Clean Energy 2030

Google's Proposal for reducing U.S. dependence on fossil fuels

Google's goal in presenting the Clean Energy 2030 proposal is to stimulate debate and we invite you to take a look and comment - or offer an alternative approach if you disagree.

Summary

Right now we have a real opportunity to transform our economy from one running on fossil fuels to one largely based on clean energy. Technologies and know-how to accomplish this are either available today or are under development. We can build whole new industries and create millions of new jobs. We can cut energy costs, both at the gas pump and at home. We can improve our national security. And we can put a big dent in climate change. With strong leadership we could be moving forward on an aggressive but realistic time-line and an approach that offsets costs with real economic gains.

The energy team at Google has been analyzing how we could greatly reduce fossil fuel use by 2030. Our proposal - "Clean Energy 2030" - provides a potential path to weaning the U.S. off of coal and oil for electricity generation by 2030 (with some remaining use of natural gas as well as nuclear), and cutting oil use for cars by 44%.

President-elect Obama announced his New Energy for America plan this past summer that is similar to ours in several ways, including a strong emphasis on efficiency, renewable electricity and plug-in vehicles. Similarly, the Natural Resources Defense Council, McKinsey and Company, and the Electric Power Research Institute have issued proposals that share all of these same elements. Al Gore has issued a challenge that is even more ambitious - getting us to carbon-free electricity by 2020 - and we hope the American public pushes our leaders to embrace it. T. Boone Pickens has weighed in with an interesting plan of his own to massively deploy wind energy, among other things. Other plans have also been developed in recent years that merit attention.

Google's proposal will benefit the US by increasing energy security, protecting the environment, creating new jobs, and helping to create the conditions for long-term prosperity. Some of the necessary funds will be public, but much of it will come from the private sector -- a typical approach for infrastructure and high technology investments.

Our goal in presenting this first iteration of the Clean Energy 2030 proposal is to stimulate debate and we invite you to take a look and comment - or offer an alternative approach if you disagree. With a new Administration and Congress - and multiple energy-related imperatives - this is an opportune, perhaps unprecedented, moment to move from plan to action.

This revised proposal was released on November 20, 2008. Check out Google CEO Eric Schmidt's energy speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 1, and his energy speech at the Natural Resources Defense Council headquarters in New York on November 20.

Summary: What's New in Version 2.0


Since Clean Energy 2030 was first published on October 1, 2008, we have made several changes based on comments from readers and internal feedback, most notably:
  • an analysis of job creation in the electricity sector
  • an improved vehicle model which results in higher average fleet fuel efficiency (and significantly increased savings)
  • a decrease in the price of gasoline from $4 to $3 per gallon (doubling by 2030), in light of recent economic changes
Also included:
  • a comment on why nuclear power was not expanded beyond the level in the baseline, and why coal with carbon capture and sequestration technology was not included
  • an analysis of the precedent for rapid capacity build-outs in the natural gas and nuclear industries
  • estimates of the required land area for wind and concentrating solar installations, and roof area for solar photovoltaics
  • an analysis of the age of US coal and natural gas plants when retired under our proposal
  • a more thorough analysis of the impact of accelerating the retirement of older vehicles
  • a summary of the major activities Google is pursuing in the clean energy arena

Overall, we find a slight increase in vehicle fuel and economy-wide CO2 savings, and despite the decrease in fuel prices, a net economic savings almost as large as previously calculated, $820 billion over 22 years.

Summary: Reductions in Energy Use and Emissions

Our proposal will allow us to reduce from the Energy Information Administration's (EIA) current baseline for energy use:

  • Fossil fuel-based electricity generation by 88%
  • Vehicle oil consumption by 44%
  • Dependence on imported oil (currently 10 million barrels per day) by 37%
  • Electricity-sector CO2 emissions by 95%
  • Personal vehicle sector CO2 emissions by 44%
  • US CO2 emissions overall by 49% (41% from today's CO2 emission level)

We can achieve these results in 2030 by:

  • Deploying aggressive end-use electrical energy efficiency measures to reduce demand 33%.
    • Baseline EIA demand is projected to increase 25% by 2030.  In addition, the increase in plug-in vehicles (see below) increases electricity demand another 8%. Thus, our efficiency reductions keep demand flat at the 2008 level.
  • Replacing all coal and oil electricity generation, and about half of that from natural gas, with renewable electricity:
    • 380 gigawatts (GW) wind: 300 GW onshore + 80 GW offshore
    • 250 GW solar: 170 GW photovoltaic (PV) + 80 GW concentrating solar power (CSP)        
    • 80 GW geothermal: 15 GW conventional + 65 GW enhanced geothermal systems (EGS)
  • Increasing plug-in vehicles (hybrids & pure electrics) to 90% of new car sales in 2030, reaching 41% of the total US fleet that year
  • Increasing new conventional vehicle fuel efficiency from 31 to 45 mpg in 2030
Optionally,
  • Accelerating the turnover of the vehicle fleet, resulting in maximum new vehicle sales of 21.5 million per year in 2020, a 30% increase over the baseline, and boosting fleet average fuel efficiency by 7.5 mpg.


Summary: Financial Bottom Line

The financial bottom line: Although the cost of the Clean Energy 2030 proposal is significant (about $3.86 trillion in undiscounted 2008 dollars), savings are even greater ($4.68 trillion), returning a net savings of $820 billion over the 22-year life of the plan.


Summary: Actions Required

A number of actions will be required to realize the Clean Energy 2030 proposal.
  • Renewable electricity
    • A long-term national commitment to renewable electricity (e.g. national renewable portfolio standard, carbon price, long-term tax credits and incentives, etc.)
    • Adequate transmission capacity (to support about 450 GW targeting mostly Great Plains and coasts for wind, and desert southwest for concentrating solar power)
    • Adequate grid resources to manage large-scale intermittent generation
    • Public and private renewable energy R&D and investment to achieve cost parity with fossil generation in next several years
  • Energy efficiency
    • Long-term commitment to energy efficiency by the federal government and states (e.g, national efficiency standard, aggressive appliance standards and building codes, "decoupling" of utility profits from sales, incentives for energy efficiency investments)
    • Deployment of a "smart" electricity grid that empowers consumers and businesses to manage their electricity use more effectively 
  • Personal vehicles
    • Public policies supporting the deployment of fuel-efficient vehicles, e.g. higher fuel efficiency standards for conventional vehicles, financial incentives to encourage efficient (especially plug-in) vehicle purchases, special electricity rates for "smart charging", and greater R&D
    • Investment in infrastructure necessary to support massive deployment of plug-ins including charging stations and development of new power management hardware and software
All of the above will require a sufficient and well-trained work force and manufacturing capacity to meet projected growth.

Electricity Sector

Currently the US produces half of its electricity from coal, 20% each from natural gas and nuclear energy, with the remainder provided by hydro and other renewables. Very little oil is used to make electricity—only about 1.5%. Electricity generation produces about 2,400 million metric tons of CO2 per year (MMtCO2/yr), about 40% of total US emissions.

In Clean Energy 2030 we transform this sector by: 1) Keeping electricity demand FLAT at the 2008 level, rather than allowing it to grow 25% by 2030, and 2) Eliminating all coal and oil in electricity generation (and about half of natural gas) by 2030 and replacing that generation with renewable energy--primarily wind, solar and geothermal.

For energy efficiency, there is ample proof in several states and from research studies [1] that growth in electricity demand can be kept flat or even made to decline (nationally demand is otherwise projected to grow by about 1% per year). This can be done using a combination of strategies, including energy efficiency targets, appliance standards, building codes, R&D investment, financial incentives, "decoupling" of utility profits from sales, and voluntary programs (a list of simple things individuals can do was recently highlighted on Google's home page). Providing detailed information about one's energy use can also help consumers lower energy consumption, and Google PowerMeter is one proposed tool that aims to do just that.

Keeping demand flat would reduce fossil fuel-based generation by 30% in 2030, assuming no reduction in other generation. The question is how we would meet remaining electricity needs without fossil fuels. The “business-as-usual” scenario developed by the EIA has very modest growth projections for renewables: about the same hydropower capacity as today (7%), and an expansion from 2% to 7% for other renewables (mostly biomass). Under the EIA view most of our remaining electricity requirements would still be met by fossil fuels.

We propose something radically different. Onshore and offshore wind could grow from about 20 GW today to 380 GW, generating 29% of 2030 demand. Solar, both photovoltaic (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP), could grow from about 1 GW today to 250 GW, generating 12% of demand. Geothermal, both conventional and enhanced geothermal systems (EGS; see below), could grow from 2.4 GW today to 80 GW, generating 15% of demand. Together with modest projected expansion of other non-fossil energy sources, including nuclear (115 GW), hydro (78 GW), and biomass and municipal waste (23 GW), about 90% of demand could be met.[2]

Such rapid build-ups of electric generating capacity are not without precedent in the US. Between 1998 and 2006, over 200 GW of natural gas capacity were added to the US grid, representing a 115% increase. At its peak in 2002, 60 GW of natural gas generating capacity was brought online in one year, a 24% annual increase. A similar story exists for nuclear energy, where 100 GW were built in the 1970s and 1980s from essentially zero capacity, with peak growth of almost 10 GW/yr and year-on-year growth after 1969 in excess of 60%.
The remaining demand would be supplied by natural gas (290 GW),[3] which is likely necessary for shoring up imbalances between generation and demand, particularly with large amounts of intermittent renewables on the grid. Some capacity would also be provided by hydro resources, while distributed demand management (scheduling of large devices such as washing machines, dryers and plug-in vehicles, and making loads such as air conditioning interruptible) and energy storage (both distributed and centralized) would help make optimal economic use of intermittent generation.

Figure 1.

(Note that numbers in parentheses above denote maximum generation capacities in 2030. Average capacities, proportional to the annual amount of electricity generated in TWh/yr as shown in the figure, are smaller and vary with resource type. See footnote [2] for more information).

The projected increase in nuclear generation (about a 15% increase over today's capacity) is unchanged from the EIA's projection, which assumes about 20 GW of new capacity offset by 5 GW of retirements in 2030. We did not pursue a more aggressive expansion of nuclear because of our concerns over cost, waste disposal and proliferation risk. Going forward, however, we are keen to explore all types of cutting-edge renewable sources of electricity including, perhaps, clean nuclear technology.

