Google
co-founder Larry Page is fond of saying, that if you choose a harder problem to
tackle, you’ll have less competition. This philosophy has taken a plentitude of
their conceptions to the moon: a translation engine that knows 80 languages,
the world’s greatest search engine, self-driving cars, and the wearable
computer system called Google Glass just to name a few.
Then the
technology behemoth decided to tackle the world’s climate and energy sector.
After committing tremendously large amounts of resources for the cause, it
succeeded in establishing a few of the world’s most efficient data centers, purchased
large quantities of renewable energy, and offset what remained of its carbon
footprint.
When the
ostentatiously ambitious RE<C in 2007 was established, we all may have
expected another “moonshot” from the tech giants. But unfortunately that never
really left the earth’s orbit. In 2011 Google put curtains down to the initiative
which had a primary aim of making renewable energy compete with the coal industry.
Two of their engineers Ross Koningstein and David Fork stated that “Trying to
combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies
simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.”
Following
the aforementioned decision to suspend their R&D efforts in RE<C, Google
has directly invested more than $1 billion directly in solar and wind projects.
The company succeeded in acquiring enough renewable energy to offset its
emissions. Google’s efforts have also brought down the average cost of
renewables to rival the cost of construction of coal plants.
“You’d think
the thrill might wear off this whole renewable energy investing thing after a
while. Nope—we’re still as into it as ever,” stated the company buoyantly in a
blog post last fall.
That been
said, Google has been using renewable energy to power 35% of their operations,
and are striving to look for ways to
ameliorate the use of clean energy. This includes trying new, innovative
technology at their offices and purchasing green power near their data centers.
In addition
to 1.9 MW solar arrays, other forms of renewable energy have been incorporated.
This includes running a 970 kW cogeneration unit off local landfill
gas, which not only removes the methane, a particularly potent greenhouse
gas, but converts it into electricity and heat that are used on the campus.
Efficient ground source heat pumps and solar water heating on office buildings
in Mountain View, Hyderabad, and Tel Aviv have been set up.
Google has
also signed six large-scale Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) that are
long-term financial commitments to buy renewable energy from specific
facilities.
Google has
also made agreements to fund over $1.5 billion in clean energy wind and solar
projects. Some of them are:
·
Regulus:
Repurposing an oil and gas field for renewable energy
- Panhandle 2 Wind Farm: financing wind in Texas
- Recurrent Energy: solar facilities in California
and Arizona
- Jasper Power Project: investing in South African
solar
- Spinning Spur Wind Farm: investing in West Texas wind
- Rippey Wind Farm: financing wind power in Iowa
- SolarCity: solar for thousands of
residential rooftops
- Atlantic Wind Connection: a superhighway for clean
energy transmission
- Alta Wind Energy Center: harnessing winds of the Mojave
- Shepherd’s Flat: one of the world’s largest
wind farms
- Photovoltaics in Germany: investing in clean energy
overseas
But the most
exciting one for me is that Google X is acquiring the high altitude wind
startup Makani Power.
Makani Power
has been fabricating and testing a new design of wind turbine that is attached
to a tether (that could be 600 meters long) and which rotates high above the ground,
capturing wind that is stronger and more consistent than what is typically
found on the ground. The idea behind the innovation is that capturing
high altitude wind could be cheaper, more efficient, and more apropos for
certain environments like offshore than traditional wind turbines.
This
particular idea does sound crazy. But I unequivocally believe that we need
crazy and innovative ideas if we want to move towards a more sustainable and
greener future because as Steve Jobs said
“…because the ones who are crazy
enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment