General Electric Co. plans to more than double spending on research and development to $1.5 billion a year by 2010 for "cleaner products" ranging from power generation to locomotives to water processing.
About 35 percent of its research budget will be spent on more environmentally friendly businesses, up from 25 percent. General Electric, the world's largest company by market value, plans to introduce 30 to 40 products, including more efficient lighting and appliances in the next two years.
General Electric expects to double sales from businesses that make wind turbines, treat water and do not emit greenhouse gases to at least $20 billion by 2010. The push is part of a companywide program called "ecomagination' that also includes goals for the reduction of greenhouse gases by General Electric facilities and increased energy conservation.
"We don't have hobbies inside GE, don't do things for the goodness of doing them," Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt said in Washington, D.C., Monday during a conference call that was broadcast over the Internet. "Green means green. And we think the breadth of our technology lends itself to this."
The program contrasts with some stances on the environment that General Electric has taken in the past. The company opposed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to dredge New York's Hudson River of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, that its plants deposited in the river. The company agreed in 2002 to fund a $460 million clean up of the river.
GE Energy, the company's biggest manufacturing unit, is working on more efficient versions of power generation including nuclear, coal and natural gas.
"Coal is 50 percent of the power generation fuel source in the U.S. and it's 40 percent globally," said John Rice, head of GE Energy. "This is a recognition of our strategy, that we have a role to play, and that we can even do more."
Technologies such as solar power and wind turbines will also play more important roles, Rice said.
In addition to working with customers, the company wants to reduce its own emission of greenhouse gases by 1 percent by 2012, and the intensity of those gases by 30 percent by 2008. Energy efficiency should improve 30 percent in seven years, as measured by BTU units consumed per revenue dollar.
By Rachel Layne
Bloomberg News |