Another technology that is conspicuously absent from our proposal is coal with CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS). This technology has the potential to allow coal to be burned with minimal greenhouse gas emissions (about 10% of conventional coal plants), but the technical and legal challenges of storing billions of tons of CO2 underground have yet to be solved. If these issues can be overcome at reasonable cost, CCS would be a welcomed additional low-carbon energy solution.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) just completed a study looking at deploying 300 GW of wind by 2030, and concluded that the wind resource was ample for the task, and the impact on manufacturing was measurable but not overwhelming. An earlier study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory explored more rapid scale-ups of wind capacity, and found that up to about 600 GW by 2030 was feasible. Our target, 380 GW in 2030, is therefore not at all unrealistic. This level of wind energy deployment would occupy about 170 x 170 square miles, or 10% of the land area of Texas, but less than 2% of that area (24 x 24 square miles, less than a quarter of the land area of Delaware) would be occupied by towers, roads and other equipment; the rest of the land would still be available for farming, ranching, etc.

Solar photovoltaics (PV) have been growing very strongly in recent years, topping 50% per year, but this technology still has a very small market share because of its cost. Concentrating solar power (CSP) may break through this cost barrier faster, and could deliver massive amounts of power. Studies by Navigant Consulting and Clean Edge indicate that capacities at least as high as envisioned in our proposal are possible. Our proposal would require a 20 x 20 square mile area to be installed with CSP technology, 34 million home roofs (25% of total) to be installed with solar PV, and a similar PV capacity installed on commercial building rooftops.[4]

Geothermal energy is perhaps the sleeping giant. Conventional hydrothermal resources have been quietly growing in recent years, with 4 GW in the pipeline and likely 15 GW developed by 2030. Last month we announced a significant initiative in enhanced geothermal energy systems (EGS). This technology, which has the potential to provide significant baseload power on a broad-scale basis, promises extremely rapid growth if key technologies can be proven in the next few years.

For wind and solar, where the lion's share of resources are located in the Great Plains and desert southwest - far from population centers - the biggest challenge is providing adequate transmission capacity to get the power to market. Extrapolating from the DOE study, about 20,000 miles of new transmission capacity would be required to support 300 GW of onshore wind and 80 GW of concentrating solar power generation in the Clean Energy 2030 proposal. About 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission now exist in the US. By contrast, offshore wind is located close to cities on both coasts, solar PV is typically highly distributed near where electricity is consumed, and there are significant potential EGS resources from border to border and coast to coast.

In summary, if we achieve the above electricity targets in the Clean Energy 2030 proposal, it would eliminate 88% of fossil fuel use and reduce CO2 emissions by 95% relative to the 2030 baseline, or about 2,800 MMtCO2/yr.


Table 1. Electricity sector summary.


2007
2010
2020
2030
Wind-total
(offshore)
16 GW
(0 GW)
41 GW
(0.5 GW)
176 GW
(18 GW)
380 GW
(80 GW)
Solar-total
(CSP)
1.0 GW
(0.5 GW)
3.1 GW
(1.3 GW)
69 GW
(20 GW)
250 GW
(80 GW)
Geothermal-total (EGS)
2.9 GW
(0.0 GW)
7.2 GW
(0.1 GW)
32 GW
(20 GW)
80 GW
(65 GW)
Reduced demand from efficiency
(per capita demand)
0.0%

(13.7 MWh)
3.0%

(13.4 MWh)
18%

(11.8 MWh)
33%

(11.4 MWh)
Increased demand from plug-in vehicles
0.0%
0.0%
0.7%
8.0%
Fraction of CO2 saved
0.0%
8.0%
52%
95%


One might ask whether retiring all coal generation and one-half of natural gas generation (roughly one-third of standing capacity) would have an adverse financial impact, due to the premature retirement of undepreciated capital. The reality is that the the US fossil plant fleet is already fairly old, with half of coal capacity and a quarter of natural gas capacity built before 1973. Assuming the oldest plants are retired first, we calculate that a roughly linear progression of retired capacity would result in retiring 95% of coal and 100% of natural gas plants when they are at least 40 years old (see figure below). Forty years (or smaller) is the typical loan period for financing of fossil electric generation capital, so virtually all plants would be fully depreciated when they retire.

Figure 2.


Personal Vehicle Sector

According to the Energy Information Administration, transportation-related energy use accounts for 70% of the 21 million barrels per day (mbd) of liquid fuels consumed in the US. By 2030, the sector will consume 17 mbd and emit 2,200 million metric tons of CO2 per year (MMtCO2/yr), about 1/3 of projected total US energy-related CO2 emissions.

Personal vehicles (also known as “light-duty” vehicles, e.g. cars, sport-utility vehicles, and light trucks), account for approximately 60% of transportation sector fuel consumption and CO2 emissions; the remainder comes primarily from freight trucks and airplanes, with appreciable contributions from other sources (buses, trains, ships, etc.). The Clean Energy 2030 proposal focuses on the personal vehicle subtotal, because we think this can be transformed by plug-in electric vehicles and higher efficiency conventional vehicles.

Although the average fuel efficiency of new conventional vehicles, currently 22 mpg, is projected to increase to 31 mpg by 2030,[5] plug-in vehicles can already achieve significantly higher fuel efficiency because they drive on electricity for a significant fraction of their yearly miles (see, for instance, Google's recently-published RechargeIt driving experiment). A plug-in hybrid with a 40-mile electric range drives on electricity for about half of its yearly miles, so it consumes half the gasoline of its conventional cousin. And switching to an all-electric vehicle of course consumes no gasoline.

