'Green' Google

In This Article:

- How Google's Lead & Investments spur this Energy Revolution

It all makes sense!  It is obvious that Google demonstrates a strong will and mindset towards creating a green work place, products and renewable energy infrastructure locally and globally. This vision and mindset strongly resonates with my strive and postings in this blog - Smart Planet.    

The schematic to the left shows the situation in a simplified way: being 'green' firstly means being very efficient in operations. Efficient or lean operations, however, is nothing else but saving costs. The beauty about such operations is that  they have a strong connotation of sustainability to it. All in all a quite smart model. Next we will discuss a few details about Google's implementations and investments.  

Google's Green Campus in Mountain View

Everyone know's that Google serves exquisite food at their cafeterias. This food comes from local farmers and does not travel the average 1600 miles before it gets enjoyed by the end consumer. Such short distances produce less CO2, and let's face it, a fresh salad simply tastes better than a 1-week old one anyways, and features more vitamins on top (and yes, you might experience reduced health care costs through fresh & local food in the long run too)! They also  have a fleet of EV's, plug-in hybrids, bio-diesel carpool buses etc. And while you work there, your vehicle get's charged by the sun from the solar cells on top of your cars parking garage - cheap and clean - elegant.

So, what about their power hungry data centers? Well, it turns out compared to other centers Google's version is twice as efficiency offering a reduced footprint through many additive things like improved air flow, PV systems, optimized network architecture and simply running their AC's a little less. Yes, if you work at Google's data centers you can come with   shorts to work. 

The Future - Biodegradable Computers?

Google is also very proactive towards reducing every computers energy consumption and  is supporting  the Climate Savers Computing Initiative which saved 32 Million tons of CO2 equivalent of an electricity bill of about $2 Billion. With more and more consumer products becoming biodegradable, e.g. you might have seen those bottles, spoons and even car seats, maybe computers housings of the future will be entirely compostable soon too.    

Shaping the Grid of Tomorrow

While these actions might sound like small contributions here comes the large scale outing - Google invested close to 1 Billion dollars in renewable energies. Just to bring this number into perspective that is more than half (55%) of DOE's budget for renewable energy technology research in FY2012. Let's talk about some selected investments here that caught my interest. 

Just last week an announcement came out that Google invested $94 Million in a large scale PV system in area of California's capitol, Sacramento producing 84 MW of clean power equivalent to powering 13,000 homes. There are two things that are interesting about this: (i) it is the first large scale PV installation that feeds the power back into the grid and not to the home owner for personal use, and (ii) it uses a smart and incentivizing billing model which worked for Germany a few years ago, that is so called Feed-In-Tariffs (FIT). This FIT guarantees the PV operator a fixed price upon feeding in the power from the solar cell back into the grid for a guaranteed duration, here 20 years. Such incentivizing programs lower the risk for the return-on-investment and spur technology adoption for a 'green' grid.

Another major investment ($75 Million) targets to reduce the inherently large barrier-to-entry for homeowners in financing a solar-roof system. The company Clean Solar Finance (CSF) received the push and here is how it works: Imagine you have a house and want a PV system, but are unable or unwilling to take the risks of such an investment (~$30,000) - this is where CSF comes in; you choose a system from their catalog, a contracted PV installation company puts the system on your roof ready for you to use, but Google owns it, thus you pay a monthly fee. A similar business model was set in play when Solar City received a $280 Million investment serving 8,000 homes with zero carbon emission energy. Solar City is an full service PV system provider which leases the solar panels to home owners. The smart business move from Google was to find the right way to spread renewable energy adoption (their goal & motivation) without having to deal with the actual installations and contracting, which is done by companies like CSF and Solar City. 

Just for the record, Google also invested strongly into other renewable energy source such as wind power and concentrated Solar-Thermal energy which can be found here. 

A 'Green' Future with Google Apps & Products 

Google claims to be a carbon free company, which should be a model for many other companies. Google's efforts are three-tiered: (i) reduce emissions through improved efficiencies, (ii) increase renewable energy use on-campus and in transportation (see above), and (iii) buy carbon offsets for those emissions that are left. Furthermore, using many cloud computing apps and services Google, and other such services, do directly and indirectly help to reduce our modern societies carbon footprint. 

Example - think about Google maps and route planner can not only show you a short-cut on the road, but have also the option to find directions and path ways for walkers/runners and bikers, thus incentivizing such clean transportation means. The good old email is certainly 'greener' than mailing and delivering a message via snail-mail. Or think about Google Doc's.; now, you and your colleagues can work on the same project or with the same data without having to physically meet, the video and voice chat options complement such 'green' and, let's admit it, convenient work environments. Lastly, the SketchUp App is been successfully used by architects, building designers and solar companies towards evaluating sustainable design options and the feasibility for 'green' concepts. 

In Conclusion, it is evident that the Google corporation lives a 'green' mindset and is utilizing its position towards promoting and incentivizing a 'greening' of its employees, business operations, the grid, and people like you and me worldwide. In this energy revolution, is is obvious that Google is playing a major part. GGG - Go Green Google!

p.s. And yes, the time is definitely now!                

Finalized US Budget 2012

In This Article:

- About the shifts in the U.S. Budget for 2012 and arguments between Democrats and Republicans 

It is almost Christmas, and we can relax and enjoy the holidays since we know the U.S. Budget for the fiscal year 2012 is now finalized, in the last minute. You can explore the Budget here, and the R&D summary is here:

• NSF - $7.03 billion total ($173.23 million increase), including $5.27 billion for research related activities and $167.06 million for major research equipment and facilitates construction.
• NIST - $750.8 million total ($727,000 increase).
• Energy and Water programs - $32 billion total ($328 million increase,) including $4.9 billion for DOE science research programs and $1.8 billion for renewable energy technology research.
• NIH - $30.7 billion total ($299 million increase), with the assumption that NIH will issue the same number of scientific research grants as in 2011.
• DOD research and development programs - $72.4 billion ($2.5 billion decrease).
• NASA - $17.8 billion total ($648 million decrease), including $5.1 billion for NASA Science program

So, what do we notice? The winners are NSF, NIST, NIH & DOE and the losers are DOD & Nasa. This result is particularly interesting and almost a bit surprising, since the republican opposition had strong arguments for cuts. In the past months President Obama was hard pressed by the opposition and many observers saw his will for his vision diminishing under the pressure of the republicans. It seemed that Obama had to make many comprises in the tug-of-war leading to the finalization of the budget. 

