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Ask HN: How to fight climate change with software?

8 points by nathantone ↗ HN
hey all!

Do you have any ideas kicking around for fighting climate change w/ a software skillset: apps, saas, marketplaces, etc

:) <3

15 comments

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sillysaurus3
Spreading awareness would be good. Many people reject the notion that the climate is changing, so there would be value in collating the most persuasive and concrete arguments.

It's important to filter out conjecture and anecdata, though.

IpV8
I don't think that there is very much value there. Everyone who is going to believe in global warming already does. Acknowledging extremists only strengthens their cause.

In response to OP, I have dedicated my career to fighting global warming through software. It is VERY difficult to find good software jobs that accomplish this, but they do exists if you are flexible on pay/location. Some angles that I have found successful:

- Supporting REC markets with technology. The more successful they are the more politicians will support them which starts the cycle of affordable renewables driving more financing for innovative companies driving lower prices...

- Join companies doing efficiency profiling. This has been a huge area of recent growth. Companies doing things like analyzing utility data to show companies where they can reduce usages to have the most impact

- Work in renewables. PV's, inverters, batteries, wind turbines, etc all need to talk to each other! Brush up on your modbus, mqtt, sunspec, etc and start looking for companies.

- Build our scientists better tools! Tons of companies are working to provide researchers with better ways of understanding the environment and the effects of global warming. This may not be the most direct way for you to help, but it is important to understanding climate change. There is tooonnns of room for innovation here, especially in allowing scientists to understand and harness AI and standardizing data/research to open up collaboration.

- Work for the grid. Many giant utility companies are starting to realize that microgrids are real and imminent. How do utilities maintain control over a homeowner's power so that there aren't dangerous power fluctuations on the grid? Check out Kitu or Autogrid for some solutions. Larger utilities will also have R&D labs where they set up and test cutting edge renewable options and control strategies.

TL;DR: Tons of companies are working to drive down the cost of renewables. Save the world!

nathantone
love this.

what are the biggest frustrations you're currently seeing w/ REC markets?

i was surprised at how hard it is to compare REC prices. Like, am I supposed to request a quote from each of these? https://www.green-e.org/certified-resources

It'd be great to snap a pic of my utility bill and get back the best REC pricing... :)

IpV8
A big problem in the REC markets is lack of price transparency. I worked for a startup a while back building a trading platform to try to get major players together at a regular interval to agree upon pricing that could then be executed upon and published publicly. The idea didn't pan out; despite having a lot of the biggest traders in the game on board, there just wasn't enough trading to make a company viable. I believe that this is due in part by two things. 1 - the large variance in regulations. You can't just trade a REC for a REC. If there was national consensus then it would open up much more liquidity. 2 - most RECs are pre bought/sold as a means of project finance. A company building a wind farm will pre sell years in advance to help fund the hardware. On the other side utilities will pre buy all the credits to cover their needs. There is relatively low day trading, making a technology solution difficult.

Currently most large scale traders pick up the phone and call brokers like the good old days of the stock market. So to answer your question, yes you need to request a quote from each. There are also bloomberg streams for pricing and some brokering companies publish indexes that they believe reflect the current pricing.

nathantone
ugh!

so if I got a quote w/ my utility bill from all those sellers, then got another quote from each next week, or got another quote for a diff utility bill, would the prices returned by each seller vary significantly?

IpV8
Probably not widely. They likely have some sort of source of information that they use like for example: 'the current published price on bloomberg by Intercontinental Exchange'. Though this may not be the exact market price of the REC at that particular instant, it would be within a couple cents or so. Also with such a small market the amount you could get per REC changes significantly based on volume. Anyways, you as a customer with a utility bill probably have 0 say in what you sell your RECs for. You already would have signed away those rights when you signed the lease on your solar panels. (at least that's how it all works to the best of my knowledge)
nathantone
the goal would be to create an vehicle that's super effective at changing ppl's strongly held beliefs. that's tough!

i wonder what the most successful method is to change someone's deeply rooted beliefs.

DoreenMichele
I keep hypothesizing that using a website or software to somehow promote pedestrianism would be helpful. You don't even need to promote it as fighting climate change per se. You could promote it as how to save money on gas while improving your personal fitness.

There are probably other creative approaches. But I would try to think about what's their motivation. What is in it for them. Moralizing tends to not have the best track record for promoting the changes we would like to see. It tends to just force "bad behavior" underground, which can lead to worse things.

nathantone
that's smart.

a mr. miyagi wax on / wax off approach. can you think of any co's that do this well?

here's a fun walking app btw (https://jaywalk.me/)

DoreenMichele
No, I can't.

I have spent quite a lot of years trying to figure out how to do a pedestrian-themed blog. I finally have one that I think might "have legs." ;) It has two whole posts. I have probably gone through 10 or 12 different blog names, most of which never got any content whatsoever.

I think trying to promote pedestrianism in the US is quite challenging. I have lived without a car for like a decade or so. The most common assumption people make is that I am clearly just pathetically poor. This happens to be true right now, but I also am a committed environmentalist type. My college major was in environmental studies.

I gave up my car when I still had a corporate job. Only one person who ever gave me a ride home from the corporate job ever asked me why I gave up the car. Everyone else just made polite noises about what a trooper I was for dutifully walking to work in spite of the pathetic state of my obviously poverty stricken life.

In the US, no car = pathetic poor person. So trying to sell people on the idea of choosing to go carless is a really tough thing. Thus, I would just start with trying to get them to drive less and maybe go from a two-car family to a one-car family. That's a much easier starting point.

There was an website I saw the other day on HN:

Transforming How We Collect and Visualize Information about Urban Accessibility (projectsidewalk.io)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15790713

I liked that.

AnimalMuppet
Maybe via software efficiency. Use less CPU cycles, so the CPU can idle more cores, so it can burn fewer watts.
tmaly
if you could optimize the traffic lights in cities, you could save a ton on gas. All the stopping and going due to hard coded timers wastes a ton and creates more pollution.
fulafel
habitrpg like carbon footprint reduction app. And/or a "pyramid scheme" where you could challenge friends to participate and get credit for onboarding people and their reductions.
SirLJ
Stop mining crypto coins, what a waste of energy...