SUSTAINABLE WORLDVIEW
“We have gained expertise in designing
GOOGLE
In the shade of a photovoltaic-roofed garage, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page
last June plugged in a new RechargeIT plug-in hybrid car.
RE<C: Google Searches
the Future
Google races to make renewable energy cheaper than coal.
An op-ed piece from an interested party.
By Michael Totten
I
n December, the Bush administration,
with flagrant disdain for action in the
face of climate change, made sure that
the Bali Climate Conference of Parties
(COP13) ended with a whimper. The del-
egates pathetically agreed to spend the
next two years studying what to do after
the first commitment period on carbon
reductions ends in 2012. As the meet-
ings drew to a close, negotiator Kevin
Conrad of Papua New Guinea mocked
the Bush team’s leadership pretensions
with the words, “If for some reason you
are not willing to lead, leave it to the
rest of us. Please get out of the way.”
Within a day, possibly as an in-your-face
reply, the Bush administration denied
California and other states the right to set
their own carbon caps.
While the U.S. nega-negotiators
mortified a nation long renowned for
its can-do innovations, two intrepid
entrepreneurial billionaires are moving
decisively to take the nation where
20 Copyright © 2008 by the American Solar Energy Society Inc. All rights reserved.
Efficient Data Centers
and building large-scale, energy-intensive
facilities by building efficient data cen-
ters,” said Larry Page, Google’s president
of products. “We want to apply the same
creativity and innovation to the chal-
lenge of generating renewable electricity
at globally significant scale, and produce
it cheaper than from coal.”
“There has been tremendous work
already on renewable energy,” Page empha-
sized. “Technologies have been developed
that can mature into industries capable of
providing electricity cheaper than coal.”
Google has set an ambitious near-term
goal. “Our goal is to produce 1 gigawatt of
renewable energy capacity that is cheaper
than coal,” he said. “We are optimistic this
can be done in years, not decades.” One
gigawatt powers a city the size of San Fran-
cisco. Most of Google’s electric use is by the
server farms in its data centers.
“If we meet this goal,” said Page, “and
large-scale renewable deployments are
cheaper than coal, the world will have the
option to meet a substantial portion of
electricity needs from renewable sources
and significantly reduce carbon emissions.
We expect this would be a good business
for us as well.”
RE<C is just the most recent in a steady
stream of energy-efficiency, greening and
solar initiatives Google has launched over
the past several years. The company is
leaving no stone unturned. Google has
adopted a series of environmentally friend-
ly policies, including giving $5,000 to any
employee who buys a hybrid car, using
organic ingredients in the all-you-can-eat-
the feds have been for-free cafeterias dotting the campus and
unwilling to go. buying office furnishings made of recy-
Google co-founders cled materials.
Larry Page and Sergey
Brin boldly launched Better Computers
a multi-hundred mil- Last June, Google, Intel, Dell, IBM,
lion dollar initiative Microsoft and others started the Climate
audaciously titled Savers Computing Initiative to save elec-
“Renewable Energy tricity in personal computers. “The aver-
Cheaper than Coal,” age desktop PC wastes nearly 50 percent of
Michael Totten
or simply, RE<C. its power, and the average server wastes
RE<C consists of one-third of its power,” noted Urs Hölzle,
R&D works, philanthropic grantmaking, senior vice president for operations and a
strategic investments in breakthrough Google Fellow. The Initiative set a 90 per-
renewable projects and a potential new cent efficiency target for power supplies,
business line for the world’s largest internet which promises to reduce CO2 emissions
search company. Twenty to 30 engineers by 54 million tons per year, while saving
and energy experts are being hired to lead $5.5 billion in energy costs.
the in-house R&D effort, with several tens On June 16, the 9,200 solar photo-
of millions of dollars budgeted in 2008 to voltaic panels installed at the Googleplex
focus initially on advanced solar thermal headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.,
power systems, wind power technologies, went live. The performance data for the
enhanced geothermal systems and other 1,600-kilowatt solar PV systems are view-
potential breakthrough technologies. able at google.com/corporate/solarpanels/
solartoday.org SOLAR TODAY

home. At the high-profile event, the
Google co-founders connected the first few
plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) that
are available for employee use. (Google
already provides hundreds of town bicycles
for cruising around the big campus and is
offering bicycles to its several thousand
employees worldwide so each employee
can “keep fit and healthy, get to know
their city better and reduce the environ-
mental impact of their journey to work.”)
Larry Brilliant, executive director of
Google.org, the philanthropic arm of
Google.com, also announced a $10 mil-
lion grant initiative to advance PHEV com-
mercialization, as well as the launching of
a partnership with Enterprise Rent-A-Car
to lease 100 PHEVs for the campus, as the
cars become available.
Green Tools
At about the same time, a group of
inspired employees (Googlers), coming from
all facets and geographical locations of the
company, spontaneously formed a “Green
Intergroup.” They meet regularly to brain-
storm new ways to green Google opera-
March/April 2008 Copyright © 2008 by the American Solar Energy Society Inc. All rights reserved.
“Our goal is to produce 1 gigawatt of
renewable energy capacity,” says Larry Page.
tions. They promote green practices through
innovative applications of Google’s myriad
internet tools, like Google Earth map mash-
ups and Web-based plug-in “gadgets.”
For example, Google’s Sketch-up 3D
modeling software is adding green com-
ponents to its architectural design appli-
cations, working with such groups as the
U.S. Green Building Council, Depart-
ment of Energy, National Renewable
Energy Laboratory, Rocky Mountain
Institute, BuildingGreen.com and Archi-
tecture for Humanity. An EnergyPlus
plug-in for SketchUp was planned for
release at the beginning of 2008. The
plug-in couples the EnergyPlus whole-
building simulation engine to the
SketchUp drawing program.
In SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse
(sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse)
can be found graphic models of 94
high-performance buildings, energy-effi-
cient case studies collaboratively
developed by DOE, the USGBC and Build-
ingGreen.com. SketchUp and RMI are
developing “GreenUp,” which will pro-
vide “Green Tips” for the SketchUp green
plug-in. SketchUp is also being used exten-
sively in daylighting analyses with AGI.
Many other applications are being dis-
cussed, and solar PV expert Joe McCabe has
developed an open source BIPV (building-
integrated photovoltaics) Designer software
plug-in that he’s offered to SketchUp for
integrating with their suite of green plug-ins.
I spent most of 2007 on assignment at
Google.org working with the climate and
energy team, directed by Dan Reicher, for-
mer DOE assistant secretary for energy effi-
ciency and renewable energy, and in recent
years a renewables entrepreneur. I was
brought in by Aimée Christensen, Google’s
climate maven, to concentrate on how cli-
mate and energy solutions could be accel-
erated through the use of so-called Web 2.0
tools that enable social collaboration,
including wikis, crowdsourcing, peer-to-
peer production and more. I’ll share more
about this in my next column. ●
Michael Totten is chief adviser on climate,
water and ecosystem services at Conserva-
tion International. Contact him at
m.totten@conservation.org.
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