Hope again for Small Businesses 

Good news, the Small Business Innovation Research program (SBIR) which expired on Dec. 16th this year received approval for continuing another 6 years. The SBIR together with the Small Business Technology Transfer program (STTR) give small businesses an increased role in the federal R&D enterprise, while preserving the bulk of federal R&D funding for basic research. In addition these programs allow for participation among small businesses with majority venture capital and private capital support in the program, increasing competition. Such incentivizing programs are vital for a healthy U.S. economy which heavily relies on our capability to innovate and transfer that IP successfully into business opportunities - exactly what the SBIR and STTR stand for. In light of this, I am pleased to read that these programs received a budget increase from 2.5% to 3.2% and 0.3% to 0.45% for the SBIR and STTR, respectively. 

~~~ With these good news, I wish you all happy Holidays! ~~~

Do you live in the cloud ... yet?

In This Article:

- How Cloud computing is changing corporate America and consumers alike

It is interesting to observe  the trend of America's workforce accepting more and more the usage of data and software packages in the 'cloud'. Essentially that means your software programs are not installed on your personal machine and  even your data is resting on a hard drive somewhere in Kansas. As for your computing, you are using software applications simply as a user client from providers like Google for instance.

Looking ahead into the year 2020, 71% of IT experts forecast that most of the business will be done through such cloud computing applications and not the traditional software-on-your-drive way as this article from IEEE suggests. Quite timely UC Berkeley, a huge research campus on the west coast, today announced to switch their entire campus' email and calendar software from currently Microsoft's Office to a Google-App's in 2012. It seems that the seamless collaboration among students, staff, researchers and guests is favoring the open-source (and most of all free) Google solution. 

Google vs. Apple vs. Microsoft vs. ...

Personally, I can relate to this as I switched myself from using Outlook for the last 10 years to Google products now. While for large institutions like UC Berkeley costs and feasibility are likely to be main drivers, for me streamlining my laptop and smart-phone regarding calendar and email were key. Thus, I believe for many users the Google products are simply 'good-enough' and are free on top. Such integrated solutions from Google (Gmail, calender, Google-docs, G-maps, Google+...) and Apple (hardware + own OS + iTunes,...) provide user friendly integrity while seemingly stand-alone software like Microsoft is appears to be cumbersome and expensive. Interestingly, policy figures have recognized the potential of being present in the cloud as well. Steven Chu, U.S.'s  secretary of energy, for instance frequently updates his Facebook account, thus he is present and somewhat close and reachable though the cloud.  

Cyber Security - The New Hot Job

Within this context it becomes evident that the traditional software selling and using way is critically challenged by the main-stream user preference for cloud access. For special institutions and entities like security related businesses, governmental agencies and certainly the military pure cloud solutions are often not secure enough. Yet, even the military relies more and more on data exchange, and with no doubt there are specially secured cloud-like applications being used now already. Thus, it comes to no surprise that especially in the computer and electrical engineering domain cyber security jobs are exploding. In fact the cyber security market is estimated to deliver a market potential between 2010-2015 of (accumulated) $55 Billion and is growing quickly with 6.2$ CAGR suggested by this article. With this growing trend the cyber security market will be 1% of the U.S.'s GDP annually and thereby demonstrates its national and global significance.


However, with all the benefits from cloud computing it is quiet easy to envision situations where legal rights are infringed and our current policy frameworks are outdated. Such strong societal shifts in the way we interact, work and do business require actions for updating our legislative and legal regulatory rather soon than later. 

      

The Future of U.S.'s Economy

In This Article:

- Why scientific & engineering research is vital for the future well being of our nation's economy
- Science R&D+Sustainability=Innovation+Economic Stability

With emerging markets developing more and more momentum, the economical leadership role of the United States are at stake. Headlines like "Is America loosing its technological edge?" appear not only in boulevard media. So, the questions are 2-fold: (a) Is it really that bad? And (b) if so, what can we do about it? For the first question,  some pessimists might say, that the number patents of foreign investors are dramatically increasing alongside with a more and more international mix of graduates at U.S.'s top universities. 

In addition, a recent article in IEEE Spectrum showed that many other countries, including emerging ones, start to develop a wider technology innovation portfolio. To answer question (a), the U.S.  is spending more on R&D than it's next 4 runners up combined - thus we are certainly not neglecting the importance of R&D investment, but given the national debt some parties are tempted to close the R&D-'valve' which is comparable to switching off the fuel supply on a airplane over the Atlantic ocean. However, the real question is whether the U.S. is capitalizing on those R&D investments in a proper way? 

