Google the jolly green giant?
In a move to shake up the nascent renewable energy industry, Google
announced Tuesday it will spend hundreds of millions of dollars
developing new solar and wind technologies while investing in green
tech startups.
The goal, according to Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page:
Send the fossil fuel industry to the coal bin of history by making
renewable energy cheaper than coal, a main culprit in the global
warming crisis.
“Assuming we can develop this, we want to deploy it as broadly as
possible," said Brin during a conference call. “Which means we’ll
license the technology or put it in place ourselves.” Of particular
interest is spreading renewable energy technology to rapidly
industrializing but coal-dependent countries like China and India.
Dubbed RE<C (as in Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal), the
Google initiative will involve hiring green energy engineers and
technologists for an in-house R&D program that will focus on
developing breakthroughs in large-scale solar power plants. At the same
time, Google’s (GOOG) philanthropic arm, Google.org, will invest in
green energy companies. Within a few years Google wants to be able to
produce a gigawatt of clean energy — enough to power a city the size
of San Francisco — at a price that will undercut cheap electricity
from coal-fired plants.
For solar energy companies, the double-headed approach raises the
prospect of both a potential brain-drain to Google and the possibility
of a payday if the search giant goes on a green tech shopping spree.
Page said Google routinely acquires "dozens of companies" and would
apply that strategy to the renewable energy initiative where
appropriate.
John O’Donnell, executive vice president of Silicon Valley solar
energy startup Ausra, said he welcomes Google’s bid to become a green
energy player.
"I think folks who have or are developing technologies that can
deliver RE<C are going to get some speedup in moving to market," he
told Green Wombat. "That’s good news for the sector and for the planet."
Ausra, backed by venture capital heavyweights Vinod Khosla and
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, builds large-scale solar power
plants and recently signed a long-term deal with California utility
PG&E (PG&E). "We’re at a more mainstream engineer/build stage,
and don’t expect hiring problems," O’Donnell added. "Google may
encourage more smart folks to seek careers in clean energy."
Given that a solar power plant can cost anywhere between half a
billion and a billion dollars or more, it appears Google will
concentrate on perfecting solar technology rather than get into the
utility business. "In terms of building power plants, hundreds of
millions of dollars is really not a large sum, so I hope they spend the
money in a highly leveraged way to get the most out of it," says John
Woolard, CEO of solar power plant startup BrightSource Energy, which is negotiating with utilities to supply 1.5 gigawatts of solar electricity.
"We
are very active in the Southwest, and would look forward to working
with a group like Google on building out power plants," he adds. "I
never would have predicted that Google would emerge as a provocative
leader in large scale solar, but I am very excited about the
visibility it brings to an area of technology that we know has real economic potential."
Google already is working with two renewable energy startups. One is
eSolar, a Pasadena, Calif., developer of utility-scale solar thermal
power plants whose chairman is serial tech entrepreneur Bill Gross. The
other is Makani Power, a stealth Bay Area startup that is developing
what it calls "high-altitude wind energy extraction technologies aimed
at the most powerful wind resources." Page and Brin declined to say if
Google has invested in those companies.
PG&E spokeswoman Jennifer Zerwer said RE<C is "clearly a sign
of the growing awareness of and response to climate change — and that
is a positive trend, especially for those concerned about climate
change, as we are. While we did not work directly with Google on this
announcement, we team with them on their energy efficiency and
renewable efforts."
Like other California utilities, such as Southern California Edison
(EIX) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE), PG&E is under the gun
to obtain 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010
and 33 percent by 2020.
The move into green energy is Google’s biggest departure so far from
its core search and advertising business. But Page noted it is not a
change of mission for Google.org, which currently is managing
initiatives to promote plug-in hybrid cars.
Brin and Page took pains to stress that RE<C makes good business
sense, with the potential to profit from Google’s stake in green energy
companies or technology the company develops. Still, acknowledged Brin,
"We’re not going for huge margins. We want to deploy this fast."
"This has the ability to change the world," he added.
Green Wombat 
Nothing like sheer arrogance from the goofballs
at Google. Apparently they think making a good search engine qualifies them as energy engineers. They can hire all the “energy experts” they wish, but they won’t improve on Ausra’s solar thermal technology, certainly not enough to approach the cost of coal generated power, and certainly not within 5 years. That alone indicates just how naiive are the folks at Google. High level wind power has been hashed over for years and will never amount to anything. Ausra and other solar thermal technolgies are all that’s going to be needed
to decarbonize power sufficiently. We don’t need any more Earth-saving heroes : why not spend that money to actually help those that need it rather than trying to become an Earth-saving hero. This is pure PR, nothing but PR.
I believe that Google is developing ways for our future needs. To think that global warming is just a trend or a PR ploy is being naiive! All a person has to do is follow the severe changes in our climate and the weather patterns that follow to know it’s happening now. The vegetables that we will grow in the future will probably be from a greenhouse of some kind. The meat we are eating will either follow the same path as greenhoused or not be in the future. The earth is on the decline and everything alive is going to be affected. Get REAL!
Thank you Google and energy utility companies for coming up with a “greener” way to respond to the constant and ever increasing demands for energy. This may be a PR Campaing, but one that is worth listening to and following. Go Google and PG&E!
It is worth while remembering that Google as a substantial user of power has focused on reduction of consumption in their server farms and located them near cheap power.
They have promised in the past that the company would not hust slide into being a normal corporation.
I think Ausra is right in welcoming Google’s interest rather than feeling protective of their patch.
If the Global Warming is to be attacked it will take many pathways, cleaner generation, updated transmission facilities and net aware appliances leading to the Electronet. For example the storage problem would be a great place to start as a continual blocker in Solar PV, Wind and Ocean .
Large companies like Google and Applied Materials can bring scale to the alternate energy industry of the future.
Regardless of whether or not this is short-term infatuation or legitimate business interest, the industry needs mainstream heavyweights like Google to bring attention and money to the market. There are a lot of lobby and marketing dollars fighting renewable energy and so any large companies that want to jump on the Green side are welcome in my book.