The hunting energy

by Alessio Sciurpa



Last month Google, the search engine accused of consuming huge amounts of electricity has recently created a subsidiary called Google Energy, in order to manage their intermediary activities, as reported by The New York Times. The Mountain View company has already sought approval from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to buy and sell energy, and said did no have specific plans to become an energy trader and that its primary goal was to gain flexibility for buying more renewable energy for its power-hungry data centers.
Certainly the renewable energy market has undergone a substantial acceleration in the last year, which is likely to accelerate in 2010.
Hunting energy of the future is also the subject of the short film "Energy Hunter" by Albert Arizza, a little bit dated, but in recent days has been enjoying a rebound in the net.
In seven minutes, the young spanish filmmaker brings us into a future where human lives far from the planet Earth became a wasteland made up of hostile deserts and mountains covered with snow, where only the hardiest species survive.
Arizza's narration is fluid, easy and, above all, universal. The total absence of dialogue and the use of a soundtrack on which there is no need to spend words (Pink Floyd) facilitate the dissemination and understanding of the intrinsic message of the excellent Arizza's work: man, from ancient time, is continually looking for additional and more powerful sources of energy (from the steam engine, to nuclear) and therefore returns to planet Earth using its advanced technology to capture the energy of which they desperately need. Paradoxically, this energy is none other than natural origin.
The message is clear and Arizza delights us with references to quixotic and the "Spanish Golden Age”: as Don Quijote by Cervantes was a warning to the inadequacy of the intellectuals of the time to face the new times, and a metaphor for a relentless pursuit and return to a lost purity, so "Energy Hunter" wants to be a warning to us all.