Google Goes Green 374
foobsr writes "Google today announced its RE<C project to make renewable energy cheaper than coal in the near future. The company, and its charitable arm google.org, plan to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the initiative. Larry Page stated: 'With talented technologists, great partners and significant investments, we hope to rapidly push forward. Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades.'"
Great scott! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Great scott! (Score:5, Funny)
Like a bat out of hell. (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you heard it burn rubber when the stoplight goes green? Electric motors like the Prius uses are amazing at producing off-the-line torque. Combine that with its low weight, and you find that the Prius actually out-accelerates most cars on the road.
As an environmental move, whether hybrid drivetrains represent a net win is a little ambiguous (until we get plug-in hybrids). But for performance, they have a lot of pretty exciting advantages.
I was on a University team which built a hybrid formula-style racecar. That thing blew the pants off of Ferraris. In fact, it was originally entered for the general Formula SAE event, which then outlawed hybrids as having an unfair advantage. (So we started another competition just for hybrid vehicles.)
Want to see what electric motors can do? Check out the Tesla Roadster [teslamotors.com]. And it only uses an AC induction motor (hence "Tesla")!!
(The fact that it "only" uses an induction motor is important because induction motors, though cheap and durable, are not even the money-no-object "best" option: That would be a permanent magnet synchronous DC motor.)
The downside to electric drivetrains is that they have more components, and electric motors are heavy, so their more impressive torque needs to make up for the increased weight. But the fact is that, currently, hybrids do exactly that, and, as motors get lighter, the advantages will only get more and more pronounced.
Have you heard the quiet, confident, high-tech sound of a really powerful electric motor spooling up? It's truly a beautiful sound.
Re:Great scott! (Score:5, Interesting)
Therefore, anyone wishing to create renewable energy more cost effective than coal doesn't need to do anything beyond keep trying and not get worse, and they will get there eventually.
As far as technical challenges go, this is right up there with "hitting the ground".
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Still, more ups than downs
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New manufacturing, economies of scale and other factors helped renewable energy. This (I hope) will continue in the future.
Yet, when the cost of energy goes up, the cost of manufacturing goes up, the cost of transportation goes up and so on. And, even if the petrol cost have risen sharply, electricity is mostly generated from coal (I have no idea which way the coal cost went lately)
Re:Great scott! (Score:4, Informative)
Let's put something straight : total subsidies for solar are not even close to those of nuclear.
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Most nuclear plants haven't failed; they've been running just fine... France is the obvious example, n'est-ce pas?
Re:Great scott! (Score:4, Insightful)
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- improved technology (larger wind turbines, better generators, new solar cell types)
- more efficient production techniques (production of larger solar panels see: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/appliedmaterials/index.jsp?epi-content=GENERIC&newsId=20060905005378&ndmHsc=v2*A1167656400000*B1178676791000*C4102491599000*DgroupByDate*J2*N1002992&newsLang=en&beanID=547561197&viewID=news_view [businesswire.com]) or check out eSolar's
Re:Great scott! (Score:4, Insightful)
And if we actually had to pay triple for our power we all, personally, would suddenly find ways to use less (or reallocate our spending) and companies would put more money into find better alternatives.
I'm all for jacking up the price and removing subsidies.
Re:Great scott! (Score:5, Informative)
Peak Coal, on the other hand, is decades or centuries off. The United States has enough coal reserves [wikipedia.org] that we could be energy independent for a few hundred years. China, India, and Russia have lots of reserves [google.com], too.
Of course, there are prohibitive problems with becoming an all-coal energy economy for a few hundred years. I advocate that we move away from coal (and oil) as fast as possible. The point is, though, that there's still a lot of coal out there.
Another take on Peak Oil (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, as has often been a trait of humanity, we rose to the occasion and, true to form, Peak Whale Oil [energybulletin.net] was not the disaster so many thought it would be. Why? The biggest reason, of course, was the ingenuity of American business to not just lie down and die, but to innovate. They found that the black liquid bubbling up from the ground could be tapped as a brand new energy source, and they built out the huge infrastructure that was needed to make it happen.
The same thing will happen again. Nobody is going to just lie down as our world falls apart. If for no other reason than there's a (huge) buck to be made in preventing that.
Don't under estimate the powers of greed and self-preservation.
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Not a very good analogy. We've moved from energy source to energy source in the past, not because we needed to, but because something better sort of fell in our lap. Today we're looking at a scenario where we need to move past biological fuels to survive as a soci
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Humans have been using coal for heat and cooking for thousands of years.
