Google to Outspend US Government on Environment
It is always a good day for me when I get to write about Google. But the day gets even better when I get to combine Google with the environment; something that happens more often than you would imagine. With my ongoing report on the US 09 Budget, I’m well aware of just how little the US Government is going to be putting in to the environment.
Let’s just make a note here – Green Options could invest more in the environment than the US Federal Government is planning.
A report is circulating regarding my favorite tech company, that they are pledging themselves to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in to big alternative-energy projects started by commercial businesses. They plan to focus on projects that have traditionally had a hard time getting financing. Thus, I would imagine the majority of such projects will get financing, considering Bush’s position on such things.
The executive in charge of their environmental push, Dan Reicher, said Wednesday that “There are a lot of technologies that get to the pilot scale and look promising, but the first few large commercial projects deploying those technologies, financing those can be extremely difficult.”
“Often the usual equity and debt players will say come back to us when you’ve demonstrated this at scale,” said Reicher, director of climate and energy initiatives for Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org.
Reicher referred to the “Valley of Death,” a term used in the technology industry to describe the difference between successfully developing a new technology and amassing scale. This is something that Google is aware of, and their pledge to invest such moneys as they can in to projects is hoped to alleviate this problem.
“When you get to building a commercial-scale project in the energy world, you can be looking easily at hundreds of millions or even across the billion dollar threshold,” Reicher said. “Over years we’ll be looking at hundreds of millions of dollars. So we’re very mindful of the Valley of Death.”
Google has already committed large amounts of finances to various green projects, both within their own company and without. They’ve committed $20 million to funding start-up firms researching solar-thermal and high-altitude wind power, and another $10 million to Pasadena, California-based eSolar Inc to support research and development on solar thermal power.
Authors Note - if you want to weigh Google’s proposed spending, check out my three part series on the US Budget. Check out Budget 09: How’d the Environment Do – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Reuters via ENN - Google to help green technologies amass scale
Photo Courtesy of End User via Flickr
Bush is idiot !
@ Wes
India’s Air Car was invented in the private sector. I’d hope some of you idiots realize when you talk about the Federal government investing “billions” of dollars, it isn’t THEIR dollars, it’s all of ours (or borrowed from China on our behalf and our children will inherit the debt & interest). I’d also hope all of you realize we are already hugely indebted to foreign nations, so appropriating money to be involved in deficit spending will only dig our grave deeper. In conclusion, I hope you LOVE the environment, because if we keep down this road to bankruptcy, we’ll all be living our lives out in the woods and making due with what we can.
Sorry, I mean India’s Air Car was invented in the French private sector, with no government subsidies, and it was acquired by an Indian motor company.
The US has a lot of money that is not being used wisely, no surprise there. However i would suggest rather that the citizens themselves throw money together to build solar cell feilds on the roofs of their community buildings to cut costs and use those to build electric sub stations which store electrical energy at night and release it back to the local grid durring the day when its more expensive. Also mandating all business to shut off excess lights in buildings which are empty at night.
Switch all the street lights to led bulbs and use motion sensors to control them. heck use otion sensors with delayed timers in all rooms to cut power consumption. i currently have LED lightbulbs which only use watts in my home and even a few 15 watt energy saving light bulbs as well. i think more of these could be adopted as well as a lot of new tools which are available and in fact have been available for a while now. awareness is only now increasing because of the increased cost of energy and fuel where people are being forced to face their long term costs of living.
I like what Google is doing by taking their own initiative to tackle some of the issues however sing they have such powerful tools such as advertisment capital they should be helping increse awareness of these products through Advertisments online and on TV as well.
Mr. Hill,
Though I’m guessing your choice of title for this article was aimed more at curb appeal than substance, it has obviously misled a number of your readers into fervent and baseless anti-government bravado. The U.S. government actually spends more on environmental intiatives through subsidies or direct research than the entire rest of the world’s nations combined. If you look at the majority of ‘independent’ or ‘private sector’ green energy research and development projects ongoing (be they solar, wind, tidal, etc), you will find that 80% are underwritten by DOE, state or federal agencies, and that’s only for projects on American soil. Though numbers are a poor indicator of actual involvement, OceanPower Ltd (the inventors of a tidal energy unit called the PowerBouy) has been almost completely underwritten by federal or state governmental programs, in their case New Jersey, California and the U.S. Navy, their subsidies and grants to date for the PowerBouy total in the 100’s of millions. That’s not counting the UK government’s contract with the same company to build tidal farms off of Scotland, another 80m for R&D and fielding this year.
The FY09 allocations for environmental spending are actually still in draft, and will remain so for a while as it is an election year. If you look at historic trends, nearly every congressional budget allocation or financial proposal follows a curve proportionate to the FY deadlines, more so during an election cycle where lawmakers are loathe to commit early to initiatives of any kind, be they social or environmental. Regardless, those allocations have nothing to do at ALL with DOE budgeting for both operations and research intiatives, both of which are ridiculously huge by comparison to anything save the defense budget.
I only ask you and your readers to remember that the government, with all its flaws and filibuster, is still the reason that we even HAVE the solar panel (developed under a government contract for, that’s right, NASA, by a Michigan technology firm, please look up the patents if you like), and is still the largest contributor to environmental research and development initiatives on the globe. Even the EU, who has since bypassed the U.S. in its use of renewable energy sources, was GIVEN that technology by the U.S. C’mon people…do your research. Private sector entities, most of whose fortunes were built on the backs of government-funded programs, are happy now to bask in the sunlight of philanthropic praise - however they never forget, and neither should you, where they got their start, and who still signs the bottom line.
Cheers,
Rob
I might tepidly agree with what Carlos wrote if corporations would actually invest in their communities and try to be more ethical in their practices. But the reality is Google’s investment in alternative energy is a very rare event. In our hypocritical market-based economy, the primary goal of big business is to generate more wealth, for themselves and for stockholders. Social causes are far down the list of priorities, and often just for PR and other media events. Personally, I believe government should be investing heavily in the public infrastructure, along with corporations, because in the long run that’s what will make for a more unified and stable society.
While Carlos may have over generalized the government’s role, Retroboy is certainly thinking in the wrong direction. Protecting the environment is a no-brainer - don’t shit where you eat. However, why should Big Gov spend billions of tax payer dollars on researching commercial products? That’s why companies have R&D departments, and Universities fund experiments. A simplier solution is through sensible taxation. Heavier taxes on pollution generating technologies and no tax on zero-emission technologies (or at least until the company is on it’s feet). This provides a big push for current industry to migrate to clean sources, and opens the market for newcomers. Investors would like the system too, since they have a chance for higher returns if the new company is tax-exempt for say, the first ten years of operation.
More importantly though, I think Google is getting ready to fund a commercial-scale fusion power plant. The late, great Robert Bussard gave a lecture at the Google Campus a while ago on his company’s research through a US Naval grant. Essentially, they figured out all the physics of building a fusion reactor based on the principle of inertial electro-static confinement. He said that a full-scale plant could be build for around $200 million dollars, and if fueled with hydrogen-boron would produce no harmful radiation. After the project was de-funded due to lack of money (Iraq war sponged it all up) the equipment was sold to SpaceDev, who also hired on most of Bussard’s staff.
Go to google earth or maps… and take a look at the google campus the whole thing is covered in solar pannels
Nice to see what google is doing but they have done nothing in Africa as i can see.
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