Google’s Next Frontier: Renewable Energy

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 27 — Google, the Internet company with a seemingly limitless source of revenue, plans to get into the business of finding limitless sources of energy.

The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., announced Tuesday that it intended to develop and help stimulate the creation of renewable energy technologies that were cheaper than coal-generated power.

Google said it would spend hundreds of millions of dollars, part of that to hire engineers and energy experts to investigate alternative energies like solar, geothermal and wind power. The effort is aimed at reducing Google’s own mounting energy costs to run its vast data centers, while also fighting climate change and helping to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.
“We see technologies we think can mature into very capable industries that can generate electricity cheaper than coal,” said Larry Page, a Google founder and president of products, “and we don’t see people talking about that as much as we would like.”

The initiative, which Google is calling REBear Stearns agreed that “the headlines were a little scary at first” and said investors were initially worried that this was another example of Google “trying to bite off more than they can chew.”

But Google’s stock closed up more than 1 percent Tuesday in a higher market, Mr. Peck said, when investors ”realized this is more of a Google.org initiative and backed off.”

Mr. Page, in an interview, said that failing to investigate new businesses could hurt Google more than any potential distraction. “If you look at companies that don’t do anything new,” he said, “they are guaranteed never to get bigger. They miss a lot of opportunities and they miss the next big things.”

As part of the initiative, executives at Google.org said they are working with two companies that have “promising, scalable energy technologies.” One of these, eSolar, based in Pasadena, Calif., uses thousands of small mirrors to concentrate sunlight and generate steam that powers electric generators. The other, Makani Power, of Alameda, Calif., is developing wind turbines that will run on powerful and generally more predictable winds at high altitudes.

In a conference call Tuesday with reporters, Sergey Brin, Google’s other founder and president of technology, said the effort was motivated in part by the company’s frustrating search for clean, cheap energy alternatives.

“It’s very hard to find options that aren’t coal-based or other dirty technologies,” he said. “We don’t feel good about being in that situation as a company. We feel hypocritical. We want to make investments happen so there will be alternatives for us to use down the road.” Both founders declined to specify what the company spends on energy.

Idealism is hardly new at Google. In their Letter from the Founders before the company’s 2004 initial public stock offering, Mr. Page and Mr. Brin wrote: “Our goal is to develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible. In pursuing this goal, we may do things that we believe have a positive impact on the world, even if the near term financial returns are not obvious.”

Mr. Rohan of RBC Capital Markets said that the returns were not obvious. “The only positive byproduct of this project that would be anything other than environmental,” he said, “is that it might make Google managers and executives even prouder of the fact that they work there, and it may help retain key employees who think their goal is to do good in the world. But I’m really stretching.”

Google is only the latest Fortune 500 company to embrace green technologies. Also Tuesday, Hewlett-Packard said it would install a one-megawatt solar electric power system at its manufacturing plant in San Diego, and buy 80 gigawatt-hours of wind energy in Ireland next year. H.P. said that together, the agreements would save it around $800,000 in energy costs.




By BRAD STONE
Published: November 28, 2007

N.H. Resident Creates Whirlwind of Turbine Controversy

Neighbors, officials oppose man's plan to build 3 towers for power

AMHERST, N.H. - In an era when going green is all the rage, one man's effort to harness wind energy has run up against a powerful opponent: zoning laws.

Norm Hebert, a computer consultant, is seeking to erect three wind turbines on his property in his suburban subdivision. He says he will not sell the energy created; he will use it to power his house and keep the air cleaner for everyone.

He wants "to make a positive difference," he told town officials at a recent public hearing on the matter.

But town officials say that the zoning code mandates that no building be taller than 35 feet. They have barred him from erecting his turbines, which could reach 121 feet. Hebert argues that his wind turbines are not buildings and therefore not subject to the zoning code's height restrictions. He has appealed the decision to Hillsborough County Superior Court.

Neighbors, too, are up in arms. They say Hebert clear-cut a large swath of his land to make way for the turbines without consulting them. The trees had acted as a noise buffer from nearby highway traffic. Moreover, they say, Hebert's property, wooded and at a relatively low elevation, is unlikely to have the sort of gusts necessary for the wind turbine.

"It's not that we New Hampshire people don't want wind power," said Merrie Kincaid, who lives across the street from Hebert's property. "But, be reasonable."

Hebert did not return phone calls seeking comment.

His attorney, Silas Little, did not return phone calls seeking comment on the neighbors' concerns.

The dispute highlights a key issue facing alternative energy use, wind power specialists say. Few town zoning codes provide specific regulatory guidance for wind turbines. As such, as more residents and commercial energy producers seek to harness wind energy, height and siting issues are expected to surface in towns across the region.

The clash also underscores the challenges New Hampshire faces as it seeks to meet a legislatively enacted goal of producing at least 25 percent of the state's energy from renewable sources by 2025.

With such a mandate, some say, individuals must be empowered to erect wind turbines.