Or in other words: are we innovating in the 'right' direction towards creating the most future  economical stability? Looking at the funding agenda's of our nations national institutions (DOE, DOD, NSF, NIH ...) we do clearly see future-directed and technological leadership promising investments, as they are in: Energy Independence (renewable energies, smart lightning, efficiency increases), Cyber Security (reducing cyber attack risks), Clean and smart Transportation (personal independence with a 'green' mindset), Superior Data-Communication (Fiber-optics and broadband internet). Interestingly, many of these technologies have a connotation of Sustainability in it. 

Efficiency = Sustainability?!

A McKinsey article earlier this year (click here for the link) reported that in order to growth an economy in the 21st century, that about 70% of such growth must come from becoming more efficient in their operations, while only 30% growth can be gained from 'putting more workers to the problem'. Interestingly this is exactly mirrored by developing nations which are able to growth by reinforcing their man-(and women)-power. Thus, efficiency is high on the list for a economical future. But using less water, less electricity, becoming more efficient in logistics & recycling resources etc. not only save some dollars, but are also early indicators that Sustainability is THE KEY for the 21st century. On that same token, I am pleased to see that early adopter school's like the University of Arizona are offering a new major in Sustainability by opening the first School of Sustainability in the Nation.  

In conclusion, we see sustainable living, and running businesses & nations in a sustainable way are mandatory towards ensuring our nation's healthy economy in the future, since increased efficiency and sustainability go hand-in-hand. In light of this, the DOE stands clearly out; many funding programs are in line with high-tech R&D towards sustainable technologies, creating patents, high-taxpaying jobs and a future economy. Great job Steven Chu!     

In This Article:

- How creating a Strategic Energy-Storage Portfolio could accelerate renewable energy adoption 

- Tags: Renewable Energy, Distributed Storage       

With the abundance energy provided  by our sun, solar energy it is a logical choice for a clean source of energy. Photovoltaics (PV) or just simply solar cells are the converter between solar radiation and useful electricity. While solar panel installations have been (and still are) subsidized by various states, the widespread adoption is still somewhat slow. The reasons are, at least, two fold; (1) the price of PV produced energy is above that of typical large-scale coal or nuclear power plants, and (2) the time to install a solar-system on your houses' roof is somewhat long, about one year. Here the DOE recently has stepped in towards decreasing this time to install a PC system via sponsoring strategic programs. But how about the high cost for PV energy, i.e. $/kW-hr? 

Distributed Solar Energy Storage

One idea to make PV installations for homeowners more lucrative would be to add a small energy storage unit to the household. Why? Because the peak energy production from a solar cell system happens around noon when the sun is at its highest point delivering the greatest amount of energy per square feet. So much for the supply side. However on the demand side, the highest energy consumption has two peaks during the day: morning and late afternoon. Thus, the offset from peak supply and demand creates underutilized rooftop solar systems. Here, the argument for a distributed storage unit on cite is made, which helps to bridge this time gap. 

Towards incentivizing distributed renewable energy installations on-site storage options could be the key. But which storage solution should be linked to which renewable source? Towards this end a strategic Energy-Storage Portfolio could provide  a guide for state commissions, consumers and researchers alike (see left). Here, a best-match between a renewable energy and storage option is found. In particular critical bottlenecks should identified via analyzing technological challenges, like conversion efficiency and battery retention times,  societal feasibility and environmental impact. 

A changing Grid

Nothing lasts forever, and even with a turtle-speed changing entity like the electricity power grid, change will come eventually. And change is happening right now faster than ever. With smart metering becoming a reality and the and the option for feed-in tariffs, there might be even a business opportunity for PV homeowners towards breaking-even from the PV installation faster and making a profit past that point. A storage unit connected to the PV system eliminates this problem and will bring societal adoption through increased independence and incentivizing raised profits.

In conclusion, within the trend of rising energy costs distributed energy storage systems could be a key towards creating a pull-effect on stimulating PV and other renewable energy production installations. 

What's Your Ecological Footprint?

In This Article:
- Accelerating trends in population growth and energy demand create a small planet
- Game up your footprint     

   

Want to know your ecological footprint?  -  Then Click here. Even though I, bike to work every day, buy local food and refrain from meat, it requires about 4 earths if everyone would live like me - so there is lot's of room for improvement.  

The link above connects to the organization "Footprint Network" which created a neat online tool/game to estimate how many worlds it would need, if every human on the planet would like you. Take a look, it is actually quite entertaining and well made. 

Did you know that since WWII our population has more than doubled?! An risen more than 1000 times since the last ice age 20k years ago, which is just a second ago compare to how long life exists on planet earth. In addition, we are consuming about 10x the amount of energy than we used to just 100 years ago. Ever more and more people needing more and more every ... sounds like a runaway scenario, does it?

Seeing our planet shrink
  
