Googling renewable energy

The New York Times has posted an interesting interview with Google Inc.’s “green energy czar” Bill Weihl.

Weihl says the company wants to help make renewable power cheaper than coal – and that it will take more than a climate bill that puts a price on carbon dioxide emissions.

“Putting a price on carbon can help level the playing field, but to actually deploy renewables to the extent that we stop burning coal, I believe that’s only going to happen if they can compete economically without any substantial price on carbon or substantial subsidies, because I don’t think that people will tolerate that. I hope they will; I would be willing to pay that extra cost, but I can afford it. There are lots of people in the developing world who probably would say, I’m not going to pay that,” he said.

Elsewhere, he talks about some specific technologies that are drawing Google’s attention and investment, including high-altitude wind – perhaps very high-altitude.

“The other one that we’re looking at is high-altitude wind — ways to capture the stronger and steadier winds that are at 500 or 1,000 or 2,000 meters high, or potentially even up in the jet stream. Internally, we’ve been looking at taking traditional wind turbines and putting them on much taller towers so you can get to much stronger steadier winds,” he said.