GE Investing in Alternate Energy

The material from this post comes from a ZDNet article.

GE's revenue from renewable energy--wind, solar and biomass--will be $7 billion in 2007. Five years ago, when it began ramping up investments, revenue was $5 million. Research and development dedicated to energy overall is about $2.5 billion per year.

Rising energy demand worldwide and environmental concerns have made investments in energy technologies the most compelling in decades, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt says.

Immelt was the keynote speaker at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Energy 2.0 Conference, where he asserted that the energy industry is becoming more diverse because of improving economics and societal changes.

The company has been able to lower its greenhouse gas emissions 1 percent for the last few years, employees feel engaged in the effort, and the company is on track to increase its revenue in this sector by 10 percent yearly for decades, he said.

"The conclusion we came to is that global warming is a fact. We are very dispassionate about it," Immelt said. He also detailed the strategy behind the industrial giant's varied activities in the energy and environment area, which range from oil and gas exploration to wind power to water purification.