![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.greenenergyreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/v1\/img\/cat\/funding.png\" "\\"Funding\\"")
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What has Google done to win the love of green energy geeks?<\/p>\n
The company is all over the place today, with an extensive Q and A<\/a> with company green energy czar Bill Weihl in Green, Inc., and a piece in Green Tech about the company\u2019s new Google Energy subsidiary<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n The search giant\u2019s devotion to sourcing affordable green energy for its data centers and venture capital investments<\/a> in eSolar, BrightSource and geothermal interest AltaRock Energy are all mentioned at length.<\/p>\n Weihl also talks about the company\u2019s 70-20-10 approach to its internal investments on technology, from search to energy. He says.<\/p>\n Seventy percent is the main core services, 20 percent is the next layer of things right around the corner, and 10 percent is just wacky stuff. Some people might look at that and say, ‘I don\u2019t see any relationship between that and Google\u2019s business.’ And then maybe five years later they\u2019ll say, ‘Whoa, it\u2019s a good thing you guys thought about that.’<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This seems great, because Google is a highly successful business that has transformed advertising, email and the Web in general.<\/p>\n But does the company\u2019s track record in its core businesses give us any reason to believe it can do the same to green energy?<\/p>\n Weihl seems to think so, citing the company\u2019s \u201cculture of innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n But some of this talk just smacks of hubris: If Google built a better search engine, why can\u2019t it also develop a cure for cancer or make renewable energy scalable and affordable? Because success in one area does not guarantee, or even correlate with, success in the other.<\/p>\n One need only recall Google-backed AltaRock Energy\u2019s recent abandonment of its Geysers drilling project<\/a> to see how green energy can go wrong.<\/p>\n Green Tech\u2019s story is a more measured account of the company\u2019s attempts to pursue carbon neutrality and be able to buy green energy on the wholesale market, with approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.<\/p>\n But this program too, smacks of overreach.<\/p>\n\n