Clean energy 2030 - Google offers their plan

Edited to add: The "yokels" term was used sarcastically as an inside poke at an Energy/Environment regular. I've removed it because this is the best articulation of an actual energy plan that I've seen to date. The young man who wrote it, Greenblatt, is as bright and well informed as they come. Also, Google is putting considerable development money into making this plan happen. - K

There is an article here *detailing* their energy plan: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/15x31uzlqeo5n/1

And this link leads to the blog entry below: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/clean-energy-2030.html

Clean energy 2030
10/01/2008 10:44:00 AM
Right now the U.S. has a very real opportunity to transform our economy from one running on fossil fuels to one largely based on clean energy. We are developing the technologies and know-how to accomplish this. We can build whole new industries and create millions of new jobs. We can reduce energy costs, both at the gas pump and at home. We can improve our national security. And we can put a big dent in climate change. With strong leadership we could be moving forward on an aggressive but realistic timeline and an approach that balances costs with real economic gains.

The energy team at Google has been crunching the numbers to see how we could greatly reduce fossil fuel use by 2030. Our analysis, led by Jeffery Greenblatt, suggests a potential path to weaning the U.S. off of coal and oil for electricity generation by 2030 (with some remaining use of natural gas as well as nuclear), and cutting oil use for cars by 40%. Al Gore has issued a challenge that is even more ambitious, getting us to carbon-free electricity even sooner. We hope the American public pushes our leaders to embrace it. T. Boone Pickens has weighed in with an interesting plan of his own to massively deploy wind energy, among other things. Other plans have also been developed in recent years that merit attention.

Our goal in presenting this first iteration of the Clean Energy 2030 proposal is to stimulate debate and we invite you to take a look and comment -- or offer an alternative approach if you disagree. With a new Administration and Congress -- and multiple energy-related imperatives -- this is an opportune, perhaps unprecedented, moment to move from plan to action.

Over 22 years this plan could generate billions of dollars in savings and help create millions of green jobs. Many of these high quality, good-paying jobs will be in today's coal and oil producing states.

To get there we need to move immediately on three fronts:

(1) Reduce demand by doing more with less

We should start with the low-hanging fruit by reducing energy demand through energy efficiency -- adopting technologies and practices that allow us to do more with less. At Google, we've seen the benefits of this approach. We identified $5M in building efficiency investments with a 2.5 year payback. We've also designed our own data centers to run more efficiently, and we believe they are the most efficient in the world. On a smaller scale, personal computers can also become much more efficient. A typical desktop PC wastes nearly half the power it consumes. Last year, Bill Weihl, our Green Energy Czar, worked with industry partners to create the Climate Savers Computing Initiative to raise energy efficiency standards for personal computers and servers. If we meet our goals, these standards will cut energy consumption by the equivalent of 10-20 coal-fired power plants by 2010.

Government can have a big impact on achieving greater efficiency. California's aggressive building codes, efficiency standards and utility programs have helped the state keep per-capita energy use flat for years, while consumption in much of the rest of the country has grown significantly. Enacting similar policies at the national level would help even more.

We also need to give the American people opportunities to be more efficient. The way we buy electricity today is like going to a store without seeing prices: we pick what we want, and receive an unintelligible bill at the end of the month. When homes are equipped with smart meters and real-time pricing, research shows that energy use typically drops. Google is looking at ways that we can use our information technology and our reach to help increase awareness and bring better, real-time information to consumers.

(2) Develop renewable energy that is cheaper than coal (RE<C)

Google’s data centers draw from a U.S. electricity grid that relies on coal for 50% of its power. We want to help catalyze the development of renewable energy that is price-competitive with coal. At least three technologies show tremendous promise: wind, solar thermal, and advanced geothermal. Each of these is abundant and, when combined, could supply energy in virtually every region of the U.S.

This year Google has invested more than $45 million in startup companies with breakthrough wind, solar and geothermal technologies through our Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative (RE<C), but that is a drop when we need a flood. We need to unleash massive private investment in clean energy. The government can have a big impact here as well. We must dramatically increase federal R&D and enact measures supporting the rapid deployment and scaling of clean technologies such as long-term tax support and national renewable energy standards. Tax credits for wind and solar have lapsed several times in the last 20 years, starving these nascent industries of the capital they need to truly enter the mainstream.

We also must work both sides of the RE<C equation. Progress will accelerate when the price of carbon reflects its true costs to society. Putting a price on carbon through cap-and-trade or a carbon tax would help address this.

