Last year, Google invested more than $915 million in clean energy projects — solar, wind and transmission.
That’s a lot of money, even for Google, which had $38 billion in revenues in 2011. The investments don’t appear to be core to the company’s mission of organizing information, and they have attracted criticism, as well as some careless reporting, implying that the Internet giant is exiting the alternative energy business.
Google and the Department of Energy (DOE) have funded a massive project to generate geothermal power from a dormant volcano in Central Oregon. AltaRock Energy of Seattle and Davenport Newberry Holding of Stamford Connecticut are overseeing the geothermal project for clean energy. Google and DOE have already invested $43 million in the volcano power project.
Renewable resources and non renewable resources are at two ends of a tug-of-war battle. While the latter is presently being used to an exhaustive extent, the former is still trying to find a prominent place in the list of energy sources. Conventional sources like coal have been used for a number of decades to power industries and homes. Its abundance and cheap cost is what propelled many to turn to it in the first place. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries saw huge amounts of coal being used to drive countries like Britain to the forefront of progress. Earlier, this natural resource was used in small quantities and coal could be mined from close to the surface of the earth. However, as demands increased, there was a need to drill ever deeper.
Google has announced yet one more investment in clean energy (just following Warren Buffett’s two big solar power acquisitions). This time, they are investing $94 million into 4 different solar photovoltaic (PV) projects being built by Recurrent Energynear Sacramento, California. The combined PV projects have a capacity of 88 megawatts and will provide their electricity straight to the grid, unlike Google’s previous investments in rooftop solar PV. They should generate enough electricity to power about 13,000 US homes.
Despite dropping its internal solar technology development, Google continues to put money into solar power.
Assistant treasurer Axel Martinez said today that Google will invest $94 million into four commercial solar photovoltaic projects alongside private equity firm KKR. Google is investing equity in SunTap Energy, an entity created by KKR for solar investing.
The projects themselves are operated by Recurrent Energy, a company which specializes in commercial and utility solar photovoltaic projects. With a generating capacity of 88 megawatts, they will produce about 160 megawatt-hours per year, or enough to power 13,000 homes.
Google+ may be less than a year old, but New York Times bestselling author Chris Brogan is ready to crown it a game changer. His latest book, which will publish next week, is called Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything.
“Everything?,” we asked Brogan. He assured us, rather indignantly, that he hasn’t made a mistake with his book’s title.
Google+ has an obvious advantage in search results, presents unique opportunities for brands and is backed by deep pockets, he argues. And all of these factors make it a social media platform that will stick around in a big way.
Google has extended free voice calls in Gmail in the US and Canada to one more year, the company has announced.
Voice calls were originally added to Gmail in August 2010, with Google promising they will be free in the US and Canada “for the rest of the year.”
Google has added a new feature for Blogger users who have connected their blog with their Google+account, making it easier to share a post with their Google+ friends, too.
After you publish a post on Blogger, you’ll see a box containing a snippet from your post. Before sharing the post, you can choose which Google+ Circles you’d like to share the post with, add an additional comment if you like.
Subsidies for solar panels installed after Monday will fall by as much as 50 per cent from next April, assuming the government adopts proposals set out in the on-going consultation on its popular feed-in tariff scheme.
The consultation on new rates for photovoltaic (PV) systems with capacity of 250kW or below does not conclude until 23 December. But the government’s controversial package of reforms suggest the proposed cuts will come into force for installations completed 12 days prior to the closing date of the consultation exercise.
While the company’s design doesn’t seem to have changed a whole lot, its services and capabilities sure have. Created by Stanford PhD students Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google officially launched Sept. 4, 1998. The interface was so simple because the founders didn’t know HTML and were looking for a quick design.
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