Is this a problem? Most likely yes, because if we take more than what the environment supplies us with, we are depleting our natural assets over time. So, how come we don't see this? Firstly, the feedback time from the ecosystem 'earth' has a rather slow response time. Thus, if we mess up something now, it takes tens to hundreds of years to show it's effect. The down side is, once the snowball got into motion, it's had to stop. 

Secondly, there are plenty of indicators of abnormalities and trends, such as global rising temperatures leading to polar ice melting and hence rising ocean levels. Or try the atmospheric CO2 levels which jumped to record highs over the last 200 years (=> industrial revolution!). 

The solution?

Consume less, invent new materials and technologies to reduce our footprint, help with policy regulatories and most importantly use your brain! Yes, just simply think about the effects of your doing, such as the 2nd order effects I highlighted in my article below. Ask yourself: 

• Do I really need to do this trip to get ... say a bag of milk which I need to bake the cake?
• Could I do without the cake? If not, could I borrow just a bit of milk from my neighbor (=> yes, train those rusty social skills a bit)?
• Could I get the milk tomorrow, instead of today? 
• Could I even carpool with someone? (=> watch out, you might have a good conversation while doing it ;-))
• Do I need to go by car at all? Could I maybe take my old bike? (=> which would get me even in better shape and would reduce my long-term medical bill) 

What seems like common sense, gets oftentimes thrown overboard when we only see our goal and the immediate actions in getting there. Ever head the term "tunnel vision"...?! :-) 

What have the current Financial Debt Crisis and Sustainability in common?

In This Article:
- How we can measure our Ecological Footprints
- Why we should NOT spend more than our natural bank-statement allows  

   
If you don't have a TV, like me then you might use Netflix to satisfy your desire for motion pictures. The  documentary "The Ecological Footprint: Accounting for a Small Planet", I recently saw uses an interesting approach towards Sustainability, which is the key word for this blog.

  

Interestingly, Sustainability and Ecology are topics which are pretty big on the higher-education wish list for many university and college in the country this year, so we know this sustainability thing must be important somehow. But how and why? The immediate answer would be - because there is something to have try knowledge, interested students, innovative technology and engineering, and maybe even a business model. And this is were the documentary comes in. In a nutshell the idea is to use accounting or business tools to quantify the ecological footprint of our world, nations, or even you and me. So, basically what they did is, to make a balance sheet with contrasting Ecological Demand on the one side and Ecological Supply on the other. 

Being a  Ecological Creditor 

Here they compared the areas needed to supply us humans with whatever we want and need, such as for growing crops, grazing animals, harvesting fish, settlements, timber areas to absorbing CO2. The result? Well, starting with the US, the area needed to supply every american (on average) to live like we do is about 9.5 football fields. So how much football fields are there per person in the US? About 4.9. Thus, on average we are living twice in excess to what we should, giving our national resources. 

And this is where the financial part comes in. Basically this "ecological footprint" can be compared to a bank account. Say, if you spend more money than you have in your bank account what happens? Well, first of all probably nothing much, because you use all your credit cards and borrow yourself some $$$. Over time however, you will get into some serious trouble, not only financially. It is a no-brainer that such a debt-heavy lifestyle is financially and ecologically not sustainable. So, the punchline is, if we spend more of natures' assets than there are available on our 'bank statements', we are sooner or later will have a problem - it's that simple. Within this context it is interesting to notice how not only modest living Mr. Smith got into financial trouble, but also large banks and even entire countries. Funny, how studied and extremely knowledgeable people are able to run-down our assets with such 'success'.        

Here's another analogy: imagine you are in a sailboat in the pacific ocean. You prepared for this journey, so you packed food, water etc. Out here in the open waters cut-off from any more supply you very quickly think about the amount of supply you have an start to value what you have.   

So, let me ask you:
What would you change to take less from nature? 

Why Smart Technologies Aren't Enough

 In This Article:

- How raised awareness and understanding of cause-&-effects can lead to smarter decision making and an improved quality of life. 

Within the last few years, there is a growing talk and real technological innovation about improving the quality of life on this planet via novel technologies. And with no doubt this is a great way forward. For instance consider developments in the zero-net house; here your home and castle does actually not need to bring in energy from a  power plant in order to provide you with cozy warmth and a hot dinner. Or consider the killer-combo: a zero-net house, powered by rooftop heat exchangers and/or solar-cells, which at the same time re-charge your electric vehicle, so that you don't have to burn fossil fuels in order to move yourself around. On top of that, you might even make some $$$ alongside, by feeding excessive electricity from your solar-cell system back into the grid. While some forward thinking individuals do live such net-zero dreams, it is about the rest of us and what we can do towards a creating a smarter planet that I want to talk about in this post. 

     

After all - it's about choice, or is it? 

   

