Google Is Investing $3.3 Billion To Build Clean Data Centers In Europe (techcrunch.com) 24
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google announced today that it was investing approximately $3.3 billion to expand its data center presence in Europe. What's more, the company pledged the data centers would be environmentally friendly. This new investment is in addition to the $7 billion the company has invested since 2007 in the EU, but today's announcement was focused on Google's commitment to building data centers running on clean energy, as much as the data centers themselves.
In a blog post announcing the new investment, CEO Sundar Pichai, made it clear that the company was focusing on running these data centers on carbon-free fuels, pointing out that he was in Finland today to discuss building sustainable economic development in conjunction with a carbon-free future with prime minister Antti Rinne. Of the 3 billion Euros, the company plans to spend, it will invest 600 million to expand its presence in Hamina, Finland, which he wrote "serves as a model of sustainability and energy efficiency for all of our data centers." Further, the company already announced 18 new renewable energy deals earlier this week, which encompass a total of 1,600-megawatts in the U.S., South America and Europe. Google is also "investing in new skills training, so people can have the tools to be able to handle the new types of jobs these data centers and other high tech jobs will require," the report says. "The company claims it has previously trained 5 million people in Europe for free in crucial digital skills, and recently opened a Google skills hub in Helsinki."
In a blog post announcing the new investment, CEO Sundar Pichai, made it clear that the company was focusing on running these data centers on carbon-free fuels, pointing out that he was in Finland today to discuss building sustainable economic development in conjunction with a carbon-free future with prime minister Antti Rinne. Of the 3 billion Euros, the company plans to spend, it will invest 600 million to expand its presence in Hamina, Finland, which he wrote "serves as a model of sustainability and energy efficiency for all of our data centers." Further, the company already announced 18 new renewable energy deals earlier this week, which encompass a total of 1,600-megawatts in the U.S., South America and Europe. Google is also "investing in new skills training, so people can have the tools to be able to handle the new types of jobs these data centers and other high tech jobs will require," the report says. "The company claims it has previously trained 5 million people in Europe for free in crucial digital skills, and recently opened a Google skills hub in Helsinki."
"The cat's on the roof." (Score:3, Interesting)
Scott Adams today describes in his podcast today on how the Democrats are in the stage of "the cat's on the roof" in breaking to their fellow travelers the need for nuclear power. The part on nuclear power starts about 10 minutes in to the video. As I type this the Scott Adams video had about 5600 views, let's see how many more views it gets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
What does this have to do with a cat on a roof? The analogy is described in the video. What does this have to do with Google? Google will soon have the same problem as the Democrats now on the need for nuclear power to solve our energy needs. Google can dump a bunch of their money into wind and solar power but at some point they will have to come to realize how vital nuclear power is to our future. They will have to at some point express support for nuclear power or be considered being lacking in their support for reducing the CO2 emissions from human activity.
Here's more evidence that the Democrats are finally looking at the science and supporting nuclear power. This is an 11 minute video with about 2600 views as I type this. Let's see how many views that gets as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
What's holding back nuclear power right now are investors nervous about politicians pulling the rug out from underneath any nuclear power projects. There will be money for nuclear power in the USA, such as from companies like Google, once the politicians in both major parties support nuclear power. The Republicans have been supporting nuclear power for some time now. It's not making much press right now but the Trump administration has freed up some space on government facilities for some private development of nuclear power, and issued permits for their construction. These could turn into real world full scale prototypes in a few years so long as the Democrats don't pull out the rug. And the Democrats have a 40 year history of tossing wrenches into the gears of any nuclear power development in the USA.
There is an election coming up in the USA and it appears that the biggest topic of discussion is global warming. The Democrats are now split on supporting nuclear power as part of the solution. How is this going to play out in the general election if the Republicans, when pressed on the matter of global warming, start talking glowingly on nuclear power while the Democrats are still split on it? How will it look if the Democrats stay with their current platform of being anti-nuclear when the Republicans are supportive? Even if the Democrats and Republicans agree on nuclear power then how does this look for the Democrats to do an about face on nuclear power?
How will Google, Democrats, and anyone else that is making global warming an issue, address nuclear power? We are seeing how this is working now. They are saying, "The cat's on the roof."
Re: (Score:2)
Nuclear power, sure no problem but the right nuclear powered generator simply is not on the market yet and that is required first, better nuclear energy design first, there are ideas accessibility it is simply a matter of doing the proper investigation and research.
Nuclear energy is not required for standard energy consumption but is required as backup for renewable energy which is very exposed to weather extremes and nuclear needs to cover those months of downtime. In between nuclear energy is required fo
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Nuclear power, sure no problem but the right nuclear powered generator simply is not on the market yet
First off, this is complete and utter bullshit. The nuclear power reactors we have today are exceedingly safe, profitable, and have very little impact on the environment. Far better than any alternative. Now, let's move on to your next point.
and that is required first, better nuclear energy design first, there are ideas accessibility it is simply a matter of doing the proper investigation and research.
How do you propose we do this "proper" investigation and research without building any nuclear power reactors? Think how quickly wind and solar power would have developed if no one was allowed to build anything for the last 40 years. The people that are working on
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A bigger problem is the generated waste, yes it might at least partially be a NIMBY issue be it is not likely to go away, especially once people start to realise how expensive it is to decommission a nuke and the required time spans for storage.
