Google Says It Is About To Reach 100 Percent Renewable Energy (blog.google)

Google said today it will power 100 percent of its sprawling data centers and offices with renewable energy starting next year. The company said today it has bought enough wind and solar power to account for all the electricity it uses globally each year. In comparison, 44 percent of Google's power supplies came from renewables last year. From a blogpost: To reach this goal we'll be directly buying enough wind and solar electricity annually to account for every unit of electricity our operations consume, globally. And we're focusing on creating new energy from renewable sources, so we only buy from projects that are funded by our purchases. Over the last six years, the cost of wind and solar came down 60 percent and 80 percent, respectively, proving that renewables are increasingly becoming the lowest cost option. Electricity costs are one of the largest components of our operating expenses at our data centers, and having a long-term stable cost of renewable power provides protection against price swings in energy.

Comments

Indulgences

[JaredOfEuropa]

And we're focusing on creating new energy from renewable sources, so we only buy from projects that are funded by our purchases.

What exactly does that mean? Buying green power isn't really all that green: the renewable power you are consuming is power that is not going to be consumed by someone else. To be really green you need to work towards significantly increasing green energy [\production, not consumption. True, what they do does increase demand which may help drive investments in renewables. But I'd be more impressed if they would actually generate most of the power they need themselves. At the scale they use it, that should be economically feasible too.

Re:Great!

[danbert8]

Modded insightful? What are you calling a oil or coal subsidy? Generally when people talk about subsidies for fossil fuels, they are really pulling bullshit out of their asses. Are there tax breaks and funds that indirectly go to oil and coal companies? Yes. Are those direct fossil fuel subsidies? Not really. They are tax benefits for capital construction that apply to all industries. Depreciation benefits that apply to all mining and resource industries. When they tout the really big numbers for oil subsidies they usually throw in infrastructure spending that benefits cars regardless of fuel source (but happens to be primarily oil based). Maybe some home heating subsidies which usually means gas, electricity from coal, or heating oil. Maybe they include military and civilian fuel purchases by the government that happen to be based on fossil fuels.

Those aren't really subsidies for fossil fuels as much as they are the reality that to provide energy, you have to generally use fossil fuels for a lot of it at this point. So those huge "coal and oil subsidies" are really just energy subsidies.