I give the punch line away upfront; in order to make a smarter planet, you and me should make more active usage of our brain power towards 'smart' decision making in every day life. The key word here is 'decision making' and thus choice. We humans choose to do something when we are motivated to do so. However, there exist two different kinds of motivations, namely intrinsic and extrinsic ones. Example: When you pay your taxes, you don't really see the impact of your money, nor do you get an sincerer "thank-you" from the IRA. This is a problem for humans, because even though we know we should give that money to the government such that it can provide for save roads, schools and education for us and our kids etc., we don't feel our contribution. This is an example of extrinsic motivation. Now, consider this scenario: you donate some amount of your wealth to support a good cause. You do this because you simply feel good about doing it, hence you are intrinsically motivated.

So, the question is what motivates us humans to do something? Before we go there, let's take a look into what 'motivates' an and animal, say an insect in their life. With its limited brain power the bug basically see's three motivations: sex, food, and doing-all-that-with-the-least-amount-of-energy spend. In order to execute these at times complex tasks its brain is 'pre-wired' or 'pre-programed' to do that, and only that. While being pre-programed is great, since the bug 'knows' the first moment it comes to life, what it should do, being pre-wired is   at the same time a curse, because such pre-wired connections can not be un-wired, nor can new connections be established (or only to a minuscule amount). In this sense humans are entirely different and hence can have different motivations in life, or so it seems. Starting with infants, a human baby is probably the most helpless being on this planet - left alone for just a few days it will certainly die and it will take it more than 365 days to learn how to walk. This is unlike most animals, who can walk and even run the first day they are born. However, such un-pre-wired human has now the opportunity to learn and thus wire our CPU in a unique way, every day again and again.   

Wiring our CPU - the task of life

So how do humans learn and thus wire our processor? It's called cause & effect plus repetition. Example-1: if I step on your toe and it breaks you know what was the cause for it (and you might avoid standing next to me the next time). Example-2: if, however, say your cat or dog (assume mid-sized dog) steps on your food applying about 10 lbs and your toe breaks, you are quite puzzled - unless you had taken into account that your toe actually had osteoporosis. While example-1 highlights a first order effect, example-2 is of second order and hence much more difficult to detect and hence learn from. Here, however lies the crux in human behavior; we often only see (or want to see) first order results that my action could cause and do not consider those of higher orders. Consider this little example. Assume you ride your bike on a narrow road and there is a car behind you. The only thing the car driver has in mind (maybe he is in a rush), is to take over that for him painfully slow bicyclist. Finally the oncoming traffic is cleared and he takes his chance rushing past you only to realize seconds later that in 150 yards the red traffic light is spoiling his eagerness to press on. So, why didn't the driver noticed the already red-shining lights BEFORE rushing forward? Well, he was not being aware of his 2nd-order effect once he had gained his 1st order one overtaking the biker, something we should start doing on an every-day basis.

This example for the rushy car drive overtaking the biker can also be analysed from an energetic/environmental point of view. Rushing past the biker requires the car to be accelerated requiring significant more energy than driving it at a constant speed. Then the fast car had to break for the traffic light and all that kinetic energy is wasted into heating up the break pads. There are two lessons learned here; (a) all that wasted energy could have been saved and (b) that unnecessary acceleration produced extra exhaust fumes inhaled by the biker and others adding to decreasing their health condition, from whose the car driver is unaffected. 

Reducing carbon and externality footprints    

Interestingly, economists created a term for such negative action of producing disadvantages for others and called it "externalities". Let me give you another example to illustrate this: consider two people - Alice living near a power plant and Bob in a desert. Bob is lucky and doesn't have to sweat in his house, because he can turn on his AC. The power required to run his AC comes in form of 'clean' electricity produced by a coal-burning power plant far away where Alice happens to live. Who do you think is more likely to develop cancer, Alice or Bob? Correct, and that's why Alice is experiencing Bob's externality. So, think about where have you created externalities for someone else? Could or can you avoid it next time?

Raising the awareness in our everyday life for our environment and fellow humans by thinking one step further than the immediate first order goal & effect caused by my actions would create a tremendously constructive ecological as well as sociological impact. Such a sociological negative externality (i.e. something positive) could for instance lead to reduced health care costs, non-renewable resources saved etc., all of which are topics of highest priority to U.S.'s policy makers and should be to you and me as well. Furthermore, it could be argued that such improved awareness would have a much greater and immediate impact on us and our environment than the external-motivating emerging smart technologies we are (luckily!) seeing today - hence the title of this post. 

So, what's the first step into that direction? Becoming aware of myself, my actions and my sourroundings. Given that, I can now act and change my behavior (re-wire new connections of my CPU and un-wire 'bad' ones) accordingly such that I minimize my externalities and seed social integrity among humans a better world.