China Is Winning The Clean Energy Race

You read that title correctly. China is winning, and no, I'm not defining winning the say way as Charlie Sheen.

Charlie Sheen... what a douche.

I won't bore you with the details (which you can find over at FastCompany.com), but here is the important part of the story:

China's national action plan is helping the country use more hydro, wind, and solar power. The country has goals of 150 gigawatts of wind capacity by 2020 (it looks like they're going to meet this goal five years early) and 20 gigawatts of solar by 2020. For comparision, the U.S. currently has .6 gigawatts of solar and 33 gigawatts of wind.

It all comes down to national policy, and right now China has made it clear to investors that they want alternative energy as a large part of their infrastructure's future. America on the other hand is only in 3rd place, but is constantly sending mixed signals on how much investment they really want making it difficult for investors to jump on board.

The good news is that the industry in general is trending upwards, I just wish that America would quit playing games with my heart*.

*Sorry, couldn't resist a Backstreet Boys reference.

Transphorm: Google's Investment Shows The Direction Their Bets Are Aimed

Google is making more strides in the realm of alternative energy and energy efficiency with their most recent investment into Transphorm, a company that deals in cutting edge power-converting modules.

There are plenty of bold mission statements floating around there today, but Transphorm's claim that their technology could be compared to "taking the entire West Coast off the grid" strikes me as one of the strongest claims to date.

Here is the nerdy breakdown of what this technology that I assume only 3% of you will understand/care about:

Currently, conversion modules are based on silicon, which struggles to efficiently convert power at high voltages. An estimated ten percent of energy currently generated in the U.S. is lost as electricity is converted back and forth from alternating to direct current. Mishra claims that gallium nitride can do the same conversion without wasting power.

This reduction in power-loss during transmission means that there will be less burden placed on utilities, meaning that there would be a reduction in GHGs across the board. Coupling this with the continued pursuit of more efficient products being introduced to consumers and the increased development of cleaner energy sources, it becomes easier to see big reductions in emissions in the future.

Either way, Google has been doing a good job steering America towards more sustainable solutions with their investment in the Bloom Box, the Wind Power backbone, and now Transphorm.

You can bet that I'll be paying attention to what they do next.

Google Is The Best

Yesterday I drove through Indiana which has fields of wind turbines visible from I-65, which truly is a cool site.  It is hard to understand why people think that these turbines are so ugly, especially after you drive through Gary, Indiana which is infinitely less aesthetically pleasing.

This caused me to think of probably the understatement of the century:  Google is great.

Clearly, on the internet front, Google reigns king.  However, it looks like Google is planning on being a large contributor to our nation's energy system in the future.

Recently, Google has decided to be a major investor in a 350 mile cable on the east coast of the United States which will support up to 6,000 MW of off-shore wind energy.

The price tag of the entire project will be $5 billion and will help power around 1.9 million homes with clean energy.  Google has already invested tens of millions of dollars into this project and will continue to do so as the project is developed.

Google clearly recognizes that there is a lot of money to be made in this arena which informs their large initial investment, so one can hope that other large companies follow in their footsteps.