NewWays for Environmental and Social Change

RE <c stands for “Renewable Energy.” The < is indeed the mathematical symbol for “less than.” The C stands for coal. Renewable Energy Less Than Coal. RE<C is Google’s latest answer to global warming. Coal is just too darn cheap for the world to kick the habit quick enough. Well then, let’s make clean energy cheaper than coal. Why didn’t anyone think of this sooner? In Larry Page’s words:

We have gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities by building efficient data centers. We want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating renewable electricity at globally significant scale, and produce it cheaper than from coal.

Read the full announcement of Google’s RE<C initiative here.

Google is promising to sink tens of millions of dollars into its own R&D and to make hundreds of millions of dollars of investments in promising companies and technologies. For starters, it’s called out eSolar Inc. and Makani Power, Inc.

Anyone over at the Department of Energy interested in supporting the RE<C moonshot?