Addressing the World’s Energy & Environmental Challenges

Cleaner, greener prosperity makes sense both environmentally and economically. In an effort to increase energy security, mitigate the risk of climate change, and to create jobs, countries around the world are calling for greater efficiency and environmental performance in power generation, transmission and distribution products and services.

At GE, we’re continually investing in advanced nuclear power, cleaner coal, wind, solar, natural gas turbines, water and smart grid technologies. Our ecomagination business initiative reflects this commitment to apply innovation to the world’s critical energy and environment challenges. Through ecomagination, we’re committed to investing $10 billion in research and development by 2015 – to market products that use fewer resources.

Just as private sector innovation and investment can address the world’s energy and environmental challenges, so too can appropriate public policies. Therefore, GE is committed to engaging with governments around the world to generate ideas to solve these problems. Specific elements of GE’s energy policy agenda include:

• Support for energy standards with strong near-term targets, which are the most viable solution to stimulate innovation and deployment of clean energy technologies.
• Support for robust intellectual property rights, which are critical to creating and preserving incentives for innovation. Key elements include the adoption of legal regimes and capacity-building to assist countries in developing such regimes.
• Support for freer trade in clean energy technologies, including the elimination of barriers to trade in energy and environmental goods and services, and tax and other fiscal incentives for adoption of clean energy solutions.
• Support for policies to incentivize industrial water reuse and regulations to better protect scarce water resources.
• Support for international agreements that assure secure and proliferation-resistant expansion of nuclear power.
• Support for policies to spur advancement in grid technologies. These may include efficiency standards, performance targets, variable rate structures and discounted off-peak rates.
• Support for policies to encourage the deployment of electric vehicles and supporting infrastructure.