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Google Will Hit 100 Percent Renewable Energy This Year (inverse.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Inverse: Google has announced that after 10 years a carbon-neutral company, it will be able to brag running on entirely renewable energy at the end of 2017. That means that all of the electricity the company consumes in both its data centers and offices are provided by wind and solar energy. Announced in Google's 2017 environmental report, Google says it has created "new energy purchasing models that others can follow" and that "we've helped drive wide-scale global adoption of clean energy." In addition to being an obvious PR boon, the company says its mission of full sustainability fits in with its larger mission. (It also makes the fact that as recently as 2015 Google alone reportedly consumed as much energy as the entire city of San Francisco in a year way more palatable.)
One step the company has recently taken in marrying its ethos of sustainability with its products is a new initiative to equip Google Street View vehicles with air quality sensors. In addition to its goal of being run by renewable energy, Google is also working on achieving zero waste to landfill. Nearly half of the company's 14 data centers have already reached this goal, according to Google executive Urs Holzle's 2017 Google Environmental report released on Tuesday.
One step the company has recently taken in marrying its ethos of sustainability with its products is a new initiative to equip Google Street View vehicles with air quality sensors. In addition to its goal of being run by renewable energy, Google is also working on achieving zero waste to landfill. Nearly half of the company's 14 data centers have already reached this goal, according to Google executive Urs Holzle's 2017 Google Environmental report released on Tuesday.
Unlike you I live in California and have studied our endless fire events.
I will keep this VERY simple for you: California was designed by nature to regularly burn. It does not. Why? Because environmentalists prevent natural and human controlled sane things and instead inflicted truly nutso policies on the state.
Cutting back overgrown forests? Forbidden.
Clearing out the underbrush? Forbidden.
Letting smaller naturally occurring fires clear out underbrush and dead trees? Forbidden. Small fires stomped put immediately.
There are a few other similar policies created and enforced by moronic environmentalists whack jobs who don't want to understand the natural processes already in place by NATURE to prevent this huge fires but the above are the big ones.
End result? A truly colossal amount of dry burnable fuel built up over several years waiting for the tiniest spark to set the whole fucking state on fire. Smaller fires that the trees would normally survive burn extra hot leading to larger trees making the fires grow even bigger instead of limiting them and so we get the huge conflagrations every few years inevitably followed up by the same ignorant environmentalist nut jobs saying it's all proof of global warming and we should all drive Priuses.
This was the simple version for you. Idiot.
I'm going to finish taping the windows to keep as much smoke as possible out before I go to bed and hope my friends who live even closer to your fire survive and their homes aren't ash in the morning.
That means that all of the electricity the company consumes in both its data centers and offices are provided by wind and solar energy.
It means that Google has purchased certificates and similar corresponding to their energy consumption. The data centers and offices are still running on power from coal and whatnot just like all their neighbours.
Don't get me wrong, it's great that Google as a great resource hog is investing in renewables. But the above "explanation" is spreading misinformation. For the above to be true, Google would have to run everything in isolated as isolated islands. That would be a lot more expensive.
From the Report:
"Most notably, in 2017 Google will reach 100 percent renewable energy for our global operations—including both our data c"enters and offices. That means that we will directly purchase enough wind and solar electricity annually to account for every unit of electricity we consume, globally. This shift in our energy strategy didn’t just significantly reduce our environmental impact. By pioneering new energy purchasing models that others can follow, we’ve helped drive widescale global adoption of clean energy."
A better headline would have been, "Google will Repurpose Enough Renewable Power To Cover 100% of Its Non-Renewable Usage", but just trying running that one past the PR guy.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday