Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017 • Hacker News Board

Re: Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017

#71

Post by peterjs » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 6:14 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #53

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 i…

Is it? Intel has been purchasing large quantities of green energy for years. In the last few year it has been 100% of the their overall consumption [1]. Is there any difference in what the two companies are trying to achieve?

[1] https://www.epa.gov/greenpower/green-power-partnership-natio...

Re: Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017

#72

Post by wilonth » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 6:14 PM UTC

firmbeliever wrote: post #57

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

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.

Re: Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017

#73

Post by edblarney » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 6:16 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #34

tomp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price = where supply and demand cross. If there's no wind, supply goes down, so with constant demand prices will go up! That's disregarding second-order effects (e.g. other providers marking up their prices to make bigger profits, or the wind-power provider increasing its prices in the future to make up for the lost income and provide a nice return on investment).

You can predict the supply of wind, as an average over a long enough period of time, much more easily than you can predict the supply of oil.

"You can predict the supply of wind, as an average over a long enough period of time, much more easily than you can predict the supply of oil."

Over the long haul, yes, but in real-time - no. And electricity prices to fluctuate a lot over days, weeks etc..

But indicating that 'price stability' is a point for green is not really fair, when it's almost always going to be considerably more expensive.

Knowing that something is going to be 'consistent, and consistently more expensive', I don't think is a good argument for green.

There are other, better arguments.

Re: Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017

#74

Post by edpichler » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

> 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.

Re: Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017

#75

Post by edblarney » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #68

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

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.

Re: Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017

#76

Post by DannyBee » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

wilonth wrote: post #63

tomp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price = where supply and demand cross. If there's no wind, supply goes down, so with constant demand prices will go up! That's disregarding second-order effects (e.g. other providers marking up their prices to make bigger profits, or the wind-power provider increasing its prices in the future to make up for the lost income and provide a nice return on investment).

There are a lot of people selling and buying oil, thus changing the price every second. But there's no person looking at the wind and wager at what the "wind price" would be! You can never change your price if you wrote it in the CONTRACT, Google would be stupid if they don't cover it in the contract and let their Wind Farm builder change the price, because it makes zero sense.

" But there's no person looking at the wind and wager at what the "wind price" would be!"

Uh, sure there are, they are wagering on weather, which is a very common thing to do in various commodities markets.

Re: Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017

#77

Post by coda_ » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 6:21 PM UTC

deegles wrote: post #45

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 mo…

I agree that they are ahead of the game. Combined Cycle Gas Turbine generators are still the most economic way to produce electricity... though carbon tax and renewable subsidies do tip the scale in some markets. I don't think they are purely doing this for cheap electricity... at least not right now. I believe in what they are doing, and think it will help facilitate a transition to more efficient renewables eventually, but I don't believe they are doing this for the economic benefit right now... it's a good PR move that could also pay off financially in the long run... in my opinion.

Re: Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017

#78

Post by ZeroGravitas » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 6:23 PM UTC

metaphorm wrote: post #28

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…

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...

Re: Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017

#79

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 6:24 PM UTC

downandout wrote: post #62

>"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 wi…

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.

Re: Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017

#80

Post by philipkglass » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 6:24 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #16

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.

Most of the lifetime CO2 footprint of data center hardware is from the operational phase, not manufacturing. This (somewhat dated) paper from Dell indicates that 90% of the CO2 footprint of a rack mounted server comes from the usage phase: http://i.dell.com/sites/content/corporate/corp-comm/en/Docum...