
Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017 - danvoell
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/technology/google-says-it-will-run-entirely-on-renewable-energy-in-2017.html?_r=0
======
ChuckMcM
This is pretty awesome, Google is definitely leading the industry here.

One of the more interesting things I learned while working for Google was the
intricate way in which the "grid" is managed by a separate but co-operating
set of entities. Google disrupted that happy bunch by creating a wholly owned
subsidiary that was a licensed power company[1]. That gave it standing to buy
from and sell energy to the grid and it completely short circuited a lot of
crazy negotiations that were going on between Google and various regional
power companies. Now instead of having the substation outside the data center
owned by the local power company it could be owned by "Google Energy Inc." And
Google Energy could buy energy from any vendor connected to that grid.

Most people are familiar with the 'last mile' problem where the connection to
the Internet from your house has to go through the local monopoly utility. The
same is true when buying power, and this move on Google's part completely side
stepped it.

[1] [https://www.cnet.com/news/google-energy-subsidiary-
considers...](https://www.cnet.com/news/google-energy-subsidiary-considers-
clean-power/)

~~~
kevinchen
> Google is definitely leading the industry here.

It's fantastic that Google plans to switch to renewables since they are one of
the biggest players. Definitely an exaggeration to say that they are leading
the charge. Apple was among the first to make renewables an issue and achieved
100% in data centers back in 2013, with little fanfare.

[http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/content-tracks/design-
buil...](http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/content-tracks/design-build/apple-
reaches-100-renewable-energy-across-all-data-centers/74708.fullarticle)

And creating a subsidiary that's a power company is table stakes:

[https://9to5mac.com/2016/06/09/apple-energy-
company/](https://9to5mac.com/2016/06/09/apple-energy-company/)

~~~
evanws
Just to be clear, 7% of Apple's _global_ power is still dirty and they have
not made any public commitment to bring that down any further.

Google is a much much larger energy consumer, has been carbon neutral since
2007, and is going to use 100% renewables globally within the next year.

Also, Google made its energy company play back in 2010. Apple made theirs in
2016.

~~~
kevinchen
Apple has pressured Foxconn to build out renewable capacity for certain steps
of iPhone manufacturing by 2018. There is a lot of work to be done in
manufacturing (much harder problem) but they have definitely made a public
commitment to reduce the impact:

[https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/10/22Apple-Launches-
Ne...](https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/10/22Apple-Launches-New-Clean-
Energy-Programs-in-China-To-Promote-Low-Carbon-Manufacturing-and-Green-
Growth.html)

~~~
Ph0X
Let's just agree that both Apple and Google are doing fantastic jobs in this
sector, and other big tech companies need to step it up.

~~~
infectoid
Indeed. Let's not drive a wedge where none is needed.

------
tylercubell
> “In my mind it’s a P.R. gimmick,” said Chris Warren, vice president of
> communications at the Institute for Energy Research, a think tank in
> Washington supported largely by donations from individuals and companies in
> the fossil fuel industry. “If they think they can actually support
> themselves with wind and solar panels, they should connect them directly to
> their data centers.”

I love how the author throws in a disclaimed quotation from a big oil Luddite
to help reinforce the message of the article. It's a two-fold sales tactic.

1\. Discredit the opposition.

2\. Tell the buyer what the opposition will say, after already convincing them
of the benefits, so they're prepared to defend what they're buying thereby
reinforcing their beliefs.

I'm not implying that the article is wrong, but it's something we should be
aware of.

~~~
rocketraman
Unfortunately, there is indeed a lot of truth to the statement that it is a PR
gimmick.

The problem with wind and solar is that they are intermittent. Therefore,
Google's consumption _at any particular moment in time_ cannot be supplied
solely by these intermittent sources because their energy output never matches
current demand (at least until some big honking batteries are built to level
this out, for which the tech currently does not exist AFAIK -- no, Tesla's
battery tech isn't even close to operating at this scale, though its a small
step in that direction).

