Will they do more than thousands of other "super stars" employed by the hundreds of clean energy companies who aren't doing this as a "what the hell, we might make money off of this" throwaway investment?

Or the thousands of professors working at labs in universities around the world?

If Google was interested, they would be putting down billions of dollars on this. But they aren't, because this is a throwaway investment on the off chance they can save some money or make some by investing in other energy stocks.