The Clean Energy 2030 plan rapidly ramps up sales of plug-in vehicles, starting with 100,000 in 2010 (annual US vehicle sales in 2007 were roughly 15 million), and increasing to 3.2 million annual vehicle sales in 2020 and 16.5 million in 2030. Seventy percent of these vehicles would be plug-in hybrids, with the remainder being all-electric vehicles.

In addition to rapidly deploying plug-in vehicles, the Clean Energy 2030 proposal assumes that conventional (e.g. non-plug-in) vehicle efficiency can increase as well. We have consulted with industry experts and determined that it is possible to push average conventional vehicle efficiency to 40-50 mpg in 2030, and assume 45 mpg in our proposal. In Europe, this average fuel efficiency target is mandated by 2012.

Figure 3.

Figure 4.


Figure 5.

Finally, the average vehicle age in the US is about 8 years (and vehicles remain on the road for more than 20 years), meaning that many older, inefficient vehicles continue to consume large amounts of fuel with increasing maintenance cost. Our new model more accurately represents the turnover of vehicles by using a realistic survival function based on vehicle age (see figure below); the original model assumed a simple exponential decay irrespective of age. Also, the new model reduces the number of annual miles driven according to vehicle age. The result of these changes is a higher average fuel efficiency in 2030 (51 mpg) than in our original model (45 mpg), resulting in greater fuel savings, and an accurate depiction of the distribution of vehicle ages in the US fleet.

Figure 6.

                                                                                Vehicle age

Accelerating the turnover of old vehicles would boost fuel efficiency even more, and increase the adoption of plug-in vehicles. There are a number of mechanisms that might be considered to accomplish this, such as "feebates," consumer and manufacturer incentives for efficient vehicles, and cash incentives (or vouchers) for retiring old vehicles. The "accelerated turnover" sales curve in Figure 3 assumes a gradual ramp-up in turnover through 2025, following the blue curve in Figure 6 above, followed by a decline back toward the 2008 level. The net effect of such a program by 2030 would be to reduce the future average vehicle age temporarily from 9 to 7 years, resulting in an additional 6% plug-in penetration, 7% fuel saved, and 7.5 mpg fleet average efficiency.

Taken together, these strategies (more plug-in vehicles and higher efficiency conventional vehicles) would reduce oil consumption (and CO2 emissions) by 44% relative to the baseline, or 63 billion gallons per year. With accelerated vehicle turnover included, savings would increase to 51% or 73 billion gallons per year.

Table 2. Personal vehicle sector summary.

2007
2010
2020
2030
Conventional new vehicle efficiency
21.6 mpg
23.0 mpg
34.0 mpg
45.0 mpg
Overall fleet efficiency
20.2 mpg
20.7 mpg
27.0 mpg
51.3 mpg
Plug-in fraction of fleet (annual sales)
 0.0%
(0.0%)
 0.0%
(0.7%)		 4.4%
(20%)		 41%
(90%)
Fraction of fuel or CO2
0.0%
0.3%
10.8%
44%

Economics

We made the following economic assumptions in calculating the cost of the Clean Energy 2030 proposal:

Efficiency:
  • Efficiency capital cost of 25 cents per kWh annual savings (one-time cost)
  • Savings from efficiency of 10 cents per kWh (average electricity price)
Renewable energy:
  • Renewable electricity capital costs:
    • Onshore wind: $2 per watt (W) falling to $1.5/W in 2030
    • Offshore wind: $3/W falling to $2/W in 2030
    • Solar PV: $6/W falling to $2/W in 2030
    • Solar CSP: $3.5/W falling to $2/W in 2030
    • Conventional geothermal: $3.5/W flat through 2030
    • Enhanced geothermal systems: $5/W falling to $3.5/W in 2030      
  • Intermittency cost of $20/MWh (applied to wind and solar)
  • Avoided fossil capital costs (for plants planned in baseline but not built in our proposal because of efficiency and renewables):
    • Coal: $2/W constant
    • Natural gas and oil: $1/W constant
  • Carrying charge for financing capital cost: 12%/yr for 20 years
  • Saved fossil fuel cost (that is not already counted as efficiency savings):
    • Coal: $2/MBtu constant
    • Natural gas and oil: $10/MBtu constant
  • No write-down cost for retiring coal plants (all plants assumed to be older than 40 years when retired), no decommissioning cost or salvage value for plants
  • Transmission infrastructure cost: $0.30/W for wind (including offshore) and solar CSP
Vehicles:
  • Plug-in vehicle premiums: $5000 per plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV), $10,000 per pure-electric vehicle (EV), plus $1000 per vehicle for charging infrastructure
  • Higher-efficiency conventional vehicle premium $3000 for 45 mpg (pro-rated for lower mpg, down to zero cost for 22 mpg today)
  • Fuel cost: $3/gallon gasoline today, doubling to $6/gallon by 2030
  • Plug-in electricity cost: 7 cents per kWh (discounted due to flexible smart-charging price)
  • Additional vehicle purchase cost (accelerated vehicle turnover scenario, not part of base case): $20,000 per vehicle (base cost; premiums for higher mpg vehicles covered separately above)
Carbon (not counted in net savings):
  • Carbon credit for CO2 not emitted (relative to baseline): $20/ton CO2, doubling to $40/ton in 2030 (applied to both electricity and vehicles)

Some minor changes were made to the electricity sector model, including subtracting the cost of providing electricity for plug-in vehicles, since this is already counted in the vehicle sector. The other major change to the economic model was reducing the gasoline cost from $4 to $3 per gallon (doubling by 2030), and removing accelerated vehicle turnover from the base case.

