Google's $4.4 Trillion Clean Energy Plan: More Wind, Solar Power, Plug-In Cars (GOOG)

Google's $4.4 Trillion Clean Energy Plan: More Wind, Solar Power, Plug-In Cars (GOOG)

While the smart people at Google (GOOG) are figuring out search, cloud computing,mobile operating systems, Web browsers, etc., its philanthropic arm, Google.org, is hard at work trying to save the world. Their latest: An ambitious plan for how the U.S. can cut energy consumption, switch to clean power sources, and reduce our reliance on foreign oil.

Google has published the entire document at Google Knol -- now we see what it's for! -- including charts and an economic analysis: "Although the cost of the Clean Energy 2030 proposal is significant (about $4.4 trillion in undiscounted 2008 dollars), savings are even greater ($5.4 trillion), returning a net savings of $1.0 trillion over the 22-year life of the plan."

What sort of stuff needs to happen to achieve these results? From Google's plan:

• Deploying aggressive end-use electrical energy efficiency measures to reduce demand 33%.
• Replacing all coal and oil electricity generation, and about half of that from natural gas, with renewable electricity.
• Increasing plug-in vehicles (hybrids & pure electrics) to 90% of new car sales in 2030, reaching 42% of the total US fleet that year.
• Increasing new conventional vehicle fuel efficiency from 31 to 45 mpg in 2030.
• Accelerating the turnover of the vehicle fleet from 19 to 13 years (resulting in 25 million new vehicle sales per year in 2030, a 31% increase over the baseline).

Will any of this happen? We don't know, of course, but Google could at least achieve its goal to "stimulate debate" with the new plan.

It's also a hopeful look ahead for some of its investments: Google has invested some $45 million in startups designing wind, solar, and geothermal power technologies this year, according to Reuters.

(Full)

Clean Energy 2030

Google's Proposal for reducing U.S. dependence on fossil fuels

By

Jeffery Greenblatt

Google.org

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Google's goal in presenting the Clean Energy 2030 proposal is to stimulate debate and we invite you to take a look and comment - or offer an alternative approach if you disagree.

Contents

• Summary
• Electricity Sector
• Personal Vehicle Sector
• Economics
• Jobs
• Carbon Dioxide Savings
• Acknowledgments
• Sources and Further Reading

Summary

Right now we have a real opportunity to transform our economy from one running on fossil fuels to one largely based on clean energy.  Technologies and know-how to accomplish this are either available today or are under development.  We can build whole new industries and create millions of new jobs. We can cut energy costs, both at the gas pump and at home.  We can improve our national security.  And we can put a big dent in climate change.  With strong leadership we could be moving forward on an aggressive but realistic time-line and an approach that offsets costs with real economic gains. 

The energy team at Google has been analyzing how we could greatly reduce fossil fuel use by 2030.  Our proposal - "Clean Energy 2030" - provides a potential path to weaning the U.S. off of coal and oil for electricity generation by 2030 (with some remaining use of natural gas as well as nuclear), and cutting oil use for cars by 38%.  Al Gore hasissued a challenge that is even more ambitious - getting us to carbon-free electricity even sooner - and we hope the American public pushes our leaders to embrace it. T. Boone Pickens has weighed in with an interesting plan of his own to massively deploy wind energy, among other things. Other plans have also been developed in recent years that merit attention.

Our goal in presenting this first iteration of the Clean Energy 2030 proposal is to stimulate debate and we invite you to take a look and comment - or offer an alternative approach if you disagree. With a new Administration and Congress - and multiple energy-related imperatives - this is an opportune, perhaps unprecedented, moment to move from plan to action. 

We announced this proposal on October 1, 2008.  Google CEO Eric Schmidt's energy speech at the Commonwealth Club on October 1 will be available shortly.