Google out to revolutionize the world of energy

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — In the carports at Google Inc.'s headquarters, power cords dangle above parking spots, ready for the day when electric cars are commonplace.

Already, office lights and computers get their power partly from 9,200 solar panels that cover almost every rooftop here, which Google claims is the largest solar array ever installed by a U.S. corporation.

Recycling bins are everywhere. There's even a garden where the corporate chefs grow vegetables in water-saving bins called "EarthBoxes."

But the Internet search giant's green goals extend well beyond its sprawling "Googleplex."

Through a string of ambitious initiatives, Google and its philanthropic arm, Google.org, are trying to do nothing less than change the way the world gets and uses energy.

The company's energy-related programs wouldn't seem out of place in a presidential stump speech:

— Find a way to make renewable sources of energy — solar, wind, geothermal — cheaper than coal.

— Make electric cars mainstream.

— Fund research for predicting droughts and other climate change disasters.

But these are no empty campaign promises. Google is backing up its plans with money and corporate muscle.

Last September, it issued a $10 million request for proposals for electric car research and development. Google wants to use electric cars itself, but also wants to advance the technology to make them more affordable for everyone.

In November, Google co-founder Larry Page announced plans to spend "tens of millions of dollars" to fund research into making renewable energy cheaper than coal. Its goal is to build renewable power plants that can produce 1 gigawatt of electricity — enough to power the city of San Francisco. Partly, the juice is for itself. But like the electric car program, Google also wants to speed up technology behind renewable energy for the rest of the world too.

In January, it invested $10 million in a start-up company that retrofits oil- and coal-based power plants to run on solar energy.

It also has pumped $10 million into a company that's developing high-altitude wind generation technology, has granted $600,000 to researchers developing climate change prediction systems, and has spent millions more internally researching better ways to get and use electricity.

At a clean energy investment summit in California this month, Google executives told attendees they expect to invest hundreds of millions more into clean energy projects in coming years.

So why is a Web company putting so much money into energy and saving the environment?

It's not just altruism.

Like other companies, "Google's motivation is profit," said Pratap Chatterjee, an author and program manager at Corpwatch.org, a business watchdog group. "I'm not saying what Google is doing is bad -- but they're not going to do something that's unprofitable."

Along with being a big investor in energy research, Google is a very big user of energy. Its massive data centers, which in the United States alone stretch from Atlanta to Oregon, suck up enough power each year to keep the lights on in a small country.

"It's in our best interest to find cheap electricity to use," said Robyn Beavers, Google's director of green business operations. "It's hedging for our future."

Google also expects to get other types of return on its energy investments.

In announcing its renewables-cheaper-than-coal program — in Googlespeak, RE Beavers, who was the personal assistant to Page and fellow Google co-founder Sergey Brin before taking over the company's green business initiatives almost three years ago, said every proposal she makes "needs to make sense" financially.

That said, none of her energy proposals have been turned down, Beavers added.

"The biggest stress of my job is that I'm not doing enough," she said. "One day our CEO told me I'm not making his life difficult enough, basically."

Clearly, Google's top leaders are personally interested in the environment and clean energy. Both Page and Brin support environmental causes and have owned Toyota Prius hybrid cars (although they also bought a Boeing 767 widebody jet for personal travel). CEO Eric Schmidt's wife founded one environmental group called the 11th Hour Project and is a trustee of another, the National Resources Defense Council.

There's another benefit that Google gets from its green projects. Employees typically like to work for companies they consider progressive and doing public good.

"This is a probably a very smart move toward attracting talent," said Andrew Hoffman, professor of sustainable enterprise at the University of Michigan.

Larry Brilliant, executive director of Google.org, said part of Google's bigger goal is to serve as an example for others.

"Maybe by example, we can stimulate the interest of others," Brilliant said in announcing $25 million in grants and investments in energy, health and other causes in January.

Of course some say Google could and should do much more.

Daniel Brandt, who runs the Web sites google-watch.org and scroogle.org from his home in San Antonio, Texas, said he thinks Google could do more for the environment if it simply better managed the electricity it uses at its server farms. Part of Google's green motivation, he suggested, may involve guilt.

"My impression is that if they weren't (investing in energy projects), it would be embarrassing," Brandt said. "They have to do something along those lines, but I think what they're doing is probably overhyped."

How much difference can one company make in helping solve the world's energy and environmental woes anyway?

For a company that can claim it already forever changed how people use the Internet, perhaps a lot.

But though its pockets are deep and its ambitions wide, Google or any other company can only do so much, said Eban Goodstein, an environmental activist and economics professor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore.

"It's really the government's role to jump-start industries that make a real difference," Goodstein said, adding that major scientific breakthroughs ranging from aviation to the Internet all got their start as government programs.

"Google is great -- but they just can't do it at the level it needs to be done at," he said.

THE GREENING OF GOOGLE

CHEAPER THAN COAL

In November, Google and its Google.org philanthropic arm announced a program to help develop renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and geothermal and make them less expensive than coal. Executives say they plan to spend tens of millions of dollars on grants and other investments.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

In September, Google and Google.org issued a $10 million request for proposals for development of better plug-in electric vehicles.

SOLAR

Last June, the company switched on what it says is one of the biggest solar arrays in the world. Solar panels at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters can generate 1.6 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 1,000 homes.

RENEWABLE ENERGY

By 2012, Google wants to get 50 megawatts of electricity (enough to power 50,000 homes) from renewable energy sources. Ultimately it wants foster the production of 1 gigawatt of renewable electricity, enough to power the city of San Francisco.

SUSTAINABLE BUILDING

Google is retrofitting many of its existing buildings to become more energy-efficient. With new construction, it pressures suppliers to use so-called "cradle-to-cradle" materials designed to never end up in landfills.

Bob Keefe is a west coast correspondent for Cox Newspapers.