Google Expands Into Alternative Energy

Source: ABC News

Google Inc. is expanding into alternative energy in its most ambitious effort yet to ease the environmental strain caused by the company's voracious appetite for power to run its massive computing centers.

As part of a project announced Tuesday, the Internet search leader and its philanthropic arm will pour hundreds of millions of dollars into a quest to lower the cost of producing electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind and the sun.

If Google realizes its goal, the cost of solar power should fall by 25 to 50 percent, co-founder Larry Page said in an interview

The Mountain View-based company initially hopes to harvest cleaner-burning electricity to meet its own needs and sell power to other users or license the technology that emerges from its initiative, dubbed "Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal," or "REC."

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Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WireStory?id=3922073&page=1

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Much more on link.

Good use of those billions. Mobil et al should take notice.

Have you seen this? http://www.blackle.com/ Not only is google trying to find ways to reduce the costs - they've introduced a way google users can reduce the energy spent on their searches right now.

Thanks for the good news, Uncle Joe. :hi:

CORRECTION: This isn't a google site - just powered by google.
http://www.blackle.com/about/
"Blackle was created by Heap Media to remind us all of the need to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy. Blackle searches are powered by Google Custom Search.

Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen." Roberson et al, 2002"

I'm out of here, have a good night.:hi:

"What's more, Al Gore, who won a Nobel Prize for his efforts to educate people about the perils of global warming, has been a Google adviser for several years. Page said the former vice president influenced Google's decision to accelerate its investment in renewable energy."

company. They will make a lot of money on their innovations if they are successful.

This is the kind of thing I am looking forward to, the tech companies making little "iTransports" that look something like this:
http://www.go-one.us/
That zip us around in relative comfort.

suggesting that someone higher up knows what's going on. This confirms it. Still a little surprising, since Kunstler described the response from the Googlers as more incredulity ("but dude, we have technology!") than concern.

Seriously.

Thanks for posting that Uncle Joe :thumbsup: :).

:hi:

I think google might actually accomplish something here. Usually I don't think much of it when a major company makes such claims, but for some reason I don't get that same feeling here.

Let's hope Google partners up with their neighbor Nanosolar http://www.nanosolar.com/. Start boosting Nanosolar's thin-film solar technology that they print on rolls, just like using a big printing press. More ribbon, less silicon.

Oh, and We Also Saved the World: Google's Energy Plan
October 12, 2007

By Robert X. Cringely

A funny thing happened the other day on my way to buy a MiG-23 supersonic jet fighter: I bumped into Google's plan to change the way we generate electricity and, by doing so, alter for the better both global warming and the balance of world geopolitical power. So as often as I criticize them, let me also be the first to nominate Brin, Page, and Schmidt for their Nobel Peace Prizes, not that they need the money.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20071012_003200.html

"Google is Makani Power's major investor, having put $10 million into the company back in 2006. If Makani makes it possible to convert a huge percentage of American power generating capability to wind, it will be because of Google. If a commensurate amount of carbon dioxide is not released into the atmosphere as a result of this conversion, that too will be Google's fault. And if the conversion leads to lessened demand for Middle Eastern oil and even a slight change in the strategic importance of that part of the world, possibly reducing tensions among nations, blame Google.

The unanswered question is "Why?"

It is rare for a public corporation to do more than token philanthropy and completely unknown for one to catalyze what could be such a fundamental change in how we live just to save some money and save the environment. Google can do it because Google is making huge profits. But Microsoft makes huge profits, too, and Microsoft has never done anything like this.

I can only conclude, then, that Google must be grossly mismanaged.

Good."



:D

n/t