Table 3. Economic summary (billions of 2008 US dollars).

Costs Undiscounted total Net present value*
Electrical efficiency investment $346 $174
Renewable capacity investment $1,694 $603
Transmission capacity investment $131 $56
Intermittency cost $328 $120
Coal plant write-down, decommissioning and salvage $0 $0
Plug-in vehicle premium $980 $306
Plug-in electricity cost $120 $35
Higher efficiency conventional vehicle premium $261 $122
Additional vehicle purchase cost $0 $0
Subtotal $3,859 $1,417
Savings

Electrical efficiency savings $1,593 $618
Avoided fossil fuel generation capacity savings $269 $97
Avoided fossil fuel savings $438 $162
Plug-in fuel savings $1,300 $371
Conventional fuel savings $1,079 $379
Subtotal $4,679 $1,627
Net savings $820 $211



Carbon credits $1,117 $387
Net savings with carbon credits $1,937 $598
* Discount rate of 7%/year used for net present value calculations.

We see in the below two figures that the cost of making electrical efficiency improvements and renewable capacity is approximately offset each year by accumulated energy savings. In the vehicles sector, savings accrue very quickly, with net positive cash flow beginning in 2014 and annual savings of over $50 billion beginning in 2025.

Figure 7.

Figure 8.

Bottom line: undiscounted savings exceed costs by $820 billion over the 22 years of the scenario, or if carbon credits are included, $1,937 billion.

Economic variants:
  • In our first release of Clean Energy 2030, we assumed gasoline cost $4/gallon and would double to $8/gallon by 2030. We noted at the time that making gasoline less expensive reduces the net savings by a significant amount. Recent economic conditions have now plunged gasoline prices below $3/gallon, so we have changed our baseline assumption to reflect this reality (we now assume prices will double to $6/gallon by 2030). However, because our improved model removes older, inefficient vehicles more quickly, the fleet average efficiency is now significantly higher. Therefore, making gasoline cheaper still results in a net savings of $820 billion. Increasing gasoline prices to $4/gallon again (doubling to $8/gallon in 2030) would increase savings to $1,613 billion.
  • Accelerated vehicle turnover: including a program (discussed above in the vehicles section) to accelerate the removal of old, inefficient vehicles and replace them with higher-efficiency new conventional and plug-in vehicles would cost an additional $1,302 billion in extra vehicle purchases and save $666 billion in lower fuel costs. Including the additional carbon benefit (1,280 million metric tons CO2) saves an additional $42 billion. In the short term, such a program may be valuable to a US economy struggling to increase domestic spending.[6]

Jobs

Transforming our energy economy as laid out in this proposal will create large numbers of new jobs.  By our estimates, Clean Energy 2030 will create 9 million net new jobs in the electrical efficiency and renewable energy sectors alone (the vehicles sector was not considered because of insufficient data--please help us obtain it!).

Figure 9.

Table 4. Job estimates.

Cumulative new jobs (2009-2030)
 Average new jobs per year (2009-2030)
 Construction jobs per TWh
 Operations jobs per TWh
 Job scaling factor in 2030*
 Reference
Efficiency
 5,750,000 261,000 4150
 0
 100%
 ACEEE



Construction jobs per GW
 		Operations jobs per GW

Wind
 6,740,000 (onshore)
1,590,000 (offshore)
 306,000 (onshore)
72,300 (offshore)
 21,200
 739
 75% (onshore)
67% (offshore)
 US DOE
Solar PV
 5,480,000
 249,000
 66,140
 0
 34%
 Navigant Consulting
Solar CSP
 2,870,000
 130,000
 40,720
 1742
 57%
 NREL
Geothermal
 790,000
 36,000
 6400
 740
 100% (conventional)
70% (EGS)
 Geothermal Energy Association
Subtotal
 23,210,000
 1,055,000



Coal
 -9,020,000
 -410,000
 20,464
 1681
 100%
 NREL
Natural gas
 -5,440,000
 -247,000
 5826
 2278
 100%
 NREL
Net total
 8,750,000
 398,000



*Scaling factor indicates modeled decline in jobs per GW due to projected productivity improvements (proportional to decline in unit capital cost).
Note that the estimates include direct jobs (construction and operations of the power plants) as well as "indirect" jobs in associated industries (e.g., accountants, lawyers, steel workers, and electrical manufacturing) and "induced" jobs through economic expansion based on local spending. (However, for geothermal energy, only direct job estimates were available, so the contribution from this sector is disproportionately lower). The estimates are conservative in that they assume a declining job rate in future years due to productivity improvements which might not be realized (the scaling factor mentioned above). Also, some of the estimates are based on state-level scale-ups, which do not include additional jobs that might be created at the national level.

