Three Discussions in the San Francisco Bay Area: Energy Efficiency in the Data Center, Biomass, and Solar

My 14-hour work day consisted mainly of a drive to and from the San Francisco Bay Area for three key meetings, the content of which I’ll share briefly. 

I attended several sessions at this year’s Green Grid conference, which focuses on reducing energy cost and eco-impact of large data centers.  The most impressive presentation for my money was delivered by Google.  To put the whole thing into perspective, here’s a company that indexes 30 trillion URLs, delivers the results of 3 billion search queries per day, and does all this and so much more with 100% carbon neutrality.  What they’ve done in reducing energy consumption and sourcing renewable energy is truly inspiring. 

For lunch, I met my colleague Rich Breitbarth, COO of Resource Recovery Corporation; the company specializes in a variety of cutting-edge renewable energy technologies including a unique approach to the thermal anaerobic gasification of biomass.  I’ve introduced Rich/RRC to five parties over the couple of years we’ve known one another, and they’ve  gained significant levels of traction with three of the five; I’m confident that at least one of these deals will materialize over the next few months.  Exciting stuff.  We ate here; how this place only gets 3.5 stars on Yelp is beyond me; I thought it was incredible.  Perhaps the comments that warn: “Don’t go during prime lunch hours because the line is out the door” are telling; yes, the place actually is packed, but that’s a good sign. 

On the way home I went to visit my much-respected friend Jeff Brothers at his new offices in Carmel.  Jeff”s company Sol Orchard is a savvy solar energy developer of significant proportion, and I always learn a great deal from our talks.  This quote from his website speaks to his down-to-Earth pragmatism and good sense:

Global capacity for solar panel production has increased dramatically in the last three years, bringing panel prices down by over 40%. The combined effects of increased tax incentives, decreased costs, and rising concern over global warming have created a “perfect storm” of opportunity to build and finance cost-effective solar power projects.

Three good meetings, but a fair chunk of driving.  Happy to be home.