While America’s youth are working hard towards having 1 million youth pledge to Power Vote, Google has announced its own PowerVote pledge with its Clean Energy 2030 Proposal. The Internet giant has continued to lead beyond its main business by pledging to make Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal, joining General Electric in figuring out how to get America’s national grid to be “smart,” and even becoming a leader by example with a large solar power installation at their headquarters. Now, Google has announced a proposal that could wean America off of most fossil fuels by 2030, a plan in line with what T. Boone Pickens has called for with his Pickens Plan and the call by Al Gore to make all electricity consumed in America renewable by 2018.
Google’s proposal calls for a 100% reduction in coal and oil consumption in America by installing 300 GW of onshore wind energy, 80GW of offshore wind energy, 170GW of solar photovoltaic, 80GW of concentrated solar power, 15GW of conventional geothermal, and 65GW of enhanced geothermal. It also calls for an increase in sales of plug-in and hybrid vehicles to 90% of all sales by 2030 (reaching 42% of the U.S. vehicle fleet in 2030), increasing conventional vehicle fuel efficiency to 45mgp by 2030, an acceleration of the vehicle fleet turnover from 19 to 13 years (increasing sales by 31%), and building some 32,000 kilometers of new transmission lines.
The bill: $4.4 trillion. If we begin in 2010, this means an annual investment of $220 billion by the private sector and the government, with the majority of it coming from the private sector. It will also mean savings of $1 trillion by 2030 due to the lower price of renewables compared to oil, as well as other factors. These savings exclude the potential of energy efficiency, which is not aggressively considered in Google’s plan. According to estimates, America can cut its energy use by up to 30% by simply having smarter building codes, using more efficient appliances, and increasing fuel efficiency.
Google’s plan also calls for government action. Specifically, it wants a National Renewable Portfolio Standard, a price on carbon dioxide, fixed long-term tax credits and incentives (such as a feed-in tariff), funding for R&D and a smarter national grid that can cope with intermittence, a National Energy Efficiency Standard for appliances, buildings, vehicles, national decoupling of utility profits from sales, and investment in infrastructure for the massive deployment of plug-ins. The plan also acknowledges that to accomplish these goals, we will need a well-trained workforce to take on the new Green Jobs that will be created with increased manufacturing capacity, installations, and renovations.
According to the plan, this is clearly achievable given the increasing private interest in renewable energy and the economic benefits such a goal would bring. One of the benefits is a dramatic drop in carbon dioxide emissions: 95%. The only sources of emissions would be agriculture, some land-use, and natural gas used in vehicles, as Pickens proposes. What’s better, this plan would be a strong response to the current financial crisis and would ensure that Washington, D.C. (or taxpayers) doesn’t have to bail out Wall Street again. It will also reverse the trend of job losses and create millions of new, Green Jobs, lifting people out of poverty and putting the middle class once again on a track of improving quality of life.
While Google’s plan frames exactly what we need to do and affirms that the private sector will play the biggest role with its significant investments over the next 20 years, it fails to call for other necessary strategies to reducing fossil fuel use. Specifically, it does not mention the immense role public transportation can play, especially in urban areas, where most cars can be found today. It seems to skim over the fact that urban sprawl is one of the big promoters of inefficiency and fossil fuel use. It also seems to leave out the debate over biofuels, whether sustainable or not, perhaps assuming that they will play no role in the future. Finally, it doesn’t leave a role for tidal and ocean energy, as well as solar thermal energy for homes, which are currently gaining increased interest in the United States.
Regardless of these shortcomings, Clean Energy 2030 is bold, visionary, and necessary. With this plan, Google has also PowerVoted for clean energy, green jobs, and a more sustainable and just future.
Subscribe by Email!
Subscribe by RSS!
Share on Facebook
I’m not sure what to call it — a frightening plan or an ignorant one… perhaps both. I think the problem with much of this kind of “solution” is the same with all “solutions” — they all assume that energy issues are a problem to be fixed and not a reality we have to face. The idea of putting together all of those windmills, all of those solar panels, and all of those transmission lines may seem like a great idea on paper, but in the real world it’s not so easy.
Consider what few consider, the upfront energy investment in manufacturing windmills, solar panels, and transmission lines is significant. Ore has to be mined (with diesel powered equipment) and refined in some far off place before being assembled in yet another place (with the aid of dirty energy) before being transported again and installed. All of this transportation (which runs in the thousands of miles for massive tonnage) requires large amounts diesel fuel.
By the time a solar panel ends up on site, how much energy has already gone into it? By the time a windmill goes up, how much energy has already gone into it?
This is not to mention that all major plans like this require vast infrastructural upheavals. Google said it: 32,000 km of new transmission lines. Wow! That’s enough to cross the country from NY to LA 8 times! That in itself takes a significant investment of fossil fuel energy — energy that is soon to enter decline.
