Google Speaks: Secrets of the World's Greatest Billionaire Entrepreneurs, Sergey Brin and Larry Page

10.2. GOOGLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Look, this is our plan. The sun is going to continue to shine, the wind is going to blow, there's a lot of heat in the earth. Wind, solar, geothermal. If we would just start using that and build a grid that would get that power to where the people are, which is usually not where all that power is, we could solve most of our energy problems. Another thing we think is really important is plug-in hybrids. So you sit there and you go, why plug-in hybrids? It's more economically efficient and uses far less power, hugely, hugely less oil, and by the way, they're built in America. So, for example, in Michigan, which has this huge unemployment problem, you can build the batteries. You can take all those laid-off auto workers and the people who are so terribly affected by this downturn and have them work on things like automobiles and also things like insulation for homes, which is paid back forever.^[]

—Eric Schmidt, on CNBC's Mad Money with Jim Cramer

Schmidt elaborated on the point:

We did calculations that said you could save $1 trillion over 22 years by investing in solar, wind and enhanced geothermal, and plug-in hybrids. The sum of those industries are American jobs in states that have high joblessness problems. There is lots and lots of sun, wind and heat in the Earth that is available all the time, whereas we are running out of oil. So this lowers energy prices, increases energy independence and helps to address the climate change issue. It seems ...