Can Google Transform Green Energy?
What has Google done to win the love of green energy geeks? The company is all over the place today, with an extensive Q and A with company green energy czar Bill Weihl in Green, Inc., and a piece in Green Tech about the company’s new Google Energy subsidiary. The search giant’s devotion to sourcing affordable green energy for its data centers and venture capital investments in eSolar, BrightSource and geothermal interest AltaRock Energy are all mentioned at length. Weihl also talks about the company’s 70-20-10 approach to its internal investments on technology, from search to energy. He says. 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’t see any relationship between that and Google’s business.’ And then maybe five years later they’ll say, ‘Whoa, it’s a good thing you guys thought about that.’ This seems great, because Google is a highly succ
