Skip to main content

green

See All Stories

Google’s 14th data center is opening on the grounds of a closing coal power plant

AL photo 1

If you send email with Gmail, host your school papers on Google Drive, or watch YouTube videos, you’ve taken advantage of one or more of Google’s many data centers. Today, Google has announced that it’s opening up its 14th site globally, but they’re planning to do something interesting — they’re planning to rework the existing infrastructure of the soon-to-be shut down Widows Creek coal power plant in Alabama…
Expand
Expanding
Close

Guy Kawasaki posts picture of the X Phone in green, but that’s just one of the expected 25 colors

Site default logo image

We are just a few days away from Motorola’s official announcement of the X Phone, but that hasn’t stopped the leaks from coming. This time, the leak comes straight from Motorola evangelist Guy Kawasaki. On Google+ (via: Droid Life), Kawasaki posted a picture from a Motorola campus party that clearly shows the much rumored X Phone in the same green shade that we saw in other leaked images earlier this month.  The white and black variants are also present, but we’ve seen them several times before.

The X Phone is expected to be available in at least 25 different color options and sold built-to-order via an online portal. While we know a lot about the device already, Motorola should announce all the secrets this Thursday during its press event. 
Expand
Expanding
Close

Being green is a way of life, says Google in a corporate video

Site default logo image

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt5sMxYMkGs]

Google’s environmental strides have inspired a flurry of Silicon Valley copycats to go green. The vast majority, unfortunately, just for the sake of it, mostly to look cool and hip in the public eye. Even though many tech giants are missing out on the big picture, there are a few notable exceptions, such as Apple. The iPhone maker is famously building a stunning spaceship-like campus that will have an underground parking lot with solar roof and they reportedly gave employees “iBikes” to ride between campuses.

But commuting to work without driving, meeting with someone on another continent without flying and riding cars without gasoline has long been “a way of life at Google”, their transportation manager Kevin Mathy wrote in a blog post. In case you didn’t know, Google runs the largest corporate shuttle services in the country.

The system spawns a thousand GBikes Googlers use to travel between campuses, an electric vehicle car share program dubbed GFleet, an on-campus taxi service called GRide and much more. Heck, Googlers even earn credits each time they get to work via non-engine means, which they can later convert into dollars to donate to their charity of choice. All this, plus other amazing facts, in a cool corporate YouTube video.


Expand
Expanding
Close

Google invests $280 million in SolarCity to make solar affordable

Site default logo image

[vodpod id=Video.10978228&w=670&h=411&fv=]

CNN Money reports that Google and SolarCity, a rooftop solar power company, partnered on a new initiative aimed at making solar energy affordable to the masses. The deal worth $280 million was announced yesterday. It’s the nation’s largest residential solar project to date that will enable SolarCity to lease solar power systems to some nine thousand homeowners in the ten states where it operates and Google will recoup its investments through those leases. The deal comes on top of the 15,000 SolarCity’s solar projects that are either completed or under way.

Customers who wish to have the company’s solar system installed at their home can pay for it outright, but most choose instead to let SolarCity retain ownership of the equipment and rent back the use of it through monthly solar lease payments.

Google is all out on the green front, with investments ranging from wind farms to eco-friendly datacenters.

Google thinks outside the box, designs green cooling system for datacenter

Site default logo image

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VChOEvKicQQ?rel=0]

Did you know a Google datacenter uses half the energy of a typical industry data center?  The search company has gone to great lengths exploring green energy and it’s not just electric cars for employees. Unlike Google’s, about 70 percent of the world’s data centers are lacking the resources and expertise to go green, explains senior vice president of technical infrastructure Urs Hoelzle. Google’s Hamina, Finland facility depicted in the above clip is an example of such environment-friendliness.

Originally a paper-mill built in the 1950s, it takes raw sea water directly from the Gulf of Finland, pumps it through the existing seawater tunnel and runs it through heat exchangers to dissipate the server load heat from the facility. It than routes the warm water to another building where it’s mixed with the fresh sea water so it could be returned to the Gulf at a similar temperature in order to minimize an impact on environment. Investing in such innovations makes sense from the financial standpoint, too…


Expand
Expanding
Close