Carbon Dioxide Savings

The Clean Energy 2030 proposal only focuses on two sectors--electricity and personal vehicles--yet together, aggressive changes in these sectors can reduce overall US CO2 emissions by 49% in 2030 relative to the EIA baseline. Compared to today's emission level of 6,000 MMtCO2/yr (about 20% of global energy-related CO2 emissions; see Marland), the proposal would reduce CO2 emissions by 41%, about halfway to the 80% reduction target by 2050 called for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Figure 10.

More reductions would be possible if other sectors were pursued similarly aggressively. We have chosen to focus on the electricity and personal vehicle sectors because these are areas where we currently are working. There are additional areas for fossil fuel and CO2 savings that are important to recognize, and may be added to our proposal in the future:

  • Transport:
    • Reduced vehicle usage (mass transit, carpooling, telecommuting, per-mile vehicle fees, smart growth, etc.)
    • Low-carbon biofuels for transportation
    • Improved efficiency in freight trucks and airplanes
  • Buildings and industry:
    • Improved efficiency of heating fuel use
    • Use of low-carbon biofuels or hydrogen as a heating fuel
    • Substitution of solar energy for fossil fuel combustion in heating water
    • Shift away from fuels and toward electricity (including use of combined heat and power systems)
    • Management of non-CO2 greenhouse gases including methane and halocarbon gases        
  • Agriculture and forestry:
    • Forest and grassland management
    • Methane management from animals and landfills

Google's Role


Google is committed to implementing innovative and responsible environmental practices in every aspect of our business. To date, we've taken concrete steps to bolster the efficiency of our data centers and reduce the carbon footprint of our building and office operations. And we're always looking for ways to create innovative products that help our users "go green." Our philanthropic arm, Google.org, has made $50 million in renewable energy grants and investments to develop breakthrough technologies such as solar thermal, enhanced geothermal, and advanced wind. In 2007 we launched our Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C) initiative, flipped the switch on one of the largest corporate solar panel installations in the United States, and began our plug-in vehicle initiative, RechargeIT. This year we hired our first dedicated renewable energy engineers, announced a partnership with GE to advance renewable energy and build smart grid infrastructure, and continued to support public policies to combat climate change. It's going to take the efforts of many to bring about a clean energy future, and we hope others will continue the hard work they're already doing.


Acknowledgments

Authored by Jeffery Greenblatt, Ph.D., Climate and Energy Technology Manager, Google.org


We are indebted to many contributors from both inside and outside Google. These people include: Adhi Kesarla, Alec Brooks, Alec Proudfoot, Bill Weihl, Charles Baron, Chris Busselle, David Bercovich, Dan Reicher, Greg Miller, Hal Varian, Jacquelline Fuller, Jay Boren, John Fitch, Kevin Chen, Luis Arbulu, Megan Smith, Michael Terrell, Micheal Lopez, Rick Needham, Rolf Schreiber, Ross Koningstein, and Wilson Tsai. Outside experts include Mark Mehos, Maureen Hand and Nate Blair of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, John "Skip" Laitner and Steve Nadel of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Marshall Goldberg of MRG and Associates, and Luke Tonachel, Nathanael Greene, Rick Duke and Roland Hwang of the Natural Resources Defense Council.


Sources and Further Reading


Renewable Energy and Efficiency:
Vehicles:
Carbon and General:
  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage. Prepared by Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Metz, B., O. Davidson, H. C. de Coninck, M. Loos, and L. A. Meyer (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 442 pp., 2005: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/srccs.htm.

How to Contact Us


We encourage you to post your comments publicly, but you may also e-mail the author directly at cleanenergy2030@google.com.

References

  1. See also a study by McKinsey & Company:
    http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/ccsi/pdf/US_ghg_final_report.pdf
  2. Electricity generation technologies do not all generate the same amount of electricity over a year. The ratio of average output to maximum output is known as the "capacity factor," and is around 20% for solar photovoltaics, 30% for concentrating solar, 35-40% for wind, 50% for hydroelectric, and 90% for geothermal, biomass, nuclear and coal. Natural gas, which is mostly used for "ramping" purposes (increasing or decreasing output quickly according to changing demand) can run up to 90% but is typically operated around 20%. Thus, 100 GW of geothermal (with 90% capacity factor) produces the same amount of electricity in a year as 300 GW of solar (with 30% capacity factor).
  3. Attentive readers will note this capacity was 250 GW in the previous version of the proposal. We chose this higher amount to ensure that all plants would be at least 40 years old when retired; the same amount of generation is actually implied in the model, by reducing the number of hours per year these plants run from 20% to 17%.
  4. Solar PV and CSP installations based on a California solar study by
    Simons and McCabe.
  5. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fuel efficiency estimates tend to be inflated by about 20%. This is because such estimates are done under ideal, rather than real-world, conditions. Therefore, although the current CAFE standard mandates that fleet average new vehicles must achieve 35 mpg in 2020 and beyond, the actual fuel efficiency is projected by EIA is lower.
  6. See article by Blinder:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/business/27view.html

Comments


Anonymous

Ensuring that you don't use energy in saving energy

I like the plan, it looks great and I'm very happy google's doing this. However, I was wondering whether you had considered the energy input to each of these technologies. Because they're expanding rapidly, I think you might be approaching the "cannibalisation effect" where the amount of energy used to produce new energy technologies (and efficiency measures) is actually equal to the amount of energy you're producing. You might want to take a look.

Aside from that, great job guys!

