Filed under: Official Google Blog — Wrote by Lees on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 @ 3:50 am
Posted by Dan Reicher, Google.org
team
The contest said to "Innovate or Die" – and Team Aquaduct
lives! In fact, the San Bruno, California team – consisting of John
Lai, Adam Mack, Brian Mason, Eleanor Morgan, Paul Silberschatz – is
living in grand (prize) style today after winning the
href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/pour-on-pedal-power.html" >
first Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered Machine contest.
Team Aquaduct was declared the winner out of 102 entries by
building a unique and functional solution to provide rural
communities with access to clean water. The quintet will share the
$5,000 grand prize, and each will receive a Specialized Globe
bicycle – as will all five of the finalist runners-up (
href="http://www.innovate-or-die.com/" >read more about all the
winners).
The contest encouraged people to evaluate environmental issues and
develop ingenious solutions surrounding climate change. Many
original and inspiring ideas emerged; make sure to visit the
href="http://www.youtube.com/groups_videos?name=innovateordie" >YouTube
Innovate or Die page to view all of the entries.
And here's the video for Team Aquaduct's winning
pedal-powered water transportation and filtration vehicle:
Filed under: Official Google Blog — Wrote by Lees on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 @ 6:18 am
Posted by Dan Reicher, Director,
Climate and Energy Initiatives, Google.org
Today Google.org is launching an
exciting project that offers a glimpse of a smarter energy future:
cars that plug into an electric grid powered by solar energy.
Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (“plug-in hybrids”) can achieve 70
-100 miles per gallon, quadrupling the fuel economy of the average
car on the road today (~20 mpg). As we demonstrated at today’s
event, plug-in hybrids can sell power back to the electric grid
when it's needed most through vehicle-to-grid (V2G)
technology
As you may know, one of Google.org's core missions is to
address climate change. In the U.S., transportation contributes
about one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions –- with more than
60 percent of those emissions coming from personal vehicles. By
accelerating the adoption of plug-in hybrids and vehicle-to-grid
("V2G") technologies, this new project,
href="http://www.google.org/recharge/" >RechargeIT.org, aims to
reduce emissions and dependence on oil while promoting clean energy
technologies and increasing consumer choice. Linking the U.S.
transportation system to the electricity grid maximizes the
efficiency of our energy system. From these efforts, we believe the
environment will benefit — and consumers will have more choices to
fuel their cars.
We've been working with Google engineers and
href="http://www.hymotion.com/" >Hymotion/
href="http://www.a123systems.com/" >A123Systems to build a small
fleet of plug-in hybrids, adding an external plug and additional
batteries to a regular hybrid car so that it runs on electricity
with gasoline (or even better, biofuels) to extend the driving
range for longer trips. Here's what it looks like:
Since most Americans drive less than 35 miles per day, you easily
could drive mostly on electricity with the gas tank as a
"safety net." Our goal is to demonstrate the plug-in
hybrid and V2G technology, get people excited about having their
own plug-in hybrid, and encourage car companies to start building
them soon.
In the preliminary results from our test fleet, on average the
plug-in hybrid gas mileage was 30 mpg higher than that of the
regular hybrids. In conjunction with Pacific Gas and Electric, we
also demonstrated the bidirectional flow of electricity through V2G
technology, and have awarded $1 million in grants and announced
plans for a $10 million request for proposals (RFP) to fund
development, adoption and commercialization of plug-ins, fully
electric cars and related vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology.
(Here's the
href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/rechargeit_20070618.html" >
full release.)
As for Google Inc., today the
href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/corporate-solar-is-coming.html" >
solar panel installation we announced last October is now
producing clean, renewable electricity for our Mountain View, CA
headquarters.
The system will offset peak electricity consumption at the solar
powered offices and the newly constructed solar carports have
charging stations for the plug-in hybrids. At 1.6 megawatts — with
an electricity output capable of powering approximately 1,000
average California homes — the Google project is the largest solar
installation on any corporate campus in the U.S. to date, and one
of the largest on any corporate site in the world. To see how much
electricity these panels are producing right now, visit our new
href="http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels" >performance
monitoring site.
To learn more about the initiative, we encourage you to explore the
rest of
href="http://www.google.org/recharge/" >RechargeIT.org. And to
see what others are saying about plug-in hybrids and V2G
technology, be sure to watch this video.
Filed under: Official Google Blog — Wrote by Lees on Friday, December 7th, 2007 @ 2:15 am
Posted by Dan Reicher, Google.org
You may already know that we're working to reduce our impact on
the environment in a number of ways. We opt for locally-grown food
whenever possible in all of our cafes. We've covered our roofs
with solar panels. We offer a rebate on our employees'
fuel-efficient car purchases. When it comes to getting people to
the office, we offer round-trip shuttle service to our Bay Area
Googlers, as well as incentives for creative commuting, from
walking to biking and even to kayaking (depending, of course, on
where the office is).
Over at Google.org, the
href="http://www.google.org/recharge/" >RechargeIT project is
href="http://www.google.org/recharge/dashboard" >collecting data
on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in an effort to
accelerate commercial adoption of the cars as well as vehicle to
grid technology. To the same end, we just issued a $10 million
request for investment proposals to encourage companies and
individuals to develop sustainable transportation solutions.
And now, we encourage all of you to get your wheels spinning to
offset climate change. Google has teamed up with
href="http://www.specializedbikes.com/" >Specialized and
href="http://www.goodbysilverstein.com/main_site/main.html" >Goodby
Silverstein & Partners on the
href="http://www.innovate-or-die.com/" >Innovate or Die
Pedal-Powered Machine Challenge, to give you problem-solvers a
chance to show us with a YouTube
href="http://www.youtube.com/group/innovateordie" >video how you
harness pedal power in innovative ways. In January, you could win
$5,000 in cash and Specialized Globe bikes to keep up your
commitment. We're doing our bit to support new solutions. Are
you feeling inspired?
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