Why Google Should Subscribe to Casey Research

By Marin Katusa, Chief Investment Strategist,
Casey's Energy Report
May 6th, 2010

What do search engines and wind energy have in common? That’s the question a lot of investors were asking earlier this month, when Google made an almost US$40 million investment into NextEra Energy Resources, a North Dakota wind energy firm. The simple answer: more than you think.

It’s not surprising that the Internet search-engine superstar needs energy. Companies like Google own massive computer frameworks, known as server farms, to store all that digital data floating around in cyberspace. While Google is quite hush-hush about how many computers it owns, estimates put it at about 1,000,000 servers (almost 2% of the world total), and an enormous amount of power is needed to keep them running constantly. And as cyber-information grows – almost 24 hours of video footage is uploaded onto YouTube every minute – more and more computers are required to store and distribute it.

But where does their power come from? Most server farms are located near coal-fired generating plants. Good for efficiency, but that adds up to a pretty big carbon footprint. Naturally, this has environmental groups fuming and lobbying the corporations for clean energy alternatives. Given Google’s avowed sensitivity on this issue, investing in wind turbines in North Dakota makes good public relations sense.

However, it is usually the company’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, that handles such good-citizen initiatives. Thus the unprecedented move to make a first-time direct investment into NextEra Energy suggests that Google is expecting something further.

It seems logical to assume that the company’s motivation also involves saving money by slashing its dependence on coal-fired generators. After all, when your electric bills approach that of a small country, it’s hard not to jump on a company that could potentially produce enough power to light up 55,000 homes.

But if this is, in part, an exercise in cost-cutting, Google made a big mistake: it chose the wrong renewable energy.

Wind Farms vs. Geothermal Power

The main problem with wind farms: they don’t work when it’s not windy.

But that’s not all. Wind energy is plagued by high capital costs, a weak power transmission system, and low output, making its success heavily dependent on government subsidies. Load factors for wind energy – that is, the difference between how much power a generator can produce and how much it actually produces, which determines how much money a utility will make – are also quite low. The large physical footprint – the amount of land required to build wind farms – is another downside, as is the threat they pose to birds and the noise pollution they generate.

Add this all up and you’ve got the biggest loser when it comes to going green. In reality, the best renewable energy bet Google could make, especially in the United States, is on geothermal. Leaving everything else aside, geothermal beats wind energy on the most important factor: it is not dependent on weather. That means there is no need for backup power generation facilities, something wind farms must have for the days when the turbines won’t turn. Nor are government subsidies absolutely necessary for geothermal energy; they’re more of an added bonus. And geothermal power plants require the least amount of land: they can hum away contentedly even in the middle of farmland or a park.

Geothermal also wins on the numbers, with the highest load factor of all renewable energies and the biggest profit margin. Take a look at the cost breakdown of renewable generating technologies in the U.S. – it’s clear that geothermal is miles ahead:

* Numbers are on a comparable per-plant basis ** Costs are exclusive of subsidies.

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