Google Sets Ambitious Goals For Renewable Energy
by Tim McGee, Western Massachusetts 
on 11.29.07
If Google is anything, it is ambitious. 'To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful' is the simple, honest, ambitious goal Google sets for itself everyday. Google has found tremendous success in this bold approach, and is now showing similar leadership in renewable energy.
This week Google announced a R&D initiative with the goal to create a gigawatt of renewable energy that will be cheaper to produce than a gigawatt of electricity generated by coal-fired power plants. Coal is dirty, and the best way to free us from our fossil fuel addiction is to make renewable energy cheaper, on a grand scale. Google coined a somewhat geeky equation RE<C, (Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal) that sums up the idea nicely. To give you an idea of the scale, a gigawatt is estimated to be enough power for a city the size of San Francisco.
Solar thermal technology appears to be the front runner at the moment for supplying the gigawatt of power needed. Google.org (the philanthropic arm of Google) announced they are already working with eSolar (pictured) and the Google RE<C team gave the impression that their internal efforts would be directed along the lines of solar thermal technologies. I can't think of a better starting place for cheap energy than looking to the sun.
But, Google and Google.org are also firmly open to driving innovation as shown in another Google.org investment. Makani Power (Makani Kite Pictured) is a company that is thinking outside the box with high altitude wind energy capture systems. The Google RE<C team also has mentioned it is considering enhanced geothermal systems, as well as other 'potential breakthrough technologies'. It is not even clear if the resulting power plant will be a centralized facility or a distributed network, or some hybrid. Google simple wants what will work, and is willing to be creative and innovative to get the job done.
Google is using itself as a lightning rod and test-bed for energy innovation. In 2008, Google expects to spend tens of millions of dollars on the initiative, with plans to spend hundreds of millions on further investments. In addition Google is looking to hire about 20 people to fill out the RE<C initiative. Google is hoping this kind of directed cash injection may be just what is needed to create the conditions necessary for development of a gigawatt renewable energy power plant. And Google wisely wants to develop the prototype for itself.
Google's servers are suspected to use tremendous (no details were disclosed) volumes of energy. A limiting factor for Google's primary mission very well may be the energy needed to run more servers, and the related social and environmental costs of that energy production. I can't imagine paying a gigawatt energy bill. But, Google is used to meeting ambitious goals, let's hope this one is no different. For more information on the RE<C initiative follow the links below.
:: Google Press Release :: Google Green Energy
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It's about time somebody did it.
If coal users had to pay for the pollution they dumped into the air, then renewables would already be cheaper. It's a shame people don't have to pay the cost of polluting the commons.
If any company (or anyone) can do it, Google can... but they have a long way to get to get close to be cheaper than coal. Coal currently costs around $.02 per kWh to produce energy, where solar power is around $.20 per kWh for the best systems. Most other renewables that are mentioned in the article cost around $.10 to .15 per kWh. To do get the cost of renewables down to the cost of coal in the matter of years seems very ambitious. But hey, it's Google.
Woodsman, while you're correct in the main, I think to a certain extent you're comparing apples and oranges. The $0.02/kWh you quote for coal is the utility's generation cost, not its retail value, while for a sizeable commercial installation the $0.20/kWh for some renewables is a retail cost. A more realistic comparison would probably be $0.05/kWh to $0.20/kWh -- still a big gap, but a factor of four instead of 10. But then, there are still all sorts of bugbears left undiscussed -- the intermittency of the renewables versus the coal, for one thing. Certainly not an insurmountable issue in our current energy mix, but if they're going to put a gigawatt of capacity all in one place it is something that will have to be considered and accounted for.
Maybe TreeHugger should start recognizing that Google isn't the only web company out there making strides towards making the world greener.
Y! does a lot of green promoting on their site, everywhere.
Microsoft's MSN site, has a lot of green info. that spread elsewhere, including to Treehugger. I also know that Microsoft heavily pushes bike trails on its Redmond campus, and offers free public transit passes, and their new complexes are also green and efficient.
Not sure about AOL.
But the important thing is, is that many web and tech companies are striving to be green.
Just because you like Google, doesn't mean the other companies aren't green enough to be on Treehugger.
Mr. Advice Network. I am going to assume you see CO2 as a pollutant, even though it is naturally occurring in the atmosphere and has in the past been in enormously high concentrations in the atmosphere, you still probably would say CO2 is a pollutant. Assuming this, do you think that people should have to pay to live? Seeing as how we all release CO2. Or that farmers should have to pay for their cows living? Because as we all know, cows release methane. Or, if you are a believer in the apocalyptic Global Warming sham, then perhaps you think people who let water become vapor and go into the atmosphere should have to pay. Because water of course is about 60 times better at retaining residual heat than CO2 is. Even better, should desert areas have to pay because by living in areas with lots of dust, I am talking of the desert, it is unavoidable that dust enters and "pollutes" the air. So should they pay for living in those areas? Also, cool work google. It is currently not efficient to use the alternative forms of energy, but surely by being a funder/tester for the forms, they can become cheaper and more refined. However, why not try nuclear? And dont say its because its dangerous, read the requirements for housing a nuclear reactor(http://www.nmcco.com/education/facts/safety/what_makes.htm), and dont say its because of waste, all the nuclear waste can currently be stored in an area the size of a football field(http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/020506.Johnston.nucwaste.html), and dont say its because it wouldn't provide enough energy, all of the uranium in seawater alone could supply the earth's current energy demand of 650 GWe for 7 million years(http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html#cohen). So tell me why nuclear should be used?