World oil production has plateaued since 2005. It will soon begin descending. With the decline, there simply won’t be the upfront energy available to carry out a plan of this magnitude. Again, on paper you could do the calculations and perhaps argue that there are theoretically enough barrels of oil out there to carry this out. But it’s not a matter of whether they exist somewhere, but whether they are available where they are in demand. As the gas shortages in the southeast are showing, shakeups in the supply chain can have reverberating effects. Now imagine when this isn’t a temporary slowdown but a long-term reality… A clean energy revolution cannot be had without a consistent flow of diesel.
I guess my point, throughout this, is that I know that activists tend to put on a smiley face to the public with proposals that will keep american lifestyles intact, but I hope y’all do some homework on this “clean energy revolution” and realize that proposals like these are pie-in-the-sky number crunching without real world considerations of finite resources (I didn’t even get into the finitude of many of these metals required for the manufacture of windmills, solar panels, and transmission lines). Even if we’re not willing to be honest with the public, I’d at least like to think we can be honest with ourselves.
kodama
While I have asked my questions before about schedule and cost of an all renewable grid with energy storage, materials and energy for constuction are not issues. While steel is more expensive due to higher global demand, there is still plenty of iron and carbon around. Also, if you look at the reports on energy inputs of various technologies, all of them remain positive (i.e., a lot more energy comes out than goes in from construction).
The problem with the plan is — it’s not global.
Even if we in the US, Europe and Japan cut our emissions dramatically, those cuts will be overwhelmed by the coming pulse of carbon from India, China, Mexico and Nigeria.
The plan (cited below) is a way to bring the world together behind a global public works program to rewire the world with clean energy. It would create millions of jobs, especially in developing countries. It would bring the countries together around a common global project. It would jump the renewable energy industry into being a central, driving engine of growth for the global economy. And it would yield a far more secure, prosperous and stable world.
Toward A Real Kyoto Protocol
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Plan involves three interacting strategies which include:
• In industrial countries, the withdrawal of subsidies from fossil fuels and the establishment of equivalent subsidies for clean energy sources;
• The creation of a large fund — perhaps through a small tax on global finance — to transfer clean energy technologies to developing countries; and,
• The incorporation within the Kyoto framework of a progressively more stringent Fossil Fuel Efficiency Standard that rises by 5 percent per year.
Details at:
http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=6320&method=full
Thanks for your enthusiasm and initiative.
— Ross Gelbspan
I would be inclined to trust Google’s analysis of what we can build industrially. No one said it was easy, and I’d be HIGHLY skeptical of any climate solution that was. We need to scale back our energy use and accept the reality that resources are limited but it won’t be the answer to our current energy and climate woes.
What kadoma is not taking into account is the fact that we absolutely have to replace fossil fuels in our long term energy portfolio. If we don’t there won’t be anyone around to need any energy at all! Even if fossil fuels were an infinite source of energy we cannot continue burning them, they HAVE to be replaced.
Kadoma is correct in that there is an energy and resource “debt” incurred from the manufacture of any goods including renewable energy generators, these are called externatilies and heretofore have not been included in most cost accounting exercises, particularly where the use of natural resources such as fossil fuels are concerned. To minimise these externalities in the manufacture of solar panels and wind turvines etc. we have to try to minimise things like transport and energy use, use recycled materials and local manufacturing facilities where possible. The less embedded energy the shorter the payback period.
I say spend the money, the world will be a much better place with less carbon dioxide!
I agree that Google’s plan should include the rest of the world as well. I think Google’s case is basically to say we can kick out the fossil fuel habit in the United States. Perhaps it’s more concerned with innovation than with carbon dioxide and goals of securing a safe climate. In any case, it’s a bold plan that surpasses anything the government has offered.
Now, Ross Gelbspan is right. I’ve tried to make this point before. An effort that will not avoid tipping points is an effort not worth pursuing. We would better spend our money trying to adopt. Tipping points are the things we want to try to stay away from. If scientists are telling us that to stay away from them we need to bring emissions to zero globally, then Gelbspan’s plan is the way to do that. It not only addresses targets; it also addresses equity, which is key to bringing in China and India into the gameplan. If something like this is not ratified in 2009, I will oppose it because of the simple fact that it’s an all or nothing deal with global warming.
The irony here is that Duke Energy, which is building an 800 mw coal plant in NC, put a major effort into recruiting Google to build one of their extremely energy intensive server farms in NC. Duke is using such new customers (that they created) as a justification of our “need” for this plant!
I applaud Kodoma’s skepticism, but we need to think of these things in terms of opportunity cost.
Our population will continue to grow. It will demand more energy. As we become more high tech, our existing population will demand more energy. The status quo wants to meet that demand by building coal, nuclear, and natural gas plants, all of which require the same inputs in terms of construction. We will have to build more transmission anyway, as we have sorely neglected upgrading our power grid for the last three decades.
The resources may or may not be abundant, but one way or the other they will get used. They can either be used to build a coal plant (boooo!!!!!) or used in creating renewable energy. We face a crisis of enormous proportions. When FDR faced the Great Depression, he said “One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment… If it doesn’t turn out right, we can modify it as we go along. It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
Google does. And when you compare it to things like Pickens Plan, this is, well…the difference between Google and Overture. “What’s Overture” you say? Exactly.