A recent article by Peter Waldman in Conde’ Nast Portfolio talked about Google’s Zeitgeist event. Zeitgeist is where about 400 captains of industry, government officials and friends of Google execs get together to think big thoughts. They actually think about things even larger than Google, such as the fate of the world. At no point in recent history has the fate of the world been of more concern. With the twin terrors of global warming and an global economic meltdown looming overhead, we are in great need of some big thoughts from the Google elite and from regular people alike.
CEO’s of Google and General Electric were brainstorming with Al Gore on how to solve our nation’s energy challenges. Jeff Immelt, head of GE, said “I dont’ think this is hard. I’d say health care is hard. Solving the US’s health care system is actually quite difficult. Energy actually isn’t hard. The technology exists; it doesn’t have to be invented. It needs to be applied.”
Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google, also sees the glass as half full. In spite of the recession, by working companies like GE and with government funding, Google sees enormous upside potential in the renewable energy economy.
Google’s Green Team
Under the specific direction from Google’s co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page (both environmentalists) Google first sought out a solution for its own massive thirst for power to run it’s sprawling data centers scattered across the nation. Google’s remarkable green energy team lead by Bill Weihl, former professor at MIT, discovered that by tweaking the default voltages on manufactuers’ settings Google learned it could reduce its own energy consumption by as much as 50%.
Secret to Google’s Success
“We only hire people that really, genuinely believe that big change is possible and the right thing to do,” said Eric Teezel, a Google engineer who leads a team or researchers looking for ways to produce cheap renewable energy. While Google’s primary mission is still information, Google CEO Eric Schmidt says that if the company can use its core information business to promote more efficient energy use that they will do that.
RE<C = Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal
Google quickly realized that green energy cost twice what energy generated from coal does. They immediately rose to the challenge and sought out solutions to make renewable energy cheaper. One of their leaders said they have everything they need to take on the task, “engineering, money, vision and a lot of nerve.”
The Google leaders have an interesting vision. The modern electricity grid would be an always on, but with market driven fluctuating energy prices being determined by supply and demand. People and businesses can both be consumers of and producers to the grid. The grid can send out warnings of increasing prices and then intelligent devices downstream will adjust according to pre-programmed responses. Consumers will have smart homes and smart devices that know when to turn themselves on and off for maximum efficiency and savings. Consumers’ energy plans will be kind of like cell phones where they will buy x amount of energy and pay extra if they go over.
The desire to solve a major problem and get a toe hold in a huge new market brought together the conservatives of GE and the more liberal folks from Google. Even with the considerable infrastructure and technology of GE and the brain power and resources of Google, everyone knows this won’t happen without serious federal spending on energy efficiency and renewables. However, they feel that the stimulus package money should provide the resources to address that, assuming the money is well spent.
Read the whole article: Google’s Power Play by Peter Waldman
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