Here's the paper outlining the cannibalisation effect:
http://me.queensu.ca/people/pearce/publications/documents/asp3.pdf

And an example done for nuclear energy:
http://inderscience.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,6,6;journal,2,6;linkingpublicationresults,1:119992,1

Last edited Jun 12, 2009 12:19 PM
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Anonymous

Great Plan - A minor suggestion for improvement

First off, congratulations on proposing a brilliant and comprehensive plan to move to renewable energy sources and phase out most of fossil fuels by 2030.

Concentrating thermal solar power with thermal storage may be under represented in the plan. CSP power towers have high conversion efficiency (around 22%), can be cost reduced to a target approaching 6 cents/KWhr (per NREL) and are amenable to low cost thermal storage so that power generation can approach base load capability (power around the clock).

Wind power, while great will be difficult to push beyond about 20% of generating capacity due to its intermittency.

Your plan is correct not to rely on "clean coal" which is a big myth and delaying tactic of the coal industry.

Dan Syroid
Engineer and Solar Advocate
Park City, Utah

Last edited Jun 12, 2009 7:25 AM
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Wayne

Wind with a Purpose

In order to speed the adaptation to renewable resources one suggestion would be to bring to market a packaged wind turbine and anhydrous ammonia production plant. The U.S produces about 9,000 Million Metric tons and consumes almost twice that amount. About 80 percent is used as fertilizer so the farming community is already familiar with storing and handling anhydrous ammonia. Since the only inputs required for anhydrous ammonia production are air, water and energy the only ingredient missing to produce it almost anywhere is energy. Anhydrous ammonia can be handled as easily as propane and can be used as a fuel in both conventional gasoline and deisel engines (mixed with about 5% deisel for ignition). The beauty of this plan is that it negates the long wait for the grid infrastructure to be built. It would be produced and consumed locally. It would actually increase agricultural production instead of competing with it as does ethanol by providing a cheap and ready supply of fertilizer. The farmer could make best use of the resources by selling electricity to the utilities at peak demand (if access to the grid were available) or producing his own fuel and fertilizer when electric rates were low. Existing pipeline, rail, barge and truck transportation systems could be expanded gradually for the increased production. I forsee the initial fuel use limited to farmers and fleet operators because the energy density is about half deisel or gasoline. The additional refueling requirements would not significantly impact farmers or fleet operators. See http://energy.cfans.umn.edu/windenergy.html , http://www.agmrc.org/renewable_energy/renewable_energy/ammonia_as_a_transportation_fuel.cfm and http://www.energy.iastate.edu/Renewable/ammonia/ammonia/2006/ChemicalMarketingServices.pdf for additional reference. I am ready to install a unit on my farm in Oklahoma today with the production of a unit by a reputable manufacturer and with financing available. This could be done by GE or John Deere Wind or any reputable company in the energy field. I know natural gas prices are low today but ammonia prices were approaching $1000 per ton last year with natural gas prices approaching $15 per MCF.

Jun 11, 2009 10:23 AM
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Anonymous

talk is cheap

Until GOOGLE takes the lead and SPENDS the money to put wind and solar on their own facilities this is all just talk. Instead of locating new data centers where you can squeeze the best deal from the locals, and where electricity is cheap, why not put them in areas that have the best potential for this new "clean energy"?

Last edited Jun 4, 2009 8:57 PM
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David

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor

Looking at the alternatives conservation will be very important - but although savings can be made on North American levels of consumption, the vast majority of the world needs greatly increased access to power, not a reduction.
The obstacles to providing this by solar are non-trivial, and at minimum involve vast power grids being built and depend on breakthroughs in generation and importantly storage.
Certainly for Europe the power would have to be generated in North Africa, which is not necessarily reliable, and even there sunshine is much lower just when it is needed in the winter so you either have to vastly overbuild or convert to hydrogen or similar which entails massive losses.
Wind power also needs a huge grid, and a debatable degree of back-up.
The issue with all of these power sources is that they are low energy, and widely dispersed. Very large amounts of materials, including rare earths, would be needed to build them, and they are often most available where they are least needed.
I don't mean to totally dismiss these power sources, as they and things like geothermal can help a lot, for instance in hot climes solar on the roof producing power right where it is needed, especially for the poor, or for the rich in air conditioning in Arizona.
It is just a tough call to see them running the whole of an industrial society, and even tougher to see them helping the world's poor to a reasonable standard of living.
Fusion sounds like an ideal counterbalancing power source, as it is very dense and you can make it where it is needed.
The problem is that we are still a long way from being able to do it, and it is much more than a simple engineering issue to get there,
If you look at most of the proposed ways of doing so, they are truly vast structures, and hardly hold out the hope of cheap power, even if we learn to do it.
The authors here point out the disadvantages of nuclear power as it is presently generated, pointing to the cost, waste issues and proliferation concerns.
Most of the cost of nuclear plants arises from regulatory issues, their custom build, and the fact that these huge installations have almost all their cost up-front, and it may take many years to build.
Liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTR) can be built in all sizes from small to very large, and 100MW units can fit on the back of a lorry, so that they can be factory built and road delivered.
You can link several for generation of larger amounts of power - they can be modular.
Proliferation: the US had a demo molten salt reactor in the 60's. One of the main reasons it was killed was because it was not good enough at proliferation! It did not produce enough waste for the weapons program. Whilst we are talking about waste, not only would LFTRs produce far less and far less dangerous waste, but would be able to burn up present wastes, disposing of them without the need for Yucca mountain, so that is a multi billion gain to start with.
A 1 GWe reactor would need around 1 tonne of fuel per year, compared to 250 tonnes for a conventional reactor, and the tiny amount of waste produced decays far quicker.
They burn fuel at nearly 100% efficiency, compared to the 0.7% of conventional reactors.
That means a near infinite resource for practical purposes, and energy security.
The biggest difference between this technology and fusion is that it is a right now technology.
Of course there are engineering issues, but they are in no way on the same level as those needed for fusion, or even for the systems integration of a largely renewable economy.
The main one is dealing with corrosive salts at high temperature, in some design variants as high as 800C.
This was identified in the 60's, and even using the technology of the era was considered very doable.
There are a number of materials, including alloys and fibres, which should cope.
If that is more difficult than expected, there are also design variants of the basic concept which would operate at lower temperatures, or even variants which use solid thorium instead of liquid and so avoid the issue altogether.
So why aren't we doing it?
When it was being demoed it did not appeal for the production of weapons, as it is poor for this.
It did not appeal to much of the current nuclear industry, as they had a vested interest in LWR designs and made a lot of their money by the production of fuel rods, which is a cost that you avoid altogether.
It did not appeal to the miners, as the amounts needed are altogether trivial, and the coal industry would not like a technology which is likely to undercut them in cost before you consider the cost of carbon dioxide emissions or the huge wastes emitted by the coal industry, and which could even be fitted to coal stations, using all their generating equipment and throwing out the coal burn!
Supporters included Teller, and many of the founding fathers of the nuclear industry.
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/

