Fortune has a very interesting interview with Google co-founder Larry Page. He hits on a lot of topics that are frequently discussed here, and some that aren’t often discussed, but that I have spent a lot of time thinking about (e.g., geothermal). Here is a link to the interview:
Larry Page on how to change the world
And some energy-specific excerpts:
Do you have other examples where innovative leadership could move the needle?
I think there are a lot of areas. You can be a bit of a detective and ask, What are the industries where things haven’t changed much in 50 years? We’ve been looking a little at geothermal power. And you start thinking about it, and you say, Well, a couple of miles under this spot or almost any other place in the world, it’s pretty darn hot. How hard should it be to dig a really deep hole? We’ve been drilling for a long time, mostly for oil – and oil’s expensive. If you want to move heat around, you need bigger holes. The technology just hasn’t been developed for extracting heat. I imagine there’s pretty good odds that’s possible.
Solar thermal’s another area we’ve been working on; the numbers there are just astounding. In Southern California or Nevada, on a day with an average amount of sun, you can generate 800 megawatts on one square mile. And 800 megawatts is actually a lot. A nuclear plant is about 2,000 megawatts.
The amount of land that’s required to power the entire U.S. with electricity is something like 100 miles by 100 miles [RR comment: That’s around what I have come up with whenever I tried to calculate it. Maybe that’s where he got it, since I often get hits from Google in Mountain View. 🙂] So you say, “What do I need to do to generate that power?” You could buy solar cells. The problem is, at today’s solar prices you’d need trillions of dollars to generate all the electricity in the U.S. Then you say, “Well, how much do mirrors cost?” And it turns out you can buy pieces of glass and a mirror and you can cover those areas for not that much money. Somehow the world is not doing a good job of making this stuff available. As a society, on the larger questions we have, we’re not making reasonable progress.
And it looks like we are on the same page – no pun intended – regarding the solution to our energy problems:
So you think that geothermal and solar thermal could solve our energy problems?
Yeah, probably either one could generate all the energy we need. There’s no discipline to actually do this stuff, and you can also see this vested interest, risk-averse behavior, plus a lack of creativity. It sort of conspires. It’s also a timeliness thing; everyone said Sam Walton was crazy to build big stores in small towns. Almost everyone who has had an idea that’s somewhat revolutionary or wildly successful was first told they’re insane.
He also comments on who needs to be working on these changes:
Whose obligation is it to make this kind of change happen? Is it Google’s? The government’s? Stanford’s? Kleiner Perkins’?
I think it’s everybody who cares about making progress in the world. Let’s say there are 10,000 people working on these things. If we make that 100,000, we’ll probably get 10 times the progress.
And then you compare it with the number of engineers at Exxon and Chevron and ConocoPhillips who are trying to squeeze the last drop of oil out of somewhere, and all the science brainpower that’s going to that. It’s totally disproportionate to the return that they could get elsewhere.
What kind of background do you think is required to push these kinds of changes?
I think you need an engineering education where you can evaluate the alternatives. For example, are fuel cells a reasonable way to go or not? For that, you need a pretty general engineering and scientific education, which is not traditionally what happens. That’s not how I was trained. I was trained as a computer engineer. So I understand how to build computers, how to make software. I’ve learned on my own a lot of other things. If you look at the people who have high impact, they have pretty general knowledge. They don’t have a really narrowly focused education.
After working on the SHPEGS project since Aug. 2006 I sometimes get discouraged that a lot of bad ideas get funded or mandated and I have trouble finding engineers and scientist with a broad enough understanding of various thermodynamic systems to see the merit in the system. On the upside, the Google RE<C program with solar thermal and geothermal as well as Ausra’s Dr. Mills and Khosla have come along and advanced a lot of positive public opinion and awareness of solar thermal in the past couple of years.
Now if I could get a few bright bulbs to take a serious look at ammonia absorption heat transformers, massive thermal storage and convection tower heat exchangers, I would get to change the world. 🙂
I appreciate the fact that Google is putting alot of money into solving important problems, but I’ve been less impressed with their prioritization. They seem to be primarily focused on supply side solutions, which is only half the answer. (Less than half, actually, because exponential growth of demand will eat up any supply in a surprisingly short period of time.) And their supply side work seems to be focused on generation to the exclusion of storage (or HVDC transmission, which gets you many of the same benefits). Yes, they are looking at vehicle-to-grid, but that’s a third generation storage technology if you’re interested in the utility grid scale. We haven’t even achieved a reasonable first generation storage technology at that scale, and that’s where I think the bottleneck is going to show up as we deploy increasing amounts of renewable generation.