Trump has made it (the climate debate) a partisan issue but it is much greater than quarrelling between two USA political parties, it is a global problem and the world outside th
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I see, you want to deny science.
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I see, you want to deny economic reality.
Maybe you could build a truly safe reactor. But it will cost a lot of time and money to develop, and to test. Because you are going to have to prove it after the last load of supposedly safe reactors melted down.
You will find it impossible to get funding for this. Why would anyone give you money based on the promise of eventually building something that so far has eluded everyone else, when they could just invest in the booming renewables industry. Proven technology,
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I've never become a scientist but:
In the early 1970's was educated to be a nuclear power plant operator.
In the late 70's I started working in the upstream oil and gas industry where I learned a lot about geology and since I also worked on Geothermal wells.
Hence I believe to have a reasonable understanding of the energy industry, what is your problem?
Re: (Score:1)
How much do they pay you to get first post on every energy related story with a pro-nuclear shill?
Come on, you must have prepared that in advance. Posted within 12 minutes of the story going live, complete with links.
Give it up. Nuclear is dying and you aren't going to save it.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks. I wish more people would take the time to call these "paid for" comments out.
In fact, a Slashdot could mark highlight posts are above some "size_in_words / minutes_after_story_posted" metric to make filtering this sort of crap out easier. That post exceeded 40 words per minute.
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How much do they pay you to get first post on every energy related story with a pro-nuclear shill?
I do not get paid. I am merely exceedingly frustrated at the lies that get repeated on Slashdot.
Come on, you must have prepared that in advance. Posted within 12 minutes of the story going live, complete with links.
The story was posted at least an hour before my reply. I simply saw the Scott Adams podcast earlier in the day, with the new video from Gordon McDowell as a suggested video since I follow his channel as well. When I saw the Slashdot story on private investment in low carbon energy I simply felt it topical to link to the two videos.
Give it up. Nuclear is dying and you aren't going to save it.
I'm not going to give it up. I suspect neither will Andrew Yang, Scott Adams, o
Re: (Score:2)
What's holding back nuclear power right now are investors nervous about politicians pulling the rug out from underneath any nuclear power projects.
That's not true. What's holding it back right now is that decommissioning costs under current regulations are huge and risky and make the project not a worthwhile investment of money. Investors are holding back until the environmental standards get lowered. But even if they get lowered, a future administration might increase them, so the risk doesn't go away.
The Republicans have been supporting nuclear power for some time now. It's not making much press right now but the Trump administration has freed up some space on government facilities for some private development of nuclear power, and issued permits for their construction.
The problem is that nuclear power is an inherently socialist activity. It needs huge taxpayer investments to make it break even. Those aren't just seed
It Always Works (Score:2)
Every time I'm caught cheating on my Liberal-Progressive girlfriend I blame it on climate change, and she always falls for it.
Strat
Efficiency saves money? Who knew? (Score:2)
It turns out that environmental practices often saves money.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news... [yahoo.com]
There's a lot of money to be made or saved by getting in the energy business. Google's most recent announcement is about projects in Europe but there's a lot of money in wind and solar power in the USA. There's almost certainly tax incentives to using alternative energy in any European nation, just like in the USA. If Google wants to advertise that they are saving money so we get more services per dollar then tha
Crucial digital skills? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It does not matter, it makes no difference. Absolutely none, only thing this does is make people feel better.
There you have it folks. After decades of asking people to give a shit about the environment we've all about run out of shits to give.
This threat of global warming has dragged on so long that unless someone declares victory soon then it will simply fade away with no real resolution. That is what I fully expect to happen, some group, politician, or scientist, will declare the problem solved and we all move on with our lives. This solution will almost certainly come in the form of new nuclear power plants
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Btw, Trump is no scientist by any measure nor are they in his clan.
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A great majority (>90%) of the world's scientists do believe in man-made global warming.
And polling shows that a majority of Americans will not support any solution to resolve global warming if that solution costs them money.
Btw, Trump is no scientist by any measure nor are they in his clan.
His "clan" might not be scientists but they vote, and they support an actual working solution to global warming that won't raise their taxes or their energy costs. That solution is nuclear power. There's a handful of prominent Democrats that support nuclear power. The rest of the Democrats can be part of the solution by supporting nuclear power or they can become part o
Re: (Score:2)
And polling shows that a majority of Americans will not support any solution to resolve global warming if that solution costs them money.
Which is why nuclear is dead and cheaper renewables will win because they are undercutting even gas and coal.
Anyway, Americans seem more than willing to pay for stuff when it's a jobs programme or straight up pork.
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Incentives? (Score:2)
Now google is building a solar farm here in a country(Denmark) where space is limited. It would make more sense to use roof space.
Of course those of us who did that with a promise of a good feed in tariffs for 20 years got screwed and had that removed after 5 years.
Now I have to pay a small fine of $50 for using less that 500kWh a year, after paying a fee or kWh for every 3500 kWh pulled from the grid.
I produce 5500 kWh, deliver 4000kWh to the grid, using 1500 kWh when produced, pull 3500 and have a surplus
What You Can Do (Score:1)
2.) Replace most of their services with your Personal Server: http://altwissenschaft.ddnss.d... [ddnss.de] http://altwissenschaft.ddnss.d... [ddnss.de]
People vs Corporations (Score:2)