$4.4 trillion in any headline is a scandalous amount to read, especially nowadays. It leads to automatic skepticism, nevermind that it represents an amount spread over 22 years with payback trickling in as soon as some of the plan's elements come online.

It's ambitious, there's no denying that. But now that Congress is wrestling with $700 billion bailouts -- or rescue plan, whatever makes it easier to swallow -- those amounts don't seem to put the same scare into people that they once did.

So Google, well aware of the politics and economics of the times, is proposing ways to drastically cut carbon emissions by weaning America off oil and coal. But first, it helps to have some goals:

• Fossil fuel-based electricity generation by 88%

• Vehicle oil consumption by 38%

• Dependence on imported oil (currently 10 million barrels per day) by 33%

• Electricity-sector CO2 emissions by 95%

• Personal vehicle sector CO2 emissions by 38%

• US CO2 emissions overall by 48% (40% from today's CO2 emission level)

Getting there runs the gamut of familiar methods, including expanding alternative energy production, increasing vehicle fuel efficiency and overhauling the grid. And that costs money, a lot of it. But Google's financial analysis claims that the benefits outweigh the outlay.

The financial bottom line: Although the cost of the Clean Energy 2030 proposal is significant (about $4.4 trillion in undiscounted 2008 dollars), savings are even greater ($5.4 trillion), returning a net savings of $1.0 trillion over the 22-year life of the plan.

Another topic the plan touches on is the creation of green collar jobs. It can be debated that transitioning to clean energy is likely to just shift workforces around. But coal plants won't just disappear overnight, and during the multi-year transition, widening opportunities in the energy sector will expand payrolls.

According to the US Department of Energy, an additional 293 GW of of wind in 2030 will provide 476,000 jobs in the US (equivalent in size to about 25 Googles):

• 259,000 construction jobs each year
• 217,000 permanent operations jobs
• Broken down as:
• 150,000 direct employees
• 100,000 jobs in associated industries (e.g., accountants, lawyers, steel workers, and electrical manufacturing)
• 220,000 jobs through economic expansion based on local spending

Now, is it even achievable? Who knows.

Numbers, graphs, studies and analyses, even by the best and brightest, often get ripped to shreds in the grinding gears of socio-political systems. But if it makes economic sense for a conglomerate like the newly Buffett-backed GE to get behind Google and its smart-grid vision, it shows that industry, or some players at least, are willing to give it a go.