Google CEO: How to Fix U.S. Energy Problems

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Please Mr. Google, tell us how to fix our energy problems. What do you guys think? Is Google onto something or are they on something?

Schmidt said the plan requires $4.5 trillion in spending to pull it off, but it'll pay for itself with $5.5 trillion in savings. "With this plan, it's cheaper to fix global warming than it is to ignore it," Schmidt said. The general plan consists of various efforts to save energy; a shift to renewable wind, geothermal, and solar energy; and a complete cessation of energy from coal and oil and halving of natural gas. Those changes would cut energy production-related carbon dioxide emissions from about 6 billion metric tons per year today to 4 billion per year in 2030.
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well there are two options... cut taxes or increase government spending... cutting taxes won't stop global warming... but it does increase gdp.

increasing government spending wisely (like new deal programs in 1930's).... can provide jobs, reap benefits of the final product (think hoover dam... unless your a salmon or native american lol but it does provide electricity to thousands)... alternatively they could spend it on bombs... which does increase gdp... since your providing jobs and creating products/selling// however there is less of a return because you blow up the final good. its like building a windmill, helping 100 families have electricity then blowing it up with an evil laugh... doesn't really provide much benefit. plus leads to pollution

4.5 trillion world wide or the US alone? capping it to 4 tril tons or whatever of pollution might not seem much (a 2tril reduction)... however in the long run if more countries did this... it would cap the levels from growing... currently it may be 6 but in 2030 with growth it might be 7... then 8... 9 etc... so having it at 4 is a good thing.

one of the risks is environmental damage (ocean type electricity destroys the environment)... thermal electricity might be helpful but umm we do not know long term side effects were it does not occur naturally like greenland...

wind power sounds great. but you cannot create energy just manipulate it. so what happens to our weather if we have millions of windmills... is it enough to mess up our wind patterns, weather patterns etc? were taking energy out of the skies and moving it into the ground.... doesn't seem to follow the 5 elemental theory to well lol.

we probably need a balanced approached. but this doesn't solve car or oil pollution... politicians care less about high energy bills than they do about getting more oil and more votes... oil drilling off shore will delay the problem a few months but leave us fucked.
 
I dont know all the numbers, and if that sounds right or not. But I do know that our current GOLBAL CULTURE depends on the use of fossil fuels and Its not going to change anytime soon. Its great that people are changing the way they do things and want to change things but Its going to take the Human race not just a few countries to change whats been started.
 
give us CHEAP not efficient solar panels. every building, commercial, residential with solar roofs? huge difference. build more nuke plants. next gen bio-fuels instead of corn, algae. lets spend BILLIONS on that instead of sticking 700 billions in rich peoples pockets, or 2 trillion on some stupid war.
 
well efficient and cheap would be ideal... its kind of a waste to spend 100$ on a solar panel that might only give you 150$ worth electricity before it breaks... then costs the environment/government 50-100$ to dispose of...

but if its cheap doesn't mean its always cheap for us in the longrun...
 
jroe52 said:
well efficient and cheap would be ideal... its kind of a waste to spend 100$ on a solar panel that might only give you 150$ worth electricity before it breaks... then costs the environment/government 50-100$ to dispose of...

but if its cheap doesn't mean its always cheap for us in the longrun...
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you miss the point. you keep hearing articles about zomg some new company broke an efficency barrier by 1%! Can you buy any of it? No. Everyone keeps focusing on getting more w/m^2, but instead they need to focus on $/watt ratio. Roofs for the most part are nothing more than giant solar collectors that heat your house in the summer. We dont need maximum watt per area, we need an affordable solution we can call use.
 
I still don't believe in global warming. I remember when CO2 wasn't considered a pollutant too. I mean humans exhale the stuff and plants breathe it, how bad can it be?

For the power side of things any plan that includes getting rid of coal and not replacing it with nuclear is a joke at this point. Other methods just aren't viable for our base power needs currently. Knowing what I know about energy conversion I think in the future solar would make the most sense to harness since the vast majority of the energy Earth receives comes from the Sun and the less conversions the better for efficiency. But this is still years off.

So in the mean time if you don't like coal switch to nuclear, which is a clean energy in my mind, and pray for advancements in solar or fusion power.
 
Just put 100 million into that 12 year old's 3d visible and UV light solar cell that gathered 500x more energy than typical solar cells and 9x more than typical 3d solar cells. Pop enough on every building for 2-3x the daily power requirements for that building on top. Give tax breaks to people that put the cells on buildings.

