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> “In my mind it’s a P.R. gimmick,” said Chris Warren, vice president of communications at the Institute for Energy Research, a think tank in Washington support

> “In my mind it’s a P.R. gimmick,” said Chris Warren, vice president of communications at the Institute for Energy Research, a think tank in Washington supported largely by donations from individuals and companies in the fossil fuel industry. “If they think they can actually support themselves with wind and solar panels, they should connect them directly to their data centers.” I love how the author throws in a disclaimed quotation from a big oil Luddite to help reinforce the message of the article. It's a two-fold sales tactic. 1. Discredit the opposition. 2. Tell the buyer what the opposition will say, after already convincing them of the benefits, so they're prepared to defend what they're buying thereby reinforcing their beliefs. I'm not implying that the article is wrong, but it's something we should be aware of.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
blazespin 10y ago
Yeah, or maybe Big Oil is just pretty evil.
- philipkglass 10y ago
  I'd say the opposition right now is mostly Big Coal. If all coal and oil electrical generating capacity shut down and were replaced by renewables + gas it would be a net win for the oil and gas industry, because oil is a tiny fraction of electricity production and coal retirements boost gas demand. Gas is a flexible electricity source and a good complement to renewables. But a decade from now natural gas might be facing a significant competitive threat from renewables + storage.
  - r00fus 10y ago
    Big Coal and Big Oil work together far more often than not. Extensive renewable energy would eliminate the massive profit of power utilities and refineries both.
    - philipkglass 10y ago
      I would have agreed with you a few years ago, but coal producer antipathy toward O&G has increased a lot since fracking unleashed the cheap gas that has been eating their lunch. At the same time gas producers have softened their stance against climate action, calculating (correctly) that in the short-medium term coal-to-gas switching in the name of climate action can send a lot of new natural gas demand their way. As for the long term, either they don't care yet or don't really believe that natural gas and oil will eventually be in line for replacement too.
      - crdoconnor 10y ago
        >gas producers have softened their stance against climate action They simply pretended that they were "cleaner" than coal and gas, which isn't really true: http://www.newswise.com/articles/methane-leaks-can-make-fracking-gas-dirtier-than-coal-or-oil http://www.newswise.com/articles/methane-leaks-can-make-frac...
aperetto 10y ago
It's such a ridiculous statement, too. With his logic this guy would have to buy the cow that makes the milk he drinks in his coffee...
- crpatino 10y ago
  It is less ridiculous than you make it out to be. Nobody forces you to buy a cow to put milk on your cofee, but if you go around offering "organic capuccinos" for sale, your customers could normally expect you to either milk the grass fed cow yourself or, more likely, purchase your milk from a certified provider that does so. They certainly don't expect you to claim that since you make a donation to some Amish charity in the other side of the country, you are entitled to slap a "organic" label to the same brand of industrial milk your competition next door uses and offers at half the price. I don't see how this should be any different with Google.
  - axman6 10y ago
    This is just utter nonsense and shows a complete lack of how the electricity grid operates.
    - crpatino 10y ago
      Does it? I rather think that your criticism shows a complete lack of awareness of how the the public opinion operates. Let's say for the sake of the argument that Google's datacenters consume 1% of the electricity in the US. If Google were operating its datacenters with clean/renewable electricity produced on site, it means the technical problems are, for all practical purposes, already solved; and now everybody can just license their technology an imitate them. There still remains the economic and political problem of having the other 9x% of the country to jump on board, and invest the required resources to convert to renewables, but that's simply a matter of how much money is devoted to that. It could take us 100, or 50, or 20 years, but we'd know for certain that we will eventually get there. Instead, we have Google claim to be operating their datacenters with clean energy, but instead they operate with whatever mix of clean&dirty energy is available from the local provider, and then go elsewhere and finance the production (let's say, same amount of kilowatts/hr) of renewable energy. That is still a good thing, since those investments would never had been done without the incentive, but there are 2 problems with that. 1. You call electricity "fungible", but it is not. You cannot generate the same amount of solar kWh per dollar in Alaska than in Arizona, the same way you cannot generate the same amount of hidro kWh/$ in Arizona than in Mississipi. By following economic rules, it is rational to assume that Google is picking the low hanging fruit first. Therefore, when the other companies try to emulate, they will find that the second 1% will be more expensive than the first, the third than the second, and so on... 2. The other big whale in the room is that renewable electricity, unlike coal-based, cannot be produced on demand. Until the problem with storage is solved, - and for what I have heard from people that has been doing this for many years it is far from solved, - you will need some form of fosil fuel to close the gaps when production is low. It is very easy to add 1% renewables to the general "fungible" pool of electricity in the grid, but 5% would be less so and I don't think it would be possible at all to do 50% with current technology, even if the production capacity was already in place. So, what do you think? are my concerns really nonsense, or ridiculous?
nostrademons 10y ago
Well, it is a PR gimmick. I, for one, am glad for this PR gimmick and wish more companies would adopt similar PR gimmicks.
- PascLeRasc 10y ago
  I agree. I'm perfectly fine with a company "exploiting" their earth-friendliness for image. There are some things more important than the free market.
rocketraman 10y ago
Unfortunately, there is indeed a lot of truth to the statement that it is a PR gimmick. The problem with wind and solar is that they are intermittent. Therefore, Google's consumption at any particular moment in time cannot be supplied solely by these intermittent sources because their energy output never matches current demand (at least until some big honking batteries are built to level this out, for which the tech currently does not exist AFAIK -- no, Tesla's battery tech isn't even close to operating at this scale, though its a small step in that direction). Therefore, Google must take power from the grid from non-intermittent sources that can ramp up and down based on demand, such as coal, gas, and nuclear. And this fact will remain true, even if Google had purchased wind and solar contracts for total energy many times greater than their total energy use. So even though they may be purchasing contracts for wind/solar energy that exceed their own total energy use, they still cannot even approach viable operation without access to non-wind and solar sources, so its definitely misleading by Google to suggest they are running entirely on wind/solar. Furthermore, the excess energy produced that Google purchased, but did not use because of the intermittency issue, actually reduces the efficiency of fossil and nuclear sources. Because the wind/solar energy is loaded onto the grid intermittently, it forces fossil and nuclear to cycle up and down to compensate. Just like city vs. highway driving, this is vastly less efficient.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  Paying to have more renewable energy generated is not a gimmick, it's progress. It's true that there's a storage problem to be solved. That doesn't mean that every single renewables project needs to solve it or become a gimmick.
  - paul_f 10y ago
    The problem is that Google's claim is deceptive. What they are doing is great.
    - greglindahl 10y ago
      Paragraphs 3, 4, and 5 of the NYT article look accurate to me. I have a hard time seeing how anyone who read the article would be deceived.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

