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Re:Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017 by ChuckMcM on Wednesday December 07, 2016 @01:37AM (#13120893)
One small point I realized reading your comment here is that you mentioned emissions. The original article is about "renewable" energy, not "carbon footprint neutral" energy. If you had a wood fired power plant, it would be 'renewable' energy, but it would not be 'carbon neutral'. I think it is important to distinguish between the two and both are important.
Re:Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017 by hueving on Wednesday December 07, 2016 @02:35AM (#13121105)
Ok, if we throw out emissions and just worry about renewable, then the trucks traveling across the country have to also run on the fuel generated by the solar panels for your watts to be fungible across grids.
Re:Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017 by ChuckMcM on Wednesday December 07, 2016 @03:02AM (#13121169)
Well there is no reason the trucks couldn't, it would just affect the overall efficiency (the amount of solar power in to the amount of electricity out).
Re:Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017 by dagss on Wednesday December 07, 2016 @02:16AM (#13121044)
What do you mean? A wood fired power plant totally IS carbon neutral, as long as the logging is done sustainably (i.e. "renewable"). The trees suck up exactly as much CO2 when they grow up as they emit when burned.

I guess nuclear power is non-renewable but carbon neutral. Cannot think of anything that is not carbon neutral but renewable...wouldn't that require creating CO2 matter from nothing?

Re:Google says it will run entirely on renewable energy in 2017 by ChuckMcM on Wednesday December 07, 2016 @03:06AM (#13121180)
Actually nuclear power can be used to make breeder reactors, which uses the neutron flux from a critical reactor to create more fuel, in theory giving them a lifetime that is at least as long as the supply of heavy elements holds out, but if you want to be seriously pedantic then Solar isn't exactly renewable since the Sun has a limited amount of hydrogen to burn and once it runs out it will be very hard on our planet, catastrophically so by all estimations.