Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Googles clean energy vision

In this podcast, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google speaks for 30 minutes about his vision of the future of energy supply. He provides an excellent summary of the general vision of “de-carbonization” which he shares with a large part of the Californian clean tech venture capital community. This includes an intelligent power grid, massive investments in solar, taxes and quotas on CO2 emissions and a tax policy that doesn’t support the fossil fuel based logic of the past.
All in all a very good example of how hard American entrepreneurial spirit in combination with great amounts of capital can pull, once they catch a glimpse of the Next Great Thing.
Eric Schmidt does not dismiss that Google could enter the energy generation or distribution business – he compares a future intelligent power grid to the internet.
Thought provoking, inspiring – and a reminder that cleantech is moving forward fast.