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Until we hit Peak Whale Oil, we'd never used a fossil fuel as our PRIMARY ENERGY SOURCE.
Despite the fact that coal and oil were used, until a few hundred years ago, the use of biological energy sources dramatically overshadowed use of fossil fuels.
Re:Great scott! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Great scott! (Score:5, Informative)
I find it interesting that so many people have such a poor concept of the current situation. What people fail to recognize is that we are artificially reaching peak production. Contrary to popular belief, the world's most cost effective refinery was shut down less than a decade ago. No new refineries in the US are being built. Keep this in mind when you contrast this with the fact that more oil is currently known to exist than any other time in human history and its widely believed huge undiscovered reserves have yet to be located.
Right now, artificial scarcity is causing production peaks. Artificial scarcity helps keep fuel prices high so oil companies have zero incentive to create new refineries. What most people also fail to understand is crude comes in varying qualities. The per barrel price you constantly see quoted represents the highest grade crude. What you don't see is the "junk" crude is often half or a quarter the price. The low quality crude can be processed but requires special refineries. In the US, we only have one or two refineries which can process high sulfur crude. Processing high sulfur crude is actually equally profitable but requires additional investment from the oil community a it requires expansion in processing capability.
Long story short, there is actually zero factual information to suggest we are anywhere near peak. What the misinformed often quote as peak are simply observing artificial limitations which are kept in check by the oil companies and further compounded by their refusal to increase production capabilities while having reduced capabilities less than a decade ago. The only question is, how much are you willing to pay for your fuel?
With oil prices as they are now, most of the known oil sources become viable, but again, no one wants to do that because what is already available is far more profitable. And heck, if you can use up your competition's supply, it makes your reserve all the more valuable down the road.
Is greed really so easily confused for peak production?
Re:Great scott! (Score:4, Insightful)
Either way, the correct course of action is still strikingly clear. Move away from it. As quickly as possible. Either we escape an artificially-created economic sink, or we reduce our dependence on a an energy source that is in its twilight. Win-Win, if you ask me.
Re:Great scott! (Score:5, Informative)
Part of the problem is that we don't have an accurate accounting of how much oil is left in the easy-to-get-to locations. The middle eastern sources are depleting, but they refuse to acknowledge how much. Every year they say that the amount of oil left in the ground is the same as it was the previous year. This is because they are limited in how much they can extract by international treaties. If they can only extract 5% a year, then the only way they can keep production up is to claim that the amount of oil is the same. So they lie. We may find that those oil fields run dry all of a sudden and nobody knew it was going to happen.
As you point out, other sources can be exploited - but it requires investment and time to setup. And unless we know how much is left in the easy sources it is hard to gauge when to invest in the hard ones. In the end, it doesn't matter: We need to move to renewable for this reason, and 1000 others.
Re:Great scott! (Score:5, Insightful)
Artificially reducing refinery capacity does reduce gasoline supply - which definitely increases the price of gasoline. BUT it also reduces the demand for crude oil - which lowers its price!
And yet, the price of crude oil not only has gone up, but it has gone up faster than gasoline prices this year (http://www.wtrg.com/daily/oilandgasspot.html). I suspect you might have to further refine your crude conspiracy theory.
Re:Great scott! (Score:5, Insightful)
The current problem with rapidly escalating oil prices is not related to US refinery capacity. If the bottleneck was at the refinery level, crude would be cheap and gasoline would be expensive. In fact, both are expensive.
A statement like "more oil is currently known to exist than any other time in human history" is absurd, and I wonder how you arrived at it. We don't know how much oil exists, partly because some of it is - as you say - "undiscovered", ie we think it might be out there but we don't know for sure - but mostly because OPEC lie about the size of their remaining reserves. Data quality in the oil industry is poor to non-existant. We don't even have accurate figures for how much we pump out of the ground each day, let alone how much we have left.
You are confused about the pricing of sour crudes. Yes, they are cheaper, but not significantly so. The spot price of Mexican Maya on the 16th was $79, only about $10-$12 less than the price of the high quality stuff. Given that oil used to cost $10-$12 the fact that sour has risen to slightly less than sweet is really of no consequence.
