Green Blog
A better web. Better for the environment.
An energetic welcome to Arun Majumdar
12/17/12
One of the world’s biggest challenges is bringing reliable, sustainable and affordable energy to everyone. We need a new energy blueprint for the future—the latest advances in technology have the potential to bring us closer to that goal than ever before.
That’s why I’m pleased to welcome Dr. Arun Majumdar to Google, where he will drive Google.org’s energy initiatives and advise the company on our broader energy strategy. Arun is widely recognized as one of the foremost leaders in energy innovation. He joins us from the Department of Energy, where he served as Acting Undersecretary of Energy and was founding Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (better known as ARPA-E), identifying and providing essential support for the development of transformational new energy technologies. In his roles at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley, he made great contributions in the areas of energy conversion, transport, and storage, and in 2005 was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
We’re looking forward to great things in the coming year with Arun’s leadership and experience on the team.
Posted by Matthew Stepka, VP, Google.org
Getting Data From the Ground To the Cloud
6/29/11
(Cross-posted from the
Google Public Sector Blog
)
Last week, the Google Earth Outreach and Google.org teams, in collaboration with the
Global Canopy Programme
, hosted partners from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for the first gathering of the Community Forest Monitoring Working Group. The goals of the working group are to provide a platform for groups engaged in community forest monitoring activities - across continents - to share knowledge and experience. Equally important is for these groups to provide recommendations for the development of tools, methodologies, and common protocols. For example, the Surui tribe in the Brazilian Amazon is using
modern technology
to implement their community’s Surui Carbon Project.
This effort isn't isolated, as many NGOs and stakeholders support community-based approaches to forest monitoring for their efficiency, cultural relevance, and reliability. Community Forest Monitoring will play a role in the United Nations’ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) effort which aims to incentivize developing countries to adopt a low-emission path to development. In thinking about best methods for data collection, this working group is tackling a host of data collection issues including usability, security, accountability, cultural relevance, and scalability.
These are all concerns that the team at
Open Data Kit
(ODK), an open source suite of data collection tools, have fleshed out and iterated upon. ODK was born in 2008 as a Google sabbatical project of University of Washington computer science professor Gaetano Borriello. Borriello wanted to take advantage of Google’s data collection tools: maps, visualization, databases and has said that his team saw a gap in mobile data collection. Thus, Borriello’s team developed ODK Build, ODK Collect, and ODK Aggregate, mobile tools that have attracted thousands of users and dozens of active developers.
As ODK iterates and evolves, the Public Sector Engineering team is learning about the challenges and opportunities in mobile data collection and exploring how we can contribute to this space. ODK already
gives users the option
to visualize data in Google Earth and Google Fusion Tables, and we are exploring how to take advantage of some of Google’s other tools (what if photos collected on the ground could be easily posted to Picasa, or videos to YouTube?) It’s our goal to make sure that all meaningful data is effectively organized and made discoverable, accessible and usable.
Ultimately, community forest monitoring represents just one slice of the potential that effective data collection tools create. ODK was initially motivated by the needs of community health workers and has proven flexible enough to be used to track everything from
human rights violations
in the Central African Republic to
water quality in Ghana
. As the nature of scientific research diversifies and the volume of data collected increases, reliable, flexible, and lightweight tools will become more and more crucial.
What’s next? As the engineering teams continue to work on improving mobile data collection tools, this working group will convene policymakers at the next workshop to discuss standards and best practices. “The greatest barrier isn’t a technological one, but the challenge of leveraging this data so that communities can help ensure better governance for their forests,” says Niki Mardas, Head of Strategy and Communications for the Global Canopy Programme and
theredddesk.org
. As with many other public data collection efforts, it will become the job of advocates and analysts to shape meaningful narratives and press for the change the world needs. We're proud to be playing a part in this effort and we're committed to working with our partners to transform data collection from a passive, closed process into an active and empowering one.
Posted by Tanya Keen, Google Earth Outreach and Jenny Ye, Public Sector Engineering Intern
An update on Google.org and philanthropy @ Google
3/8/10
(Cross-posted from the
Google.org Blog
)
What do tracking flu, helping consumers monitor their home electricity use, slowing deforestation and perhaps most importantly in 2010, helping the people of Haiti have in common?
