This is interesting… Google is now investing money in renewable energy companies.
Google said it would spend hundreds of millions of dollars, part of that to hire engineers and energy experts to investigate alternative energies 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
I know it takes a lot of energy to run all their servers and with their new cheap computer soon-to-be on the market, more and more people will be running computers and essentially using more of Google’s resources. Is Google spreading themselves too thin though?
“My first reaction when I read about this was, ‘Is this a joke?’” said Jordan Rohan of RBC Capital Markets. “I’ve written off Google’s competition as a threat to Google’s long-term market share gains. But I haven’t written off Google’s own ability to stretch too far and try to do too much. Ultimately, that is the biggest risk in the Google story.”
Robert Peck of Bear Stearns agreed that “the headlines were a little scary at first” and said investors were initially worried that this was another example of Google “trying to bite off more than they can chew.”
But Google needs to get bigger, or else they are dieing. In Page’s words:
Mr. Page, in an interview, said that failing to investigate new businesses could hurt Google more than any potential distraction. “If you look at companies that don’t do anything new,” he said, “they are guaranteed never to get bigger. They miss a lot of opportunities and they miss the next big things.”
But Sergey clarified: the effort was motivated in part by the company’s frustrating search for clean, cheap energy alternatives.
I guess they just want to save some bucks on their energy spending.
Read the full article here: Google’s Next Frontier: Renewable Energy