With global warming being a rising topic for the world companies that rely heavily on the use of fossil fuels are being pressured to make the transition to clean sources. Large technology companies such as Google and Amazon rely heavily on energy to keep their systems running. If they were to go down for a mere moment their services would come toppling down as we saw with YouTube being down for a brief moment the other day.
However despite their heavy use of fossil fuels, Google has purchased large amounts of renewable energy in the past. In fact they are the largest purchaser of this type of energy which totaled over 3 gigawatts of power. While companies like Google claim that they are 100 percent renewable energy, it can actually mean that they are using energy from fossil fuels and then purchasing the same amount of clean renewable energy. There is a clear difference from being 100 percent renewable energy and being powered by 100 percent renewable energy.
Giant tech companies consume so much energy that they can’t be powered by onsite sources such as solar panels. In order for their services to turn they need to be connected to the local power grid where they will then get their energy from a mixture of sources both renewable and not. As a result companies can’t exactly choose to only purchase the power that came from renewable sources.
While there are many downsides to how companies currently run their power needs, Google aims to stand out from the rest and be completely powered by green energy all day, every day.
Google’s head of energy market development, Michael Terrell, stated that they are looking into the future and planning to have all of their sites run by renewable sources and to cut their carbon emissions down to zero.
Eli Washington is still early into his career as a marketing and tech reporter but has already had his worked published in many major publications including Gizmodo and Endgadget. In regards to academics, Eli earned a degree in business from the University of Southern California. Eli follows the money and covers all aspects of search and marketing here at The Marketing Folk.
