Remember when the Google geniuses were going to make renewable energy cheaper than coal? Never mind: "After four years of effort, Google quietly dropped its (renewable energy cheaper than coal) program in late 2011"

Google's zero-carbon quest - Fortune Tech

In June 2007, Page and his top execs issued a staff memo declaring that the company would become carbon neutral...
Later that year Page, to the amazement of many in the IT industry, also announced that Google was getting into the clean-energy business. In a Nov. 27, 2007, press release, the company introduced an additional initiative based on the formula RE 9 C, which translates as "renewable energy is cheaper than coal." Page believed Google could become carbon neutral faster by applying the formidable brainpower of its engineers to the problem. He wanted to help produce one gigawatt of renewable power -- about the equivalent produced by a nuclear power plant -- that was cheaper than coal within a few years. This goal, however, turned out to be more devilish than anyone thought.
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Becoming a zero-carbon company is no easy task. In 2011 -- some four years after Page's memo -- Google reported that it still had emitted 1.5 million tons of carbon in the previous year. It was the first time Google had publicly revealed its carbon footprint...
Driving the price of renewables below that of fossil fuels is an ambitious goal, especially for a company that has no background in power generation. The energy field, as Google eventually learned, is much more capital-intensive and has a far longer time horizon than is typical in Silicon Valley -- where a new company with a garage full of software geeks can scale to billions in revenue seemingly overnight. After four years of effort, Google quietly dropped its RE < C program in late 2011.

Google execs explain that relatively speaking, not much money was invested -- perhaps $50 million...In 2011, Justin Danhof, the general counsel of a conservative think tank, the National Center for Public Policy Research, filed a shareholder proposal criticizing Google's lack of transparency about its green investments. (It didn't pass.)...
While Google has abandoned its quest to be an innovator in clean-energy technology, it hasn't stopped investing in green power. Today Google has signed contracts to buy about 12% of its total energy from wind and solar farms, up from 4% just two years ago....
Google has also been investing directly in wind and solar projects to the tune of $915 million. It began in 2008 by financing a couple of wind farms -- in North Dakota and Oregon -- in need of funding after the financial meltdown had frozen the capital markets. A key to Google's strategy is that it wants the money it invests to expand utilities' solar and wind operations; otherwise it won't be adding capacity to the system. As the wind projects become operational and begin selling electricity to big utilities, Google gets a piece of the cash flow. This type of deal -- a form of tax equity investment -- gets sweetened by federal tax credits.

Google was one of the first companies -- if not the first -- outside the banking, energy, and utility sectors to start investing in these tax deals. Instead of keeping its cash in the corporate treasury and earning only 1% or 2% on it, it can earn as much as 15% to 20% through the tax credit investments, says Google...
So far the company has spent upwards of $15 million investing in or purchasing carbon credits for dozens of such projects. That will offset about 5 million tons of CO2 -- more than enough to make Google a carbon-neutral company on paper.

Flashback: google_guys

how this PR-fluff squares with the so-called “Google party jet” — Page and Brin’s gargantuan personal Boeing 767, which burns about 1,550 gallons/hour — is any one’s guess.