Amazing peek into one of the World's biggest new manufacturing facilities..

Great pictures of their Data Center.. Most of them are classic pictures even from photography point of view.. you have to visit to enjoy these breathtaking pictures.. definitely reminded me of thermal power plant where I used to visit as child with my dad..  although 90% of that plant was really dirty and ugly.. still used to fascinate me at that time.. now these newer cleaner..

Off course these Data centers also have ugly side.. which is hidden in those power plants who churn out thousands of megawatts of electricity to power them.. Here we only see cleaner part.. but behind the scene there is whole lot ugly and dirty pictures in power plants (whatever kind of it may be).. mines.. I think, Google should also post pictures of power plants and mines for the power sources of their Data Centers. Some stats on their power consumption and how much CO2 they emit annually (even with +/-20% range to hide actual real numbers is okay.. ). I don't know how much CO2 will be emitted to host this blog?

It makes me go on internet dieting... forces me limiting my time on internet and bytes I transfer or host.. That will be something like going on Oxygen dieting (consume less Oxygen and emit less CO2 from your own body..).. I don't think that will be possible as long as humanity is their on this planet earth.. Whatever we do, our energy consumption is bound to increase.. let us see what is limit of this planet..

http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/gallery/#/all/12

Virtual window looks

into Google data centers

Search giant gives an online tour of its computer sites

By Michael Liedtke

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — Google is opening a virtual window into the secretive data centers where an intricate maze of computers process Internet search requests, show YouTube video clips and distribute email for millions of people.

The unprecedented peek is being provided through a new website unveiled Wednesday at www.google. com/ about/ datacenters/ gallery. The site features photos from inside some of the eight data centers that Google already has running in the U.S., Finland and Belgium. Google is also building data centers in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Chile.

Virtual tours of a North Carolina data center also will be available through Google’s “Street View” service, which is usually used to view photos of neighborhoods around the world.

The photographic access to Google’s data centers coincides with the publication of a Wired magazine article about how the company builds and operates them. The article is written by Steven Levy, a journalist who won Google’s trust while writing “In The Plex,” a book published last year about the company’s philosophy and evolution.

The data centers represent Google’s nerve center, although none are located near the company’s headquarters in Mountain View.

As Google blossomed from its roots in a Silicon Valley garage, company co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin worked with other engineers to develop a system to connect low-cost computer servers in a way that would help them realize their ambition to provide a digital road map to all of the world’s information.
Initially, Google just wanted enough computing power to index all the websites on the Internet and deliver quick responses to search requests. As Google’s tentacles extended into other markets, the company had to keep adding more computers to store videos, photos, email and information about their users’ preferences.

The insights that Google gathers about the more than 1 billion people that use its services has made the company a frequent target of privacy complaints around the world. The latest missive came Tuesday in Europe, where regulators told Google to revise a 7-month-old change to its privacy policy that enables the company to combine user data collected from its different services.

Google studies Internet search requests and Web surfing habits in an effort to gain a better understanding of what people like. The company does this in an effort to show ads of products and services to the people most likely to be interested in buying them. Advertising accounts for virtually all of Google’s revenue, which totaled nearly $23 billion through the first half of this year.

Even as it allows anyone with a Web browser to peer into its data centers, Google intends to closely guard physical access to its buildings. The company also remains cagey about how many computers are in its data centers, saying only that they house hundreds of thousands of machines to run Google’s services.

Google’s need for so many computers has turned the company a major electricity user, although management says it’s constantly looking for ways to reduce power consumption to protect the environment and lower its expenses.

The company’s data centers are in: Berkeley County,S.C.;CouncilBluffs, Iowa; Douglas County, Ga.; Mayes County, Okla.; Lenoir, N.C.; The Dalles, Ore.; Hamina, Finland; and St. Ghislain, Belgium.

The Web link coincides with aWiredmagazine article on how Google builds and operates its data centers.

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CONNIE ZHOU/GOOGLE VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

A Google technician works on some of the computers in The Dalles, Ore., data center. A website gives viewers a tour of Google’s nerve centers.

Come on.. electric cars are Future..

Oh.. Come on.. give me a break.. News like this break my heart.. All electric cars are the future of automobile. I am sure in next 20 years or even earlier, we will have battery stations just like gas stations today.. In these battery stations, you can buy "Charge".. by giving your discharged battery back and taking "Charged" battery and use it to drive further.. So instead of filling your gas tank you will fill in your battery tank.. This will be applicable only for long drives.. for daily commute, I am assuming your home or office parking lots will be good enough to take care of filling your battery with charge you need to drive.

Now, you can link it this "Charge" to any source you want. Unfortunately "Charge"created by thermal or nuclear or solar power plant doesn't carry it's signature.. so you can't really differentiate among them.. all the charges are same and equal!!

Another thing these morons need to consider is efficiency of producing this "Charge". If you think about it, why anything is cheap or expensive.. it is the ultimately cost of energy going into production or usage of that thing!! Even though we blame so much to Thermal Power plants for creating green house gases. True.. they do it.. but still cost is their electricity is lower due to fact that they do burn coal really efficiently thus creating cheap electricity. Same is true for Nuclear power plant..

