New York: General Electric Co plans to intensify research focusing on complex energy projects such as waterless fracking and gas turbine efficiency by earmarking an additional $10bn through 2020 for its “ecoimagination” budget. The new spending is set to be announced by Chief Executive Jeff Immelt.
The research budget shows how reliant GE has become on the energy industry, its fastest growth area, as it works to become a dominant supplier of equipment and services to oil, natural gas and alternative power companies at a time when the United States undergoes an unprecedented energy boom.
While GE doesn’t forecast what it plans to spend on its main capital budget in future years, the new commitment gives investors a clue as to what the company’s priorities will be into the next decade.
The “ecoimagination” project, which was formed in 2005 to broadly focus on sustainability and other environmental issues and has cost nearly $15bn, had been set to expire next year. Executives are extending it to 2020 with the additional $10bn.
While the overall goals of the project will remain, a larger percentage of the funds will go to energy-related projects, an acknowledgment of where Immelt and other executives see the future of the company. “We have a very broad, long-standing commitment to energy,” said Mark Little, GE’s chief technology officer and head of global research.
As part of the new focus, GE will study with Norway’s Statoil how to use carbon dioxide (CO2) in hydraulic fracturing, the process commonly known as fracking which mixes more than 2 million gallons of water per well with chemicals and sand to extract oil and natural gas. The energy industry’s copious use of water has put it into conflict with some residents in Texas, New Mexico and other arid states, and many companies have been trying to find ways to curb fracking’s use of water, looking at using CO2 and even propane.
While CO2 fracking is not economical today, the companies hope to find a way to collect CO2 at the wellhead, recycle it, use it to frack again, then collect the CO2 and repeat the process, Little said. “Ideally, we’d have a virtuous cycle going on,” he said.
A key challenge will be to help the CO2 carry proppant, a type of sand that holds open the cracks in rock so oil and natural gas can escape, much like water does in current methods. GE also wants to boost the efficiency of its natural gas-powered turbines to 65 percent from today’s 62 percent. The company believes its existing research into jet engine efficiency could help significantly reach this goal, Little said.
The company plans to study how to make wind turbine blades cheaper and more efficient through the use of different composite materials, as well as expand its “CNG In A Box” product, which lets natural gas producers compress the fuel directly at the well to be used locally in engines.
The “ecoimagination” project is part of GE’s larger research and development budget, worth roughly $5bn to $6bn per year.
The project began in 2005 with a goal to spend $5bn on efficiency projects within five years and was renewed in 2010 with a goal of spending an additional $10bn by 2015. So far, it has brought in $160bn in revenue by creating new products and saved $300mn on water and emissions costs, GE said.Reuters