Put 100 million into Tesla motors and put those solar cells onto a car with their other power innovations. Give tax breaks to those that buy the cars.

Done and Done.

500x the power means you cover the roof of a car with them, and you can power your car during the daytime... nighttime... your house... your neighbors house... the 7-11 across the street...
 
monkey i'm with ya.... they could of saved the war money and 700bill to solve problems at home.... but thats americans for you... hence the saying...
"america fuck yeah"...

we love blowing up shit... even if its not a well though out plan. deal with problems later. but in the end were probably fucked until we get politicians that put our troops and countries best interests firsts rather than their friends.

i was worried about afghanistan... now we have to worry about iraq... but afghanistan is fucked and soon to be pakistan.
 
this guy has some good ideas and its very refreshing to see someone trying to come up with a plan instead of just bitching about the problem and telling everyone how wrong they are.

my only concern is weather all renewables would be capable of producing enough energy to work as he's saying. lets face it, even with some nice recent advancements solar panels don't exactly have a high energy density or cost. wind isn't much better.

weather he likes it or not, i think the idea needs to be backed up with some nuclear. and getting rid of coal isn't that hard if you're willing to go that far, we've been slowly doing that for a few years now up here in ontario. its a slow process, but well worth it. coal is utter bullcrap in this day and age.
 
If you could sum up our governments problems in one word (Iraq, bank bailout, mortgage problems, all of it) its GREED.

Humans are FAR too greedy. No matter what kind of governmental system or technology, people in power will want MORE money and power and damn everything else. Sigh.
 
Monkey God said:
If you could sum up our governments problems in one word (Iraq, bank bailout, mortgage problems, all of it) its GREED.

Humans are FAR too greedy. No matter what kind of governmental system or technology, people in power will want MORE money and power and damn everything else. Sigh.
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i figure the only way to solve it is to get the humans out. we need robots to tell us what to do LOL
 
I've been watching Discovery Project Earth on the Discovery Channel. It documents crazy ideas to help the planet, and the

One scientist's idea is to send about a trillion tiny lenses into space to cover about a million square miles in order to refract the sun's light so that less hits the Earth, and it would theoretically bring the planet's temperatures back down.

Another scientist wants to have solar panels in Earth's orbit that can beam solar energy back to the ground using microwave technology. Solar panels on the ground collect very little of the energy that the sun's light contains.

The show is incredible because not only do they document these ideas, but they have three people who visit these scientists to help them experiment. One is a quantum physicist, another is an eco-engineer, and the third is a wealthy businessman who handles logistics.

I think solar energy is the way to go. Just think how much energy we'd save if every building had a panel or two on the roof. Even if each panel was cheap and provided less than 5% of the energy used in that building, the global savings would be gigantic.

The amount of energy the sun sends to the Earth every day is unbelievable. We just need to experiment and find a way to take advantage of it better.
 
The first problem with this is "Global Warming". We still don't know 100% why this is happening. It's it just the Earth's natural cycle, the Sun (which has been less active hence cooler temps), or man made? I'm personally am leaning to it being the Earth/Sun and not so much man. I think we give ourselves a little too much credit both good and bad.

What I'm more interested in is seeing us explore new types of energy production while at the same time not limit ourselves with the existing ones. All this wind, solar, and whatever is next sounds great and all. The problem is it takes time and more importantly money to get there. If your economy is in the tank because the current energy solutions are being artificially limited it makes it harder and much longer to develop new solutions.

Therefore I suggest we drill where there is oil or oil shale in the US. To use clean coal and other proven energy sources now. Stop limiting what we can do with them because of some fear there is going to be a toxic pollution cloud around them. Then at the same time work to develop the next real solution to our energy needs.
 
Not sure what happened to my post. The second sentence should be, "It documents crazy ideas to help the planet, and the ideas are incredibly ambitious."
 
If Google plans on paying the 4.5T then I am all for this plan, other than that I am sure we will never see such a movement in our lifetime.
 
