Google's vision solar power 'cheaper than coal' may come without Google

Google's engineers famously spend 20 per cent of their time on what the company calls '20 per cent projects' - off-the-wall ideas that are 'personal' technologies. Some of these are highly surreal, 'blue sky' projects - and not all of them work. Google Inc has abandoned an ambitious project to make renewable energy cheaper than coal, the latest target of Chief Executive Larry Page's moves to focus the Internet giant on fewer efforts.

Google said on Tuesday that it was pulling the plug on seven projects, including Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal - a rather vague project aimed at producing good-value renewable energy. Google said that it believed other institutions were better positioned to take its renewable energy efforts 'to the next level.'

Google began making investments and doing research into technology to drive down the price of renewable energy in 2007, with a particular focus on solar power technology.

Google's promise of solar power 'cheaper than coal' turns out to be hot air as search giant shelves Green Energy division. In 2009, the company's so-called Green Energy Czar, Bill Weihl, said he expected to demonstrate within a few years working technology that could produce renewable energy at a cheaper price than coal.

'It is even odds, more or less,' Weihl said at the time. 'In three years, we could have multiple megawatts of plants out there.'

A Google spokesman said that Weihl had left Google earlier this month.

source: dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech