Skip to main content

Google is buying energy from two wind farms that haven't even been built yet

google wind energy part mvd mvd6726308 1 0
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Google’s future is looking … gusty. In the tech giant’s latest demonstration of its dedication to renewable energy, Google has purchased the future output from two wind-power farms, located in Norway and Sweden, which together will ultimately provide energy for the firm’s European data centers. Yes, we’re speaking in the future tense because those wind farms haven’t even been built yet.

When Norway’s Tellenes wind farm is finally completed in late 2017, it will be the largest in the nation (assuming no other larger projects pop up in the interim). Sweden’s 22-turbine wind farm is slated for completion in early 2018.

“Google has been carbon-neutral since 2007 and we are committed to powering 100 percent of our operations with renewable energy sources,” said Marc Oman, EU Energy Lead, Google Global Infrastructure. “Today’s announcement, Google’s first wind power deal in Norway and the largest to date in Europe, is an important step toward that commitment.”

When combined with a smaller wind farm project Google also plans on purchasing in Sweden, the total amount of energy the company has acquired in these latest deals stands at 236 megawatts. There’s no word yet on just how much money the search engine giant spent on these acquisitions.

This is by no means the first time Google has made clear its mission to rely upon eco-friendly, renewable energy sources. Indeed, Google has made three previous green energy deals in Sweden, and these wind-energy acquisitions bring the total amount of renewable energy Google has bought in Europe to an impressive 500MW.

On its Google Green page, the company notes that its goal is 100-percent renewable power, and thus far, Google has “committed to purchase over 2.2 gigawatts of renewable energy — equivalent to taking over 1 million cars off the road and making us the largest non-utility purchaser of renewable energy in the world.” Google also holds the honor of being “one of the largest corporate investors in renewable energy in the world,” having committed to invest almost $2.5 billion in green energy projects.

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Read more
4 simple pieces of tech that helped me run my first marathon
Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar displaying pace information.

The fitness world is littered with opportunities to buy tech aimed at enhancing your physical performance. No matter your sport of choice or personal goals, there's a deep rabbit hole you can go down. It'll cost plenty of money, but the gains can be marginal -- and can honestly just be a distraction from what you should actually be focused on. Running is certainly susceptible to this.

A few months ago, I ran my first-ever marathon. It was an incredible accomplishment I had no idea I'd ever be able to reach, and it's now going to be the first of many I run in my lifetime. And despite my deep-rooted history in tech, and the endless opportunities for being baited into gearing myself up with every last product to help me get through the marathon, I went with a rather simple approach.

Read more