Therefore, Google _must_ take power from the grid from non-intermittent
sources that _can_ ramp up and down based on demand, such as coal, gas, and
nuclear. And this fact will remain true, even if Google had purchased wind and
solar contracts for total energy many times greater than their total energy
use.

So even though they may be purchasing contracts for wind/solar energy that
exceed their own total energy use, they still cannot even _approach_ viable
operation without access to non-wind and solar sources, so its definitely
misleading by Google to suggest they are running entirely on wind/solar.

Furthermore, the excess energy produced that Google purchased, but did not use
because of the intermittency issue, actually reduces the efficiency of fossil
and nuclear sources. Because the wind/solar energy is loaded onto the grid
intermittently, it forces fossil and nuclear to cycle up and down to
compensate. Just like city vs. highway driving, this is vastly less efficient.

~~~
greglindahl
Paying to have more renewable energy generated is not a gimmick, it's
progress.

It's true that there's a storage problem to be solved. That doesn't mean that
every single renewables project needs to solve it or become a gimmick.

~~~
paul_f
The problem is that Google's claim is deceptive. What they are doing is great.

~~~
greglindahl
Paragraphs 3, 4, and 5 of the NYT article look accurate to me. I have a hard
time seeing how anyone who read the article would be deceived.

~~~
hueving
More than half of the people in this thread think google is running on 100%
renewable energy. They have been deceived.

Google is still using dirty energy, they are just offsetting it by returning
extra to the grid when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining.

~~~
greglindahl
"using" is a complicated word. If you don't like the usual way "using
renewable energy" is used for electricity, by all means campaign against it,
but there's nothing special about Google or this press release for this
usage... and the New York Times article this discussion is about is quite
clear.

~~~
hueving
That's not the "usual way" it's used. If I want to use solar power for my
home, I don't contribute to a fund building solar panels on a different
continent and claim I'm "using renewable energy". However, that's exactly what
google is doing here.

~~~
greglindahl
Some people put solar panels on their home, other people pay someone else to
install solar panels elsewhere. It's extremely common for businesses to choose
the second, even if homeowners mostly choose the first.

------
metaphorm
they're doing this financially, not through infrastructure building. the plan
is to purchase equivalent dollar value of credits from renewable electricity
suppliers. this highlights a significant issue: grid power is fungible and
power sources are indistinct from the end-user's point of view.

is there some kind of auditing authority that can actually guarantee that the
money spent is actually going towards electrical generation and isn't just
slush-fund cash that financial holding companies play around with while
nominally saying "green energy"?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
The technical term for this is "additionality", making sure they pay to add
renewable capability, not just use up a share of the renewable energy that was
already being produced and Google accounts for it when planning their
purchases.

They give some details on this here:

[https://blog.google/topics/environment/google-green-blog-
wha...](https://blog.google/topics/environment/google-green-blog-what-it-
means-to-be_8/)

------
mbloom1915
This article is far more accurate and helpful:
[https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/google-will-
ach...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/google-will-
achieve-100-percent-renewable-energy-in-2017)

------
jobu
_Unlike carbon-based power, Mr. Kava said, wind supply prices do not
fluctuate, enabling Google to plan better._

Can someone explain this? It seems like wind energy prices should fluctuate
based on weather patterns (more wind == lower prices).

~~~
mwytock
Theyre writing long term contracts for power production which provide a fixed
price for the resource developers and by consequence provide them with a fixed
cost.

