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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.'"
Given how much money it costs to keep Google's kit running, it's in their interests to look for cheaper energy. It's an investment they hope will increase future profitability.
Has Bill Gates or Steve Jobs made any similar pledges?
Coal, and fossil fuels in general, are widely recognized to be almost at, at, or past peak production on a global level, and will therefore become increasingly scarce, and therefore increasingly expensive, as time goes by.
Therefore, anyone wishing to create renewable energy more cost effective than coal doesn't need to do anything beyond keep trying and not get worse, and they will get there eventually.
As far as technical challenges go, this is right up there with "hitting the ground".
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Two bad the spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a private 767. I am not even and extremist when it comes to things like that. Hey if they wanted a private jet a Gulfstream IV is very nice as is the Citation X. A converted airliner that could carry well over 200 people for your private toy.
Well it makes Hummer owners look down right green.
I guess the non billionaires need to save energy.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The 30 years assume that ALL power came from the CHEAP uranium AND that we use the current inefficient approach to using it.
First issue is that there is plenty of uranium on this planet to power the world using current tech for a long time. The reason is that even in the oceans there is uranium.
Bear in mind, that with current approaches to reactors, we use about 2% of the power, and then we waste the rest (which is the reason why it takes 10's of thousands of years to cool down). OTH, if you use a breeder reactor, and keep the cycle going, then you use up about 98-99% of the energy (leaving a small residual that is cool within 150 years). In fact, here in America, if we could switch ALL power to IFR (integral fast reactors), AND had electric cars, AND kept everything inefficient, we would have enough uranium/plutonium in waste that we would not need to dig or buy anything for the next 100 years.
Estimates are that there is about 10000 years of Uranium if it supplies ALL of the worlds energy needs. After that is burned there is thorium, or h2-3. Point being that nukes will last quit a long time.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"Earth is a zero sum game"
That's simply not true, and renewable resources (plants, trees, etc.) are evidence of that. We are not a zero sum game because we have, for all intents and purposes, an inexhaustible supply of energy from the sun. Think back through the chain --> sun causes plants to grow, animals eat plants, etc. We're all solar powered, ultimately.
More efficient exploitation of that energy results in an increase in available resources. Sure, there's a limit, but we have even begun to tap into it, even with existing technology.
That's why projects like Google's are important. Any increase in efficient production of renewable energy ensures that we continue to not be a zero sum game.
There may come a point where no further technological innovation is possible, but it looks like when we get to that advanced state that the population will contract voluntarily. Witness the below-replacement birth rates in first world countries.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
No disrespect to Google, and I'm glad they're making the investment, but they (and a lot of the commenters here) seem to think all it requires is waving their Magic Googlewand(beta) and we'll have energy cheaper than coal(!! Coal is pretty freaking cheap).
If it were easy, it'd have been done already. For Google to claim that they think it can be done in "years, not decades" sounds like a good bit of hubris. If they don't have something already on the horizon, then we're stepping in the range of arrogant stupidity.
All the credit to Google for stepping up to the plate and trying to get something done, but the way the whole thing is worded, there's this undercurrent of assumption that nobody has tried to make these things work before. All inventors think about cheap energy! It's like Google slapped their head one day and said, "Good God! Why didn't anyone think of creating alternate energy cheaper than coal before?? We're geniuses!!"
I hope something comes of it, but I'm not holding my breath.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Have you heard it burn rubber when the stoplight goes green? Electric motors like the Prius uses are amazing at producing off-the-line torque. Combine that with its low weight, and you find that the Prius actually out-accelerates most cars on the road.
As an environmental move, whether hybrid drivetrains represent a net win is a little ambiguous (until we get plug-in hybrids). But for performance, they have a lot of pretty exciting advantages.
I was on a University team which built a hybrid formula-style racecar. That thing blew the pants off of Ferraris. In fact, it was originally entered for the general Formula SAE event, which then outlawed hybrids as having an unfair advantage. (So we started another competition just for hybrid vehicles.)
Want to see what electric motors can do? Check out the Tesla Roadster. And it only uses an AC induction motor (hence "Tesla")!!
(The fact that it "only" uses an induction motor is important because induction motors, though cheap and durable, are not even the money-no-object "best" option: That would be a permanent magnet synchronous DC motor.)
The downside to electric drivetrains is that they have more components, and electric motors are heavy, so their more impressive torque needs to make up for the increased weight. But the fact is that, currently, hybrids do exactly that, and, as motors get lighter, the advantages will only get more and more pronounced.
Have you heard the quiet, confident, high-tech sound of a really powerful electric motor spooling up? It's truly a beautiful sound.