GE to Double Spending on ‘Cleaner’ Technologies
General Electric Co. announced plans Monday to more than double spending on research and development to $1.5 billion a year by 2010 for “cleaner” products.
About 35% of its research budget will be spent on more environmentally friendly businesses, up from 25%, Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt said. GE plans to introduce 30 to 40 products, including more efficient lighting and appliances in the next two years.
GE expects to double sales from businesses that make wind turbines, treat water and reduce greenhouse-emitting 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 GE facilities and increased energy conservation.
“We don’t have hobbies inside GE, don’t do things for the goodness of doing them,” Immelt said. “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 GE has taken in the past. The company initially opposed federal plans to dredge New York’s Hudson River to remove PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, that its plants deposited in the river. The company agreed in 2002 to fund a $460-million cleanup of the river.
Shares of Fairfield, Conn.-based GE rose 38 cents Monday to $36.23 on the New York Stock Exchange.
GE Energy, the company’s biggest manufacturing unit, is working on more efficient and cost-effective versions of power generation including nuclear, coal and natural gas.
The company is joining with utilities such as Cinergy Corp. to develop technology for a new kind of generator that converts coal into cleaner-burning gas, used to spin turbines that make electricity.
Technologies such as solar power and wind turbines will also play more important roles, the company said.
In addition to working with customers, the company wants to reduce its own emission of greenhouse gases by 1% by 2012 and the intensity of those gases by 30% by 2008. Energy efficiency should improve 30% in seven years.
“GE’s specific goal isn’t as ambitious as the emissions-reduction requirements of the Kyoto treaty,” said Dan Lashof, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York. “But it’s not really a fair comparison because we are talking about a single company versus a national commitment.”
The company has 231 manufacturing plants in 40 states and 239 plants in 36 foreign countries, according to its annual report.
As part of the initiative, GE is developing a hybrid locomotive -- it could lower fuel costs by 10% -- that could be introduced by 2008, said Charlene Begley, president of GE’s rail unit.
