Although Google still lags in total value behind Microsoft, it's no overstatement to say that Google is the most ambitious tech company out there, and every peep, large or small, that creeps out of its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters garners some interest. Case in point: over the weekend, the British newspaper the Guardian published the tantalizing statistic that Google's data center in The Dalles, Oregon, could use as much energy as the entire city of Newcastle, England when it comes fully online in 2011. (Secondary case in point, in re: the perpetual interest in All Things Google: I blogged earlier today about their goat-grazing project on the Mountain View campus.) As the world's top-ranked website, it's no surprise that Google has massive data needs. But for much of its history the company has been highly secretive about almost anything it considered proprietary, as I found when ...