And when the wind stops blowing the internet goes down, right? Of course not. Like other such schemes, natural gas will be used for backup — "backup" meaning about 75% of the time, more or less. And the gas will come from Siberia, through notoriously leaky pipelines that are losing about 15-25% of that methane into the atmosphere. If you lose more than about 2%, you might as well be burning coal as far as greenhouse gas effects are concerned, because methane is far more damaging in that respect than CO2. Using Russian gas is just contributing to an ongoing environmental fiasco.
If Google really wanted to run on dependable clean energy, it would buy nuclear-generated electricity from Belgium or France or Sweden. Otherwise they're just greenwashing, a PR effort designed to make energy fantasists feel good.
Re: "natural gas backup about 75% of the time" - Where are the figures stating that the wind will be blowing only 25% of the time. This is a coastal wind farm and it is crazy to suggest that this is the case.
Re: "through notoriously leaky pipelines that are losing about 15-25% of that methane into the atmosphere" - Any company that extracts gas has put in a lot of effort to do so, why would they accept a loss of 15-25% revenue? Again, do you have any official figures to back this up - and not figures produced by some Green leaning think Tank.
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And when the wind stops blowing the internet goes down, right? Of course not. Like other such schemes, natural gas will be used for backup — "backup" meaning about 75% of the time, more or less. And the gas will come from Siberia, through notoriously leaky pipelines that are losing about 15-25% of that methane into the atmosphere. If you lose more than about 2%, you might as well be burning coal as far as greenhouse gas effects are concerned, because methane is far more damaging in that respect than CO2. Using Russian gas is just contributing to an ongoing environmental fiasco.
ReplyDeleteIf Google really wanted to run on dependable clean energy, it would buy nuclear-generated electricity from Belgium or France or Sweden. Otherwise they're just greenwashing, a PR effort designed to make energy fantasists feel good.
Re: "natural gas backup about 75% of the time" - Where are the figures stating that the wind will be blowing only 25% of the time. This is a coastal wind farm and it is crazy to suggest that this is the case.
ReplyDeleteRe: "through notoriously leaky pipelines that are losing about 15-25% of that methane into the atmosphere" - Any company that extracts gas has put in a lot of effort to do so, why would they accept a loss of 15-25% revenue? Again, do you have any official figures to back this up - and not figures produced by some Green leaning think Tank.
great post, thank you
ReplyDelete