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
[...] of their environmental footprint, Google launched a massive renewable energy investment program last year, making Google one of the most eco-friendly destinations on the web. So how green is [...]
Good to see companies aren’t waiting on government to realize there is money to be saved and made in what I would call the coming “green energy revolution”.
Businesses and individuals will and are seeing the benefit of going green.
I like different opinions and intellectual/verbal confrontation, though.
Just a few facts, which could influence our thinking about the topic:
- American Government-Federal Government and all of its agencies serve to all American people and is fully responsible to American people
- a percentage, DOE spends for renewable energy sources is quite MISERABLE, comparable to cash and other resources DOE spends for supporting coal, nuclear, oil/gas
- budget proposal is $3 Trillion!!! of every Tax payer dollar
- American President and most important people in Washington are personally involved in oil or nuclear industry as important shareholders, and as such highly motivated to keep their investments/businesses running as well as possible
- power lobbies and their presence/influence in Washington, such as oil, nuclear, coal, are still far to strong
- price of oil broke the magic line of $100 per barrel, which could represent a point of no return for all ‘dirty’ - not Eco sustainable energy resources
- Britain is spending more than $150 billion just for clearing up highly radioactive nuclear rubbish from old nuclear power plants (that’s not a new quality investment, but just ‘a cover up’ for old sins - storing a bit deeper into the earth) and almost nothing - in percentage points, towards renewable
- USA is the world leader in solar power research
- the cost of one project, which boost the efficiency rate of solar cells to 50% !!! in regular conditions was just $13 million!
(Why they haven’t been rewarded by $1 billion, which they certainly deserve? - that would have been just 4 days of the cost of the war in Iraq?)
Thanks, Carlos.
First, The Government doesn’t earn money. It doesn’t have any money of it’s own. It’s not your wealthy benevolent uncle who can buy you a tricycle when your feeling blue. The money the Government spends is either taxpayers’ money or a loan from the Federal Reserve, and, even if the principal is never repaid, the interest is paid with taxpayers’ money.
That said, It’s important to notice what is happening with companies like Google and how good it is for the taxpaying public. Companies like Google know who their market is probably better than anyone. They realize that there’s a stigma attached to businesses that get big and begin to dominate a market. They know they can maintain the respect of their market by giving back. most companies these day will try to do that with “cash back rewards” or “special member discounts” or some such crap, but Google has picked up on what’s more important to us. I’m not saying this is merely a market strategy for Google, but it shows how an educated public can influence large scale businesses to do good.
Furthermore, if the taxpaying public had less taxes to pay and more money to invest or spend on their own, they would have the opportunity to “vote with their dollar” while spending money on goods and services they are going to purchase anyway, and choose to do business with companies that they feel have the public’s well-being in mind.
Google takes over the world!! Go Google Go!!!