Google has its fingers in lots of pies: search advertising, online video, mobile phones, cloud-computing, browsers, floating data centers–and now government policy creation. Citing a lack of government leadership, Google CEO Eric Schmidt unveiled a sweeping, $4.4 trillion dollar plan to wean the U.S. off of foreign oil and other “dirty” energy sources and become energy-independent by 2030.
The plan involves moving away from coal and instead turning to wind, solar and geothermal power. It also cuts oil use in cars by 40 percent by ramping up usage of hybrid and electric-powered vehicles. Though expensive, the Clean Energy 2030 plan will eventually result in cost savings, Schmidt says, a major Google goal, since it’s becoming increasingly expensive to support the ballooning energy demands of Google’s sprawling data center infrastructure. Schmidt said the plan will pay for itself with $5.5 trillion in savings, noting that: “With this plan, it’s cheaper to fix global warming than it is to ignore it.”
Schmidt says Google decided to unveil its plan now, in time for the U.S. presidential election, because:
“With a new Administration and Congress — and multiple energy-related imperatives — this is an opportune, perhaps unprecedented, moment to move from plan to action.”
Well, at least it’s a plan, which is more than we’ve seen from the federal government in quite some time. For more details, check out Google’s blog posting here.