Typically, these types of contracts, providing price certainty, are required
to build develop new renewable assets.

~~~
sailfast
This. Price doesn't fluctuate for the purposes of this article because they've
bought a minimum amount of electricity for a fixed price over time. (not
because price of wind power never fluctuates)

Similar pegged pricing can be achieved if you trade futures to hedge your
price but typically this is only achievable year to year and difficult to do
with electricity as it can come from so many different sources and hedging
against them all may be difficult. Perhaps there's a megawatt future out
there?

EDIT: Yup - regionally-based electricity price hedge. Cool!
[http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/energy/#electricity](http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/energy/#electricity)

------
deegles
Google is ahead of the game here. Other tech companies also are moving to
renewables but they're not at 100% yet (IIRC). The key point is that as cloud
computing becomes commoditized and people build tools to quickly transfer from
one cloud provider to another, the profit margin will become smaller and
smaller until energy costs dominate the cost to provide a service. It is
already the case that a machine will use more in energy costs than its capital
cost over its lifetime.

So, whoever has the cheapest power will be able to provide cheapest services,
or charge more for capacity located in more energy-expensive regions (for
latency).

~~~
Someone
Apple (smaller server park, but does that matter?) claims 93% over 2015, so
they can't be far behind.
[http://images.apple.com/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental_...](http://images.apple.com/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental_Responsibility_Report_2016.pdf):

 _" For starters, as of January 2016, we’re sourcing or generating enough
renewable energy to cover 93 percent of the electricity we use at our
facilities worldwide. In fact, Apple is now 100 percent renewable in 23
countries, including China, Germany, Singapore, and the United States. We’re
also 100 percent renewable at every one of our data centers. So whenever you
send an iMessage, download a song from iTunes, or ask Siri a question, the
energy Apple uses doesn’t contribute to climate change.

In the past five years, we have reduced the carbon footprint of Apple
facilities by 64 percent thanks to our clean energy use, avoiding over 1
million metric tons of carbon emissions. We’re working hard to reach 100
percent renewable energy for all of our facilities worldwide, and help our
suppliers in China and everywhere around the world make the same transition to
clean energy as we have."_

~~~
suppressingfire
Check out the graph here:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-05/waging-
am...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-05/waging-america-s-
wars-using-renewable-energy)

Yeah, they rank on the list, but they're pretty far behind.

~~~
Someone
As I said: “smaller server park, but does that matter?”

I don’t think the thing to judge by is who consumes the most renewable energy.

------
rimher
I was simply shocked to read that Google as a whole consumes as much as a
whole metropolis. The fact that they're going green, is awesome on their
part..!

~~~
JonFish85
"I was simply shocked to read that Google as a whole consumes as much as a
whole metropolis."

Considering that they employ ~70k people, plus the hardware to run their
business, that sounds about right.

------
EGreg
You know my whole thing is about sustainability and looking to technology in
the near future to shatter the conventional wisdom and assumptions of
capitalism (and other systems) from the last several decades?

It's not as simple as saying you support companies doing this voluntarily. I
also support that, very much so. But the governments have put up legal hurdles
because in the past they "protected capitalism" and now just stand in the way.

State courts are used by telcos to sue cities to prevent Google Fiber from
coming into the city, to protect the profits of the "private" interstate
corporation from the "public" city.

Drug discovery and many other things are hampered by patents to protect the
"intellectual property" of pharma corporations from the "freerider"
researchers and public funding that would discover new cures.

And so forth and so on. The legal departments and regulations of the old
capitalist system (set in place to protect innovation at a different time) is
in the way of open source and open innovation of the 21st century.

And the biggest lie of course is jobs, that demand for human labor will never
go down and that enough money will always trickle down to the plebes via
wages.

------
barney54
For Google to say that it will run entirely on renewable energy is not
accurate. Thank goodness only the headline of the article says that, but the
article explains that Google gets electricity from the grid--which is not 100%
renewable.

~~~
akiselev
It may not be "accurate" in a naive technical sense but it's not disingenuous.
KWh are fungible and electrons don't care who uses their voltage potential for
work as long as it goes somewhere. Every KWh that Google produces with solar
is a KWh the fossil fuel power plants don't produce CO2 for, which is the
entire point: a net zero impact on CO2 emissions for one of the largest pieces
of computer infrastructure in the world.

