Green Blog
A better web. Better for the environment.
Using the stimulus to advance smarter energy use
5/6/09
The
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
, signed by President Obama in February, includes tens of billions of dollars in federal stimulus funding for
clean energy
. This investment gives our country an unprecedented opportunity to rebuild our energy system and make it cleaner and more efficient. It's also an opportunity to become "smarter" about the way we all use energy.
Getting smart about energy starts with empowering consumers and businesses with information and tools to make
better energy choices
. That's why we submitted comments today with the
Department of Energy
, asking them to put consumers first as they develop one of the more promising elements of the ARRA -- a $4.5 billion grant program for "smart" grid investments. We also asked the DOE to ensure the program contributes to President Obama's goal of funding the installation of
40 million smart electricity meters
in American homes. You can read our comments
here
.
The advent of smart meters, the Internet and a myriad of other information technologies means that our interaction with electricity can be dramatically redefined. Instead of receiving a monthly bill in the mail, for example, we can receive information on electricity use in real time; instead of turning on the furnace or the A/C when once you are home, we can automate these systems or even control them remotely. We can even aggregate energy savings from appliances and electronic equipment from thousands of homes to avoid the need to build new power plants.
Using the stimulus to invest in the electricity grid can help accelerate this transformation, while in the process creating jobs and helping to diversify our energy supply. Most importantly, these investments can help consumers and businesses save energy and money. We feel it's important for the country not to miss this opportunity.
Posted by Michael Terrell, Program Manager, Google.org
Reducing our carbon footprint
5/6/09
In June 2007 Google made a voluntary commitment to
become carbon neutral
. To honor this commitment, we calculated our global carbon footprint, purchased high-quality carbon offsets, and worked with a
third party
to certify our calculations and validate our offset portfolio. Through this process, we've neutralized all of Google's 2007 emissions, as well as part of our 2008 emissions. We'll continue to invest in offset projects until we reach carbon neutrality.
Offsets are only a small part of what we are doing to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. While offsets with strong
additionality
can achieve real emissions reductions in unregulated sectors at a relatively low cost, we view them as a short-term solution for Google, not as a substitute for other action. They provide a way for us to take responsibility for our emissions now, while we continue to advocate the development of utility-scale renewable energy. Current standards for offsets require a significant amount of work to evaluate the quality of each offset project and ensure that projects go beyond "business as usual." Stronger additionality standards -- that are more stringent, clear, and objective -- would also make it simpler for corporations like Google to use offsets as part of an overall strategy to neutralize emissions.
While we do plan to continue with the purchase of offsets to neutralize the emissions we cannot eliminate through efficiency or renewable energy, our green team will focus on what we do best -- engineering technology solutions. We've seen the success of transportation and IT efficiency programs like
RechargeIT
and the
Climate Savers Computing Initiative
, and the potential of renewable power and energy information initiatives such as
RE<C
and
Google PowerMeter
.
The best way to reduce our corporate footprint is to not use electricity in the first place. Google will continue to reduce our emissions directly by building and designing some of the world's most
efficient data centers
as well as using
on-site renewable energy
to power our facilities. Over the last five years, we have eliminated over half the emissions we would have produced in the absence of these critical measures. Offsets serve to neutralize the rest. In the future, we will continue to drive for improvements in energy efficiency and to find affordable sources of renewable energy.
Posted by Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar
Mowing with goats
5/1/09
At our
Mountain View headquarters
, we have some fields that we need to mow occasionally to clear weeds and brush to reduce fire hazard. This spring we decided to take a low-carbon approach: Instead of using noisy mowers that run on gasoline and pollute the air, we've rented some goats from
California Grazing
to do the job for us (we're not "kidding"). A herder brings about 200 goats and they spend roughly a week with us at Google, eating the grass and fertilizing at the same time. The goats are herded with the help of Jen, a border collie. It costs us about the same as mowing, and goats are a lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.
Posted by Dan Hoffman, Director Real Estate and Workplace Services
Happy Earth Day, Earthlings
4/22/09
Googlers around the world are celebrating
Earth Day
today by participating in events from green-themed film screenings in Singapore and Hyderabad, to a local food event in Kirkland, WA and Bike to Work Day in London. At our Mountain View campus, we're holding an environmental fair and hosting talks all week long as part of our Green@Google speaker series.
We're also giving employees in most of our offices around the world next-generation, super-efficient
LED
light bulbs to encourage energy efficiency. (LEDs use up to 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs and 50% less energy than a
CFL
.) In the average U.S. home, lighting accounts for about 20% of the electricity bill. If every Googler changes out one incandescent light bulb for one of these LEDs, the combined impact would be the equivalent of taking over 4,000 cars off the road for one year!
Of course, installing efficient light bulbs is just one way to cut down on energy consumption and costs. Just in time for Earth Day, the
Climate Savers Computing Initiative
's
Power Down for the Planet
pledge campaign aimed at colleges and universities wrapped up last week. More than 17,000 students took
the pledge
to support more efficient computing. The
University of Maine at Farmington
won the challenge, beating out 18 other schools with more than 24% of their campus community taking the pledge. You too can help save energy by enabling
power management
on your computer and buying
more efficient computers
.
