Google to help green technologies amass scale

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSN0632795720080207

Google to help green technologies amass scale

Wed Feb 6, 2008 8:22pm EST

By Nichola Groom

INDIAN WELLS, California (Reuters) - Google Inc is prepared to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in big commercial alternative-energy projects that traditionally have had trouble getting financing, the executive in charge of its green-energy push said on Wednesday.

The Internet search giant, which has said it will invest in researching green technologies and renewable-energy companies, is eager to help promising technologies amass scale to help drive the cost of alternative energy below the cost of coal.

"There are a lot of technologies that get to the pilot scale and look promising, but the first few large commercial projects deploying those technologies, financing those can be extremely difficult," Dan Reicher said in an interview at the Clean-tech Investor Summit in Indian Wells, California.

"Often the usual equity and debt players will say come back to us when you've demonstrated this at scale," said Reicher, director of climate and energy initiatives for Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org.

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