>"It’s good for the economy, good for business and good for our shareholders ". Let's be honest...it is not good for their shareholders. They are buying power at a significant premium and costing their shareholders money. It is a direct hit to the bottom line. This might be good for the environment - at the very least they are helping renewable energy companies get bank financing through purchase guarantees, which wi…
Unsubsidized wind power is driving nuclear power and coal out of business. Unsubsidized! Solar is still a bit more expensive, but will continue to decline in price each year. Investing in solar on your roof, in most markets, in a better investment than the S&P500 (EDIT: Utility solar has costs approaching 2 cents/kwh and still declining). Google is doing their shareholders a service by hedging their energy costs, no…
Ultimately, Google is doing a service for the world if in fact these companies use Google's support as intended. There are probably more effective, direct routes for a company of Google's size though - they could easily just roll out their own renewable energy research division, and then shareholders would own the resulting technologies. The approach that they are using doesn't seem logical to me, and then trying to spin it as if they are doing shareholders a favor by overpaying for power seems like they are making a bad mistake even worse.