While they are all part of the wide-ranging work of
Google.org
over the last year, they also show what our technical teams can accomplish in critical areas that don't always get the attention they need and deserve.
A year ago we outlined our goals for
the next chapter for Google.org
. We talked about our vision to use strengths of Google in information and technology to build products and advocate for critical policies that address global challenges. Ideas for projects continue to pour in from Googlers and partners around the globe, and we're incubating several new projects in the areas of economic development, clean energy and access to technology.
This past year, we:
Ramped up
Google PowerMeter
to help consumers reduce their electricity use and save money, secured utility and device partners, and launched the API on code.google.com to help expand partner access globally.
Introduced
Earth Engine
, a new computational platform we have begun building for global-scale analysis of satellite imagery to monitor changes in key environmental indicators like forest coverage, at
COP15
in December.
Quickly expanded
Google Flu Trends
to
20 countries and 38 languages
as the H1N1 flu virus spread around the world. We also added city-level flu estimates to
121 U.S. cities
and developed the
Flu Shot Finder
to help people find vaccine locations.
Responded to earthquakes in
Haiti
and
Chile
, with maps, updated earth imagery, and networking projects, and built
Person Finder
to help people find information about their loved ones after a disaster.
Advocated for policies
to spur innovation of renewable energy technologies that are cheaper than coal (
RE<C
), and our engineers worked on ways to reduce the cost of solar thermal and other RE<C technologies.
We will continue to greenlight large scale engineering projects that build on Google's strengths in technology, our computing infrastructure and global teams.
Overall, our
philanthropic mission at Google
includes our Google.org projects and a range of other initiatives — from grants, scholarships and other charitable giving programs to in-kind product support for non-profits. Our founders have
set a goal
of devoting approximately 1% of Google's equity and yearly profits to philanthropy. In 2009, we devoted around $100 million plus in-kind giving to a broad range of philanthropic efforts. Here are some highlights:
Academic scholarships and awards
: We provide
scholarships
to encourage students of various backgrounds, ethnicities and gender to excel in their studies in hopes that these and other programs will help dismantle barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields.
Academic grants
: We support the next generation of engineers and maintain strong ties with academic institutions worldwide that are pursuing research in core areas relevant to our mission. We
fund projects
across a variety of subjects, host visiting faculty members at Google, and have launched the
Google Fellowship Program
to fund graduate students doing innovative research in several fields.
Holiday charitable gift
: We made $22 million in donations in 2009 to a couple of dozen deserving charities around the world to help organizations that have been stretched thin by more requests for help in a year of fewer donations.
Employee gift matching
: Google matches up to $6,000 for each employee's annual charitable contributions and contributes $50 for every five hours an employee volunteers through our "Dollars for Doers" program to encourage employee participation in charitable causes.
Charitable Giving Council
: We support grants for Googler-led partnerships on causes such as K-12 educational initiatives in science, math and technology.
Community affairs
: We invest in communities where Google has a presence around the world, creating opportunities for Googlers to invest time and expertise, engage in local grant making and build partnerships with local stakeholders.
In addition, our
Google for Non-Profits
site provides information and links to free tools to help charitable groups promote their cause, raise money, collaborate with others and operate more efficiently.
Google Grants
, for example, offers in-kind AdWords advertising to non-profit organizations. Since the program began, we've donated over $625 million worth of AdWords advertising to all kinds of charitable organizations.
To keep up with our activities, check out the
Google.org blog
.
Posted by Megan Smith, VP and General Manager, Google.org
Is your house haunted by high energy prices?
10/21/08
Halloween is nearly upon us; the days are getting shorter and Google is gearing up for one of our favorite holidays. But as the temperature drops, the price you pay each month to power your home might start to make your blood run cold. Fear not! We've created a handy
energy saving calculator
to help you see how simple steps can help you save money for treats -- and ward off scary carbon emissions. We've also put together a
webpage full of tricks
to help you save energy -- and money. (For inspiration for this idea, we want to thank the U.S. Department of Energy.)