blazespin 10y ago

Yeah, or maybe Big Oil is just pretty evil.

philipkglass 10y ago
I'd say the opposition right now is mostly Big Coal. If all coal and oil electrical generating capacity shut down and were replaced by renewables + gas it would be a net win for the oil and gas industry, because oil is a tiny fraction of electricity production and coal retirements boost gas demand. Gas is a flexible electricity source and a good complement to renewables. But a decade from now natural gas might be facing a significant competitive threat from renewables + storage.
- r00fus 10y ago
  Big Coal and Big Oil work together far more often than not. Extensive renewable energy would eliminate the massive profit of power utilities and refineries both.
  - philipkglass 10y ago
    I would have agreed with you a few years ago, but coal producer antipathy toward O&G has increased a lot since fracking unleashed the cheap gas that has been eating their lunch. At the same time gas producers have softened their stance against climate action, calculating (correctly) that in the short-medium term coal-to-gas switching in the name of climate action can send a lot of new natural gas demand their way. As for the long term, either they don't care yet or don't really believe that natural gas and oil will eventually be in line for replacement too.
    - crdoconnor 10y ago
      >gas producers have softened their stance against climate action They simply pretended that they were "cleaner" than coal and gas, which isn't really true: http://www.newswise.com/articles/methane-leaks-can-make-fracking-gas-dirtier-than-coal-or-oil http://www.newswise.com/articles/methane-leaks-can-make-frac...

aperetto 10y ago

It's such a ridiculous statement, too. With his logic this guy would have to buy the cow that makes the milk he drinks in his coffee...

