Google Puts $100M into Oregon Wind Farm

Continuing its run of massive alternative-energy investments, Mountain View, CA-based Google (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GOOG]]) said in a blog post today that it has invested roughly $100 million in the Shepherds Flat wind farm project under construction south of the Columbia River near Arlington, OR. Developer Caithness Energy, which is headquartered in New York, hopes the facility will produce 845 megawatts of electricity once it’s completed in 2012. Southern California Edison has already contracted to buy the electricity. Google recently invested $168 million in BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah solar concentrator project in California’s Mojave Desert, bringing its total clean energy investments to more than $350 million. The company said the Shepherds Flat project “is exciting to us not only because of its size and scale, but also because it uses advanced technology…This will be the first commercial wind farm in the U.S. to deploy, at scale, turbines that use permanent magnet generators—tech-speak for evolutionary turbine technology that will improve efficiency, reliability and grid connection capabilities.”

Author: Wade Roush

Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco. Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.) I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats. My personal site: waderoush.com My social media coordinates: Twitter: @wroush Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/