You say there's no factual information to indicate that we're at peak. But world production has been flat since the summer of 2004, despite progressively increasing prices (due to increased demand from Asia) providing every incentive to pump more. This behavior has not been seen before and strongly suggests that world production capacity is maxed out - there are huge wins to be had by any company or country that can significantly boost production, but doing an analysis of an oil major like ExxonMobil, will show that their existing fields decline as fast as they can replace them. To me this is a pretty good sign that we're at peak - inability to raise production despite huge demand.
The whole "it's an oil industry conspiracy" won't wash, sorry. This isn't like the computer industry where one or two companies can dominate the landscape - oil is a commodity, and the price is not set by the oil companies but by supply and demand. It's the simplest market you can get. Anybody who is sitting on top of a giant oil field right now would be an idiot to leave it for tomorrow, because there's no guarantee we'll want that oil tomorrow - maybe there's a recession and oil demand is reduced. Maybe we discover better ways to power our cars.
Right now there's a lead-in time of at least 5 years from discovering a field to first commercial oil, sometimes longer. Even if you start today, there is risk. If you leave it longer, the risk gets even bigger. At least for private oil companies, there are huge financial incentives to boost production and thus get a leg up over your competitors in stock price and profits. To claim that the entire industry is in a cartel to deliberately hold back production is to reveal your lack of knowledge around discovery trends, skills shortages and the impact on depletion rates of modern production techniques like horizontal wells/waterflooding.
Too much fruit and nuts for you (Score:5, Insightful)
fyi, nobody is investing in new oil refineries, because noone in their right mind would invest $$$ when they won't get a return on capitol. The market has spoken - the market says there isn't money to be made from more refineries. That's probably because you'd have to run it for 10 years to break-even, and in 10 years time, our refining capacity may outstrip supply. Either that, or there's a massive organised world-wide conspiricy, to keep gold cookies out away from intelligent negative people.
Long story short, there is actually zero factual information to suggest we are anywhere near peak
Ignore the factual information. There's *lots* of oil. Jedi waves hand.
If the oil companies are conspiring to do anything, it's that they want to sell you *more* oil and *now*. That's because it's good for their bottom line. So go to the gas station and fill up, dump in the river and fill up again! Don't worry about future scarcity! We want your money NOW! and if we make money it's good for the economy, so it _must_ be good for you too!
There's an apt saying: "Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity". As I see it, the oil companies aren't capable of the type of conspiricy you suggest. It's too easy to shine light on their FUD. For example, the chamber of echos that exxon has created to suggest that there's *lots* of scientists who don't believe in the human impact on climate change. Some are fooled, anyone who cares to look it not.
And on the bright side - if you're right - and the oil companies are delibertly trying *not* to sell more oil (falls down laughing), then they're doing humanity a service on so many different levels:
Energy prices have been too low for too long. If an energy crunch happens, it will mean severe economic adjustment (and hardship) that could have been mitigated by a more frugle policy to energy usage. Such policies could help the economy slowly make the necessary structural changes. Such policies fly can only exist when the future becomes more important than satisfying immediate wants. I'm not holding my breath - too many people with a sense of entitlement - that they should have what they want, and have it now. Humanities current flirtation with greed has nothing to do with malice, and everything to do with stupidty.
Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Vested interest (Score:4, Interesting)
Has Bill Gates or Steve Jobs made any similar pledges?
Re:Vested interest (Score:5, Funny)
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why name Gates and Jobs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Frankly Gates doesn't have to do anything in the renewable energy market, what he is doing through his foundation is saving more lives than can be counted, not exploiting current pc trends towards "everything global warming", doing proven work that benefits people today. Hell, his foundation is more important than Microsoft in my book. Trade some "evil" here for worlds of good elsewhere.
As for Apple, they list many iniatives. Why do they have to be energy related to qualify for points? They do a lot in the recycling arena. They make a big thing out of ensuring their equipment is recyclable and is moving to using non-dangerous/polluting means of making it.
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Name some, I checked and Jobs and Apple don't have their name attached to any significant level of giving. Out of the three, Apple is by far the worst in terms of philanthropy.
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The harsh reality is that the more people that survive, the more resources are consumed. Earth is a zero sum game and we
Re:why name Gates and Jobs? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's simply not true, and renewable resources (plants, trees, etc.) are evidence of that. We are not a zero sum game because we have, for all intents and purposes, an inexhaustible supply of energy from the sun. Think back through the chain --> sun causes plants to grow, animals eat plants, etc. We're all solar powered, ultimately.
More efficient exploitation of that energy results in an increase in available resources. Sure, there's a limit, but we have even begun to tap into it, even with existing technology.