It's the perfect time of year to talk about efficiency since many of the energy-wasters in our homes are named after the ghouls of Halloween. Our living rooms may be infested with "vampire" electronics that suck power even when turned off. And open chimney flues let the "ghosts" of winter steal our heat (not to mention the "monster" furnace that lives in the basement). By taking small steps to ward off these ghouls of inefficiency, you can save cold, hard cash. By
one estimate
, if the 80% of Americans who leave their fireplace flue open all winter all simply closed the damper, we could save over $6 billion a year. That's a lot of candy corn!
Posted by David Bercovich, Project Manager, and Dan Reicher, Director Climate Change & Energy Initiatives, Google.org
Building a future that's clean and green
9/22/08
The Internet has had an enormous impact on people's lives around the world in the ten years since Google's founding. It has changed politics, entertainment, culture, business, health care, the environment and just about every other topic you can think of. Which got us to thinking, what's going to happen in the next ten years? How will this phenomenal technology evolve, how will we adapt, and (more importantly) how will it adapt to us? We asked ten of our top experts this very question, and during September (our 10th anniversary month) we are presenting
their responses
. As computer scientist Alan Kay has famously observed, the best way to predict the future is to invent it, so we will be doing our best to make good on our experts' words every day. - Karen Wickre and Alan Eagle, series editors
At Grist.org they have a saying about climate change: "A frog in water doesn't feel it boil in time. Dude, we are that frog."
It isn't very Googley to stand on the sidelines – whether the challenge involves search, apps, or clean energy. So we're working to be part of the solution. Specifically, we have embraced the challenge of developing a gigawatt of renewable electricity that is cheaper than electricity from coal – in years, not decades.(We call it RE<C. Not only is it a cool, nerdy name for the project, it breaks HTML pages everywhere.)
In ten years, we envision a cleaner, greener world -- running on wind, solar, and steam - with clean cars plugged into a clean grid. But for that vision to become real, the technologies to power it will have to be economically competitive -- otherwise they won't scale. So we are focusing much of our effort on technology innovation to drive down the costs of key renewable technologies. We are fundamentally optimists -- we believe that when innovative people focus on the right problems, they can find solutions. And when renewable energy is cheaper than fossil-based alternatives, and when plug-in hybrids are as cheap as traditional cars, they will take off in the marketplace.
Our company founders, Larry and Sergey, are engineers and when they encouraged our team to tackle this issue we knew they would prefer a technological approach. This summer, we welcomed at our Mountain View headquarters the first Google engineers dedicated exclusively to exploring the development of utility-scale clean energy at a price cheaper than coal.
But we need a thousand groups of engineers focused on developing renewable energy - not just the team we're building at Google. That means we need government to set the right incentives and regulatory environment to foster clean energy innovation and R&D. Our team is also working to advance a policy agenda that stimulates clean energy projects.
We're getting the word out about tax credits, government research funding, renewable portfolio standards, and the limitations of our current transmission grid. Our philanthropic arm is doing its part too. The climate team at Google.org is working to complement the work of our engineering team with grants and investments in clean energy projects. To date, we've invested over $45 million in breakthrough technologies like solar thermal, advanced wind, and enhanced geothermal systems.
It will take the concerted efforts of many -- but dude, we don't need to be that frog.
Posted by Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar
Plug-ins converge on Washington
6/16/08
Posted by Michael Terrell, Program Manager, Google.org
Last week Google.org and the Brookings Institution hosted a two-day
conference
in Washington to showcase plug-in electric vehicles and examine how the government can support their widespread adoption. An impressive lineup of Members of Congress, auto and utility executives, and technology experts spoke to a packed house about the potential of plug-ins to reduce oil dependence, lower the cost of driving, and fight global warming. Between panels, participants were treated to a
display
of the latest plug-in cars, including one of Google.org's
RechargeIT cars
, an
electric sportscar
, and
Detroit's answer
to high gas prices.
