whoever invested in the company and makes money licensing the software.
    - boringg 5y ago
      Exactly - while it does allow for measurement where the likely candidates are for scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 emissions it doesn't do anything to actually solve the problem (which is a hardware problem). That and there are way too many people who are now building carbon accounting software and the benefits that will accrue to it (similar to greenwashing). If only we could get some people to work in areas where there was real world impact instead of LP returns :)
akie 5y ago
How about the following scheme: 1. A government, any government, puts aside about €500 million. 2. Anyone who can submit a proposal, and anyone with a decent enough plan and a convincing group of people to execute it gets €250k. Total budget for this phase is €50 million, so this funds 200 ideas. 3. If ANY measurable progress has been made once the money runs out, your group gets another €500k. Expect 50% of the companies of step 2 to fail. Total budget for this phase is again €50 million, for (now) 100 ideas. 4. If the money from 2. or 3. turns out to be spent maliciously, the government will haunt you to get you to pay it back (there are existing protocols in place to deal with this). 5. If the money from 3. runs out, there is a go/no-go decision. In case of "go", you get €2 to €5 million to really have a go at it and build the real thing. In case of "no go", it stops here. You are obviously free to take your idea and try to find other investors for it. Weeds out (say) 50%, so now left at 50 ideas - total budget about €175 million. 6. For the companies that get the "go" in step 5, observe their performance. If it's promising, give them another €10 million. Again you probably only fund 50%, so that's 25 ideas for about €250 million. 7. Profit. Tada, a working process that probably gets your country a fairly large number of actually competitive companies that can end up employing thousands of people and at the same time help save the planet. Germany could run a competition like this for €6 per person. The EU could fund it for €1 per person. Heck, even the city of New York could fund it for the low, low, price of €20 per person. This is eminently doable.
- capital_guy 5y ago
  This is called DARPA in the US.
  - akie 5y ago
    There you go! We can call it CARPA (Climate Advanced Research Projects Agency) to help sell it.
- jseliger 5y ago
  2. Anyone who can submit a proposal, and anyone with a decent enough plan and a convincing group of people to execute it gets €250k. Total budget for this phase is €50 million, so this funds 200 ideas. This is basically ARPA-E: https://arpa-e.energy.gov/faqs/general-questions https://arpa-e.energy.gov/faqs/general-questions. I've written a bunch of these, and they're more straightforward than many federal applications.
Factorium 5y ago
The best way to spend money on carbon removal is to lobby politicians to initiate carbon taxes, or at least to place tariffs on nations without them. We cannot physically replicate the Azolla Event or the Carboniferous Period. There's no better form of carbon storage than coal, gas, oil. And it needs to just stay in the ground. Otherwise I guess if we're looking at terraforming, we should consider iron fertilization.
- philwelch 5y ago
  I think you're dramatically overestimating the efficacy of politicians.

by leesec 5y ago

marcosdumay 5y ago

Research is relatively cheap. It also has a very low probability of success (on each initiative) and very long time horizon. Investor really don't like those two. Normally, governments would invest those few millions. But government spending seems to have become almost completely broken recently and isn't generating that kind of result anymore.

boringg 5y ago

Climate tech (ie hardware and software solutions) is a bad fit for VC money outside of carbon accounting software (which adds little value) benefits. As well this direct air capture is slightly better than CCS (read: pretty bad) but is also a red herring in terms of climate solutions that will provide a lot of value. I say this because large amounts of money will get diverted into this kind of investment that hasn't proved to be particularly successful but has an easy to understand narrative.

jherdman 5y ago
> Climate tech (ie hardware and software solutions) is a bad fit for VC money outside of carbon accounting software (which adds little value) benefits. Can you elaborate on this assertion?
- murph-almighty 5y ago
  I think what OP is saying is that documenting the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere does nothing to actually remove it, and hence is of little value to anyone except whoever invested in the company and makes money licensing the software.
  - boringg 5y ago
    Exactly - while it does allow for measurement where the likely candidates are for scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 emissions it doesn't do anything to actually solve the problem (which is a hardware problem). That and there are way too many people who are now building carbon accounting software and the benefits that will accrue to it (similar to greenwashing). If only we could get some people to work in areas where there was real world impact instead of LP returns :)

akie 5y ago

How about the following scheme: 1. A government, any government, puts aside about €500 million. 2. Anyone who can submit a proposal, and anyone with a decent enough plan and a convincing group of people to execute it gets €250k. Total budget for this phase is €50 million, so this funds 200 ideas. 3. If ANY measurable progress has been made once the money runs out, your group gets another €500k. Expect 50% of the companies of step 2 to fail. Total budget for this phase is again €50 million, for (now) 100 ideas. 4. If the money from 2. or 3. turns out to be spent maliciously, the government will haunt you to get you to pay it back (there are existing protocols in place to deal with this). 5. If the money from 3. runs out, there is a go/no-go decision. In case of "go", you get €2 to €5 million to really have a go at it and build the real thing. In case of "no go", it stops here. You are obviously free to take your idea and try to find other investors for it. Weeds out (say) 50%, so now left at 50 ideas - total budget about €175 million. 6. For the companies that get the "go" in step 5, observe their performance. If it's promising, give them another €10 million. Again you probably only fund 50%, so that's 25 ideas for about €250 million. 7. Profit. Tada, a working process that probably gets your country a fairly large number of actually competitive companies that can end up employing thousands of people and at the same time help save the planet. Germany could run a competition like this for €6 per person. The EU could fund it for €1 per person. Heck, even the city of New York could fund it for the low, low, price of €20 per person. This is eminently doable.

capital_guy 5y ago
This is called DARPA in the US.
- akie 5y ago
  There you go! We can call it CARPA (Climate Advanced Research Projects Agency) to help sell it.
jseliger 5y ago
2. Anyone who can submit a proposal, and anyone with a decent enough plan and a convincing group of people to execute it gets €250k. Total budget for this phase is €50 million, so this funds 200 ideas. This is basically ARPA-E: https://arpa-e.energy.gov/faqs/general-questions https://arpa-e.energy.gov/faqs/general-questions. I've written a bunch of these, and they're more straightforward than many federal applications.

Factorium 5y ago

The best way to spend money on carbon removal is to lobby politicians to initiate carbon taxes, or at least to place tariffs on nations without them. We cannot physically replicate the Azolla Event or the Carboniferous Period. There's no better form of carbon storage than coal, gas, oil. And it needs to just stay in the ground. Otherwise I guess if we're looking at terraforming, we should consider iron fertilization.

philwelch 5y ago
I think you're dramatically overestimating the efficacy of politicians.