
Fixing Climate Change May Add No Costs, Report Says - metermaid
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/science/earth/fixing-climate-change-may-add-no-costs-report-says.html
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diafygi
I have a startup in energy, and one thing that I think entrepreneurs outside
of energy don't understand is just how ridiculously high the ceiling is in
this space.

In our lifetimes (~40yrs), we will have to replace the 87% of the energy
sources that are adding carbon to the carbon cycle[1]. That's ~450 Quadrillion
BTUs (QBTU) per year[2]. No matter what, this will happen.

Do you know how much solar the US installed in 2012? 30 Gigawatts[3], which
equals ~0.9 QBTU/yr. Even if solar eventually only amounts to 20% of the total
fuel replacement (~90 QBTU/yr), that's a 100x growth in 40 years for an
already huge industry. That's Internet revolution scale growth.

And that's only one industry. What about energy efficiency? There's so much
opportunity for tech disruption there, and the ceiling is just as high as
solar.

Why the hell are entrepreneurs (and investors) trying to make the next big app
when the ceiling is so much higher in cleantech? The next Google will be an
energy company.

[1] -
[http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11951](http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11951)

[2] -
[http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=44&p...](http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=44&pid=44&aid=2)

[3] - [http://cleantechnica.com/2013/12/24/npd-solarbuzz-predict-
ma...](http://cleantechnica.com/2013/12/24/npd-solarbuzz-predict-
massive-49-gw-solar-pv-demand-2014/)

~~~
mbesto
It's a very valid point. However, here's my armchair conclusion - energy
efficiency is crazy hard. I invested in a solar company about ~5 yrs ago and
watched as the market rarely met expectations. No idea where it is now, but my
general conclusion was that the cost to do business in this area rarely
outweighed the benefits (i.e. profits).

~~~
nl
But isn't that a case of selling shovels vs mining yourself?

No one made money on solar itself because everyone made the rational decision
to invest in it at the same time. That produced an oversupply, which meant
less profits, but a very successful outcome in terms of supply.

That doesn't mean there aren't opportunities - just that they are hard to
predict during disruption (what's new, right?)

~~~
mbesto
Right, but what shovels are you going to sell during the solar gold rush?

> _That produced an oversupply, which meant less profits_

No idea honestly. My assumption was that the energy efficiency of solar (i.e.
how much it costs to R&D + implement) has been so poor that many
people/organizations ditched it.

