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CEO Sundar Pichai is stressed by Google’s plan to go carbon-free over the next decade. This means that the company aims to use zero carbon-based energy by 2030.
“It’s a long shot, it stresses me out about how to get there,” Pichai said at a virtual climate change event hosted by the Earth imagery platform Planet in July. But “you are banking on technology and innovation,” he said.
Google has been carbon neutral since 2007, Pichai said. This means that while Google’s operations still create carbon emissions, the company compensates by doing things like buying carbon offsets. With the offsets, Google essentially pays other organizations or projects to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equal to what Google produces. Google also uses other methods to compensate, such as buying enough renewable energy to match its annual consumption of carbon-based electricity.
By 2030, however, Google aims to operate without using energy that produces greenhouse gas emissions. “We are committed to being carbon-free 24/7, that is, every hour, every day around the world,” Pichai said.
This means that “every email people use in Gmail, or every query they type in search, we want to serve it without using carbon at all,” Pichai said. “These are daring bets. And we see them as moonlight.”
Google is also developing tools to help consumers save energy.
Later this year, for example, the default routes suggested by Google Maps will be “the most environmentally friendly routes” wherever possible, Pichai said. A green route suggestion is one that is optimized for things like less steep roads and less traffic jams, so driving on the route would likely require less fuel.
Google is also trying “to simulate the weather better, so better predict … adverse weather events, so people can prepare for them,” Pichai said.
Google’s plans are no small feat, however.
“It’s a good thing that Sundar Pichai is stressed out about reaching his zero carbon goal by 2030,” said Rolf Skar, Greenpeace special projects manager. “Too many businesses and governments have set goals and failed to meet them.”
According to Julio Friedmann, senior researcher at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, Google’s goals are “doable, but very ambitious and require attention, sustained commitment and investment to be successful. Glad he’s sure. the deal, ”he said.
For example, Google will have to “innovate and push for systemic change in regions where solutions are not readily available,” Skar explains.
In Taiwan and Singapore, for example, difficult geography makes it difficult to use wind and solar power, both of which require land area to produce. For example, in Taiwan, Google will buy electricity from 40,000 solar panels raised above fishing ponds. In Singapore, it plans to purchase electricity from solar installations on the rooftops of 500 public housing buildings, the company says.
And for those times when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, Google is also working on solutions, the company says. Google, for example, has partnered with clean energy start-up Fervo to develop a next-generation geothermal energy project to power the company’s data centers and other infrastructure across Nevada. Geothermal energy draws energy from natural heat generated by the core of the earth.
Google’s carbon-free targets are “the right level of ambition,” Elizabeth Sturcken, the chief executive of the Environmental Defense Fund, told CNBC Make It. “We have no choice but to completely transform our energy systems and our economy to reduce planetary emissions by 50% in less than 10 years,” she said.
To be fair, being about sustainability is also good for Google.
On the one hand, it helps the company to hire and keep young talent. “Without a doubt, when you look at the next generation coming up, this is the issue that matters most to them,” said Pichai.
Plus, the price of renewables has fallen in recent years, so it’s in Google’s best interest to transition its sources of electricity, says Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor at Stanford who wrote a textbook on renewable energies and who is the director of Atmosphere. / Energy program there.
“It’s definitely cheaper for companies to make the transition themselves,” Jacobson says – wind and solar cost almost half the cost of natural gas, he says. “Thus, reaching 100% renewable energy, zero carbon goals financially benefit the companies themselves.”
See also:
Google CEO Sundar Pichai: the climate is “undoubtedly” the number one concern of young people
Miami’s first heat culprit: weather issues scare me the most
China and Elon Musk sound the alarm on bitcoin’s energy consumption: here’s how to make it “greener”
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