The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[RHinCT]

google runs their entire operation on bloom energy...

Data centers are power hogs, so Google uses an awful lot of electricity. That would have been truly be impressive if it had turned out to be true.

What does the Bloom Energy web site actually say?
http://www.bloomenergy.com/customers/customer-story-google/
Bloom’s technology delivers clean, reliable and affordable energy to help power Google’s headquarters.

We can find a bit more detail here:
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/02/22/google-using-bloom-box-but-not-in-data-center/

Google Using Bloom Box, But Not in Data Center
February 22nd, 2010 : Rich Miller

Google was the first customer for Bloom Energy, and is using the startup’s gas-powered fuel cells in its operations. But is Google using the “Bloom Box” units in one of its data centers? 60 Minutes reported Sunday that Google has been using four Bloom Boxes to power one of its data centers for the last 18 months.

It turns out that’s not quite correct. “These fuel cells aren’t powering any off-site data centers,” said a Google spokesperson. “Instead, Bloom fuel cells are powering a portion of Google’s energy needs at our headquarters right here in Mountain View. This is another on-site renewable energy source that we’re exploring to help power our facilities. We have a 400kW installation on Google’s main campus. Over the first 18 months the project has had 98% availability and delivered 3.8 million kWh of electricity.”

The Bloom Energy units run on methane or other hydrocarbons. The machine produces electricity, as well as some heat, carbon dioxide and water. While 400 kilowatts is a lot of power for some commercial buildings, it’s a fraction of what would be needed for a major data center. The same goes for the 98 percent availability, as data centers typically shoot for at least “four nines” (99.99 percent uptime) and beyond.