Google gets into energy - wants clean energy cheaper than coal

Google announced it's going to invest hundreds of millions in renewable energy. The firm says it intends to develop and stimulate the creation of renewable energy technologies that are cheaper than coal-generated power. Within years, not decades, the firm wants to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy.

Ths search giant is going to hire hire engineers and energy experts to investigate alternative energie technologies like solar, geothermal and wind power.

The effort is aimed at reducing Google’s own mounting energy costs to run its vast data centers, while also fighting climate change and helping to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“We see technologies we think can mature into very capable industries that can generate electricity cheaper than coal,” said Larry Page, a Google founder and president of products, “and we don’t see people talking about that as much as we would like.”

The initiative, which Google is calling RE < C, using mathematical symbols to denote “renewable energy cheaper than coal,” will be based in Google’s research and development group.

Source: NY Times