Google's energy plan

Last night, Google CEO Eric Schmidt outlined an energy plan at the Corporate Eco Forum, a conference of global executives in San Francisco. Schmidt's plan called for the following:

- 100% of US Power to be green in 20 years' time
- Millions of new plug-in hybrids
- A new, robust, sophisticated grid
- Action and leadership from politicians
- Investment from corporations

As far as an energy plan goes, I expected more from Google.

Don't get me wrong - those are all important goals. No one doubts that we'd be better off with green power, plug-in hybrids, or a better grid.

But the important question on the table right now is not "what?" but "how?" How are we going to put electric cars on the road? What is the business model?

Mr. Schmidt's plan, essentially, is: invest. Google itself has done seriously impressive amounts of investing, most recently in geothermal. Mr. Schmidt wants more big corporations and the government to invest generously and wisely.

Simply saying that we need to spend lots of money leaves something to be desired, in my opinion. Whether or not you believe in/agree with ideas like the Pickens Plan or Project Better Place, those are both solid proposals that you can wrap your head around. Eric Schmidt offered no such proposal.

I was a little disappointed, as I was hoping to be blown away by the outside-the-box Google approach to the energy crisis. Knowing Google, though, even if they don't come up with their own approach, they will hopefully continue to recognize and fund such approaches when they discover them.

Courtesty of Earth2Tech