As you take a moment today to think about how you can make our lovely patch of blue and green a little more healthy, we encourage you to explore a
special gallery
of Google Earth layers we compiled to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment. With the power of Google Earth, we have the ability to visualize geo-spatial information and help us better understand the true impact humankind has on the planet. For example, you can visualize the
changes in glaciers over the years
,
rising sea levels
and
climatic change and rising temperature
from the feature KMLs in our Gallery.
Like
others have said
before us, we like to think that every day is Earth Day. But on this 39th anniversary of the official Earth Day, we're showing Mother Earth a little extra love and care, and hope that you'll be doing the same.
Posted by Lacy Caruthers, Green Business and Operations Strategy
Designing lean, green, energy-saving machines
4/9/09
Last week Google hosted a
Data Center Efficiency Summit
, bringing together approximately 160 industry leaders to share insights and best practices. Since it was April Fool's Day, we threw in a few jokes to keep the atmosphere fun (
oil-cooled data center
, anyone?), but the topic is serious: How can the IT industry keep growing while also exercising good environmental stewardship?
We disclosed for the first time details about the design of our
ultra-efficient data centers
. We also provided a first-ever video tour of a Google
container data center
as well as a
water treatment facility
. We detailed how we measure data center efficiency and discussed how we reduced our facility energy use by up to 85%. The engineers who developed our efficient battery backup solution even brought an actual
Google server
to the event.
By the end of the day, we narrowed in on a recurring theme: Reducing resource use through efficiency efforts is not just good for the environment, it saves money too. And it is this economic advantage which makes efficient data centers not just green, but truly sustainable.
For a tour of a Google container data center check out the video below or watch the entire summit:
part 1
,
part 2
, and
part 3
.
Posted by Jimmy Clidaras, Principal Engineer
A Green Light for Green Energy
4/1/09
To solve the climate crisis and meet our growing demand for energy, we need to move to clean, renewable energy sources that will cut global warming pollution and power our economic recovery. This goal requires construction of clean energy generation plants and transmission lines on an unprecedented scale. Google.org’s
Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal initiative
is working to drive down the cost of renewable energy, but today one of the bottlenecks is the difficulty of obtaining approvals for siting and permitting of generation and transmission facilities. We need to find a way to ‘green light’ clean energy projects while making sure to protect sensitive landscapes and wildlife habitats.
As part of Google.org’s
Geo Challenge Grants
program, the
National Audubon Society
and
Natural Resources Defense Council
(NRDC) have created maps of restricted lands and sensitive wildlife areas in the Western U.S. NRDC produced a map of 13 western states (and more than 10,000 individual conservation areas), showing all of the areas, such as parks, which prohibit or restrict development due to federal and state regulations, as well as sensitive areas where development should be avoided. Audubon researched and mapped critical habitat for birds and wildlife in Wyoming, Montana, and surrounding areas, sites which should also be avoided when planning energy development.
To
view
these maps on Google Earth,
download
the layer here.
These maps can serve as a starting point to enable a more collaborative approach to energy siting decisions. By identifying areas that developers should avoid, we hope that the site-specific approval process can be streamlined – possibly by creating green energy generation and transmission corridors that have an expedited approval process.
Posted by David Bercovich, Program Manager, Google.org and Christiaan Adams, Google Earth & Maps Specialist, Google.org
An hour for the Earth
3/27/09
Cities around the world will participate in
Earth Hour
on Saturday, turning off their lights to raise awareness for energy conservation.
You might remember that
last year
we “turned the lights out” on the Google.com homepage during Earth Hour to symbolize our own
commitment to sustainability
. We won’t be turning out the lights on our homepage again this year. Our users come first, and while we received lots of enthusiastic feedback last year, some found an all-black Google.com to be a little confusing. (Also, darkened screens don’t actually save energy — modern displays use the same amount of power
regardless of what they display
.) We are actively supporting this year's
Vote Earth
, an Earth Hour 2009 initiative to gather one billion words to present at the
United Nations Climate Change Conference
in Copenhagen in December of this year. Participants can share their opinions about climate change through the
Earth Connect
social platform which incorporates Google tools including
Google Maps
,
App Engine
,
Friend Connect
,
Google Translate
,
Blogger
and
Feedburner
.
After all, Earth Hour is about more than dimming lights; it’s about making a commitment to reduce energy consumption throughout the year. At Google, we take this commitment seriously and over the past twelve months we’ve worked hard to reduce Google’s own power use and to help others reduce theirs:
We remodeled our San Francisco office to achieve a
Gold rating
by the
U.S. Green Building Council's
LEED Green Building Rating System
Our engineers are working on a tool called
Google PowerMeter
that will show consumers home energy information almost in real time, right on their computer
We’ve designed the
most efficient data centers
possible and are sharing some of our best practices with industry peers
In the fall we compiled tips and tricks to
help our users save energy
(and money)
Our
summit on plug-in vehicles
in Washington was standing room only, with policy, technology, and energy experts all discussing an electric vehicle future
Google will continue to work hard this year to be as green as possible as a company, and we encourage others to take an hour on Saturday and commit to the Earth too. For some great ideas on ways you can save energy every hour of every day through computing efficiency, check out
Climate Savers Computing Initiative
and their recent video challenge: “
Power Down for the Planet
.”
Posted by Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar
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