Green is the new black; math is the new cool; and Google CEO Eric Schmidt has some formulas for increasing energy efficiency, job creation, money saving, and how the Internet will fend off global warming.
Sound far-fetched? Schmidt says, “It’s just a math problem.”
At the Corporate EcoForum, with attendees like Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Pepsico/Frito Lay, math problems had better include positive numbers in dollar sign units, and lots of them—T. Boone Pickens’ commercials have been thus far unconvincing.
Schmidt assured them with charts and graphs via presentation slide software (that’s a more important detail than you think—sit-ins, protests, hemp tie-dye, and patchouli might as well be Mandarin Chinese to this crowd) that if his plan is adopted the US could drop energy costs by $2.1 trillion by 2030. That’s trillion with a tr, and a 77% reduction in current currents and currencies, racking up energy bills of $2.7 billion.
Spending $600 billion instead of $2.7 trillion looks pretty darn good on any executive’s spreadsheet, and if global warming can be averted at the same time all the better.
How is this magic accomplished? Google itself is trying to demonstrate it by investing in greener renewable resources like solar, wind, and even wave power. (That giant floating database they just got a patent for would be powered by waves, if they ever decided to something like that, which Schmidt isn’t sure about, which doesn’t mean a whole lot—in 2006, he didn’t see a need for a Google browser, either.) In addition, 40 percent of carbon emissions come from buildings, and the cost of making Google’s buildings more efficient could be made back in two and half years.
Schmidt reports that overall the US power grid bleeds out nine percent of its energy, and with “information loops” available from Internet-powered gadgets to help maximize efficiency and put that power back in the grid. “It sure sounds to me like a problem for the Internet…and personal computers.”
That line of thinking isn’t too far out. About the same time Schmidt was downplaying the suggestion of a Google browser, Internet-connected dryers and water heaters were making headlines.
