Off to Copenhagen

Dan Reicher has been in the forefront in recent years talking about clean power investing, renewable energy research and the urgent need to join the two to build a new economy and fight climate change. This week he’s bringing that message to an international forum, at one of the largest stages imaginable. I caught up with him on Friday, minutes before he was headed off to Copenhagen for the international climate talks.

“I’ll be appearing on a number of panels and in meetings, and I’ll meet with the Congress members later in the week,” Reicher said. “There will be a large congressional delegation there.” As Google’s director of climate change and energy initiatives, Reicher commands attention as the point man on the Internet search engine’s increasing public profile, and financial commitment, to renewable energy, climate issues and the transformation to a cleaner energy economy.

He hinted at a major initiative Google and several partners will announce on Tuesday, though he would only allow that it would involve using technology to provide more and better information about energy use and carbon content at the customer level. Not a surprise there, but it will come on the same day Reicher will appear as part of a debate on a joint YouTube-CNN webcast. And he has recently said that Google will soon make a step into clean energy project investing, to go along with the various initiatives it has championed for smart grid, “renewable energy cheaper than coal” and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Underlying the urgency is not just climate change and green jobs, but he worries about the U.S. losing its competitive edge. With clean and the related economic issues have become a worldwide phenomena, capital will seek opportunities where they exist. “We have the five largest Internet companies in the world, yet, of the five largest wind turbine manufacturers, only one is American,” he said.

To reverse that, Goggle is advocating larger federal commitments to research and development, pointing out that IT typically reinvests 10 percent of revenue into research. There is also the Clean Energy Deployment Administration that may invest in technologies considered too risky for private investment. That proposal is in a Senate jobs bill that is now pending and may pass before year’s end. It is not in the House version. And putting a price on carbon is one of the key drivers that will drive all these policies forward.

On the growing ‘Climategate’ controversy that has framed much of the discussion in recent weeks, especially for those opposed to carbon caps, Reicher said he has followed it, but preferred to look forward. “The strength of the science will prevail. There will be some price on carbon, and eventually we will get there.”