------
Symmetry
I wonder to what extent Google can shift calculations around in time to take
advantage of fluctuations in power generation. Serving cat videos might be
something you do all the time but indexing the web and training Go AIs doesn't
have to be a continuous process.

~~~
eroiusghs
I'm pretty sure they can't turn the tap off when it comes to web indexing. And
I also doubt the major cost for google is electric power for the machines
doing the indexing - the power bill is probably negligible in the big picture
of Googles business (if not I'll stort their stock)

~~~
Symmetry
It doesn't matter how the power bills compare to their overall bills, what
mattes is how much power costs compare to hardware costs in terms of whether
it makes sense to shift those things that don't have to be done in realtime.

------
marcoperaza
The title is misleading. They will not run entirely on renewable energy.
Instead, they are buying at least as much renewable energy as they are
consuming in total. So Google might pay for 1 megawatt of solar power going
into the grid, but actually pull 1 megawatt of fossil fuel power.

This is more than a nitpicking point. The reason why renewable energy isn't a
totally viable energy source is because of problems with reliability,
predictability, geographic concentration of production, etc. It is highly
misleading to give people the impression that an operation like Google can
actually operate directly off exclusively renewable energy.

What Google is doing will eventually hit a cap and become zero sum. You still
need fossil fuels (or nuclear) to support a reliable and dispersed grid, and
can therefore only have a a certain percent of the grid powered by renewables.
So if you want your company to "run entirely on renewable energy", you'll end
up in a bidding war with other companies that want the same thing, to be the
technical purchaser (not consumer!) of the renewable energy going into the
grid.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
They also buy in the general location of their datacenters. It doesn't always
match up exactly, but they are aiming for slightly better than just a purely
numerical correspondence.

~~~
marcoperaza
Good point. And I don't mean to suggest that their actions aren't admirable,
they are! I'm just a little frustrated at the misinformation, and resulting
misconceptions, floating around concerning renewable energy. These
misconceptions have political and economic consequences.

------
downandout
>"It’s good for the economy, good for business and _good for our shareholders_
".

Let's be honest...it is not good for their shareholders. They are buying power
at a significant premium and costing their shareholders money. It is a direct
hit to the bottom line. This _might_ be good for the environment - at the very
least they are helping renewable energy companies get bank financing through
purchase guarantees, which will advance the technologies being used and
perhaps one day make them economically viable. But to say it's good for
shareholders is disingenuous.

>" _In some places_ , like Chile, Google said, renewables have _at times_
become cheaper than fossil fuels."

I love all of the hedging that comes with any article that tries to paint
renewables as economical. This sentence has holes a truck could drive through.
It could literally mean that at one point, years ago, Chile had extremely high
gas prices for a week and Google was amazed that their bill for that week was
lower than it would have been with conventional power sources.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Unsubsidized wind power is driving nuclear power and coal out of business.
Unsubsidized! Solar is still a bit more expensive, but will continue to
decline in price each year.

Investing in solar on your roof, in most markets, in a better investment than
the S&P500 (EDIT: Utility solar has costs approaching 2 cents/kwh and still
declining). Google is doing their shareholders a service by hedging their
energy costs, no different than when Delta (the airline) bought a refinery.

~~~
downandout
Google doesn't own these wind farms etc. They aren't investing in anything,
and their shareholders aren't getting anything in return. They are paying a
premium and hoping that the companies use the Google-provided
profits/financing flexibility to advance the technology to the point where it
will hopefully one day become economically viable. That day of course is not
today, which is why I take issue with some of the statements in this article.

Ultimately, Google is doing a service for the world if in fact these companies
use Google's support as intended. There are probably more effective, direct
routes for a company of Google's size though - they could easily just roll out
their own renewable energy research division, and then shareholders would own
the resulting technologies. The approach that they are using doesn't seem
logical to me, and then trying to spin it as if they are doing shareholders a
favor by overpaying for power seems like they are making a bad mistake even
worse.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> Google doesn't own these wind farms etc.

