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Google Goes Green
foobsr writes "Google today announced its RE<C project to make renewable energy cheaper than coal in the near future. The company, and its charitable arm google.org, plan to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the initiative. Larry Page stated: 'With talented technologists, great partners and significant investments, we hope to rapidly push forward. Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades.'"
Spent fuel -> breeder reactor -> fissionable fuel, and it's already cheaper than coal.
Oh wait, we don't like that kind of renewable resource...
These are the kinds of initiatives that one can applaud when they're coming from a public company. Interestingly, this isn't just an idle PR stunt, or vain charity. While Google expects to invest "tens of millions" into pilot projects, they also are committing themselves to investing "hundreds of millions" into those projects that are likely to yield positive returns.
I have spent so long lamenting the short-sightedness of American business, that it's easy to overlook the fact that at least some companies are willing to stake their immediate earnings on potentially much greater gains in the future. It's therefore very nice to see Google at the forefront of energy innovation because, let's face it, as a geek, that's exactly where I'd be pouring a fair portion of my post-billionaire funds. That and space... but alas Brin hasn't decided to finance his own airospace company YET...
The machines in The Matrix story were so dumb.
Skies darkened to block out the Sun so that their solar power sources would be negated? Well, duh. What was stopping them from building taller solar power collectors that were above the black stuff? Neo and Trinity penetrated the layer, didn't they?
Alternatively, they could have used whatever power source the remaining free humans were using: Zion wasn't powered by human batteries, was it?
Worst Plot Hole Ever.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Resources do not have to be infinite in order for the game to not be zero sum. They simply have to increase over time.
The total amount of energy available to the Earth increases over time. We haven't even scratched the surface of exploiting what we have, let alone optimized the exploitation of energy that comes in continuously that is currently unused.
Hence, no zero sum game. In other words, I don't have to take energy from you in order to increase the energy available to me, there are many other ways I can increase usage or efficiency.
In the U.S. we are not currently taking advantage of this fact, to our great discredit. It's short sighted and results in conflict.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
The US and other major world economies already went thru this "Peak Oil" crisis, although they didn't use that specific term at the time. Nevertheless, there were no shortage of educated economists predicting absolute DOOM for civilization. Economies would crumble. Our way of life would regress. Nothing short of disaster.
Of course, as has often been a trait of humanity, we rose to the occasion and, true to form, Peak Whale Oil was not the disaster so many thought it would be. Why? The biggest reason, of course, was the ingenuity of American business to not just lie down and die, but to innovate. They found that the black liquid bubbling up from the ground could be tapped as a brand new energy source, and they built out the huge infrastructure that was needed to make it happen.
The same thing will happen again. Nobody is going to just lie down as our world falls apart. If for no other reason than there's a (huge) buck to be made in preventing that.
Don't under estimate the powers of greed and self-preservation.
Nonsense. You're confusing the price of crude oil and the price of gasoline in your argument.
;)
Artificially reducing refinery capacity does reduce gasoline supply - which definitely increases the price of gasoline. BUT it also reduces the demand for crude oil - which lowers its price!
And yet, the price of crude oil not only has gone up, but it has gone up faster than gasoline prices this year (http://www.wtrg.com/daily/oilandgasspot.html). I suspect you might have to further refine your crude conspiracy theory.
The current problem with rapidly escalating oil prices is not related to US refinery capacity. If the bottleneck was at the refinery level, crude would be cheap and gasoline would be expensive. In fact, both are expensive.
A statement like "more oil is currently known to exist than any other time in human history" is absurd, and I wonder how you arrived at it. We don't know how much oil exists, partly because some of it is - as you say - "undiscovered", ie we think it might be out there but we don't know for sure - but mostly because OPEC lie about the size of their remaining reserves. Data quality in the oil industry is poor to non-existant. We don't even have accurate figures for how much we pump out of the ground each day, let alone how much we have left.
You are confused about the pricing of sour crudes. Yes, they are cheaper, but not significantly so. The spot price of Mexican Maya on the 16th was $79, only about $10-$12 less than the price of the high quality stuff. Given that oil used to cost $10-$12 the fact that sour has risen to slightly less than sweet is really of no consequence.
You say there's no factual information to indicate that we're at peak. But world production has been flat since the summer of 2004, despite progressively increasing prices (due to increased demand from Asia) providing every incentive to pump more. This behavior has not been seen before and strongly suggests that world production capacity is maxed out - there are huge wins to be had by any company or country that can significantly boost production, but doing an analysis of an oil major like ExxonMobil, will show that their existing fields decline as fast as they can replace them. To me this is a pretty good sign that we're at peak - inability to raise production despite huge demand.
The whole "it's an oil industry conspiracy" won't wash, sorry. This isn't like the computer industry where one or two companies can dominate the landscape - oil is a commodity, and the price is not set by the oil companies but by supply and demand. It's the simplest market you can get. Anybody who is sitting on top of a giant oil field right now would be an idiot to leave it for tomorrow, because there's no guarantee we'll want that oil tomorrow - maybe there's a recession and oil demand is reduced. Maybe we discover better ways to power our cars.
Right now there's a lead-in time of at least 5 years from discovering a field to first commercial oil, sometimes longer. Even if you start today, there is risk. If you leave it longer, the risk gets even bigger. At least for private oil companies, there are huge financial incentives to boost production and thus get a leg up over your competitors in stock price and profits. To claim that the entire industry is in a cartel to deliberately hold back production is to reveal your lack of knowledge around discovery trends, skills shortages and the impact on depletion rates of modern production techniques like horizontal wells/waterflooding.
fyi, nobody is investing in new oil refineries, because noone in their right mind would invest $$$ when they won't get a return on capitol. The market has spoken - the market says there isn't money to be made from more refineries. That's probably because you'd have to run it for 10 years to break-even, and in 10 years time, our refining capacity may outstrip supply. Either that, or there's a massive organised world-wide conspiricy, to keep gold cookies out away from intelligent negative people.
Long story short, there is actually zero factual information to suggest we are anywhere near peak
Ignore the factual information. There's *lots* of oil. Jedi waves hand.
If the oil companies are conspiring to do anything, it's that they want to sell you *more* oil and *now*. That's because it's good for their bottom line. So go to the gas station and fill up, dump in the river and fill up again! Don't worry about future scarcity! We want your money NOW! and if we make money it's good for the economy, so it _must_ be good for you too!
There's an apt saying: "Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity". As I see it, the oil companies aren't capable of the type of conspiricy you suggest. It's too easy to shine light on their FUD. For example, the chamber of echos that exxon has created to suggest that there's *lots* of scientists who don't believe in the human impact on climate change. Some are fooled, anyone who cares to look it not.
And on the bright side - if you're right - and the oil companies are delibertly trying *not* to sell more oil (falls down laughing), then they're doing humanity a service on so many different levels:
Energy prices have been too low for too long. If an energy crunch happens, it will mean severe economic adjustment (and hardship) that could have been mitigated by a more frugle policy to energy usage. Such policies could help the economy slowly make the necessary structural changes. Such policies fly can only exist when the future becomes more important than satisfying immediate wants. I'm not holding my breath - too many people with a sense of entitlement - that they should have what they want, and have it now. Humanities current flirtation with greed has nothing to do with malice, and everything to do with stupidty.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right