|
|
| • EXCH RATES |
|
Baht/$ 34.22/27 (Bid/Ask)
|
GOLD |
13,250
-400
|
|
BY Invitation
DR MICHAEL ECONOMIDES
As Asia Focus reported last week, the internet search giant Google has ambitions beyond organising the world's information. It also wants to organise the world's energy infrastructure. And it would do so at the expense of others, including the aspirational economies of Asia.
Google wants to satisfy the planet's growing energy needs over the next two decades with clean, renewable energy sources as opposed to fossil fuels such as coal and oil. It wants to increase energy efficiency and scale up use of solar and wind power.
What could be wrong with this? Plenty.
For starters, while Google advocates voluntary adoption of cleaner energy sources, it also says that "government can have a big impact" on realising these goals. Indeed, the only way Google could realise its aims would be to have governments mandate the fuels consumers use as well as how much they may use.
To understand why this is so, we must first understand some energy basics. The reason fossil fuels are, at present, the dominant fuel sources for modern economies is because nothing else packs the same energy density. Fossil fuels are able to deliver much more power to end users than wind, solar or other renewables.
In addition to energy density, there is the basic question of cost. Even after the enormous run-up in basic commodity prices in the last year, which is only now subsiding, fossil fuels were still far more economically attractive for the vast majority of consumers around the globe. This is not likely to change any time soon.
The cost issue is particularly important in the middle-income nations in Asia . These economies are looking to grow as rapidly as possible to elevate the greatest numbers of their people out of dehumanising poverty. In order for this great goal to be realised, the basic inputs of industrialisation - including (indeed especially) energy - must be as inexpensive as possible.
There is simply no way to power the next 20 to 40 years of global growth in Asia with renewable energy. We must use large amounts of fossil fuels.
Google's energy plan is, remarkably, anti-energy. The internet company naively proposes eliminating fossil fuels - a notion even the most radical energy thinkers reject.
Because wind, solar, and other renewable fuel sources meet only a tiny fraction of the world's energy needs, even a huge 20% growth in these sources every year for the next two decades would still meet less than 5% of the world's energy needs.
Moreover, there is an enormous deployed infrastructure for the efficient delivery of fossil-fuel-based energy to large population centres. To replace the entire capacity of this infrastructure in two decades would mean jettisoning trillions of dollars of capital infrastructure that took many years to build.
There is a grand irony to Google's plans since Google is a massive energy user and, in many ways, an energy abuser. Google has enormous, energy-hungry server farms scattered throughout the world, including in Asia (from Tokyo to Beijing ), that serve as the backbone of its enterprise. These servers use more energy than General Motors.
Data centres are large cost centres for any internet company, but especially so for Google since data organisation and dissemination is the essence of its business. Data centres are energy hogs both in order to power them and to keep them cool from overheating.
Server farms now consume 1% of the world's electricity, an amount that is growing at 17% a year, according to a new study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. So Google sees an advantage in pushing the government to transform the energy sector to its desired terms.
As the Wall Street Journal has reported, "Google hopes renewable energy can help it lower the costs of running its data centres, one of its greatest expenses." To get widespread adoption of renewables would require costly government mandates, there is no other way.
There is also the question of the growing greenhouse effect as it relates to Google's growth. The consulting firm McKinsey recently estimated that in about a decade the global internet industry will have a larger carbon footprint than the global airline industry. Little wonder then that Google is now advocating that governments alter the world's energy infrastructure.
It would be great if we lived in a world where no one had to use fossil fuels. But this is a fantasy world. Asian economies, particularly middle-income nations such as Thailand, will suffer if energy prices rise due to new regulations and mandates. Inexpensive energy powered the impressive growth in Japan, Taiwan and Korea. The chance to achieve the living standards of these other Asian nations would be undermined by the pursuit of renewable follies that waste precious money.
Google is putting its corporate interests ahead of the interests of developing nations; and by lobbying to raise basic energy prices it undermines the spirit of its corporate motto: "Do No Evil". Slowing Asia's growth is the antithesis of good.
Developing countries have long had to contend with colonial powers asserting their values and priorities. Google is now acting in similar ways, only this time it's a private company, imposing its world view and policies on others. It may make Google wealthier, but at the expense of Asia's economic interests.
By asserting itself as the dominant architect of a US and global energy policy, a company like Google (one with little to no energy expertise) demonstrates a remarkable amount of arrogance. Google acting as the dominant adviser on energy is akin to McDonald's setting banking regulatory policy. The world's energy consumers deserve better.
The author is a professor at the University of Houston and editor-in-chief of the Energy Tribune.
Prev
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Next
