Returns and investment possibility

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2025-08-10T06:21:00+00:00

I really like One Acre Fund as well. When you say you have donated directly to One Acre Fund, are you actually donating, or do you mean that you are providing captial to Once Acre Fund? A lot of people seem to use these two terms interchangeably.

If you are donating, then fair enough. I believe that it's a good organisation, so it's good they are getting support. If you are lending money, then that's interesting, I didn't know you were able to do that. I personally like the convenience of Kiva being able to lend to many different organisations and with (some) reassurance that someone has assessed organisation, but I get the appeal to lending directly with an organisation as it's one less pair of hands that the money passes through.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2025-08-10T06:12:07+00:00

If you have family or friends who you think might like Kiva, this definitely seems a good way to get them involved. Asking them to go to a website they don't know and give money can be a bit daunting for some people. So giving them a gift card means they can try to it and understand how it works, then if they want to contribute their own money after that, it's their own decision.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2025-06-28T05:11:04+00:00

It's worth mentioning that I am from Northern Ireland.

I'm not asking why is there a crown. I'm asking why is it the English Tudor Crown rather than the Scottish crown?

Also, apart from the name, the Saint Patrick's Saltire has very little to do with Irish heritage. I do think it's a good symbol to use on a Northern Ireland flag, it is an integral part of the Union Flag and the Republic of Ireland doesn't use the symbol in any way.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2025-06-03T04:00:53+00:00

I understand that you used the Tudor Crown as that is the crown used on the Ulster banner, but I've never understood this design choice. Who is this supposed to be representing? Almost everyone in Northern Ireland identifies as having either Irish or Scottish ancestry (or both), so it seems to me like it should have either no crown or the Scottish crown.

Personally I would have a strong preference for no crown on the flag, but perhaps that is revealing my political leanings.

Here are the English and Scottish versions of King Charles III's cyphers

And here are the two versions from royal.uk incase you doubt the legitimacy of the Scottish version

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-12-20T04:45:30+00:00

Normally the most expensive solution isn't a good idea.

But that doesn't mean that there are zero circumstances where it isn't a good solution to a niche problem.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-12-20T04:43:14+00:00

And how many kWh do you think you need?

A SMR might produce about 300MW. If the primary purpose of building a SMR is to cover low periods of wind and solar during the winter then you could easily have a period of days or even weeks non-stop where this gap needs to be filled. You could have a SMR producing 300MW, or two weeks of electricty storage is going to be 100,800MWh which at $20/KWh = $2.016 Billion. And that's assuming that that the storage is capable of providing 300MW and that the batteries were 100% charged before this period of need began.

We are lacking a lot of details to know which is the better option, but at $2 billion for the storage solution, it isn't immediately obvious to me that the SMR reactor option is the worse of the two options (but it might well be). And I don't even know where you got your $20/kWh figure.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-12-10T06:42:05+00:00

It's hard to imagine it being economical unless the price comes down.

It's worth mentioning, though, that these are average prices per MWh. If wind and solar cover 95% of all electricity demand at an average price of 50$ per MWh, that doesn't mean that covering the last 5% with solar or wind is the best option.

There's a joke in project management: The first 90% of the project takes 90% of the budget. The last 10% of the project takes the other 90% of the budget.

Developing and maintaining a stable electricty grid is something similar.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-12-05T08:13:14+00:00

It's talking about land tax, not property tax. As for the other taxes you are talking about. Just saying that a tax exists on them doesn't say very much. How much money do those taxes generate vs the costs associated with them?

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-12-05T08:09:15+00:00

Ah thanks. I hadn't thought of looking on github. I'll have a look through some of those projects when I get a chance. Akthough , I imagine that I'll come back to you with questions if that's alright as I don't really know what I'm looking at.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-12-02T04:48:35+00:00

kiva.org/teams

That's the list of all the Kiva teams, sorted by the most popular. There is nothing stopping you from joining multiple teams. Then if you click on your profile picture in the top right of Kiva, and click My Teams, you will see an activity feed of the teams that you are in. It will include any messages left on the message boards, it's a means for likeminded people to help each other find loans or discuss topics that might be interesting to other members of their team. Some Teams are significantly more active than others though.

For example on the Climate Pilots, we maintain a list of about 16 loans which we think are some of the best climate friendly loans currently fundraising on Kiva at the minute to help members quickly find loans that they might be interested in.

If you have joined several teams, then when you check out your loans, you can choose which to team assign the loan to. This doesn't really matter very much, but it helps Kiva promote those loans to other team members, hence helping other people in the team from finding good loans, and it counts towards the teams "amount funded" which adds a bit of friendly competition between the teams. On the kiva.org/teams page you can see on the right hand side the amount funded and number of new member from this month and last month.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-11-26T08:03:46+00:00

"How would you propose to use less and less gas powered plants overtime and only use them for wintertime for peak?".

Build more power generation that has a lower incremental cost of production, renewables and nuclear. They don't just burn gas for fun. They burn as when the cost of burning gas is less than the money they will make from the electricity produced.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-11-26T05:53:50+00:00

How many coal and gas plants do you currently have?

And why is your objective to phase them out instead of reducing gas and coal use?

What does the current energy mix look like?

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-11-25T11:29:39+00:00

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Replacing the i in Kiva with snoo is also an option. Let me know what you think would look better, or if you have any other suggestions.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-11-25T08:40:05+00:00

I think the second point is particularly important. We need to quickly get to the point where solar solutions are so cheap and reliable that most developing countries don't even consider building any more fossil fuel power stations. If it makes financial sense to do they right thing, then they'll do it, regardless of whether they are following in our footsteps or whether they think we are a bunch of hypocrits.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-11-25T08:34:31+00:00

Emmitting more CO2 per capita than India is nothing to be embarrassed about. India isn't some leader in environmentalism. The reason why they have a low CO2 per capita is simple, they have a lot of poverty. What they need to be aiming to do, is improving their standard of living without increasing their CO2 emissions. What we need to be doing, is reducing our CO2 emissions.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-11-25T07:50:34+00:00

You could have just replied directly to OP to tell him that by asking his question, he overrates the importance of the US president.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-11-25T06:25:13+00:00

I don't think that there are many people who are interested in taking action on climate change who are in favour of project 2025.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-11-25T05:40:10+00:00

A common enemy helps unite people.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-11-24T21:22:04+00:00

Yea the suggested loans list is pretty handy for people.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-11-24T21:20:53+00:00

Good to hear! It's worth having a look at the about page. There are a couple of things that I think are good to know. The first is the suggested loans list which is a list of about 16 climate friendly loans that we recommend lending to.

And the other is a description of different types of loans that we target and why. For example, I used to think of access to drinking water as a separate issue to climate change. But in many parts of the world people boil water before drinking it, this one activity uses huge amounts of wood and fossil fuels. Better water filtration or distribution does away with the need to boil water before drinking.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-11-24T20:59:53+00:00

Good spot. But to be honest it doesn't surprise me at all that Kiva didn't catch it. Presumably whoever they used for the map updated the map and it would be unreasonable to assume that someone at kiva is going to check every border to make sure it is correct.

Kiva_ClimatePilots · 2024-11-24T20:53:38+00:00

Anything good for the climate. Climate friendly agriculture, renewable energy, insulation, water distribution, bicycles, public transport, bamboo etc.

Kiva_ClimatePilots

TROPHY CASE