Emailing "Google Explores Solar Thermal"
When you're as big as Google, I guess you can make big bets without really putting the company itself at risk. Google's investment in YouTube, for example, leaves many business analysts scratching their heads in wonderment because of the difficulties YouTube is experiencing in making a dime. That wealth, however, allows Google to act almost like an angel investor, selectively picking a series of companies or technologies to invest in and hoping that some will pay off while acknowledging that many won't.
One example is Google's recent announcement that it's developing its own solar thermal technology to power its massive data centers. It's not a formal announcement, but the news came in a Reuters
interview with the company's green energy czar, Bill Weihl. A solar thermal facility uses mirrors to reflect sunlight to a substance that is then heated to generate steam and power turbines (just like a regular power plant, which uses coal to create the steam). It's widely considered cheaper than using solar photocells, which directly convert light to electricity (bypassing the steam and turbine stage). Like photocells, though, thermal plants presumably have the same electricity storage and distribution problems. According to Weihl, Google is
experimenting with different substances for the mirror and substrates, hoping to drive the cost of the electricity produced to the same level as coal-fired plants.
What's unusual about this news is that Google is
directly involved, hiring solar engineers to work exclusively on this as part of its Renewable Energy Less Than Coal Project. Google is also an investor in several solar startups that potentially might compete with this project. What's more likely, though, is that Google is simply hedging its bets, trying to use its wealth and influence to spur development far and wide. If this project proves successful, for example, Google could potentially revolutionize data center power sources (and move most of you to the desert).