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Google Will Hit 100 Percent Renewable Energy This Year (inverse.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the environmental-reporting dept.

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.

8 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. So - not 100% Renewable Energy then... by niftydude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    So this doesn't include fuel for google street view cars, manufacturing processes for the Pixel phone, Google home and other hardware, etc.
    Google is nowhere near 100% renewable yet.
    Congrats to google on this particular milestone, but I am utterly sick of lying click-bait headlines.

    --
    You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
    1. Re:So - not 100% Renewable Energy then... by msauve · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "So this doesn't include fuel for google street view cars, manufacturing processes for the Pixel phone, Google home and other hardware, etc. Google is nowhere near 100% renewable yet."

      Are you doing better? Not that your claim has any valid logic behind it - just because they didn't specifically claim they'll soon be "renewable" in all areas doesn't mean they aren't headed that way.

      And, define "nowhere near." I'll submit that their data centers and offices are, by far, their largest energy consumers.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    2. Re:So - not 100% Renewable Energy then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      the headline is clickbait -- it doesn't mention "operations" as the qualifier from Google's own report. without that. it's click-bait.
      flame on.

    3. Re: So - not 100% Renewable Energy then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So what about say 5000 drivers commuting 2 hours each day with 100hp engines pushing ~75000 watts using gas...or 375 Megawatts total/hour...i wonder if this makes a difference to 100% renewable. Let's face it...this is pure PR spin...if you run it out and ask how much energy was used to make the aluminium cans that hold the sparkling water used on the Google campus then there would be that along with lots of other "non-renewables".

  2. Danger Will Robinson by JimSadler · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The EPA as well as other government agencies are gagged and can not point out health safety facts to anyone including the public. If a private company starts taking measurements and releasing the results I fear that the government will do them great harm. While California burns, Houston drowns and the virgin islands and Puerto Rico barely exist now the fact that global warming is creating these horrors is hardly mentioned. And in addition to big government squashing descent , we also have the oil, coal and gas industries who could be very dangerous to anyone reporting air quality issues, Look at what they did to Flint. The fact that people were being poisoned and suffering brain damage fro water full of lead meant nothing at all to local or federal agencies. Just why are we supposed to trust our government?

  3. Re: Trump will hit 100% impeached this year. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Will he share a cellblock with your hero Clinton?

  4. Re:Need others to follow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The fear used to be that we would run out of fossil fuels. The new fear is that fossil fuel reserves are indefatigable. There are vast untapped reserves and more being discovered. Hydraulic fracking has unlocked many reverse once though unusable and renewed those though depleted.
    The biggest risk to coal and gasoline is natural gas. There will come a time very soon when solar become ubiquitous but the question becomes one of energy storage and PV panel disposal and recycling. As long as gas is so cheap as to be a underpriced unprofitable byproduct batteries will need to become very affordable to become competitive.

  5. Re:Just in time for the antitrust consent decree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You stupid crackpots need to stop using meaningless words as replacements for thought.