Of course not. That'd be a pain in the ass. That's why they sign PPAs (power
purchase agreements) that entitle them to the power from those generators
(usually on 20-25 year contract terms). Think reserved instances at AWS.
You're paying to commit to a resource usage. What does AWS do with that money?
Buy hardware and provide the service to you. You simply make a payment.

> They aren't investing in anything, and their shareholders aren't getting
> anything in return.

I disagree with you, as do the facts.

~~~
downandout
_I disagree with you, as do the facts._

Show me what they can put on a balance sheet in the end.

~~~
jartelt
There is value to signing a long term PPA that guarantees a set price of
electricity for 10-20 years. For example, if Google powers a data center using
wind power PPAs, they know exactly how much the electricity for the data
center will cost over the life of those PPAs. If they power the data center
with natural gas and coal-generated electricity bought through normal
electricity markets, their electricity prices will change if the price of
natural gas or coal change. Having more certainty into future operational
costs is valuable because it allows you to make better informed
decisions/investments. Plus, many wind power PPAs are being sold for less than
the wholesale cost of electricity now, so they save that way too (recent PPAs
signed in Texas are a great example).

~~~
downandout
There's negative value to them if those PPA's are overpriced relative to
conventional power. This article seems to reluctantly admit that they are
indeed overpaying in most markets most of the time. "We saved money that one
time in Chile" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of the economics of
renewables at the present time.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Wind power is very cheap, even in the US. Several utilities in Texas offer
free power during nighttime hours because of it.

I assure you, these PPAs are not overpriced.

------
raisedbyninjas
Another energy feather in Google's (and Dell's) cap was evangelizing on server
room temperature. Recommending allowing air temps to climb up to 95F cuts a
lot of the air cooling energy use. It also makes it more comfortable for those
of use doomed to work in a chilled server room.

------
ctdonath
Is anyone discussing _reliability_? as in Google/Apple/etc are making this
move not just "to be green" but to ensure that they do have power without
being subjected to the whims & issues of providers when they're just one of
many customers? When you have literally hundreds of millions (billions?) of
customers, you want to ensure your own resources are absolutely reliable
(within your, not someone else's, requirements).

It's like me wanting to put solar panels on my roof: I'm not so much
interested in cost savings, but want to ensure a massive grid failure doesn't
take my household with it.

~~~
LightskinKanye
You do realize in the event of a grid failure your solar panels don't work?
You can either be grid tied or off grid.

~~~
acchow
Doesn't a battery give you some leeway to swap freely between buying/selling
electricity off the grid and running-off-grid-from-battery?

~~~
LightskinKanye
Yes it acts as a sort of firewall between the two systems. But at that cost
you may as well just have 2 systems. One off grid and one grid-tied given you
have the space.

------
at-fates-hands
I'm actually surprised that Google hasn't been more involved in micro-grid
technology. One company here in town basically runs on its own grid with a
combination of renewable energies and electricity they generate on their own:

[http://www.oati.com/about/microgrid-technology-
center](http://www.oati.com/about/microgrid-technology-center)

 _The main difference between the OATI Microgrid Technology Center and other
commercial office buildings is that OATI will generate its own electricity as
the primary source of power. The building is powered by:_

 _\- Natural Gas turbines: 600kW Capstone C600 natural gas burning
microturbine. Paired with absorption chiller and heat exchanger for CCHP_

 _\- Solar: 150kw rooftop solar array, with additional expansion array
planned_

 _\- Wind: 24kW of vertical axis wind turbines_

 _\- Electricity storage: 231kWh, at 125kW Ensync battery rated power and
energy_

 _\- Generator: 1500kW of diesel backup generator_

 _\- Utility connection: Connected to local utility Xcel Energy_

------
mathattack
Several years ago, I was very perplexed by Google investing in renewable
energy. It was only later that I realized they use so much energy that this
would have to be the wave of the future for tech companies like them. If they
don't use renewables, they'll be subjects to the whims of energy markets
similar to airlines. (Yes you can hedge, but even that is a bet)

Very forward looking of them!

