“Google Inc. continues to pour money into renewable technologies, unveiling a new program with solar-panel maker SunPower Corp. to provide financing to support about $250 million in residential solar-lease projects,” Ben Fox Rubin reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“Google is committing up to $100 million in the program and SunPower is committing about $150 million,” Rubin reports. “Google touts over $1 billion pumped into renewable projects, ranging from wind farms in the Mojave Desert to a German solar facility and a transmission line for wind farms off the mid-Atlantic Coast.”
Rubin reports, “The Internet giant has also signed contracts to buy hundreds of megawatts of renewable electricity for its data centers.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Greenpeace: Apple leading the way in creating a greener, more sustainable internet – April 2, 2014
Apple plans Nevada solar farm to generate clean power for data center – July 2, 2013
Apple now gets 75 percent of its total power needs from renewable energy – March 21, 2013
Apple’s NC and Oregon data centers to use 100 percent renewable energy – May 17, 2012
Bloom Energy confirms they will supply fuel cells for Apple’s North Carolina data center – April 30, 2012
New aerial images of Apple’s planned NC fuel cell, solar farms published – April 7, 2012
Apple’s massive fuel cell energy project to be largest in the U.S. – April 4, 2012
Apple plans USA’s largest private fuel cell energy project in North Carolina – April 1, 2012
How Apple took the lead on the environment – February 22, 2012
Apple patent application reveals next-gen fuel cell powered Macs and iOS devices – December 22, 2011
Apple’s Mothership campus solar roof will be among biggest in U.S. – December 7, 2011
Apple working with US company, Leaf Solar Power, on North Carolina solar farm – November 8, 2011
Apple patent app details highly-advanced hydrogen fuel cells to power portable devices – October 20, 2011
Apple building huge solar farm around its billion-dollar North Carolina data center – October 26, 2011
OK, so what’s GooGoo gonna steal now?
Moonshots
So Google and Nest will be collecting both energy consumption and energy production information from oodles of consumers.
Of course they will want you to have a Gmail-G+ account, too.
Nothing wrong with scenario that I see as it is transparent.
‘The Internet Of Things’.
The problem is that The Internet Of Things has already been hacked up into massive botnets thanks to having built almost zero security in their software.
http://mac-security.blogspot.com/2014/01/hacking-internet-of-things-or.html
Let’s at least applaud them for helping steer our energy future in the right direction. If we’re going to not fry the planet, we need to drastically cut CO2 now!
So maybe we need to reforest to use up excess CO2 and build more tree wood which has an ultimate good use through its entire lifetime and then afterwards.
I sincerely doubt in our lifetimes that Asia is going to reduce its CO2 output. China was opening one additional coal fired power plant every week last time I heard.
China is also the largest producer of wind power.
outside of the US Capitol, during joint sessions of Congress
Raise your hand if you want Google monitoring and collecting more data on your personal life…
Ooo! Me Me Me Me Me! 😛
Talk to the volcanoes to stop them from spewing forth toxic elements.
The more fossil fuel removed, the fewer volcanoes exploding, is a thought I’ve had for years.
BoC – china seems to be recognizing its reliance on Coal comes with consequences. They have jumped on the nuclear bandwagon with both feet, building lots of big new nuke plants.
Perhaps this is trading one environmental nightmare for another, but it SHOULD help clear the air and lower CO2 levels…
China will blow out a nuke plant, no doubt.
But I will point out that China has attempted to plan out modern nuke plants that burn both nuclear waste and Thorium. This type of plant CAN’T blow and none of its materials can be used to make nuclear weapons. I hope they succeed. At the moment, progress in nuclear plant design is at a near standstill, with ye olde crap designs from decades ago remaining the dangerous status quo.
All this stuff is a hoax to find new ways to run your life. One volcano, can do more climate change in seconds than we can in decades.
But somehow we’ve managed to survive slews of eruptions over the course of history an the planet is still here and will still be here long after we’ve destroyed outselves more than lkely..
All Google is doing is pouring money into a cess pool, there will never be enough ways to capture enough solar energy to truly make any difference. And even solar energy has a cost in the amount of land you have to cover with panels, the thousands birds that like wind farms, get killed by the energy collectors..
Wrapped in your unsubstantiated rant is an interesting question, “aren’t volcanos the real problem, not human activity?” Well, here’s what science says:
…not only does volcanic CO2 not dwarf that of human activity, it actually comprises less than 1 percent of that value.”
Source: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/archive/2007/07_02_15.html
Leasing solar is a scam. You don’t get the tax credit, they do. You pay slightly less for the power than you do from your utility.
If you sell your house you have to buy out the lease or get the new owner to assume it.