Consultant Dan
16 March 2011
Energy consultation with President Obama's jobs council head, Jeffrey Immelt of GE
I am looking forward to a luncheon with Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO of GE, on Friday, in Melbourne. The event is a consultation on “trends, opportunities and ideas that will shape Australia’s clean energy future”.
US President Barack Obama appointed Mr Immelt to head the new President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, in January, a move that was praised by Harvard Business Review.
Mr Immelt created the ecomagination business within GE, in 2005, to drive R&D and commercialisation of environmental products at a high level (the head of ecomagination is a global VP of GE). In the first 5 years, it invested US$5 billion in clean tech R&D and generated US$70 billion in revenues. The advisory board includes James Cameron from Climate Change Capital.
Through ecomagination, GE seems to do everything in cleantech, from solar PV and wind turbines to lending money for domestic and utility scale cleantech and R&D into esoteric new materials.
You should browse the ecomagination website, which has good case studies, information visualisations, annual reports and videos. There is even a collaboration mini-site, where you can propose ideas to the ‘Powering your home’ challenge and see the winners from the ‘Powering the grid’ challenge.
Here is a revealing interview with Immelt, in which he explains the genesis of the idea, including the fact that he imposed it despite resistance from most of his senior executives.
Before starting my little business, I spent several months researching and developing a business plan. It became clear to me that GE is one of the few large corporations that is making a credible investment in sustainable technology.
I think ecomagination has value because it can innovate deeply and deploy rapidly, thanks to these factors:
- mix of sectors: heavy industry, information technology, renewable energy, systems management, home loans (for renewable energy)
- internally funded organic growth, strategic acquisitions of sustainable technologies and venture capital investments
- research centres based in developing economies
I am keen to learn more about ecomagination and what GE thinks about Australia.
Of course, I strongly disagree with GE’s continued involvement in the nuclear industry. As the Nuclear Information and Resource Service reminds us, GE designed the reactors which are failing at Fukushima and there are still 23 of the same Mark I BWR reactors in the U.S. currently. (AFP reports today that GE’s stocks are down 3.3% as a result of its nuclear involvements).
It is a sign of the maturity of the debate that GE can meet with climate action advocates to talk renewable energy and at the same time have disagreement with some of them about nuclear power.
Until we have a safe way to use and dispose of high-level radioactive materials, nuclear energy is an opportunity cost, holding us back from creating a renewable energy economy.
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