Google

The International Energy Agency projects that global energy demand will increase 46 percent by 2030, requiring an investment of $26.3 trillion in energy infrastructure to meet the expected demand.

Revamping our energy system and doing so with more renewable energy will take substantial funding, and while some countries, like China, are investing in the whole cleantech pipeline, from “lightbulb to lightbulb” — from idea to implementation, as Google puts it — the U.S. is investing in cleantech only sporadically.

“We need to invest across that whole spectrum, and we need to make that sustained,” said Bill Weihl, Google’s Green Energy Czar.

Google, for one, is putting its money where its mouth is.

The international climate talks have repeatedly bogged down in disputes over transparency and verification, but on one issue, technology is offering a solution.

New forest monitoring technology from tech giants Google and Cisco is starting to come online, allowing detailed tracking of land-use changes, particularly deforestation. The technology combines satellite images, maps and current and historical data for analysis. One system is being designed as a "planetary skin" with a network of sensors across the region and scientists on the ground to raise alerts in time to take action.

The almost real-time monitoring these systems offer may be what world leaders need to lock down a deal on a key component of an international climate treaty: REDD, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation.

Despite the buzz surrounding the smart grid, to date it has consisted of technologies or services geared toward utilities, helping them save money, smooth out supply-and-demand curves, and use energy more efficiently.

Now, with a clear soft spot from the federal government for all things smart grid, investors and start-ups are turning to new opportunities in the market, namely products and services focused on consumers and corporate clients.

While energy management and demand response systems are already beginning to reap rewards for companies with large office buildings and data centers, the consumer market has remained largely untapped, save a few pilot studies.

Matt Denesuk, partner with IBM Venture Capital Group, sees that changing in the year ahead.

Denesuk’s group partners with venture capitalists to offer expertise and product partnerships to start-ups seen as key to IBM’s business; companies picked by the group typically wind up either being acquired by IBM or developing long-term partnerships with the tech giant.

We spoke with Denesuk to find out which companies and technologies we might see Big Blue championing in the not-so-distant future. Here's who he named:

Watch the business pages this week, and you'll see technology giants like Google, Microsoft and IBM tripping over each other to announce their latest "smart" technology for tracking energy and emissions from businesses and homes.

Their timing is as smart as the technology they hope to sell. The economic stimulus package that won approval in the Senate today includes $4.5 billion for “smart” grid technology and billions more for energy efficiency.

Google likes to tout Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) as "the sleeping giant" of clean power. The United States Geological Survey (USGS), it seems, would wholeheartedly agree.

This week, USGS scientists released the agency’s first assessment in more than 30 years of the electric power generation potential of the nation’s geothermal resource.

What'd they find?

If developed, geothermal could generate 556,890 MW of electricity in the United States. That’s more than 200 times the installed geothermal capacity in the nation today, which stands at 2,500 MW.

From Google Sky to Google Earth, the search giant has changed the way we see the world.

And now Google is putting climate change smack dab in the center of its maps of the planet.

Hallelujah!

This is worth a look. Google has put a slew of hybrids and plug-ins to the test with real drivers on real roads. And it's uploading the results right now, straight from each car’s laptop and wireless data card to this website, using a home-grown methodology.

The winner so far?

Now that Google has helped to deliver $1 a watt solar panels from Nanosolar, how do you top that?

Answer: E-Solar's thermal power plant.

Google is investing big in this Pasadena-based solar pioneer, and here's why.

E-Solar has developed a “market disrupting” solar thermal power plant technology that can serve the renewable energy needs of the big utilities.