Google Plans Include Becoming Your Utility Company

Google made it known today it is going to make a massive investment in alternative energy.

From www.AskAME.com today…

by Steve Laurvick

When Google talks people would be wise to listen and so when we saw the Google announcement on the financial wires of its plans to invest in renewable energy we investigated.

Announced was a decision to “pour hundreds of millions of dollars” into alternative energy solutions. They have named the initiative Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal (REC). The money will come from the internet giant’s philanthropic arm but Google co-founder Larry Page has the midas touch,”we are going to be in the (electricity) business in a very big way,” Page said. “We should be able to make a lot of money from this.”

Be assured REC isn’t going to be about changing light bulbs or programming conservation into the workplace. Google is partnering with two startups with big ideas eSolar, Inc. and Makani Power Inc.

Bill Gross is the Chairman of eSolar. Haven’t heard of him? Well you should, as the CEO of Idealab, a “technology incubator” as eSolars’ web site (www.esolar.com) calls the parent company, Mr. Gross is responsible for the creation and sale of Overture to Yahoo, Picasa to Google, CarsDirect & a “lifelong proponent of solar power. While still in college, Mr. Gross founded Solar Devices, a firm that sold plans and kits for solar energy products.”

Suffice to say Gross and Page speak the same language and its spelled G-R-E-E-N. And lots of it.

The eSolar website lays out its ambitious but very simple plan as one of creating massive solar arrays that will operate as utilities. If current fossil fuel prices hold up its hard to see how that is not acheivable with the backing of worlds largest marketing company.

The other startup, Makani Power, has plans which are more vague. The stated goal is to harness the high velocity winds of the upper atmosphere. How they intend to do that is not laid out on their website (www.makanipower.com) but Google intends to help them figure out how to “produce energy at an unsubsidized real cost significantly below that of the least expensive coal-fired power plants.” According to the Vision statement on the Makani Power site, “high-altitude wind has the largest energy per square foot. Capturing a small fraction of the global high-altitude wind energy flux could be sufficient to supply the current energy needs of the globe.”

If, as the eSolar site predicts,”Worldwide electricity consumption is projected to double by the year 2040.” By that time a substantial number of us will likely be writing our monthly checks to Google subsidiaries eSolar or Makani Power instead of SDG& E, ConEd or Southern California Edison.

Filed under: Solar News Items

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