There appeared to be overwhelming agreement that government
leadership
is necessary to make this industry transformation a reality. (A recent
poll
commissioned by Google.org shows that voters agree.) A second theme was the need to modernize and green the power grid as the country moves toward electrifying transportation. But with gas prices at record highs and enthusiasm for the promise of electric cars growing, the feeling in Washington last week was that plug-ins' time has come.
Google.org announces investment in BrightSource Energy
5/14/08
Posted by Chris Busselle, Investments Manager and Kevin Chen, Green Energy Strategy
Today we are pleased to announce our participation in BrightSource Energy's $115 million venture
financing
with a $10 million equity investment as part of
Google's RE<C initiative
.
Solar thermal energy generation is one of the key emerging industries addressing the changing global climate and we are excited about both of our current investments in solar thermal technology --
BrightSource Energy
and
eSolar
.
In addition to making investments in renewable energy startups, we plan to make grants to support the research and development of enabling technologies to help the solar thermal industry achieve larger scale and lower costs. We believe that by supporting researchers and entrepreneurs taking different, ambitious approaches and risks to generate clean energy, we can help to accelerate progress and increase the collective economic value of these new clean energy industries.
We are also looking for a
Head of Renewable Energy
to run our internal R&D effort, which is focused initially on solar thermal power, advanced wind technologies, and enhanced geothermal systems.
Team Aquaduct wins Innovate or Die competition
1/16/08
Posted by Dan Reicher, Google.org team
The contest said to "Innovate or Die" – and Team Aquaduct lives! In fact, the San Bruno, California team – consisting of John Lai, Adam Mack, Brian Mason, Eleanor Morgan, Paul Silberschatz – is living in grand (prize) style today after winning the
first Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered Machine contest
.
Team Aquaduct was declared the winner out of 102 entries by building a unique and functional solution to provide rural communities with access to clean water. The quintet will share the $5,000 grand prize, and each will receive a Specialized Globe bicycle – as will all five of the finalist runners-up (
read more about all the winners
).
The contest encouraged people to evaluate environmental issues and develop ingenious solutions surrounding climate change. Many original and inspiring ideas emerged; make sure to visit the
YouTube Innovate or Die page
to view all of the entries.
And here's the video for Team Aquaduct's winning pedal-powered water transportation and filtration vehicle:
Update on international climate negotiations
12/17/07
Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog Team
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reached agreement in Bali on Saturday on a roadmap to reach a new international climate change agreement. Several Google.org team members attended and have shared their thoughts on some of the themes of the conference: putting the
Bali roadmap in context
,
climate change and economic development
,
local government actions
, and an
introduction
to the negotiations. We hope you find these writeups informative.
Towards more renewable energy
11/27/07
Posted by Larry Page, Co-Founder and President of Products
Clean and affordable energy is a growing need for our company, and we’re excited about the opportunity to help create competitive green alternatives.
Our new initiative
isn’t just about Google’s energy needs; we're seeking to accelerate the pace at which clean energy technologies are developing, so they can rival the economics of coal quickly. We've gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities by building data centers that lead the industry in efficiency. We want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating inexpensive renewable electricity at scale.
Promising technologies already exist that could be developed to deliver renewable energy cheaper than coal. We think the time is ripe to build rapidly on the tremendous work on renewable energy. For example, I believe that solar thermal technology provides a very plausible path to generating cheaper electricity. By combining talented technologists, great partners and large investments, we have an opportunity to quickly push this technology forward. Our goal is to build 1 gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic that this can be done within years, not decades. If we succeed, it would likely provide a path to replacing a substantial portion of the world’s electricity needs with renewable energy sources.
To lead this effort, we're looking for a world-class team. We need creative and motivated entrepreneurs and technologists with expertise in a broad range of areas, including materials science, physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, land acquisition and management, power transmission and substations, construction, and regulatory issues.
Join us
. And if you're interested, read about
our previous work
toward a clean energy future.
Pour on the pedal power
9/24/07
Posted by Dan
Reicher,
Google.org
You may already know that we're working to reduce our impact on the environment in a number of ways. We opt for locally-grown food whenever possible in all of our cafes. We've covered our roofs with solar panels. We offer a rebate on our employees' fuel-efficient car purchases. When it comes to getting people to the office, we offer round-trip shuttle service to our Bay Area Googlers, as well as incentives for creative commuting, from walking to biking and even to kayaking (depending, of course, on where the office is).
