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Directory:Clean Energy 2030 Initiative by Google

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The energy team at Google has been crunching the numbers to see how we could greatly reduce fossil fuel use by 2030. Announced on Oct. 1, 2008, their analysis, led by Jeffery Greenblatt, suggests a potential path to weaning the U.S. off of coal and oil for electricity generation by 2030 (with some remaining use of natural gas as well as nuclear), and cutting oil use for cars by 40%. A big chunk of that portfolio would come from energy savings through increased efficiency and conservation, essentially holding the total energy used steady at around 4.4 Terawatts over that period.

Contents

Official Websites

Proposals

Posted by Dan Reicher, Director, Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, and Jeffery Greenblatt, Climate and Energy Technology Manager, Google.org

(1) Reduce demand by doing more with less

We should start with the low-hanging fruit by reducing energy demand through energy efficiency -- adopting technologies and practices that allow us to do more with less. At Google, we've seen the benefits of this approach. We identified $5M in building efficiency investments with a 2.5 year payback. We've also designed our own data centers to run more efficiently, and we believe they are the most efficient in the world. On a smaller scale, personal computers can also become much more efficient. A typical desktop PC wastes nearly half the power it consumes. Last year, Bill Weihl, our Green Energy Czar, worked with industry partners to create the Climate Savers Computing Initiative to raise energy efficiency standards for personal computers and servers. If we meet our goals, these standards will cut energy consumption by the equivalent of 10-20 coal-fired power plants by 2010.

Government can have a big impact on achieving greater efficiency. California's aggressive building codes, efficiency standards and utility programs have helped the state keep per-capita energy use flat for years, while consumption in much of the rest of the country has grown significantly. Enacting similar policies at the national level would help even more.

We also need to give the American people opportunities to be more efficient. The way we buy electricity today is like going to a store without seeing prices: we pick what we want, and receive an unintelligible bill at the end of the month. When homes are equipped with smart meters and real-time pricing, research shows that energy use typically drops. Google is looking at ways that we can use our information technology and our reach to help increase awareness and bring better, real-time information to consumers.

(2) Develop renewable energy that is cheaper than coal (RE<C)

Google’s data centers draw from a U.S. electricity grid that relies on coal for 50% of its power. We want to help catalyze the development of renewable energy that is price-competitive with coal. At least three technologies show tremendous promise: wind, solar thermal, and advanced geothermal. Each of these is abundant and, when combined, could supply energy in virtually every region of the U.S.

This year Google has invested more than $45 million in startup companies with breakthrough wind, solar and geothermal technologies through our Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative (RE<C), but that is a drop when we need a flood. We need to unleash massive private investment in clean energy. The government can have a big impact here as well. We must dramatically increase federal R&D and enact measures supporting the rapid deployment and scaling of clean technologies such as long-term tax support and national renewable energy standards. Tax credits for wind and solar have lapsed several times in the last 20 years, starving these nascent industries of the capital they need to truly enter the mainstream.

We also must work both sides of the RE<C equation. Progress will accelerate when the price of carbon reflects its true costs to society. Putting a price on carbon through cap-and-trade or a carbon tax would help address this.

(3) Electrify transportation and re-invent our electric grid

Imagine driving a car that uses no gas and is less expensive to recharge than buying a latte. A "smart grid" allows you to charge when electricity is cheap, and maybe even make some money by selling unused power back to the grid when it's needed. Plug-in cars are on their way, with GM, Toyota and other manufacturers planning introductions in the next two years. At Google we have a small fleet of Toyota Prius and Ford Escape plug-in conversions, as a part of our RechargeIT program. The converted Prius plug-ins get over 90 MPG, and the Escapes close to 50 MPG. However, to successfully put millions of plug-in cars on the road and fuel them with green electricity, we need a smart grid that manages when we charge and how we're billed. A smart grid could also provide for the two-way flow of electricity, as well as large-scale integration of intermittent solar and wind energy. Much of the technology in our current electrical grid was developed in the 60s and is wasteful and not very smart. We are partnering with GE to help accelerate the development of the smart grid and support building new transmission lines to harness our nation's vast renewable energy resources.

We see a huge opportunity for the nation to confront our energy challenges. In the process we will stimulate investment, create jobs, empower consumers and, by the way, help address climate change.