Last edited May 30, 2009 4:13 AM
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Alex Spence

Google's Proposal for reducing U.S. Health Care Dependence

This is the wrong knol for talking about this but I do not know where else to post it.
Is Google going to have a Proposal for reducing U.S. Health Care Dependence?
If not can you start one.
You could start with this example: http://knol.google.com/k/alex-spence/buteyko-qed-bbc-tv-program/202i29i90v7sn/5#Drugs_bill
Drugs bill
Dr Gerald Spence, a Glasgow GP, told the BBC QED Science programme that Buteyko had had a major impact on his practice.
He started teaching the breathing technique after the expensive drug treatments currently on the market appeared to make no difference to his patients.
"The simple fact is that 34 patients, prior to Buteyko, were costing £15,000 for their asthma
medication," he said. "After Buteyko, they were costing £5,000.
"That's a reduction of two-thirds in their drugs bill. If this was extended to the rest of the country, very significant savings could be made."
warm regards
Alex
thebreathingman

Last edited May 28, 2009 7:30 PM
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Hatem Beshir

A really nice post

for a vital issue that needs an new prespective preserving our natural
resourcesa as well as HUMAN FOOD
I Believe that every countrey should choose the best available resource for example i am an egyptian and we have the SUN all year around unlike many countries and would be the cheapest source to rely on but a huge investment is needed in that field

anyway keep on the good work

Last edited May 19, 2009 8:00 AM
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Anonymous

Reality Check

I'll just make this simple. Take a gallon of any fuel of your choice. What can you get from it?

A gallon of Gas gets you pretty far. It is easy to store. It's byproduct is Carbon Monoxide, which finds another Oxygen and becomes CO2, A harmless naturally occuring gas.

A gallon of Nuclear power can, for a time produce alot of heat. It must have an incredible array of structures and piping to cool it and contain it. It is incredible dangerous and nobody wants it around. When it is spent, it is a gallon of doom.

A gallon of wind will produce nothing of value. If you want to make energy from that gallon of wind, you would need alot more than a gallon and a $40,000 turbine on your roof. Not to mention a battery room in which to store it. Batteries carry a few worse things than cigarettes and do alot of harm when they stop working.

A gallon of sunshine will run your calculator for a time. In order to get any use from the sun you would need alot of solar panels. These are not cheap, and are an eyesore. For example, a one kilowatt system of panels with a basic battery setup for retrieval would run about $3000-4000. A 1000 watt system will not even run a toaster or a microwave. You can run 10, 100 watt lights for 1 hour. Or one 100 watt light for 10 hours. That is it! And that was alot more than 1 gallon!

Hydrogen-one gallon. Sure, you can get pretty close to gasoling with this, but it would cost you. Honda has a solar powered hydrogen producing plant in LA. They use it to fuel a million dollar car as an experiment. It takes a battery of solar panels the size of a football field 1 week of LA sun to produce 1 tank of hydrogen. Hydrogen is very costly to produce. It takes an incredible amount of power.

If you think you can run the world on sunshine and air, then go to lalapalooza, smoke some marijuana, and spit on some soldiers. If you want to know the real secret, read on.

Stretch the fuel we have. Make the gallon go further. And here is the key, continue to do it. I am not saying abandon the alternative, just be realistic about it. Hybrids cars are a wonderful compromise. No abnoxious solar panels on roofs. Easy to use. Fits most peoples needs.

Besides, monster trucks are cool! Who wants to sit around waiting for it to charge up before it crushes some cars!

Last edited Jun 4, 2009 9:01 PM
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Jeffery Greenblatt
Jeffery Greenblatt
Climate and Energy Technology Manager
San Francisco Bay Area
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