Tech firms like Google, Amazon push power companies toward solar and wind, a blow to coal

Every time you save a photo to the cloud, buy something on Amazon, open a Google doc or stream a movie, you’re probably pulling electricity from a windmill in Texas or a solar farm in Virginia. In fact, your clicks and taps may have helped build them. Since 2008, renewable energy has gone from 9% to 18% of the U.S. energy mix, according to the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. A big part of that shift stems from tech companies' rapid buildout of cloud storage centers and a move to burnish their public image by vowing they’ll run these centers on sources like wind and solar.

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