Over at
Google.org
, the
RechargeIT project
is
collecting data
on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in an effort to accelerate commercial adoption of the cars as well as vehicle to grid technology. To the same end, we just issued a $10 million request for investment proposals to encourage companies and individuals to develop sustainable transportation solutions.
And now, we encourage all of you to get your wheels spinning to offset climate change. Google has teamed up with
Specialized
and
Goodby Silverstein & Partners
on the
Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered Machine Challenge
, to give you problem-solvers a chance to show us with a YouTube
video
how you harness pedal power in innovative ways. In January, you could win $5,000 in cash and Specialized Globe bikes to keep up your commitment. We're doing our bit to support new solutions. Are you feeling inspired?
A new Google.org RFP
9/12/07
Posted by Kirsten Olsen, Project Manager, Google.org
Today,
Google.org
has issued a
request for proposals
to the tune of $10 million in order to advance sustainable transportation solutions. We're inviting entrepreneurs and companies to show us their best ideas on how they can contribute to this important cause. We need catalytic investments to support technologies, products and services that are critical to accelerating plug-in vehicle commercialization.
There's
more about this
on the Google.org blog.
A clean energy update
6/18/07
Posted by Dan Reicher, Director, Climate and Energy Initiatives, Google.org
Today
Google.org
is launching an exciting project that offers a glimpse of a smarter energy future: cars that plug into an electric grid powered by solar energy. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (“plug-in hybrids”) can achieve 70 -100 miles per gallon, quadrupling the fuel economy of the average car on the road today (~20 mpg). As we demonstrated at today’s event, plug-in hybrids can sell power back to the electric grid when it's needed most through vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology
As you may know, one of Google.org's core missions is to address climate change. In the U.S., transportation contributes about one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions –- with more than 60 percent of those emissions coming from personal vehicles. By accelerating the adoption of plug-in hybrids and vehicle-to-grid ("V2G") technologies, this new project,
RechargeIT.org
, aims to reduce emissions and dependence on oil while promoting clean energy technologies and increasing consumer choice. Linking the U.S. transportation system to the electricity grid maximizes the efficiency of our energy system. From these efforts, we believe the environment will benefit -- and consumers will have more choices to fuel their cars.
We've been working with Google engineers and
Hymotion
/
A123Systems
to build a small fleet of plug-in hybrids, adding an external plug and additional batteries to a regular hybrid car so that it runs on electricity with gasoline (or even better, biofuels) to extend the driving range for longer trips. Here's what it looks like:
Since most Americans drive less than 35 miles per day, you easily could drive mostly on electricity with the gas tank as a "safety net." Our goal is to demonstrate the plug-in hybrid and V2G technology, get people excited about having their own plug-in hybrid, and encourage car companies to start building them soon.
In the preliminary results from our test fleet, on average the plug-in hybrid gas mileage was 30+ mpg higher than that of the regular hybrids. In conjunction with Pacific Gas and Electric, we also demonstrated the bidirectional flow of electricity through V2G technology, and have awarded $1 million in grants and announced plans for a $10 million request for proposals (RFP) to fund development, adoption and commercialization of plug-ins, fully electric cars and related vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology. (Here's the
full release
.)
As for Google Inc., today the
solar panel installation
we announced last October is now producing clean, renewable electricity for our Mountain View, CA headquarters.
The system will offset peak electricity consumption at the solar powered offices and the newly constructed solar carports have charging stations for the plug-in hybrids. At 1.6 megawatts -- with an electricity output capable of powering approximately 1,000 average California homes -- the Google project is the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the U.S. to date, and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world. To see how much electricity these panels are producing right now, visit our new
performance monitoring site
.
To learn more about the initiative, we encourage you to explore the rest of
RechargeIT.org
. And to see what others are saying about plug-in hybrids and V2G technology, be sure to watch
this video
.
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