The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
Google Inc., the Web company that a decade ago used engineering prowess to conquer the nascent online advertising market, is now aiming technology and its cash pile at another fledgling industry: offshore wind farming. The company said yesterday that it's investing in a $5 billion underwater network that can channel electricity from wind turbines scattered off the Atlantic coast, enough to light up 1.9 million homes from New York to Virginia. "This project is Google's signal that we want to have some real impact as we are also making serious financial returns in our energy project investing," Dan Reicher, who directs Google's energy and climate projects, said in an interview. "We couldn't be in a better place at a better moment to be making an investment like this." Google is betting that its support will encourage other investors to back wind farming, which the Global Wind Energy Council says will generate more than 22 percent of the world's electricity in two decades. The investment also may help the U.S. narrow a lead held by China, which is installing more than twice the wind-generating power of the U.S.
Google Inc., the Web company that a decade ago used engineering prowess to conquer the nascent online advertising market, is now aiming technology and its cash pile at another fledgling industry: offshore wind farming.
The company said yesterday that it's investing in a $5 billion underwater network that can channel electricity from wind turbines scattered off the Atlantic coast, enough to light up 1.9 million homes from New York to Virginia.
"This project is Google's signal that we want to have some real impact as we are also making serious financial returns in our energy project investing," Dan Reicher, who directs Google's energy and climate projects, said in an interview. "We couldn't be in a better place at a better moment to be making an investment like this."
Google is betting that its support will encourage other investors to back wind farming, which the Global Wind Energy Council says will generate more than 22 percent of the world's electricity in two decades. The investment also may help the U.S. narrow a lead held by China, which is installing more than twice the wind-generating power of the U.S.
The two are not really related as offshore windfarms need individual cables to shore anyway (because of their size and the typical carrying power of cables) and I fail to see how an offshore "superhighway" would help them (or would be paid by them).
But journalists have happily conflated the two and mixed up investments numbers, demonstrating once more than they do not understand what they are talking about.
But Google gets a lot of publicity, I guess. Wind power
Interesting to learn that the Goog invested in kite turbine technology, which is about a sensible as investing in harnessing jet wash at airports. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
by Oui - Mar 28 1 comment
by Oui - Apr 9
by Oui - Apr 12 4 comments
by Oui - Apr 8 22 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Mar 30 12 comments
by Oui - Apr 2
by Frank Schnittger - Apr 20
by Oui - Apr 171 comment
by Oui - Apr 17
by Cat - Apr 145 comments
by Cat - Apr 14
by Oui - Apr 124 comments
by Oui - Apr 10
by Oui - Apr 822 comments
by Cat - Apr 64 comments
by Oui - Apr 62 comments
by Oui - Apr 46 comments
by Oui - Apr 4
by Oui - Apr 3
by Oui - Apr 11 comment
by Oui - Mar 31
by Oui - Mar 304 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Mar 3012 comments
by Oui - Mar 293 comments