That's why projects like Google's are important. Any increase in efficient production of renewable energy ensures that we continue to not be a zero sum game.
There may come a point where no further technological innovation is possible, but it looks like when we get to that advanced state that the population will contract voluntarily. Witness the below-replacement birth rates in first world countries.
Re:why name Gates and Jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
The total amount of energy available to the Earth increases over time. We haven't even scratched the surface of exploiting what we have, let alone optimized the exploitation of energy that comes in continuously that is currently unused.
Hence, no zero sum game. In other words, I don't have to take energy from you in order to increase the energy available to me, there are many other ways I can increase usage or efficiency.
In the U.S. we are not currently taking advantage of this fact, to our great discredit. It's short sighted and results in conflict.
The foundation is a joke (Score:2, Offtopic)
But Gates has billions at his disposal. If he wanted to make a bigger impact on the world, he would do things that are beyond other VCs (and even most gov). In particular, he could push massive reaseach/development on Alternative energy. Or how a
Re:The foundation is a joke (Score:5, Informative)
$29 Billon at the last count [wikipedia.org]. It has the same budget as the entire WHO and dwarfs the amount the US government spends on aid.
Gee, building a maglev train in the richest part of the world's richest country to carry the world's richest, fattest taxpayers, wouldn't THAT be a gift to humanity?
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It costs a awful lot for little net difference. People will keep getting sick.
Google's plans are in their best interests so they will wok hard on it and when completed, it will have a massive impact around the world.
Even third world countries can use cheap clean energy.
Google will help everybody instead of a select few.
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Google can't do a great deal about the fact that thousands of PCs between them draw a lot of power.
Nuk-u-lar (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait, we don't like that kind of renewable resource...
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Disregard carbon; pay attention to all else (Score:5, Informative)
Best thing that America can do is get off coal (and natural gas is not the way to go, but better than coal). Nukes would help.
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Back in 2003 Bush did put out a proposal that could of setup cap and trade policy with a 40% reduction by 2010 and 70% by 2018, when passed, the first ever rules regula
Re:Disregard carbon; pay attention to all else (Score:4, Insightful)
With even Patrick Moore (the founder of Greenpeace) realising that nuclear power (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html [washingtonpost.com]) is the way forward, so-called "environmentalists" need to get a clue. The nuclear waste argument is almost entirely moot thanks breeder reactors, as has already been pointed out.
There are more deaths in the coal industry per measure of power produced, than in the nuclear power industry (including mining, catastrophes, meltdowns).
The fact that some environmentalists actually attempt to hinder the obviously superior, and obviously more environmentally healthy option of nuclear power is a testament to their reactionary and brainless nature.
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The point being the whole renewable thing. Yes, breeder reactors wring the last of the energy out of the original source but ultimately the source dries up/cools down whatever you get the picture. A renewable source is one not dependant on a finite resource.
As to sustaina
Re:Nuk-u-lar (Score:5, Interesting)
First issue is that there is plenty of uranium on this planet to power the world using current tech for a long time. The reason is that even in the oceans there is uranium.
Bear in mind, that with current approaches to reactors, we use about 2% of the power, and then we waste the rest (which is the reason why it takes 10's of thousands of years to cool down). OTH, if you use a breeder reactor, and keep the cycle going, then you use up about 98-99% of the energy (leaving a small residual that is cool within 150 years). In fact, here in America, if we could switch ALL power to IFR (integral fast reactors), AND had electric cars, AND kept everything inefficient, we would have enough uranium/plutonium in waste that we would not need to dig or buy anything for the next 100 years.
Estimates are that there is about 10000 years of Uranium if it supplies ALL of the worlds energy needs. After that is burned there is thorium, or h2-3. Point being that nukes will last quit a long time.
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As far as I know, (IANANP though that should be obvious), we still are left with plutonium-239 as a waste product, and while there are some charming countries willing to buy it off me for cash I'm not sure I want to sell it, yet where in the name of Mary's tit do I put it safely for the next 24K years?
I would have thought renewable meant tidal/wave/wind/solar depending on your location/climate, as a bonus the c
Re:please stop with the Ocean Uranium Crap (Score:5, Informative)
About 3 parts per billion
That's the first I've ever heard about anybody being crazy enough to try to boil off the water to extract the uranium.
http://jolisfukyu.tokai-sc.jaea.go.jp/fukyu/mirai-en/4_5.html [jaea.go.jp]
If 2g-U/kg-adsorbent is submerged for 60 days at a time and used 6 times, the uranium cost is calculated to be 88,000 yen/kg-U, including the cost of adsorbent production, uranium collection, and uranium purification. When 6g-U/kg-adsorbent and 20 repetitions or more becomes possible, the uranium cost reduces to 15,000 yen. This price level is equivalent to that of the highest cost of the minable uranium. The lowest cost attainable now is 25,000 yen with 4g-U/kg-adsorbent used in the sea area of Okinawa, with 18 repetitionuses. In this case, the initial investment to collect the uranium from seawater is 107.7 billion yen, which is 1/3 of the construction cost of a one million-kilowatt class nuclear power plant
So, of the order of $1bn to setup and then around 250$/kg to extract using current technology to extract enough uranium to run 6 nuclear power stations.
Tim.
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Anyway, you don't extract uranium by boiling the sea you use some sort of ion exchange or http://www.fr [freepatentsonline.com]
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> ultimately the source dries up/cools down whatever you get the picture. A
> renewable source is one not dependant on a finite resource.
That's a decent argument, but you need to understand just what a breeder reactor can do.
U-235 is the only natural fissile material, which sucks because it's only about 0.75% of elemental uranium. U-238, which isn't fissile, makes up the remaining 99+% and is basically just dead weight.
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Factoring in the long run cost of running the plant and the externalities of said plant, nuclear is likely t
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Why are we ignoring this technology???
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Are you insinuating that people shouldn't protest on a full stomach?
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Nope, just that most people who wax lyrical on the subject of the starving masses frequently have never, and will never, go without themselves, yet profess to understand and represent the people who do.
gMatrix (Score:3, Funny)
Re:gMatrix (Score:5, Insightful)
Skies darkened to block out the Sun so that their solar power sources would be negated? Well, duh. What was stopping them from building taller solar power collectors that were above the black stuff? Neo and Trinity penetrated the layer, didn't they?
Alternatively, they could have used whatever power source the remaining free humans were using: Zion wasn't powered by human batteries, was it?
Worst Plot Hole Ever.
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Not to mention that the humans' biological energy had to come from food, which, working up the food chain, gets energy from the sun.
So in order to be extra evil and nasty, they lost energy on every step of the food chain instead of getting it straight from solar.
Yeah that part was dumb.
Go Google (Score:5, Insightful)
I have spent so long lamenting the short-sightedness of American business, that it's easy to overlook the fact that at least some companies are willing to stake their immediate earnings on potentially much greater gains in the future. It's therefore very nice to see Google at the forefront of energy innovation because, let's face it, as a geek, that's exactly where I'd be pouring a fair portion of my post-billionaire funds. That and space... but alas Brin hasn't decided to finance his own airospace company YET...
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Re:Go Google (Score:4, Interesting)
Well it makes Hummer owners look down right green.
I guess the non billionaires need to save energy.
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Re:Go Google (Score:4, Insightful)
In that case you can have no problem with every SUV owner on the planet. Or people that don't car pool. Or people that shop at Walmart.
It is their own money and their own business.
I on the other hand find it more than a little hypocritical for Larry Page to own a private 767 and talk about the importance of alternative clean energy.
As I said I have no problem with them having a private jet. Just with a private 767. There are many very nice private jets that burn a lot less fuel but can fly just about as far and even faster.
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Precisely. Guilt is a very inefficient way to control CO2 pollution, and I refuse to use morality as a tool for resource management.
We need an actual carbon tax/cap and trade scheme(I'm leaning toward the latter). And until we do, every voluntary effort will be nothing but self-righteous bullshit.
Why? Because unless carbo
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Spending a bit for a luxury company jet isnt bad.
Its a drop in the pond when compared to how much cash Google has.
Return (Score:2)
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However, if the heat obtained in the hydrogen to electricity generation is usable, the efficiency goes up quite a bit. Some industries needs both electricity and heat, so this could be a solution if energy rates differ enough from day to night
Consumer tracking (Score:4, Funny)
Dan East
I wish that they would hit geo-thermal (Score:2)
In addition, it would be good if could push geo-thermal heating/cooling of business/residential. Right now, HVAC accounts for more than 50% of a places utility bill (and back east, it can account for 75%). In fact, the recent action of placing a data center in a coal mine is the right idea.
By spending just a bit of money on these 2 items,
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Solar power, and it's derivitave forms (wind and hydroelectric), have limitations based on geography, climate and land use (solar panels on crop land = bad). Geothermal has the one advantage that it's technically feasable anywhere, provided you can dig deep enough.