(3) Electrify transportation and re-invent our electric grid

Imagine driving a car that uses no gas and is less expensive to recharge than buying a latte. A "smart grid" allows you to charge when electricity is cheap, and maybe even make some money by selling unused power back to the grid when it's needed. Plug-in cars are on their way, with GM, Toyota and other manufacturers planning introductions in the next two years. At Google we have a small fleet of Toyota Prius and Ford Escape plug-in conversions, as a part of our RechargeIT program. The converted Prius plug-ins get over 90 MPG, and the Escapes close to 50 MPG. However, to successfully put millions of plug-in cars on the road and fuel them with green electricity, we need a smart grid that manages when we charge and how we're billed. A smart grid could also provide for the two-way flow of electricity, as well as large-scale integration of intermittent solar and wind energy. Much of the technology in our current electrical grid was developed in the 60s and is wasteful and not very smart. We are partnering with GE to help accelerate the development of the smart grid and support building new transmission lines to harness our nation's vast renewable energy resources.

We see a huge opportunity for the nation to confront our energy challenges. In the process we will stimulate investment, create jobs, empower consumers and, by the way, help address climate change.

of a lot of nerve claiming their ability to do anything about anything except selling advertisements.

Even if your premise was correct (which I do not agree with at all), the number of web pages on the internet is exponentially greater than it was 10 years ago. If Google search was only "as good" as they were 10 years ago, it would be exponentially better for the amount of data they have to sort today. Try one of the other search engines if you want to see how much better Google is.

I don't seem to remember Google Maps, with satellite images and Street View, in 1998.

Mapquest had a map system years before & it's still the standard.

They don't have a clue what to work on.

I made a titling error and, having corrected it, thought I'd give this another shot. It is important and good information for anyone that wants to know where the energy future lies and how we are going to get there.

More detailed than the pickens plan and more realistic than Gore's plan. I like it.

You can't do more with less. You can do less with less. You can do more with more. You can even manage to do less with more, but it's tricky. You just can't do more with less, if you're trying to reduce demand.

"We can build whole new industries and create millions of new jobs."

Just not with less. Reducing demand wouldn't build whole new industries or create millions of new jobs.

"This year Google has invested more than $45 million...but that is a drop when we need a flood."

Great example of doing more with less. Wait...

"We need to unleash massive private investment in clean energy."

Massive means less right?

http://knol.google.com/k/jeffery-greenblatt/-/15x31uzlqeo5n/0

Jeffery Greenblatt
Climate and Energy Technology Manager
San Francisco Bay Area

Dr. Jeffery Greenblatt, Ph.D. joined Google.org in March 2008 as Climate and Energy Technology Manager. He reviews renewable energy proposals for grants and/or investment for the RE<C (Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal) initiative. He also advises the team on climate change science, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions forecasts, and a broad range of climate mitigation strategies. He is currently focused on the Clean Energy 2030 proposal and ways for Google to help create a 21st century electricity grid.

Before coming to Google, Dr. Greenblatt was High Meadows scientist at Environmental Defense Fund, where he evaluated the technical, economic and environmental aspects of a wide range of energy technologies. He developed "wedge" climate stabilization scenarios for California, the Midwest, and the US, and he was also the technical lead editor on "Earth: The Sequel," a book about the emerging clean energy field, by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn.

He received his training in climate and energy at Princeton University, where he was on the research staff for four years, working on many projects including ocean carbon cycle modeling, the economics of wind energy and energy storage, and the development of the "wedge" climate stabilization concept with professors Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala.

He received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1999.

where he presented the results of his study on CAES.

Google is (in spite of their political leanings) a leader in the effort to move this country to action on climate change.

And as for their search engine - it has literally changed my life.

On the merits of the plan, it appears conservative in many of its assumptions. I personally think that once the decision to move off of fossil fuels becomes manifest, the rapidity of change is going to startle a lot of people. There are so many problems that will be addressed by a changeover that a huge pool of resources waits to be unleashed. I also believe that artificially blocking change for nearly 3 decades has pent up a natural trend towards that change, which, once begun, will be the equivalent of opening the floodgates.

I mean, think of the status of computers 20 years ago and look at their ubiquitous presence now. The complexity and size of our global culture NEEDED a neural network to connect it, and the result was a rush to fill that need once the technology appeared. I see a similar need that stands to be fulfilled in a similar fashion by energy efficiency and renewables.