Google announced Tuesday it will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in ways to make "green" energy less costly than that from pollution-spewing coal.

The Google initiative is dubbed "REC," using a play on computer code to symbolize "renewable energy less than coal."

"I know it seems a little bit geeky, but it is a good description," Google co-founder Larry Page said of the name while discussing the initiative in a conference call with reporters.

"We want to rapidly push forward, produce a gigawatt of power, and have it done in years not decades. We feel if we can do it at that scale we could do it at a level significant in the world."

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