

Google invests $75M in a 50MW wind farm, total $1B to renewable energy sector - denzil_correa
http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/11/15/google-invests-75m-in-a-50mw-wind-farm-has-contributed-almost-1b-to-the-renewable-energy-sector/

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tvladeck
Just so everyone's clear, the reason that Google (along with Chevron, Wells
Fargo, and a number of other big companies with large tax liabilities) are
investing in renewable energy is to take advantage of the massive tax credits
that come with the investment. There simply aren't that many companies with
tax liabilities large enough to make investments in tax equity like this
attractive, and Google is one of them.

So, good for Google. It makes a lot of sense for them to do this and I'm glad
to see it happening.

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tomrod
Thank goodness for beneficial tax policies that encourage investment in future
technologies!

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jacoblyles
How do we know whether or not a technology is a "future technology" if it is
unprofitable without tax credits? Would car companies have spent millions of
engineering hours on hydrogen vehicles if the government didn't pay them to do
so in the 00's? Maybe it would have been better for mankind if they didn't.

Broad incentives are better than targeted incentives. The government is bad at
picking future technologies. See ethanol.

~~~
grecy
> How do we know whether or not a technology is a "future technology" if it is
> unprofitable without tax credits?

Is profitability the only factor that makes a technology worth pursing in "the
future"?

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cglace
No, people have many reasons for pursuing technology. The question is whether
the government should encourage people to pour money into unprofitable forms
of energy.

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startupfounder
First, a 50MW farm is only ~25 turbines which is small for industry standards.
I have been on top of wind turbines in farms of hundreds of turbines
surrounded by other windfarms of the same size. I use to inspect wind turbine
blades using Industrial Rope Access.

Second, Google benefits a few ways with this and other renewable investments,
mainly for the Production Tax Credit or PTC. A federal incentive program to
develop the wind energy industry that is equivalent to $02.2 per kWh of
production. A 50MW farm running at 30% will produce ~130M kWh per year or
$3M/year in PTC.

Google is doing three things at once, reducing their tax liability,
diversifying their portfolio and advertising the Google Brand. This has
nothing to do with powering their own data centers and might even take the
focus off of them using dirty energy to power their data centers.

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ajross
I don't understand the last clause. Yes, Google uses "dirty energy" in many
data centers because they're connected to grids without direct "clean energy"
feeds. But electricity is near-perfectly fungible. If you care about "clean"
energy at all, your goal should be increasing the supply anywhere -- what's
the difference to an environmentalist if that 50MW goes to a Google-owned data
center or just a local housing development? How does it make it "less good" of
Google to have built those turbines?

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bcoates
Electricity isn't very fungible at all, at least across space and time: It is
expensive to transport and almost impossible to store. The limiting resource
on power production is facilities, not fuel.

Any electrical power source that doesn't displace a power plant is a toy.

~~~
ajross
No, that's a very commonly stated point, and it's completely wrong from the
perspective of someone trying to reduce carbon output.

Solar usually gets this criticism more than wind, so let's use that: the
argument goes that you need enough power generating capacity to handle peak
usage, but of course solar only works in the day. So if your peak usage
happens at night (it doesn't, but let's assume) then the solar panels have
"displaced zero power plants".

But who cares? If you have them built, then _during the day_ the solar plants
are operating and generating (much cheaper, looking only at marginal costs)
power. And the coal and gas plants, by virtue of having higher marginal costs,
are idle. And at night the fossil plants fire back up and do what they were
doing before. So the net effect, assuming excess solar capacity, is that
_carbon output has been reduced by a factor of two_ (actually a bit more than
two in practice).

And of course then the market will accomodate, such that "day power" being
available in higher quantity and with higher excess capacity becomes cheaper
and "night power" more expensive. So the legacy coal plants will probably
still even make money as they're selling into a "premium" market.

So... how is solar (or wind) a toy in that scenario?

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leeoniya
50MW seems pretty significant. if Wikipedia is to be believed, "According to
Google their global data center operation electrical power ranges between 500
and 681 megawatts"

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effn
MW is the wrong unit to use for that comparision. TWh/year is more
appropriate.

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haberman
Out of curiosity, why do people use Watt-hours instead of Joules for this
purpose?

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dia80
Which is more practical?

A: "Hi, can you please supply us with 50MW for the next 12 hours?"

B: "Hi, can you please supply us with 2.16Tj at a rate of 50MW?"

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kondro
It would be much nicer to get 2.16Tj in a bucket.

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jameswilsterman
Don't forget about their $5B transmission line as well:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/15/energy-
win...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/15/energy-wind-google-
cable)

[http://gigaom.com/cleantech/by-the-numbers-googles-
offshore-...](http://gigaom.com/cleantech/by-the-numbers-googles-offshore-
wind-investment/)

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wpietri
This makes me wonder how long a game Google is playing. And how good they are
at playing the long game.

Does anybody know how well they did on all that dark fiber they were buying up
after Bubble 1.0?