Now when we talk about solar panel based power plant.. ROI of Solar power plant is still very low and it still takes more than 10 years to recover cost despite subsidies from government. What it means is that process of producing Solar power panels is expensive and production itself takes lot more energy (in some form or other... ) so it takes literally 10-12 years to recoup those loses or the electricity or energy consumed to produce them. I agree, over a period of time, their cost will go down thus increasing ROI for them.

Coming back to our main topic, Electric cars are the future of automobile.. whether you agree or not, electric care are most efficient in transforming energy and using it for human needs. You can't blame or find fault with the source of electricity produced to power them up. Market forces will take care of non-efficient power sources.

In US, share of Coal based power generation is already on decline. Most of the new power plants are either gas based or solar/wind. Which is great.. Power consumption is bound to grow.

Even with these newer and jazzier low power devices, it is bound to go up as number of these energy efficient devices is going up exponentially.. literally making mockery of energy efficiency all together.

Biggest problem our current power grids face is lack of Storage. There is no cloud storage available for electricity as in case of iPhone or iPad' iCloud. These battery powered cars, collectively, are going to provide this critical storage space to grid.

it really doesn't matter where the electricity is coming from.. I can guarantee that coal generated electricity will still be more green than the fossil fuel cars developed..

In case of nuclear power.. I agree, it is dangerous.. but which power source isn't.. Thermal power plants? are they 100% safe? accidents doesn't happen there? or Hydro? doesn't dam breach and flood and kill people.. Sooner or later we are going to hear that Wind turbine blades flew away and killed somebody.. Solar.. all the elements and chemicals gone into it.. doesn't they pose any problem to environment? everything has risk.. it is risk vs. rewards.. Nuclear.. still is one of the safest.. especially if we consider number of people died in or due to nuclear power plants Vs. people died in thermal power plants.. In case of Japanese nuclear power plant problem.. I would say it was unfortunate that event took place.. Also, I feel that Japanese companies are more hidden in nature and culture doesn't allow them to come forward and accept mistakes bravely.

Electric cars in Japan risk losing green sheen

Plans by the government to restart nuclear power plants cast long shadow

By Yuri Kageyama

Associated Press

TOKYO — Electric car owners who prided themselves on being green now find themselves in a bind as Japan’s government maneuvers to restart dozens of nuclear power plants idled after last year’s meltdowns. For decades, nuclear generation has been a crucial source of power here, but the tsunami-triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant have spurred a debate over how to supply Japan’s electricity in the future. Long touted as a clean, zero-emission alternative to vehicles powered by dirty fossil fuels, electric cars are now at risk of being tainted by their association with nuclear. If, as is possible, nuclear remains a key source of power, “then the green image of the electric car will get bashed to bits, maybe to the extent it will be irreparable,” said Ryuichi Kino, who has written books on nuclear power and hybrid technology. “I have the feeling it’s quite possible that might happen.”

Ripple effect

Not long after the tsunami swept through the plant on March 11 last year, the government backed away from plans to lift nuclear power from supplying a third of Japan’s electricity needs to half. But Japan isn’t abandoning nuclear power altogether. Despite the Fukushima crisis underscoring its risks, the government wants to restart some of the nation’s 54 reactors after safety checks are completed.

Critics say the checks aren’t good enough, and the damage from the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl looms large, with the 12-mile no-go zone around Fukushima, as well as surrounding areas, likely to be contaminated by radiation for decades.

Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, a longtime opponent of nuclear power, acknowledged he gets bashed as hypocritical by people on Twitter about appearing in advertising for Nissan Motor’s Leaf electric car.

Many are not aware that, because he lives in New York, he can get his electricity from a company that relies solely on wind power — a kind of business that doesn’t exist yet in Japan, where utility regulations remain rigid and closed.

“How we make electricity is going to diversify, with fossil fuel and nuclear power declining,” said Sakamoto. People should be able to choose the kind of electricity they want to use, he said.

Electric cars were proving a hard sell even before the Fukushima disaster. And their green image has a weakness since generating electricity, unless it’s from solar, wind or other clean forms, emits polluting gases. Nissan, an electric-car leader, has sold just 25,000 Leaf cars around the world since late 2010, including 12,000 in Japan. It is targeting global sales of 1.5 million electric vehicles by 2015 in conjunction with alliance partner Renault of France.

Corporate Vice President Hideaki Watanabe, who oversees Nissan’s zero-emission business, insists sales are on target and haven’t dropped after the March disaster. The nuclear crisis has highlighted that the Leaf can be a backup storage for electricity in emergency blackouts, he said.

What’s holding Leaf sales back instead are the lack of charging stations on roads and its relatively high price.

Leaf prices

The Leaf starts at about 3 million yen ($36,000) in Japan, after the 780,000 yen ($9,400) green subsidy. In the U.S., the Leaf sells for about $25,000 after applying a $7,500 federal tax credit.

Although the Leaf is now a front-runner among electric vehicles, Nissan faces competition from rivals that already offer them such as Palo Alto luxury maker Tesla Motors and Mitsubishi Motors of Japan with the i-MiEV mini car. Others have them in the works.

Some electric car owners remain undaunted. They don’t equate their nifty green cars with atomic energy at all despite widespread jitters in Japan about spewing radiation and the safety of what had once delivered a third of the country’s electricity. The deficit is currently made up by expensive oil and gas imports.

“Concerns about global warming are growing,” Internet retailing entrepreneur Norishige Namba said while attending a recent gathering for 140 Leaf owners in Tokyo. “We need to preserve nature.”