If, as you claim, you did read the link and my other comments in this thread then you knew, before dragging us into your pedantic micro-carping over the subject title, exactly what it was referring to.
One only need read the first two paragraphs of the article to understand that the title of the article is inaccurate, and thus presents a strawman argument.
From the terribly titled article linked by Maxie said:
This is a post-mortem on a project initiated by Google – a master of innovation if ever there was one and a company with impeccable green credentials (see photo below) – the goal of which was to scope out an innovative renewable energy system that could compete economically with coal and other fossil fuels and which could be deployed quickly enough to stave off the worst impacts of climate change.
Work on the project, which Google named RE<C (Renewable Energy cheaper than Coal) continued from 2007 to 2011, a period over which Google invested large sums of money in renewable energy projects. (How much Google spent on the RE<C project isn’t known, but according to Forbes the company’s total investment in renewables by April 2011 had reached “a cool quarter of a billion dollars”.)
The article even mentions the singular project by name "RE<C", and notes that it is not known how much was spent on the project because Google lumped it in with other renewable energy projects.
And if so, then you knew you were stuffing a straw man, yelling "False" while pretending that the banner referred to renewables in ANY context. You can plead guilty to ignorance of its meaning or just situational disingeniousness - your pick.
The banner places no context around renewables, and is thus misleading. Any disingenousness is certainly on the part of the author, who presumably penned the headline, or his editor, and is exacerbated by an opening post that only repeats the headline with no qualification or context, and ads a link to the poorly titled article. I guess I should throw you a bone for your characterization of the article as a turkey in the OP, which is spot on, just don't choke on it.
Finally, while your are carping and writing titles for greater specificity, you ought to at least "connect" to the article actually written. Google did not 'give up on one project among many', it gave up of a four year effort to find a way to make a major transformation of energy production from a fossil fuel energy economy to a renewable energy economy.
Are you somehow under the impression that a single project must contain less than four years of effort? If that is the case, please scroll back up to the first two paragraphs I quoted above, which make it clear that RE<C is a single project among many.
It could'nt even find a way to make renewables cheaper than coal. That Google still makes a buck on home roof solar panels, or specialized products, in a subsidized industry is quite beside the point. The dream that renewables, as a socially transformative and cost competitive revolution, is dead (at least in the view of their research team).
This is an unwarranted conclusion if one is basing it solely upon the article provided, as it only quotes one line from the report on the project after it was shut down, "Today’s renewable energy technologies won’t save us."
This only makes the statement that at the time the report was made (2011), the renewable technologies available would not be enough. As posts to this thread make clear, advances have been made in the last 3 years. The dream is very much alive, despite rumors of its demise.
And you are going to have to do better than unsupported and subjective speculations on Exxon's alleged tax subsidy, or its supposed inability to make a profit, before your supposed "connect" provides other with more than dial tone.
I did not make those speculations. Those came from your conservative hero Joe Barton.
From the can't be bothered to read the links posted in your own thread department, I refer you to lpetrich's post from page 3:
Barton: Govt Subsidies Necessary To Keep Exxon From Going Out Of Business
If you had bothered to read this link, you would have noted the following quote:
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX)... argued that the subsidies represent equal treatment, and are required to keep the companies like Exxon-Mobil from going out of business.
I did bother. But given your concerns, I find it odd you'd cite a link to a hack "source" that generated its own falsehoods. Neither the article title nor the quote your provided bore much relation to what Barton actually said, its what the partisan authors wanted it to mean. Listen the the interview.
Alright then, perhaps we should examine the exact quote from Rep. Barton:
"Over time if you put so many disincentives against any U.S. manufacturing or production company, or oil and gas exploration company, they'll go out of business."
Is it your claim that Exxon is not an oil and gas exploration company?
I will also note that if one actually views the interview that is provided with the article, the exact question asked of Rep. Barton that solicited this response was "Does Exxon-Mobile really need tax breaks?"
