Posted on 11/25/2014 5:31:15 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Google is literally and figuratively pulling the plug on its investment in renewable energy because the technology doesn't work. Will its flop persuade the feds to stop dumping billions down this rat hole?
Back in 2007 Google commanded star-spangled headlines with its new high-tech venture to go all in on the next big thing in technology: green renewable energy.
The tech giant was saluted as a good corporate citizen for its initiative to help combat global warming. In launching the project, company executives boasted they would prove that wind and solar power were not just good for the environment, but that solar energy could be produced profitably on a mass scale to replace dirty coal and even natural gas.
Its "green energy czar," Bill Weihl, boasted: "It is even odds, more or less" that within "three years, we could have multiple megawatts of plants out there."
Well, today those power plants don't exist, and Weihl is gone from Google. CEO Larry Page has decided that the grandiose program called Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal.
The fact that the price of natural gas has fallen by more than half because of cheap and abundant shale gas hasn't helped the economics of wind and solar either.
But the most remarkable admission from Google is that the technology just doesn't work — at least not now.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Cavemen figured out that light and heat require expendable fuel (wood).
It’s funny bordering on sad that 21st century geeks can’t make the same leap of logic.
Well, today those power plants don't exist...
And neither does "global warming"...
IDIOTS!
Who and WHAT is a “Google Scientist”?
Seriously.
You geniuses are just now figuring out you can’t get the same amount of energy back that you expended? It’s simple physics...
Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another: conservation of matter?
I googled it.
Hey! Where’s the social justice in that?
Google is a money making entity that does not want to blow money on useless projects
The US Federal Government is the exact opposite. It is always blowing taxpayers money on useless projects and paychecks for useless employees
Your assertion is lacking Uplift, Vision and Bredth of Mind.
just saying....
Depends on your definition of “renewable.”
Oil is a “renewable” resource, and it sure as heck works.
Oil is made under tremendous pressure in the crust of the Earth about 60 km below the surface from the following ingredients, all of which are in abundant supply:
Calcium Carbonate (chalk)
Iron Oxide (rust)
Dihydrogen Monoxide (water)
The hydrocarbon products just keep oozing to the surface where we scoop them up and burn them.
The burning process produces Carbon Dioxide and Water - in other words, moist plant food.
The plants absorb the Carbon Dioxide and produce food and Oxygen for us.
Everything is working just as our designer/creator intended.
anyone with half a brain knew it wouldnt work!
Everything is working just as our designer/creator intended.
Physically anyway. I would argue his crowning creation might not be doing so well. It suffers from pride, which goeth before...
It’s a bad title. “Renewable energy” is way to broad in scope to rule it all out.
What’s needed is basic research in a number of areas. We don’t need to subsidize massive production until the basic research is ripe and shows it to be feasible.
But we do need alternatives for when the price of traditional fuels rise. We are going to need ever increasing levels of energy and it needs to be cheap.
Google has a lot of technical people and some business ones. Between them, sooner or later they were going to figure out the math.
I’ve said it before...all the simple things have already been invented.
Fusion power is where the $$$ should be spent instead of lame wind farms and solar panels.
In launching the project, company executives boasted they would prove that wind and solar power were not just good for the environment, but that solar energy could be produced profitably on a mass scale to replace dirty coal and even natural gas.
Meet the Facebook Sustainability Team: Bill Weihl
https://www.facebook.com/notes/green-on-facebook/meet-the-facebook-sustainability-team-bill-weihl/451128308235764
Google and Facebook green guys baffled why their companies are in ALEC
http://grist.org/article/google-and-facebook-green-guys-baffled-why-their-companies-are-in-alec/
Global warming HAS TO be a problem
and
it HAS TO be caused by something in Western Society.
Those two “facts” must be present in order for sheeperals to achieve their sense of self-righteousness for advocating centralized control over people living “too well”.
The self-righteousness is THE goal.
“Doing something about global warming” is the means to achieve it. Even though “doing something” just means “believing something needs to be done”.
No company goes into any business unless they expect to turn a profit. And that’s the way it should be. In the case of green energy, the profit would come from government subsidies. I imagine that has run it’s course so Google figures it’s time to bail.
so sad!!!....wah...wah...
It has been known for years that it takes more energy to produce a gallon corn ethanol than can be gotten from using it as a fuel. Gasoline ethanol mixtures used as motor fuels also give less miles per gallon.
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