Velcroed together, stacked in racks, and lined up in back-to-back rows, the servers require a half-watt in cooling for every watt they use in processing, and Google leads the field in squeezing more servers into less space. Based on projected industry standard of 500 watts per square foot in 2011, the Dalles plant can be expected to demand about 103 megawatts of electricity–enough to power 82,000 homes, or a city the size of Tacoma, Washington.”

– Keyword: Evil, Harper’s Magazine, March 2008

You can make money without doing evil. You can also make it without using so much fossil fuel. That’s the word from Google, which today unveiled a $4.4 trillion plan it says will reduce the nation’s dependence on coal and oil.

Google’s “Clean Energy 2030” plan as its described by Jeffery Greenblatt, Google.org’s climate and energy-technology manager, proposes to wean the U.S. off of coal and oil for electricity generation by 2030 by relying on power from wind, nuclear and geothermal sources instead. It also calls for raising the standard car fuel efficiency from 31 mpg to 45 mpg and increasing usage of plug-in hybrids and pure electric cars.

It’s an ambitious plan, to say the least. Expensive too–a jaw-dropping $4.4 trillion dollars. But Google (GOOG) believes it could generate net savings of $1 trillion over its 22-year span. It might even save our children’s grandchildren from a world in which they rove post-apocalyptic desert wastelands scavenging for food and gasoline, terrorized by marauding biker gangs. And who could place a monetary value on that, eh?

“We see a huge opportunity for the nation to confront our energy challenges,” Greenblatt explained. “In the process we will stimulate investment, create jobs, empower consumers and, by the way, help address climate change.”

And lest we think Google is hiding its own self interest (Read: Lower data center electric bills) behind a $4.4 trillion dollar mask of altruism, consider this remark from Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who spoke at an event in San Francisco Wednesday evening: “We’re going to likely consume more energy,” he said. “We’d like the prices to go down … We save a lot of money when prices go down. It’s good for shareholders, good for earnings.”

And in the end, what’s wrong with approaching clean energy from a capitalist position? We certainly approach dirty energy in that way.

To keep you abreast of tech news while he’s away, we’re compiling a daily digest of 10 must-read tech stories. Our Tech 10 appears below.

1. Google U-Store-It: The online search leader is prepping a service enabling users to store on the company’s computers any files (text, music, video) kept on personal-computer hard drives, reports The Wall Street Journal. The password-protected system would allow Internet access to the files from any computer or mobile device.
2. Verizon Opens Wide and Says ‘Yah’: In a sign that “U.S. phone carriers’ iron grip on the wireless industry may finally be loosening,” (according to The Wall Street Journal) Verizon Wireless will open its network to wireless devices, software and applications not offered by the company. Verizon plans a conference to detail “the standards and get input from the development community” about how so-called “BYO phones” will be allowed on its network early in 2008.
3. MySpace Feeds You and Your Friends: The social-networking giant will unveil on Thursday “Friend Updates,” its news-feed feature. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch explains it all for you.
4. InterActiveCorp to Activate China Web Site: IAC/InterActiveCorp plans to invest $100 million on an Internet start-up in China, shipping its Ask.com search engine to that hot market as well, according to The Wall Street Journal.
5. Intuit Grabs Homestead: The financial software firm has paid $170 million for the small-business Web service provider, a move Eric Eldon of VentureBeat posits will help the aging Intuit “stay relevant to the growing number of businesses that rely on Web-based services.”
6. Reduce the Price, and They Will Buy: Deep discounts in its PlayStation 3 video-game console reaped high sales for Sony post-Thanksgiving. The 245% jump in North American PS3 units sold, according to Bloomberg, reflects price cuts Sony initiated to boost the console’s competitive edge against Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii.
7. NBC Universal Sees the TiVo Light: The broadcaster announced today that it had signed a deal to become the first of the major TV networks to use TiVo’s viewership research and interactive ad products, according to The Wall Street Journal.
8. Yahoo Flubs Cyber Monday: Outages plagued the online company yesterday during heavy holiday traffic on Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Thanksgiving when many online merchants offer discounts to woo consumers. Tech Check’s Jim Goldman says Yahoo scrambled throughout the day to fix the problem, but thousands of merchants were adversely affected.
9. An End to Coal in Our Lifetime? Google is mobilizing its considerable resources to eliminate one resource: coal-generated electricity. The initiative, known as RE<C, will focus on solar, wind, geothermal and other potential breakthrough technologies. But there’s no guarantee Google’s push to develop electricity from renewable energy resources, says Doug Caverly of WebProNews“will have more luck than however many corporations and inventors have already tried their hands at this sort of thing.”
10. Tiffany Miffed at eBay: The renowned retailer of fine jewelry has accused the online auctioneer of abetting the sales of counterfeits, reports the New York Times. Tiffany’s lawsuit seeks to force eBay to change its auction procedures, which, if successful, could jeopardize eBay’s business model.

–posted by Associate Editor John Sullivan

While refining a radio-frequency cancer therapy he’d developed, Kanzius noticed that the treatment, which uses high-energy radio waves to destroy cancer cells that have been “tagged” with nano particles, had another unexpected application as an alternative energy source. Turns out if you point the Kanzius “Non-Invasive Radio Wave Treatment” at a bit of saltwater, it will burst into flame–one whose temperature reportedly exceeds 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Apparently, Kanzius’s invention–which uses just 200 watts of directed radio waves, not quite enough electricity to light three 75-watt light bulbs–breaks down the hydrogen-oxygen bond in the water, igniting the hydrogen.

“This was an experiment to see if I could heat saltwater, and instead of heat, I got fire,” Kanzius told WPBF. “You could take plain saltwater out of the sea, put it in containers and produce a violent flame that could heat generators that make electricity, or provide other forms of energy. If I were to be bold enough, I think one day you could power an automobile with this, eventually.”