------
wicksell
It's certainly a good thing they're doing, but really all they're doing is
bidding higher than other companies on renewable energy, and since we don't
have unlimited renewable energy (only as much as we have wind turbines and
solar panel arrays &c), all they're really doing is shifting renewable energy
usage from smaller companies to themselves. It's not like they're creating
renewable energy or anything, they're just changing where it goes.

But at least they're going to create a greater demand to hopefully create a
greater supply sometime soon, plus they're paying into the renewable energy
economic machine.

~~~
philipkglass
No, Google has been signing power purchase agreements with renewable energy
developers. The signed agreements are what developers need to build new solar
and wind projects. It's new renewable demand driving new supply.

------
nradov
This is great progress and congratulations to Google. But Google and every
other tech company is effectively still running on non-renewable energy by
virtue of importing most of their hardware from places where manufacturing is
done mostly with fossil fuels. All of us are outsourcing our pollution and CO2
production.

~~~
awqrre
The hardware for green energy production included, like solar panels... Since
they don't last for ever and need lots of energy to be produced, I wonder how
long it takes to just get even.

~~~
hannob
For Solar it obviously depends on a lot of factors (where you put them, which
technology, where it is produced), but it's in the range of 0-4 years,
depending on which study you look at. Common lifetime is ~20-30 years.

See e.g. [https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/downloads/pdf-
files/aktuell...](https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/downloads/pdf-
files/aktuelles/photovoltaics-report-in-englischer-sprache.pdf)
[http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf](http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf)
[http://www.volker-quaschning.de/datserv/kev/index.php](http://www.volker-
quaschning.de/datserv/kev/index.php)

~~~
revelation
Feels like I've been quoted a 20-30 years lifetime for solar panels for 10
years straight now. They degrade, but they don't break.

Do we have more data now? Because I think solar panels will easily do 50 years
with >50% of original output.

~~~
philipkglass
There's a mixture of degradation mechanisms at work. Some of them, like light
induced degradation to the actual cells, can reduce output but can't really
destroy the system. Other mechanisms really do "break" the module, e.g.
backsheet delamination, accidental or malicious breaking of cover glass, or
extended partial shading that leads to thermal runaway that can melt solder
and/or put holes in the backsheet. As soldered connections age, weaken, and
fail they can lead to thermal runaways that destroy neighboring cells too.

I believe that there are already some panels in the field that can last 50
years, and that it will become more common in the future, but 20-30 years is
the safe, evidence-backed estimate for now.

------
em3rgent0rdr
I don't have to feel guilty when using google services anymore!

------
zitterbewegung
So if they increase the energy supply by investing/purchasing in renewable
energy that would increase supply which would bring their energy costs down
hypothetically?

~~~
mbloom1915
Note Google in some cases does sell electricity generated from their
wind/solar investments to the locals and new FERC order allows anyone who has
DG to sell into wholesale markets. Sometimes their investment is near a data
center so it hits the same local feeder, othertimes they say 'we can't do DG
near the data center, so lets do it somewhere else that offsets the data
center demand'. This is where the renewable energy credits come in and make
the long term strategy worthwhile

~~~
mbloom1915
the headline is quite misleading when you consider most google data centers
still getting power from dirty sources - the 40% reduction in data center cost
is impressive though (whoo AI!)

------
problems
Wondering if any residential provider in the world is offering a service where
you can say "sell me only renewables". There'd probably be a cost associated
with this, but I think I'd have to consider it if it were available locally.

~~~
cestith
In Houston, the "Oil and Gas Capital of the World", I buy 100% wind power from
Green Mountain. They're not the only game in town for 100% renewables, either.
Green Mountain themselves do have mixed plans, but mine's 100% wind. It's not
the cheapest power in town (some retail electric providers go below $0.04 per
kWh for the first year of your contract or such if you don't care) but with
Texas by law having a competitive retail electricity market there's a lot of
choice.

~~~
paul_f
I have a hard time believing this. What does Green Mountain use when the wind
dies? Do they have a grid storage solution?