crpatino 10y ago
It is less ridiculous than you make it out to be. Nobody forces you to buy a cow to put milk on your cofee, but if you go around offering "organic capuccinos" for sale, your customers could normally expect you to either milk the grass fed cow yourself or, more likely, purchase your milk from a certified provider that does so. They certainly don't expect you to claim that since you make a donation to some Amish charity in the other side of the country, you are entitled to slap a "organic" label to the same brand of industrial milk your competition next door uses and offers at half the price. I don't see how this should be any different with Google.
- axman6 10y ago
  This is just utter nonsense and shows a complete lack of how the electricity grid operates.
  - crpatino 10y ago
    Does it? I rather think that your criticism shows a complete lack of awareness of how the the public opinion operates. Let's say for the sake of the argument that Google's datacenters consume 1% of the electricity in the US. If Google were operating its datacenters with clean/renewable electricity produced on site, it means the technical problems are, for all practical purposes, already solved; and now everybody can just license their technology an imitate them. There still remains the economic and political problem of having the other 9x% of the country to jump on board, and invest the required resources to convert to renewables, but that's simply a matter of how much money is devoted to that. It could take us 100, or 50, or 20 years, but we'd know for certain that we will eventually get there. Instead, we have Google claim to be operating their datacenters with clean energy, but instead they operate with whatever mix of clean&dirty energy is available from the local provider, and then go elsewhere and finance the production (let's say, same amount of kilowatts/hr) of renewable energy. That is still a good thing, since those investments would never had been done without the incentive, but there are 2 problems with that. 1. You call electricity "fungible", but it is not. You cannot generate the same amount of solar kWh per dollar in Alaska than in Arizona, the same way you cannot generate the same amount of hidro kWh/$ in Arizona than in Mississipi. By following economic rules, it is rational to assume that Google is picking the low hanging fruit first. Therefore, when the other companies try to emulate, they will find that the second 1% will be more expensive than the first, the third than the second, and so on... 2. The other big whale in the room is that renewable electricity, unlike coal-based, cannot be produced on demand. Until the problem with storage is solved, - and for what I have heard from people that has been doing this for many years it is far from solved, - you will need some form of fosil fuel to close the gaps when production is low. It is very easy to add 1% renewables to the general "fungible" pool of electricity in the grid, but 5% would be less so and I don't think it would be possible at all to do 50% with current technology, even if the production capacity was already in place. So, what do you think? are my concerns really nonsense, or ridiculous?

nostrademons 10y ago

Well, it is a PR gimmick. I, for one, am glad for this PR gimmick and wish more companies would adopt similar PR gimmicks.

PascLeRasc 10y ago
I agree. I'm perfectly fine with a company "exploiting" their earth-friendliness for image. There are some things more important than the free market.

rocketraman 10y ago

Unfortunately, there is indeed a lot of truth to the statement that it is a PR gimmick. The problem with wind and solar is that they are intermittent. Therefore, Google's consumption at any particular moment in time cannot be supplied solely by these intermittent sources because their energy output never matches current demand (at least until some big honking batteries are built to level this out, for which the tech currently does not exist AFAIK -- no, Tesla's battery tech isn't even close to operating at this scale, though its a small step in that direction). Therefore, Google must take power from the grid from non-intermittent sources that can ramp up and down based on demand, such as coal, gas, and nuclear. And this fact will remain true, even if Google had purchased wind and solar contracts for total energy many times greater than their total energy use. So even though they may be purchasing contracts for wind/solar energy that exceed their own total energy use, they still cannot even approach viable operation without access to non-wind and solar sources, so its definitely misleading by Google to suggest they are running entirely on wind/solar. Furthermore, the excess energy produced that Google purchased, but did not use because of the intermittency issue, actually reduces the efficiency of fossil and nuclear sources. Because the wind/solar energy is loaded onto the grid intermittently, it forces fossil and nuclear to cycle up and down to compensate. Just like city vs. highway driving, this is vastly less efficient.

greglindahl 10y ago
Paying to have more renewable energy generated is not a gimmick, it's progress. It's true that there's a storage problem to be solved. That doesn't mean that every single renewables project needs to solve it or become a gimmick.
- paul_f 10y ago
  The problem is that Google's claim is deceptive. What they are doing is great.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    Paragraphs 3, 4, and 5 of the NYT article look accurate to me. I have a hard time seeing how anyone who read the article would be deceived.