Alternative Fuels Now

We all know that the Google boys are EcoGeeks. They’ve built themselves a 9 MW solar plant, worked to get plug-in hybrids on the streets and even sponsored a contest to create pedal-powered innovations.

But it is nonetheless good to hear Larry Page, one of the two founders of Google talking so passionately and optimistically about the future of our world. The interview, with Fortune Magazine, is a great read…full of hope and inspiration from one of the most influential entrepreneurs alive today.

I’m hugely more optimistic because now we have a conceptualization of the problems that makes some degree of sense to a fair number of people. Look at the things we worry about - poverty, global warming, people dying in accidents….I think our ability to achieve these things on a large scale for many people in the world is improving.

Page discusses Google’s non-core (10% of company resources) interest in geothermal and solar thermal power. “How hard should it be to dig a really deep hole?” To be fair…it is pretty hard. But digging a really deep hole seems like a massively simpler process than the one we currently have set up to power America. Page seems honestly convinced that the world’s problems will be solved. He puts emphasis on the power of small groups of smart people to make these changes…Ibut he also recognizes that the political, social and economic climate surrounding those small groups of smart people is pretty important too.