Solar and wind are all well and good- but they are inconsistent. Solar gives some power during the day and nothing at night. Wind- depends on the weather, and the best places for windmills are far from where the electricity is needed so there needs to be a MASSIVE investment in transmission lines. Any plan to reduce polution and "global warming" requires a massive increase in nuclear power.
In addition- we need to stop sealing up our used nuclear fuel and wasting it. It can be reprocessed and re-used dozens of times. Yes it costs money. Yes it makes the fuel stronger (what they call "weapon grade"- the reason the government banned the practice). However just burrying it in a hole in the ground is more dangerous in the long run, not to mention just plain wasteful.
 
marauder68 said:
Solar and wind are all well and good- but they are inconsistent. Solar gives some power during the day and nothing at night. Wind- depends on the weather, and the best places for windmills are far from where the electricity is needed so there needs to be a MASSIVE investment in transmission lines. Any plan to reduce polution and "global warming" requires a massive increase in nuclear power.
In addition- we need to stop sealing up our used nuclear fuel and wasting it. It can be reprocessed and re-used dozens of times. Yes it costs money. Yes it makes the fuel stronger (what they call "weapon grade"- the reason the government banned the practice). However just burrying it in a hole in the ground is more dangerous in the long run, not to mention just plain wasteful.
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I'm not quite sure how solar works, but doesn't it store energy somewhere for night use? A battery of sort?
 
Ok this is my area of expertise. You absolutely cannot have 40% of your load generated by an uncertain source of energy like wind and solar. It just DOES NOT WORK. You need coal/nuclear/hydro for base load. Base load is a good 60-70% of your load. We have a ginormous supply of coal in this country. Enough to last hundreds of years alone in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. To ignore this source of energy is irresponsible at best. Lets just use the fossil fuel in this country instead of BURNING fuel to bring oil and gas from half a world away. There is your increase in energy efficiency. Also replacing old and used induction motors with new premium efficiency motors will decrease our load much more than swapping out incandescent lighting with compact fluorescent. Wind is good for 10-12% of total load and Solar is good for nothing. It takes too much energy to manufacture and the disturbances that are created by cloudy weather will tear our grid to pieces by a large enough facility.
 
Some charts and information:
Installed cost in $/kW for various generation sources.


Generation Curve of a 5 kW PV Array at the University of Wyoming June 29 and June 30.



You cannot base our national electric grid on crappy power like this.
 
elfletcho said:
Ok this is my area of expertise. You absolutely cannot have 40% of your load generated by an uncertain source of energy like wind and solar. It just DOES NOT WORK. You need coal/nuclear/hydro for base load. Base load is a good 60-70% of your load. We have a ginormous supply of coal in this country. Enough to last hundreds of years alone in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. To ignore this source of energy is irresponsible at best. Lets just use the fossil fuel in this country instead of BURNING fuel to bring oil and gas from half a world away. There is your increase in energy efficiency. Also replacing old and used induction motors with new premium efficiency motors will decrease our load much more than swapping out incandescent lighting with compact fluorescent. Wind is good for 10-12% of total load and Solar is good for nothing. It takes too much energy to manufacture and the disturbances that are created by cloudy weather will tear our grid to pieces by a large enough facility.
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You put solar on individual buildings, to help with peak loads during the day. Yes, you still need base loads from other systems, but peak summertime loads is what kills the grid, which is where solar works the best.
 
elfletcho said:
Some charts and information:
Installed cost in $/kW for various generation sources.


Generation Curve of a 5 kW PV Array at the University of Wyoming June 29 and June 30.



You cannot base our national electric grid on crappy power like this.
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Pay attention, NOT our entire national grid. Solar SUPPLEMENTS the grid at the building level. Id be curious to see a graph of when solar makes power versus daytime sunlight and temperature and actual electricity usage to cool down buildings.

Whats the grid load like in vegas in the summer? Imagine every building in vegas with roofs covered in solar. Whats the grid load then?
 
I'm not a believer of global warming, am in the oil industry, and I also think solar is a fine supplement to current energy needs.

Many of you are pointing to the off production hours of solar as the reason it's not viable. One of the benefits of solar is that much of the captured energy can stored as heat within heat pump style systems underground. Now instead of a unusable excess of energy being produced and wasted during the peak production hours, some of that can be stored to even out production during off peak hours in the form of turbine electricity from the now hot water.

This heating aspect of solar energy collection cannot be ignored.
 
