Via The Register we learn that some of Google's top engineers have been tasked with making renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuels. We also learn that they have given up.
At the start...we had shared the attitude of many stalwart environmentalists: We felt that with steady improvements to today’s renewable energy technologies, our society could stave off catastrophic climate change. We now know that to be a false hope ...
Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.
There's lots of kowtowing to Gaia in the article ("scientists have definitively shown that the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere poses a looming danger"), but on renewables they seem to have done their homework.
(H/T El Reg)