Google Invests $150 Million into eSolar
By NunoXEI • May 3rd, 2008 • Category: Blog
Google has invested $130 million into eSolar, a company whose basic solar power strategy — using sunlight-reflecting mirrors to generate steam — was all but abandoned in the 1980s, and has recently caught investors’ attention again.
The money, from Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, and venture capital firms Idealab and Oak Investment Partners, will go towards the construction of eSolar’s first functioning solar power plant.
“ESolar’s long term is to become a viable replacement for all fossil fuel,” said Robert Rogan, a Cal Tech Ph.D. and eSolar’s executive vice president for corporate development. “The reason Google invested in us is that they saw the potential of this technology to beat the cost of using coal.”
The company’s core technology is an implementation of concentrating solar power, which uses mirrors to turn liquid into steam that drives standard electricity-generating turbines. CSP, also sometimes called solar thermal, is considered a promising replacement for fossil fuel power plants, particularly the coal plants that generate more than half of U.S. electricity. It’s been around for decades, last seeing popularity in the early 1980s, when oil hit an inflation-adjusted price of $82 per barrel. Higher oil prices make fossil fuel plants more costly, making it easier for alternative technologies to compete. (Oil is currently trading for more than $115 a barrel, its highest level ever.)
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NunoXEI is Co-Founder of TheGreenRocket.com and self proclaimed internet-surfing-guru. You can find his personal blog at NunoXEI.com, the home of his podcast, The Lowdown, his comic-related properties and his webcomic, Republic Domain.
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We don’t have a choice. They have to be. We need to start allocating state and federal lands in desert areas for massive solar installations. Google is making a wise investment and doing good with their money. But we need government support. Let’s hope the next admin gets it together. Right now, we’re in Lame Duck Limbo.
Ya, you’d think with all the actual open lands across many regions–the prairies of Canada for example–they could build acres and acres of “windmill fields” or “solar panel fields” in areas where agriculture is not possible or viable (or necessary).
I just heard today that Portugal has solar panel fields in the arid regions on southern Portugal and that there is talk about placing windmills high in the mountains to generate energy…
Why does it seem like Europe is adapting faster to these mass-population alternative energy opportunities faster than North-America? I’ve been to Europe 6 times in the last 2 years and I’ve only started hearing about the “green movement” picking up it’s pace THIS time around. I’ve been hearing green talk in Canada and the States for YEARS. Makes a guy wonder what exactly holds up production of these great ideas sometimes back home.
Absolutely we need government support for alternative energy to start taking off. As soon as they get more than just their toes wet in the green waters of the environmental movement, it will become more standard in people’s eyes and they may be less hesitant to invest in green energy.
After the next U.S election I have hope that there will be some pretty big changes made with regards to environmental policy…especially if the democrats (most likely Obama) win. and if the U.S gov’t starts taking action, other countries (Canada?) will take suit.
I was thinking about the desert land in Australia and how much sun they get (potential for solar panels)… and my thoughts turned to the ecosystems there. Desert land has incredible ecosystems… I wonder what kind of impact a solar panel would have on it?