From the beginning, it was clear that renewable en¬ergy would be a centerpiece of DotOrg’s efforts. Long before Brilliant arrived, Sergey Brin and Larry Page were big believers in the urgent need to replace fossil fu¬els. They have championed plug-in hybrid vehicles and installed i.6 megawatts of solar panels at the Googleplex in Mountain View – one of the largest installations on any corporate campus in America. Filed under: JoomlaJunkie Google’s push for clean power is not entirely unselfish: Cheap, renewable power would reduce the company’s energy bills and free it from worry about blackouts.
But DotOrg’s clean-power initiative is even more am¬bitious – it’s nothing less than an energy moonshot. The stated goal is to fund research into breakthrough tech nologies that, within the next decade or so, could pro¬duce what the group calls “RE<C” – renewable energy cheaper than coal.
DotOrg has announced investments in two companies: Makani Power, which hopes to har¬ness high-altitude wind energy, and eSolar, which uses sunlight to drive conventional steam turbines. Brilliant, with his boundless optimism, believes that both efforts represent a new approach to renewable energy. “Our goal is not to go after short-term profits,” he says, “but to actually develop breakthrough technology that will dis¬place the biggest problem the world has when it comes to global warming: our dependence on coal.” Carbonation – RocketThemeTemplate
But Google’s move into energy raises a pressing ques¬tion: Does the company plan to get into the electricity business, which generates $387 billion in the U.S. alone? “Are we open to it?” Brin says, sitting in a wicker chair at this year’s TED Conference. “Yes, but we don’t know exactly how. Is it as investment? Is it in a partnership? Is it simply to bring power to our data centers? I’m happy to play any of those roles. This is not a charity. And if it pays off, it’s a great investment.”
The initiative closest to Brilliant’s heart, however, is the one he developed for the TED Prize: predicting and preventing the outbreak of new infectious diseases. Along the Mekong River, DotOrg is working with health ministers in Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cam-bodia, Vietnam and China to set up an early-warning system for bird flu. The company has also developed a cellphone-based communication system for emergency-aid workers in disaster zones and is funding research to improve real-time mapping of new disease vectors.
As the system evolves, it’s easy to imagine how Google’s prowess in search technology, satellite imag¬ery and mapping might revolutionize how we respond to epidemics. But as the company moves deeper into the realm of public health, the questions get more complex. Collecting data is one thing; once you get it, what do you do with it? If you detect an outbreak somewhere in the world, who has the authority to make the call? Who takes responsibility for the warning if it turns out to be wrong? Who profits if it’s right?
“Our objective is purely for the health of the popula¬tion,” says Dr. Theresa Tam, who is responsible for the Canadian detection system that won Brilliant’s admira¬tion. “I don’t know what Google’s objective is.”