All that's needed is for industry to re-direct its resouces from drilling for oil, to drilling for hot rocks. While I'm sure its not as simple as all that, its still nice to know that we don't necessarily have to invent anything wi
It's just a matter of time (Score:2, Insightful)
Just one gigawatt? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're confusing energy and power. (Score:2)
It's REC not RCC (Score:2)
RE<C (Score:2)
How about energy storage? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Incorrect. Commercially-available solar panels are only able to capture one spectrum of the light available, however... there are panels which can capture five levels of the light spectrum, at much greater efficiency than the presently available panels.
This means you can capture power at night (infrared), from ambient light (streetlamps), reflected light and so on.
These newer panels are obviously much more expensive t
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Solar powered flashlight?
Using a 1 square meter solar panel, you could get at most 0.4W from the light of one 1000W lightbulb at 25 meters away.
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For low scale energy consumption, using local storage is probably cheaper
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Amazingly, you can't easily move electricity from USA to Europe, or from Australia to Africa. Until huge (and I mean HUGE) electricity transport lines are laid out, and huge transformation stations are up and working, you can't transmit electricity.
Not to mention that even at very high voltages you lose significant amounts of power to line resistance when you send electricity long distances.
Maybe when we develop very low temperature, dirt cheap superconductors electricity will become a global commodity, but until then it's destined to be consumed relatively locally.
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Just "Not In My Back Yard". *ducks*
So far all I see.. (Score:2)
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(waits for the hippies to show up and say "Well, they have *so much money*, it wouldn't hurt to spend it on the homeless")
OMG! They are going to print clickable ads on coal (Score:3, Funny)
The solar cells will reflect light and write "www.sanmarcos.island.com" on the clouds.
If a slashhack can think of these, imagine what ubergooglegeek can think of!!!
Funny things, these millions (Score:2)
Since nobody's mentioning HOW they're gonna do it. (Score:5, Informative)
Good luck (Score:4, Interesting)
No disrespect to Google, and I'm glad they're making the investment, but they (and a lot of the commenters here) seem to think all it requires is waving their Magic Googlewand(beta) and we'll have energy cheaper than coal(!! Coal is pretty freaking cheap).
If it were easy, it'd have been done already. For Google to claim that they think it can be done in "years, not decades" sounds like a good bit of hubris. If they don't have something already on the horizon, then we're stepping in the range of arrogant stupidity.
All the credit to Google for stepping up to the plate and trying to get something done, but the way the whole thing is worded, there's this undercurrent of assumption that nobody has tried to make these things work before. All inventors think about cheap energy! It's like Google slapped their head one day and said, "Good God! Why didn't anyone think of creating alternate energy cheaper than coal before?? We're geniuses!!"
I hope something comes of it, but I'm not holding my breath.
If you can't store it, you can't count on it (Score:5, Informative)
I work for a major public power company and have worked on some renewables projects in departments concerned with supplying retail load (e.g. you, your aunt, Google, etc.) What so much of this debate forgets -- either deliberatley or inadvertently -- is that electricity can't be stored in any useful quantity. It's unique among commodities.
Thus it follows that the main problem with 99% of renewable energy is that it is not dispatchable. When you're working for the power company and suddenly load spikes, you need to be able to call on a resource immediately. We have dozens of internal procedures (and a load of regulation) that dictate how much "ready to go" energy we must have available at any point.
As a utility I can't count of a solar plant to be there as a reserve -- even in the Southwestern U.S. -- nor wind. (Geothermal is a notable exception -- it's as reliable as coal or nuke -- but is only available in specific locations.) Sure, if I could store the energy produced by a wind farm until I needed it, great, but that's not a possibility.
I doubt that Google (or any business) will be willing to accept the operating risk of not having some form of dispatchable energy ready at hand. So they've got two choices:
Utilities, for the most part, regard renewable energy projects as really expensive press release opportunities. Utilities are required to be reliable and, for the most part, are run by men and women who take pride in the fact that when you, Joe Customer, turn on your kid's night light, it comes on. Until someone figures out how to store energy from a wind or solar farm, the energy driving that night light is going to be baseloaded on either fossil or nuclear fuel.
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a true free-market needs Perfect and complete information to all actors - this is impossible in practice.
Branko Horvat: "it is now well known that capitalist development leads to the concentration of capital, employment and power. It is somewhat less known that it leads to the almost complete destruction of economic freedom."