Heh, you probably shouldn’t flatter yourself to think he got the 100 mile square idea from you. NREL has been saying that of solar thermal for years, if not decades.
Heh, you probably shouldn’t flatter yourself to think he got the 100 mile square idea from you.
Did you see the smiley? I don’t really think they got it here, but he did hit 3 or 4 very specific points (not just what I posted above) that have been discussed here from time to time. And I do get pretty regular hits from Google’s main facility here. But no, I don’t suspect Larry Page drops by here for his information. 🙂
But no, I don’t suspect Larry Page drops by here for his information
Robert, you’re selling yourself short. This is a fabulous blog, from a well-informed, and balanced author. I’ve often said, when Robert Rapier says Peak Oil is here, its here.
P.S. We should all be thankful that the likes of Larry Page have taken such a keen interest in clean energy. You and I can only make small changes, Larry probably can change the world.
Just because the folks around here aren’t generally I.T. orientated, you might not have seen the Original Google Servers.
In 1996 I was I.T. manager of a startup doing demographic analysis and GIS work. I built a server that had 3 off-the-shelf power supplies put together with MARR connectors to power a stack of 4GB SCSI drives like Larry had. I managed to find a steel case large enough to house the contraption, but we should have used Lego. It would have been fun to watch it slowly melt 🙂
Creativity and open-mindedness are very rare commodities in the business world and even in engineering. Renewable energy needs the Wright Brothers and Nickola Tesla personalities and I think Larry Page has some of those qualities.
CSP–
FPL ENERGY, llc has implemented large CSP facilities in MOHAVE[2 I BELIEVE IN CONNECTION WITH solei[Israel]. several more in development for FLA, CA. over next several years. approx 2 billion$ in plan. AUSRA one vendor involved. they are also investing in Xmission to get wind/solar from isolated sites to main grid facility.
anyone interested in detail– fplgroup.com or fplenergy.com
fran
I still believe in government — not to run actual programs, but to set in place policies and tax laws which generate intended results from the private sector. And also “X prizes”.
We have to have smart government. It is government’s obligation to help change the world.
A $10 billion prize for the first reliable commercial PHEV prodcution run of 50,000 cars sounds reasonable.
Taxes on imported oil (okay, tariffs, levies, whatever) is another great idea. 5,000 full scholarships and stipends for engineering and petroleum students might be a good idea.
A $10 billion prize for the first commercially viable solar power plant…anyway, you get the idea.
Some subsidies of clean energy is fair…the free market does not “price” pollution very well, or the value of independence from thug oil states.
The private sector will solve “the energy crisis” well enough in time. But pollution and vulnerability to thug states is not something the private sector can handle.
We have to have smart government. I hope our next prezzy isn’t a former Ivy League cheerleader into little red bicycle shorts.
Taxes on imported oil (okay, tariffs, levies, whatever) is another great idea.
Of course every dollar/bbl you add in tariffs on imports is a dollar/bbl extra profit for domestic producers.
We have to have smart government.
Are you saying we’re screwed?
Whose obligation is it to make this kind of change happen? Is it Google’s? The government’s? Stanford’s? Kleiner Perkins’?
Combine capitalism and expensive energy, and you have the perfect solution: anybody can do it and make a lot of dough doing it…
For that, you need a pretty general engineering and scientific education, which is not traditionally what happens.
Interesting comment. This is exactly what is needed. Unfortunately, there is a widely held view that if you’re not a specialist at something your opinion doesn’t matter.
Basically, we need a return to common sense. With all the shouting going on out there between the dimwits (Multi-millionare #1 to multi-millionare #2: “You’re out of touch with [us] ordinary people!”), I’m not holding my breath…
The latest estimate for the ultimate cost of the of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is $3 trillion. At $8/watt for solar, that is enough money to provide the electrical needs of about 90 million (out of 120 million?) houses. Of course this does not deal with the question of storage or integration into the grid. Never-the-less it provides a perspective on what we are willing and unwilling to spend money on.
The latest estimate for the ultimate cost of the of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is $3 trillion.
Astounding as that is, you have to remember the average voter did not buy into this. Remember, Wolfowitz was telling everybody that Iraqi oil would pay for the reconstruction.
So far Iraqi oil is only paying for the ruling classes to live it up in luxury, and to keep the common folk outside.
Kinda like over here…