Google Solar Project: Google Invests $168 Million In Mojave Power Plant

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google is investing $168 million in an alternative power project that aims to produce enough solar energy to light 140,000 homes.

The commitment announced Monday is part of the financing that BrightSource Energy needs to build a solar power plant in California's Mojave Desert. BrightSource also has lined up $1.6 billion in loans guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Energy and a $300 million investment from NRG Energy Inc.

Google Inc. has been dipping into its bank account to back various projects that promise to generate energy from other sources besides oil and coal. The company has emerged as a major consumer of electricity as it opens huge data centers to house the computers that run its Internet search engine, e-mail and other online services.

Comments

[fiddler3]

12:41 PM on 04/14/2011

Time to dump Google stock.

[hairydodger]

10:39 AM on 04/14/2011

Using the safest nuclear power plant is a great bet. It is 93 million miles away. We just need a manhattan project style effort and work to figure out how to deliver energy from it at night. Energy storage shouldn't be that technologically difficult on a scale that huge. My guess is that the bigger this got the easier it would be to store energy. Don't think outside the box. There is no box. "The box" is a self limiting idea. Get on with it.

[Jtt]

02:43 AM on 04/14/2011

Good job google - lobby and advocate for updates to the power grid and new energy storage technologies.

[markkocaldo]

01:54 AM on 04/14/2011

Ivanpah Solar Thermal now $2.1B for 392 MWpk, 125 MWavg. 30% from natural gas.

Works out to 2.1/(.125*.7) to $24B/Gw for the solar part since the gas cost is neglible.

Now add $8B/Gw for 4 times sized electrical transmission lines.

That's the price for load balancing with filthy stinking,deadly particulate, GHG, NOX and radioactive radon gas spewing natural gas which because of system wide methane spews as almost as many GHG's as coal killing for certain thousands in North America annually.

We'd need to add $140/Gw for Green storage.

Typical US first of a kind nuke $4B/Gw, mass produced $1B

So from 8 to 170 times the cost of the nuclear alternative.

Google is looking at Big feed in tariffs from the soon to be bankrupt California taxpayer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Galong]

10:04 PM on 04/13/2011

So, our fearful leader wants $671 billion for the 2012 fiscal year military budget. Let's see if my math is correct:
$671,000,000,000 (insert divided-by sign) $168,000,000 = 3994

That means Obama could make 3994 of these projects in the US... but of course, that would mean standing up to the oil and coal megalomaniacs and he simply doesn't have the balls to do such an outrageous thing as that. Fighting for the environment is only chin music when he wants our votes.

Furthermore, neither Google nor anyone else really has to build in areas that impact eco systems. Bottom line: it's cheaper to do it there, so the environment has to make yet another sacrifice.

[rodjard]

09:36 AM on 04/13/2011

No matter what energy source we have;
there will be a conserted effort to keep it centralized.
Keep it on a meter, all for your convenience.
Wires and pipes reaching into our lives like suction hoses
draining us dry.

[brenobacci]

01:06 AM on 04/14/2011

Actually with PV (photovoltaics) you can have your own personal panel and converter at your house. Depending on which state you live on, you can then plug your power source into the regular grid, and then when your PV is unable to generate all the energy you're consuming, you'll get energy from the grid. More importantly, when your PV generates more energy than you need (and this happens more often than the opposite), you can then sell it to the utility company, or get a rebate on your bill.

That solves half of your sucking up to your house problem.

[rodjard]

07:42 AM on 04/14/2011

I hope there is not some way for them to make their energy
more expensive than our energy.

[Rajamanickam]

07:21 AM on 04/13/2011

It seems everyone this thinking that we need to choose any one of two options, "saving animals" and "getting solar energy" But actually we can choose both by using space solar power. Refer http://qualitypoint.blogspot.com/2010/11/kalam-nss-energy-initiative-to-tap.html for more details about space solar power.

[DejzaVoo]

01:49 AM on 04/13/2011

Hey if corporations are considered people, couldn't one run for election?

GOOGLE FOR PRESIDENT!

[JoeAlvord]

02:53 PM on 04/13/2011

It has to be 35 years old....Damn.

[Ahoon]

12:53 PM on 04/14/2011

why run for president when you can just purchase one every four years ?

[DejzaVoo]

04:55 PM on 04/14/2011

Good point.

