<story><title>Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/technology/google-says-it-will-run-entirely-on-renewable-energy-in-2017.html?_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tylercubell</author><text>&amp;gt; “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.”&lt;p&gt;I love how the author throws in a disclaimed quotation from a big oil Luddite to help reinforce the message of the article. It&amp;#x27;s a two-fold sales tactic.&lt;p&gt;1. Discredit the opposition.&lt;p&gt;2. Tell the buyer what the opposition will say, after already convincing them of the benefits, so they&amp;#x27;re prepared to defend what they&amp;#x27;re buying thereby reinforcing their beliefs.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not implying that the article is wrong, but it&amp;#x27;s something we should be aware of.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rocketraman</author><text>Unfortunately, there is indeed a lot of truth to the statement that it is a PR gimmick.&lt;p&gt;The problem with wind and solar is that they are intermittent. Therefore, Google&amp;#x27;s consumption &lt;i&gt;at any particular moment in time&lt;/i&gt; 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&amp;#x27;s battery tech isn&amp;#x27;t even close to operating at this scale, though its a small step in that direction).&lt;p&gt;Therefore, Google &lt;i&gt;must&lt;/i&gt; take power from the grid from non-intermittent sources that &lt;i&gt;can&lt;/i&gt; 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.&lt;p&gt;So even though they may be purchasing contracts for wind&amp;#x2F;solar energy that exceed their own total energy use, they still cannot even &lt;i&gt;approach&lt;/i&gt; viable operation without access to non-wind and solar sources, so its definitely misleading by Google to suggest they are running entirely on wind&amp;#x2F;solar.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x2F;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.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/technology/google-says-it-will-run-entirely-on-renewable-energy-in-2017.html?_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tylercubell</author><text>&amp;gt; “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.”&lt;p&gt;I love how the author throws in a disclaimed quotation from a big oil Luddite to help reinforce the message of the article. It&amp;#x27;s a two-fold sales tactic.&lt;p&gt;1. Discredit the opposition.&lt;p&gt;2. Tell the buyer what the opposition will say, after already convincing them of the benefits, so they&amp;#x27;re prepared to defend what they&amp;#x27;re buying thereby reinforcing their beliefs.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not implying that the article is wrong, but it&amp;#x27;s something we should be aware of.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>aperetto</author><text>It&amp;#x27;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...</text></comment>