~~~
problems
They probably just trade it. Increase their supply so they can sell enough
excess back to the grid to make up the cost later. You effectively get 100%
wind, but in reality you might have got 80% wind, 20% gas and sold some wind
back to the grid. It's a good interrim solution at least.

------
Chuckalucky89
"means other companies of a similar scale will feel pressure to move" \- Not
sure if that pressure is real, especially with a new president not really
committed to renewable and sustainable energy adoption.

------
edpichler
> Next year, it said, all of that energy will come from wind farms and solar
> panels.

When I read 'Renewable' on the title, I thought they would use hydroelectric
energy too. Nice to know I was wrong.

~~~
throwaway729
They might be using some form of pumped hydro -- it's a common storage
technique for wind and solar farms.

------
perseusprime11
Is this Google U.S or Google worldwide that will run entirely on renewable
energy? Google has offices and data computing centers worldwide so I am
reading this as everywhere.

------
cheeseprocedure
Are there public-facing data on the _total_ energy footprint of an
Amazon/Google/etc datacenter, including the lifecycle of the hardware hosted
there?

~~~
SamPhillips
Greenpeace has some basics but not that level of detail.
[http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/click-
clean/](http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/click-clean/)

------
exabrial
Part of me hopes this will help drive a nuclear renaissance too: we can power
an aircraft carrier, why not a submarine?

~~~
edblarney
They definitely do have nuclear power submarines :).

The issue is not submarines, it's computers, lights, cars for the rest of us.

Google has a side-show project I think related to nuclear, but it's an
extremely regulated thing so it's hard.

------
EGreg
Google is definitely leading the way! Now if only we can get our municipal
fiber and self driving cars sooner..

------
firmbeliever
So if they are still getting their power from the grid, who uses the renewable
energy that they purchase?

~~~
wilonth
The grid itself. So in the end it pretty much means that they're actually
running on renewables. If everyone does what Google does, the utilities could
just stop producing fossil fuel electricity entirely and the world would
actually consume zero electricity from fossil fuel. You don't have to be a
monk to master mindfulness and meditation.

~~~
firmbeliever
Thanks. Does this mean that Google is essentially subsidizing the cost of
producing renewable energy, and if so, does that then mean that the consumers
of the renewable energy end up paying less because of said subsidy? I'm just
trying to follow where that money is actually going and how it's actually
shifting overall usage from fossil fuels to renewable.

~~~
philipkglass
Renewable project developers want long term power purchase agreements (PPAs)
so they have predictable revenue for projects they plan to develop. These are
agreements that go something like "for the next 15 years, we agree to buy up
to X megawatt hours per year from your project for Y dollars per megawatt
hour." There are other ways to sell output from renewables (like bidding
output directly into the electricity spot market) but developers
overwhelmingly prefer PPAs. Google has signed a bunch of PPAs:
[https://cleantechnica.com/2016/01/29/google-signs-225-mw-
win...](https://cleantechnica.com/2016/01/29/google-signs-225-mw-wind-power-
purchase-agreement-invenergy/)

Once the developer has signed PPAs they can finance the up-front construction
cost. PPAs enable the construction and operation of new renewable energy
projects. Of course the output of large scale renewable facilities is mixed
with other sources of electricity in a transmission system; it doesn't
directly replace coal. (But this is true of any electricity project in a
competitive market: when a company builds a new natural gas plant, they don't
detach the transmission wires from a competitor's older coal plant and attach
them to the new gas turbine.)

