Corpobligation: Clean energy at a price competitive with natural gas or even coal is the goal for google, according to Bill Weihl, Google's clean energy czar:
...there are a lot of computers out there — over a billion PCs around the
world. And there will be 2.5 billion in a few short years.
Individually, each one's like a light bulb. But add them all up, and
it's a lot of energy.
But one of the basic problems with carbon-neutral or very low-carbon
sources of energy is that it's expensive, particularly compared with
coal. I've spent three years trying to understand what technology is
out there, and the somewhat disturbing answer is, there are billions of
dollars going into clean tech, and lots of companies have interesting
generation technologies that in a small number of years hope to be at
grid-parity. But that means cost parity with natural gas, which is 8 or
9 or 10 cents per kilowatt hour. Coal is half or a third of that.
We've invested $45-million in startup companies. We also have a small
group of engineers doing our own internal R&D, free from the
constraints of, "We actually have to build a business and show our
investors a return in three years." … The goal is to think very big.
And if we're successful, we may actually make a significant return from
doing this. Because anybody who figures out how to produce clean energy
at scale and at a cost that competes well with coal is gonna make a lot
of money.
Google trims its eco-profile
"Smart" servers: Google says its custom-built
smart servers each use about 500 kilowatt hours of electricity, 300
kilograms of carbon dioxide and 3,700 litres of water less than a
typical server. When a server is past its prime, the company reuses or
recycles 100 per cent of the material.
Solar power: More than 9,200 solar panels have
been installed around company headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.,
since 2007. They produce 1.6 megawatts of electricity, enough to power
1,000 average California homes.
For the staff: Each day, about 1,500 employees
travel to the Mountain View campus on biodiesel shuttles. Workers may
also use shared bicycles to get around the site, or one of a fleet of
eight plug-in hybrid vehicles. Google says employees who "bike, walk,
pogo-stick, unicycle, or otherwise self-power to work" earn money for a
charity of their choice. One company café sources everything on its
menu from within 240 kilometres, and all disposable flatware and
utensils are biodegradable.
Toronto office: In Google's new Toronto office,
about 85 per cent of the workstations (made partly from old soda cans)
are recyclable. The office's electricity comes from Bullfrog Power.
Doors and millwork are made from fast-growing "weed trees," and the
rubber floors are made from old tires. When a room is empty, the
lights, heating and air conditioning automatically turn off or adjust.
Source: DAWN CALLEJA, "A greener shade of Google", The Globe and Mail, (March 12, 2009) at 12:00 AM EDT Online Edition.