"We have to take the buckshot approach as opposed to the silver bullet approach," said William Chase, a state representative and supporter of wind energy. "If we are going to hit the 2025 mark, we need to have a lot of medium and small energy production."

But Amherst officials say the issue of turbines, for now, is one of enforcing existing rules.

"We are not picking on alternative energy. We are just following the ordinances," said Robert Rowe, vice chairman of the Zoning Board of Adjustment.

Wind turbines of the sort that Hebert envisions are different from commercial wind farms, like one proposed for Nantucket Sound or the soon-to-be-constructed wind farm in Lempster, N.H., which will be the state's first. Those projects, specialists say, are far larger. The Lempster wind farm will have a dozen 400-foot-tall turbines on the Lempster Mountain ridge and will generate about 24 megawatts, or enough power for roughly 10,000 homes.

Hebert's proposal, by contrast, would generate only a fraction of that power, alternative energy specialists say. But to be functional, residential wind turbines must still be relatively tall, often 30 to 50 feet higher than anything around it.

Statewide efforts to accommodate wind turbines in zoning codes that limit building or structure heights have failed. Last year, Chase, a Democrat from Westmoreland, proposed legislation that would exempt wind turbines from zoning code height restrictions that do not apply specifically to wind turbines. The legislation also provided guidelines for wind turbine noise generation and location relative to abutters.

The bill stalled in committee after critics said the measure gave the state too great a hand in municipal matters. Chase, a member of the House Science and Technology Committee, said he plans to rework the language of the bill and continue pushing it in the State House.

Meanwhile, Amherst officials are considering a change to their zoning bylaws. R. Gordon Leedy, chairman of the Planning Board, said height restrictions had been enacted at a time when residents were building tall houses.

"No one was thinking about putting up wind turbines then," Leedy said. "Given the current climate - no pun intended - it seems like a change is something people might want to do."

Ultimately, the issue of wind turbines in residential neighborhoods will come down to revised notions of acceptable land use, said Laura Richardson, of the New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association.

"It's all about getting accustomed to seeing something and recognizing that you need it," said Richardson. "I don't like cellphone towers, but it's a tool and plenty of people have been saved by them."

Wind power, she said, will come to be seen the same way.

By Sarah Schweitzer, Globe Staff

Dutch Build Towering Wind Turbines Out At Sea

IJMUIDEN, Netherlands - There is no shortage of wind in the densely-populated Netherlands but there is a shortage of space and in a nation which likes its houses small and its gardens cosy, opposition to wind farms is immense.

That is why a new Dutch wind farm is being built so far out to sea it is barely visible on the horizon, reducing the visual impact of its 60 turbines to virtually nil whilst at the same time harnessing higher offshore wind speeds.

Offshore wind farms are likely to appear more and more frequently off European coastlines as governments seek to increase their use of renewable energy without angering their citizens by placing giant turbines on their doorsteps.

The 383 million euro ($522.3 million) Q7 wind park development, 14 miles from the Dutch North Sea coast, is the farthest offshore wind park anywhere in the world, and its developers Econcern and Eneco Energie say a further five to 10 such wind parks will likely follow in the next few years.

"Q7 will contribute enough electricity for 125,000 households, but it is also a learning process. We are learning how to build these wind farms, how to organize the supply chain, and how to manage and operate them," said Bernard van Hemert, one of the wind farm's engineering directors.

"Most campaigns against turbines are based around the noise and the visual impact, and these have been reduced by going offshore. It is more expensive to do it here than to do it on land, but we have all agreed we don't have enough space on land," said van Hemert.

Blessed with shallow sandy soils around their coastline, Dutch engineers say the foundations for the turbines can be hammered 82 feet into the ground in just a matter of hours, although there are myriad other challenges.

The proportions are breathtaking. The turbines extend about 320 feet from the ocean, with three sharp narrow blades, each 130 feet long.

It is hoped that when they start rotating in early 2008 they will cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 225,000 tonnes, helping the Dutch to meet a target of 20 percent renewable energy use by 2020.

TRICKY LOGISTICS

The turbines are so massive they can only be transported by sea and there is just one factory in Europe which can weld and construct the 15-foot-diametre piles, which must be first driven into the sea to form the base of the turbines, van Hemert explains.

"It is a huge logistical operation which requires lots of space. There are only a few crane vessels which can handle those huge structures and hammer them down."

"But bringing up the cables is the most challenging for all offshore wind projects."

Expert divers are helping to fit the electrics.

Developers have also had to ensure that the wind park is well away from busy shipping channels.

"Studies in the United Kingdom have shown that there can be some radio interference but in the situation we have here it is completely safe and there is no risk of confusion or reduced visibility for vessels."

Jim Mollet, chairman of a Dutch group campaigning against wind energy acknowledges off-shore wind farms have some benefits over land-based wind turbines.

"They can be a better solution. But the problem is people tend to believe they are an entire solution. We think the vast sums spent on wind farms would be better spent on research and innovation in other energy sources."

Wind farms cannot generate the sheer amounts of energy the continent requires with cost or space efficiency, he added.

From: Alexandra Hudson, Reuters