[pewty]

12:11 AM on 04/13/2011

New Law:All government buildings MUST have solar panels. Wouldnt hurt on schools.......

[DejzaVoo]

01:49 AM on 04/13/2011

All new homes should be built with Solar Panels as well.

[Michael GE]

07:12 AM on 04/15/2011

While certainly good, nice and well (for the individual), on a national level it's much more important to have insulation and make the homes energy efficient regarding heating.
I think it was two or three years ago when I learned that "winterization" for buildings is something common in the US. If you would use that term here in Germany, no one would think about buildings; it's just used to prepare your car or your garden for snow.

[TheDodoBird]

05:54 PM on 04/14/2011

I often wonder about ways that this would work. What if there was a small 3 foot by 3 foot solar panel mounted on top of every utility pole in the country that could feed directly into the grid?
or
If all parking lots had a flat rooftop over them raised by stilts, and that rooftop was covered in solar panels? This one knocks 2 birds with one stone, because there would also be less snow removal in the lot in more northern states.
or
If every large department store, like walmart or kmart, allowed the local utility company to cover their roofs with solar panels?

You could keep going and going on this. The possibilities are really endless...

[Michael GE]

07:07 AM on 04/15/2011

Hmm, what is so complicated or unusual about your proposals? Ticket dispensers with a solar panel are a common sight here; actually, I think all newly installed ones use that technology. Also anything from streetlights to traffic signs you can see with a solar panel or (depending of region) with a small wind turbine.
All public buildings are required when they spend money for renovation to improve insulation and energy efficiency. And as part of the stimulus two years ago a considerable amount of money was made available to improve school buildings on a large scale.
Similarily also on supermarkets, private parking lots etc. solar panels are installed.

Ticket dispenser:
http://1.1.1.4/bmi/wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/4107/PreviewComp/SuperStock_4107-46174.jpg
School:
http://1.1.1.5/bmi/www.brunnmeier.de/MassingHaupt.jpg
Street light:
http://img.directindustry.de/images_di/photo-p/solar-strassenbeleuchtungen-156652.jpg
Farm:
http://1.1.1.4/bmi/www.laerm.zh.ch/fals/3-wissen/fragen/bilder/WIW.jpg

None of that is any exception. It's, uhm, normal.
But I suppose, after following the debate in the US, still many believe that solar exclusively means large fields of panels or huge wind turbine "forests" ... or maybe think about such things only in terms of NASA or science fiction or rocket science.

[rigpa44]

11:43 PM on 04/12/2011

Well, better than doing nothin' or something stupid like building more coal plants. Where's the total, wholistic, complete, all-encompassing energy policy? Piece-mealing it like this leaves space for one hand not knowing what the other is doing, and the result is a hodge-podge of projects that have no connection to each other. When it comes to energy intelligence, it's a contradiction in terms. We be idiots until the two-by-four of extinction hits us right out of orbit. And even then we go into deep denial that there's anything destructive going on. Eisenhower once quipped (or something close): things are more like they are now than ever before. Duh.

[Tom95134]

02:02 PM on 04/12/2011

$168 million isn't much but it's a start and it's a lot better than investing in building some new coal fired plant.

[sawdustking]

01:52 PM on 04/12/2011

A billion six in loan guarantees. I guess the million dollars Google donated to the Democrats is paying off.

[sheila]

01:22 PM on 04/12/2011

OMG, the delusions on the comments here are shocking.

First of all, WE TAXPAYERS ARE PAYING $2 BILLION TAXPAYER DOLLARS FOR THIS PLANT, WHICH IS ALSO BUILT ON OUR PUBLIC LAND BUT WE ARE GETTING NO EQUITY. Please stop gushing over how "responsible" Google is being.

Secondly they are KILLING thousands of acres of ENDANGERED SPECIES habitat and WASTING hundreds of millions of gallons of scarce desert water. They lied about how many threatened desert tortoises were living on the site (they claimed 32, latest accounting is over 150), and about how they would "transplant" centuries old plant life, but here is what they are actually doing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r3pS_h0tEg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

yep, grinding them into oblivion. Since when is killing off old-growth and endangered wilderness "green?"

Thirdly, they are using STEAM TURBINES, a 19th century technology, in a "power tower" configuration of mirrors aiming light at a boiler. This is not some futuristic building-integrated PV that absorbs the full spectrum of light. This is good old destructive, wasteful Robber Baron monopolization of electrical production that we could produce ourselves on our homes cheaper, faster and cleaner.

