Founders Dreams Turns To Smoke
IN a somehwhat bizarre decision, no doubt empowered by their search engine success, the billions of dollars burning a hole in their pockets, and a sense of infallibility, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are taking the web company into the energy business.
They’ll be using Google money to do this rather than their personal wealth and have set up a subsidiary called RE<C. Their aim is to produce electricity from alternative sources at a lower cost that coal-fired power stations.
"We have gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities by building efficient data centres," said Page. "We want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating renewable electricity at globally significant scale, and produce it cheaper than from coal."
Hundreds of millions of Google dollars will be invested in this scheme, “which will begin with a significant effort on solar thermal technology, and also investigate enhanced geothermal systems and other areas.”
Page commented: Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal (and) are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades.
“If we meet this goal … we expect this would be a good business for us."
As usual, the release concluded with a summary of the Google business:
“Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets.
“Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users.”
Please, can anyone tell me where it says “solar thermal technology” company?
Search Engine Room: December 6, 2007
