Greenvangelical – Enviromental and Ecological News and Tips For A Greener Earth

Flush with cash from is fast rising market cap. Google announced via a press release that via their philanthropic organization Google.org that they are going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the quest to find renewable energy that is cheaper than coal to produce electricity – not in decades but in years, and for a profit.

“We have gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities by building efficient data centers,” said Larry Page, Google Co-founder. “We want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating renewable electricity at globally significant scale, and produce it cheaper than from coal.”

Currently Coal is a primary power source for many, supplying roughly 40% of the world’s electricity. The greenhouse gases it produces are one of the greatest environmental challenges we face in regards to global warming. Even the so called “Clean Coal” initiatives mentioned of late would have practically little effect in developing nations such as China where environmental concerns often take a back seat to feeding their countries voracious appetite for energy. If Google could provide a solution that is cheaper and has the added benefit of being green it would take huge burden off of our need to utilize fossil fuels (such as coal) generate power.

Given Google’s track record with innovation and their seemingly endless supply of cash this is one green initiative that may actually have some legs. We certainly wish them the best.

LED Lighting Fixtures in North Carolina has announced a major breakthrough in LED lighting technology that they claim uses only 5.8 watts of power to produce the same amount of light as that of a comparable 60 watt light bulb.

If this claim is true it heralds a major advance in the technology which many feel has great promise as the next revolution in eco-friendly lighting. While CFC’s help a great deal in reducing our energy usage they also contain Mercury which is a toxic substance that is often released into the environment by careless consumers who don’t dispose of their used CFC light bulbs properly.

The Department of Energy has estimated that LEDs could reduce national energy consumption for lighting by 29% over the next decade and a half.