Finally, the main "investors" (since taxpayers just take all the risk but aren't given "investor" equity) are Chevron and BP and Morgan Stanley. These are not good guys, you are crazy if you think they are interested in helping the planet or the economy.

Ignore the greenwash - we need LOCAL, democratically owned, non-deadly solutions.

[Slacks]

01:33 PM on 04/12/2011

I don't think Google is some hero here, but I do think our power needs are more important than animal life. Apparently you do to, unless I'm missing something and you posted that comment from a solar paneled computer from your zero footprint stilt house...

[sheila]

01:55 PM on 04/12/2011

how sad you are unaware that houses ARE solar powered. it's only been going on for 40 years, so i can see why you might not have heard.

so, when $2 billion of OUR dollars is being spent on solar? i want it spent on CLEAN, DEMOCRATICALLY-OWNED, AFFORDABLE SOLAR IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT, not wilderness-killing, Chevron owned power far away.

hope that's OK with you?

[Tom95134]

01:59 PM on 04/12/2011

I have to say that I'm not sure our needs are more important than animal life but there needs to be a way to accommodate both. The major problem is that the animal rights people are just as irrational as the Tea Party types and they have no interest in coming to a rational compromise.

If you look at the potential for solar power generation in desert areas it will meet the needs of the entire United States (just as soon as a new ultra-high voltage DC grid is in place to move energy long distances at minimal loss). The added benefit of solar tower technology is that it produces excess heat which can be used to desalinate sea water. Yes, the water will need to be piped from the ocean to the plant but then we "pipe" water from the Sacramento Delta to L.A. and that is much farther.

Stop finding reasons not to do things and start finding ways to work together.

[Slacks]

01:34 PM on 04/12/2011

*too

[powder chowder]

01:22 PM on 04/12/2011

we need more of this.

[Chopin]

01:16 PM on 04/12/2011

Asking the right questions is beginning of wisdom.

If the American people have collective wisdom, people would be asking why the American government is not massively investing hundred billion dollars in solar to cover Mojave Desert.
Plain fact is the government is not doing it.

Why? Because it doesn't represent people and collective interests of the people.
Whom and whose interests does the American government represent? The multinational corporations and their interests.
What are the corporations' interests? They're constituted to make lots of profits + money for their owners + controllers. The owners + controllers are handful of superrich billionaires + trillionaires. They're interested in making profits + money for themselves, and toheck with everybody else.
Do they have empathy for thepeople, common good, wellbeing of thenation?
Obviously not. They're at tip of onepercenters (probably less than 0.0001%, in "Clubof300").
They're good at making money. They have neither allegiance, nor wisdom. If they have wisdom or empathy or allegiance to common good, they wouldn't rig the system and force national wealth to be so skewed and social fabric to become so frayed + distorted to point of dangerous instability.
Dr. Stiglitz explains this social phenomenon in his VanityFair article
"of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%" :--
http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105

Sos, what's to be done about it?
That's upto collective wisdom and will of the American people, the 99percenters.

[maab76]

02:45 PM on 04/12/2011

And if that 99% don't bother to contact those who vote for or against in the legislature, how will their will ever be done? It won't!

Well, you know my formula - contact w/outline and back-up facts for opinions. Praise past achievements and votes. Thank when thanks are due - even if only for "listening."

Outline your own field and the possibly extreme expenses involved in working in it. We often contact regarding health care or education. The cost of the "machines" in clinics and hospitals is astonishing - $1M for a CT scanner PLUS all it takes to get it in a bldg, screen the radiation, train operators and readers et al, et al No wonder the cost of such exams is so costly - but to few people know and understand what actually goes into it. And even fewer realize that they require at least as much maintenance as an old car.

Technology in schools: cost of computer for each child (as per electronic books) ends up being more economical than paper printing, and weighs a lot less in the back pack. If a computer is the "base: of the many texts, the homework is enterred directly in the "device" and check there. BUT professional staff needs to be trained as well as the paraprofessionals. Then each new student and/or class must also be trained in the use. Shall I go further, or have you figured out the extensions?

[tiredofthesameoldstuff]

04:12 PM on 04/12/2011

Those exams in other countries using the same equipment cost less then a hundred dollars per exam and make a profit on.