Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
So they aren't necessarily using renewable energy, they are buying it? This sounds more like they're paying money to companies who have renewable energy credits to sell. They may also be taking part in that travel scam where you don't have to change how much your people fly and waste jet fuel at all... you just swap credits with other non-flying people and say you're being "green".
Someone in an earlier comment used the term "indulgences" - and it really is a lot like the medieval practice where rich people would pay the Vatican basically for pre-approved forgiveness of whatever unethical / immoral thing they were planning to do.
#DeleteChrome
So, am I about to reach 100% veganism if:
"I eat meat all day long, but I pay someone else to eat only vegetables too, so that's alright, isn't it?"
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.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Peaking does not cause blackouts; peaking prevents blackouts. I'm thinking that perhaps you're confused about what a peaking plant is.
Interconnected HVDC grids offer increases in grid stability, as cascading failures can't propagate through them (AC failures are prone to cascade as different parts of the grid go out of sync with each other). Yet most of the time a nationwide renewables-supporting HVDC grid is not used at near peak capacity (its capacity is sized for peak load transmission requirements, not average), and thus can generally have their power routed through other legs if one line goes down without curtailments (often, even, without need for peaking - it depends on timing). The grid itself is designed, as with everything else concerning electricity generation and transmission, to provide a statistically-guaranteed level of power reliability.
It's important to remember also that in the US you have basically three separate power grids today - west, east (which is kind of a patchwork), and "ERCOT", which is basically Texas doing its own little weird thing. To allow them to support each other, they have a number of converters, mainly DC ties. Basically, HVDC terminals without any actual long-distance transmission lines. So it's already done to improve grid reliability and economics. Also, certain parts of the grid already rely on long HVDC lines. Not just for "moving peak power because of intermittent shortages in one region", as a grid for supporting high renewable penetration does, but actual baseload. For example, in the northeast, RMCC moves 2 GW of remote Quebec hydropower to New England. It's almost always run at near capacity.
Europe and China uses HVDC a lot more than the US. Europe mainly for undersea lines, China to move power from inland to its densely populated coast. Both have major plans for expansion.
People said I was dumb, but I proved them.