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Science Google joins green energy industry
Science Google joins green energy industry | Google joins green energy industry |
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| by Stephen Withers | |
| Wednesday, 28 November 2007 | |
  
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Science Discussions"There has been tremendous work already on renewable energy," said Larry Page, Google co-founder and president of products. "Technologies have been developed that can mature into industries capable of providing electricity cheaper than coal. Solar thermal technology, for example, provides a very plausible path to providing renewable energy cheaper than coal. We are also very interested in further developing other technologies that have potential to be cost-competitive and green. We are aware of several promising technologies, and believe there are many more out there." Google's RE<C initiative will involve "tens of millions of dollars" to be spent on R&D and related investments during 2008. Longer term, the company expects to invest "hundreds of millions of dollars in breakthrough renewable energy projects which generate positive returns." As part of RE<C, Google is presently hiring a director of green business strategy and operations, a head of renewable energy engineering, a renewable energy engineer, and a director of "other" (to head the company's non-core business activities). According to Page, the company's goal is to produce on gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. "We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades," he said. "We have gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities by building efficient data centres [and] we want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating renewable electricity at globally significant scale," Page added. The company's philanthropic arm is already funding research in this area, including work with solar thermal company eSolar and high-altitude wind power developer Makani Power. "Google.org's hope is that by funding research on promising technologies, investing in promising new companies, and doing a lot of R&D ourselves, we may help spark a green electricity revolution that will deliver breakthrough technologies priced lower than coal," said Larry Brilliant, executive director of Google.org. |
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