Instead it's pricing effects that indirectly decrease use of dirtier fossils
when a grid adds renewable capacity. Solar and wind plants have very low
variable costs; they'll supply every MWh they can to the grid, and get paid
for every one of them via the previously signed PPAs. But fossil generators
have significant variable costs for fuel and for labor[1], so when renewables
are producing high output there may not be enough demand to cover the marginal
costs of production. Fossil plants reduce or stop production when that
happens, so they burn less fuel and produce less emissions. Fossil plants with
high enough marginal costs may shut down for extended periods, like some
plants that are only used for e.g. meeting peak demand during the winter
heating season. Costs rise over time as aging equipment needs additional
maintenance or full replacement. Fossil plants with high enough costs
eventually can't turn a profit even serving the peak-demand-season niche and
are completely retired and scrapped. Even if an old coal plant is replaced by
a new coal plant, it's still an environmental win to get the old ones shut
down, because (even under the new president) a coal plant that starts
construction in 2017 won't get the weaker grandfathered pollution standards of
one constructed in 1957, and the newer plant will produce more electricity per
ton of fuel due to technical advances.

[1] At least coal plants have significant labor costs. Modern CCGT natural gas
plants are quite labor-thrifty too.

~~~
martinald
You are missing one point though, that the cost of non-renewable energy goes
up _when there is no renewable energy in the grid_ often very significantly.

Effectively renewables have an externality cost of their own: they make
"reliable" sources of power much more expensive.

Imagine that wind/solar power supplies 25% of the grid's needs - this means
75% of the time you need a gas power station to fill in the lulls in
production. Fine.

Then imagine you triple the amount of renewable energy on the grid to 75%. The
gas plant is now only operational 25% of the time, but still requires capital
cost of construction and maintenance to be ready to go. Ok, it doesn't need as
much fuel but apart from that you have tripled the cost of the plant.

So the problem is that it becomes uneconomic to build the electricity
generation that stabilises the grid and makes it possible to have any
renewables in the first place.

We're now seeing huge premiums being paid to companies by the various
electricity grid operators to cover this problem. This then goes on ratepayers
bills to cover "distribution" or "grid reliability". And it then turns out
your $0.03/kWh wind is not actually that at all and gets more distorted as
more wind gets generated.

We need better energy storage options before renewables really will fulfill
their promise.

~~~
philipkglass
I didn't mention effects of 75% grid supply from wind + solar because no major
grid is operating at that level. Most grids are significantly below 25%. The
US as a whole is currently at 5-6% of all electricity consumption from wind +
solar. (I know there's not a single unified grid across the US, but still.) I
expect that storage is going to be significantly more mature by the time the
US reaches even 25%.

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tn13
After energy they might focus on more landfills because of electronic waste.

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ziikutv
Is it Google US only or all offices

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dafrankenstein2
Green Earth, Our Earth :)

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sabujp
umm, so do I! I only buy green power from PG&E!

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1_2__3
So it's going to spend money to make it look like renewables make economic
sense? My reading of it is that this is a PR move more than anything else.

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kumarski
There's a considerable amount of embodied energy and embodied pollution in
Solar Panel and Wind Turbine construction.

I think this is lost on most people in Silicon Valley.

~~~
ori_b
Got a better alternative?

~~~
LightskinKanye
They have billions but aren't sponsoring scholarships for graduate physics
degrees like Boeing or any "corporate" company does.

If they want to see their 10xs breakthroughs (which they sure talk a lot
about) they should be throwing money at condensed matter physics research and
just support in general for physics. Its easy to get a 10x in software but
energy is a whole different game.

That way the smartest people won't have to decide between taking a high paying
engineering/programming job or going into physics.

It all comes down to probabilities and the amount of people in the field is
really the best approach towards making a breakthrough.

~~~
kumarski
high paying code writing or going into physics/engineering.

Engineering is much different than software architecture.

One requires hard sciences competency, whereas one you can go into for years
with none, and be successful.

~~~
walshemj
I think you will find that doing what google does at scale does require some
"hard science" :-)

~~~
kumarski
Exceptional case. Most don't.