Monkey God said:
You put solar on individual buildings, to help with peak loads during the day. Yes, you still need base loads from other systems, but peak summertime loads is what kills the grid, which is where solar works the best.
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It works when the sun is out. When it is cloudy the electric grid must supply the power to the load. All you have done is temporarily eased load, however the grid must be big enough to make up for any shortfalls in the PV generation. We call this kind of power non-dispatchable because you cannot rely on it to be there when you need it.
 
elfletcho said:
It works when the sun is out. When it is cloudy the electric grid must supply the power to the load. All you have done is temporarily eased load, however the grid must be big enough to make up for any shortfalls in the PV generation. We call this kind of power non-dispatchable because you cannot rely on it to be there when you need it.
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Is the entire US ever cloudy all at the same time? In the summer? If it was, wouldn't the grid demand drop because 500 million buildings aren't being cooked in the sun?
 
Bomber18 said:
I still don't believe in global warming. I remember when CO2 wasn't considered a pollutant too. I mean humans exhale the stuff and plants breathe it, how bad can it be?

For the power side of things any plan that includes getting rid of coal and not replacing it with nuclear is a joke at this point. Other methods just aren't viable for our base power needs currently. Knowing what I know about energy conversion I think in the future solar would make the most sense to harness since the vast majority of the energy Earth receives comes from the Sun and the less conversions the better for efficiency. But this is still years off.

So in the mean time if you don't like coal switch to nuclear, which is a clean energy in my mind, and pray for advancements in solar or fusion power.
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Because the current idea of global warming isn't real. The Earth's climate changes, but to think humans are causin it is just unfounded.

Of course all the science that is showing no warming trends, or in some places cooling trends never makes it to the public because no way in hell the media would let it get out.
 
Our grid is built on the principle of reliability. By their vary nature wind and sun are not reliable energy sources. When you turn on your computer, at the speed of light, power is being transferred from a generation facility to your pc. If that generation facility cannot do this, it comes from the next least resistance source. There is no time to say,"Wait five minutes computer, this cloud needs to pass". They can work for small percentage of the load, however the dispatchable generation must be sized to make up for a 0% level of generation of these sources ie worst case scenario. Otherwise you have brownouts.
 
Monkey God said:
Is the entire US ever cloudy all at the same time? In the summer? If it was, wouldn't the grid demand drop because 500 million buildings aren't being cooked in the sun?
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It hasn't been in the last oh...200 years since we started noticing. But the point is it could happen, so you have to plan for it.
 
Bomber18 said:
I still don't believe in global warming. I remember when CO2 wasn't considered a pollutant too. I mean humans exhale the stuff and plants breathe it, how bad can it be?

For the power side of things any plan that includes getting rid of coal and not replacing it with nuclear is a joke at this point. Other methods just aren't viable for our base power needs currently. Knowing what I know about energy conversion I think in the future solar would make the most sense to harness since the vast majority of the energy Earth receives comes from the Sun and the less conversions the better for efficiency. But this is still years off.

So in the mean time if you don't like coal switch to nuclear, which is a clean energy in my mind, and pray for advancements in solar or fusion power.
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You know...You have a good post. They believe that the sun is actualy getting hotter and not global warming. Global warming is a scam.

Build nuke plants short term and then as that eases a bit go with Sun and solar. Use Liquid gas on cars or hybrids of some sort.
 
4.5 trillion, no problem google has that kind of scratch laying around don't they?
 
as if we dont already have a spending problem, i can only imagine what our government would add to a 4.5 tillion bill, like 2 mil to research into seeing if pigs can fly.
 
I'm going to start out by saying that I'm not a hippie. I hate hippies.

First off, we need to make it very easy for the country to switch power sources. The main problem right now is that the US government can't force 200 millions gas-powered cars off the road without starting a civil war. The government needs to focus on getting people to shift over to electric cars as quickly as possible.

Once everyone is powering everything with electricity, the US won't have to "herd cats" when switching energy sources... all they need to do is just switch out the major power plants. "Oh, ok... yeah... that's easy?!"... actually it isn't easy, but it is easier than switching the major power plants while trying to convince 200 million American households to spend around $30,000 immediately.

Also, once everyone is using electric cars (with eco-friendly batteries... friggin hippies)... the eco-lobbyists won't need to exist. That alone will save the government a TON of money.

What the government should have done instead of starting the Iraq war... Subsidize the cost of electric cars. It would've cost just a fraction of what we're spending in Iraq.
 
they should make the world bank pay for that shit since the world bank owns the world they should have to pay to fix it.
 
I can actually do it for much less with technology we already have and infrastructure we already have in place... how you say?

Nuclear Power. Clean, Abundant, Renewable.
 
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