Reduction in Energy Use and Emissions

Our proposal will allow us to reduce from the Energy Information Administration's (EIA) current baseline for energy use:

  • Fossil fuel-based electricity generation by 88%
  • Vehicle oil consumption by 38%
  • Dependence on imported oil (currently 10 million barrels per day) by 33%
  • Electricity-sector CO2 emissions by 95%
  • Personal vehicle sector CO2 emissions by 38%
  • US CO2 emissions overall by 48% (40% from today's CO2 emission level)

We can achieve these results in 2030 by:

  • Deploying aggressive end-use electrical energy efficiency measures to reduce demand 33%.
  • Baseline EIA demand is projected to increase 25% by 2030. In addition, the increase in plug-in vehicles (see below) increases electricity demand another 8%. Thus, our efficiency reductions keep demand flat at the 2008 level.

Replacing all coal and oil electricity generation, and about half of that from natural gas, with renewable electricity:

  • 380 gigawatts (GW) wind: 300 GW onshore + 80 GW offshore
  • 250 GW solar: 170 GW photovoltaic (PV) + 80 GW concentrating solar power (CSP)
  • 80 GW geothermal: 15 GW conventional + 65 GW enhanced geothermal systems (EGS)
  • Increasing plug-in vehicles (hybrids & pure electrics) to 90% of new car sales in 2030, reaching 42% of the total US fleet that year
  • Increasing new conventional vehicle fuel efficiency from 31 to 45 mpg in 2030
  • Accelerating the turnover of the vehicle fleet from 19 to 13 years (resulting in 25 million new vehicle sales per year in 2030, a 31% increase over the baseline)

Action Required

A number of actions will be required to realize the Clean Energy 2030 proposal:

Renewable electricity
  • A long-term national commitment to renewable electricity (e.g. national renewable portfolio standard, carbon price, long-term tax credits and incentives, etc.)
  • Adequate transmission capacity (to support about 450 GW targeting mostly Great Plains and coasts for wind, and desert southwest for concentrating solar power)
  • Adequate grid resources to manage large-scale intermittent generation
  • Public and private renewable energy R&D and investment to achieve cost parity with fossil generation in next several years
Energy efficiency
  • Long-term commitment to energy efficiency by the federal government and states (e.g, national efficiency standard, aggressive appliance standards and building codes, "decoupling" of utility profits from sales, incentives for energy efficiency investments)
  • Deployment of a "smart" electricity grid that empowers consumers and businesses to manage their electricity use more effectively
Personal vehicles
  • Public policies supporting the accelerated deployment of fuel-efficient vehicles, e.g. higher fuel efficiency standards for conventional vehicles, financial incentives to remove older vehicles from the fleet and encourage efficient (especially plug-in) vehicle purchases, special electricity rates for "smart charging", and greater R&D
  • Investment in infrastructure necessary to support massive deployment of plug-ins including charging stations and development of new power management hardware and software

All of the above will require a sufficient and well-trained work force and manufacturing capacity to meet projected growth.

In the News

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Comments

See Discussion page

Great Initative; Shy on Exotics

On Oct. 1, 2008, New Energy Congress founder, Sterling D. Allan wrote:

I congratulate Google on this 2030 initiative. The world needs this kind of leadership. We at the New Energy Congress (http://newenergycongress.org) will be tracking this as we are involved in a similar initiative (shortcut at http://TenYearEnergyPlan.com).

My primary issue with the Google proposal at present is that it does not take into account several other clean or renewable energy modalities that are also likely to be able to make a significant contribution to the energy generation profile. It says nothing about run-of-river, wave or tidal modalities, for example; and these could contribute as much as 10 percent by 2030. Furthermore, there is bound to be a significant contribution from the "miscellaneous" category -- those new and yet-to-be-discovered breakthroughs that have not yet begun to penetrate mainstream awareness. While Nikola Tesla's AC technology has been the bedrock of today's energy panorama, there are many other things he was working on that were way ahead of his time, which may yet emerge and have as much, if not more of an impact.

I'm more optimistic that the objective of moving away from dependence on polluting technologies can be met in a shorter period of time. I predict that the waste-to-energy sector will contribute at least 5% by 2030 -- much more than what the Google proposal predicts.

Inasmuch as our news service (http://FreeEnergyNews.com) specializes in covering extreme energy technologies, I can say with a high degree of confidence that the "miscellaneous" category will be significant. While it is yet fledgling, Cold Fusion, already well-proven, is likely to be a significant player by 2030. The "laws of physics" have been perceived to have been broken before, and are sure to be stretched again as new discoveries are made by mavericks, as we have seen down through history. Scientists were adamant that man could never fly, yet now flight is an integral part of our modern civilization.

If the Google team lacks anything, it is the willingness to consider some of the more exotic technologies. That's why we are here.

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