Posted on Thursday, October 02 2008 @ 22:51 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Google CEO Eric Schmidt presented a $4.5 trillion solution that could fix the U.S. energy problems by making the country almost completely independent from fossil fuels by 2030. The Clean Energy 2030 plan has a hefty price tag, but Schmidt claims it'll pay for itself with $5.5 trillion in savings.
Schmidt said the plan requires $4.5 trillion in spending to pull it off, but it'll pay for itself with $5.5 trillion in savings. "With this plan, it's cheaper to fix global warming than it is to ignore it," Schmidt said.
The general plan consists of various efforts to save energy; a shift to renewable wind, geothermal, and solar energy; and a complete cessation of energy from coal and oil and halving of natural gas. Those changes would cut energy production-related carbon dioxide emissions from about 6 billion metric tons per year today to 4 billion per year in 2030.
Energy efficiency is at the forefront of Google's thoughts: the company operates hundreds of thousands of servers, and the company has warned that energy costs could outpace server hardware costs. So a decline in energy costs makes practical sense, Schmidt said.
Read more
at CNET.
