World demand will lead to energy solutions, GE chief tells Clemson energy summit
December 9, 2009
GREENVILLE, SC – December 8, 2009 – Future energy needs are talked about every day all around the world, and the United States must be part of the solution to global energy challenges, General Electric’s chairman and chief executive said Tuesday.
Photo: Jeffrey R. Immelt, chairman and CEO of GE, addresses the energy summit. Image by: Clemson University
Speaking at a summit hosted by the Clemson University Restoration Institute and GE Energy, Jeffrey R. Immelt said the developed world must lead the way, and in doing so will create jobs.
The keys that will drive the quest for alternative energy in the new green economy are a commitment to technology matched with a commitment to sound public policy. Those components will create jobs, Immelt said.
“The free markets alone aren’t going to create green energy,” he said.
Worldwide emerging markets will drive demand for energy to levels never before seen, fueled by more than a billion people from those markets who will buy cars, electronics and homes.
“If you weren’t in the energy business already, I think you’d want to be,” Immelt said.
This demand, coupled with the growing desire of countries to control their own futures, means the United States cannot afford not to become a leader.
“You could wake up tomorrow and the price of oil could be $50 more than it was today, and the U.S. would have nothing to do with it,” Immelt said.
The summit marked the second energy event hosted by the Restoration Institute since the U.S. Department of Energy awarded Clemson and its partners a $45 million grant to build and operate a large-scale wind turbine drive train testing facility at the institute’s research campus on the former Navy base in North Charleston.
The federal grant was matched by $53 million in funding from public and private partners and is the largest single grant ever received by Clemson University.
Both energy events were held at the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) in Greenville. On Nov. 30, the Restoration Institute and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) hosted Secretary of Energy Steven Chu for the “Symposium on Energy: Building Intellectual Capital for a Green Economy.”
The symposium included panel discussions about South Carolina’s future in the green energy industry and the role of research universities in the green economy.
Tuesday’s daylong summit featured a series of roundtable discussions that covered job creation, technology and policy and incentives.
Panelists included Joe Taylor, secretary of the S.C. Department of Commerce; Sen. Paul Campbell, chairman of the state Wind Feasibility Legislative Committee; and Jim Turner, chief operating officer of Duke Energy.
The day included a tour of GE Energy’s manufacturing plant in Greenville.
Nick Rigas, director of Renewable Energy at the Restoration Institute, said the green economy already is at work in South Carolina, but there are thousands of more jobs to be brought to the state.
South Carolina has existing wind manufacturing at GE Energy’s wind turbine plant in Greenville. It also has established port, rail and shipbuilding facilities adjacent to the drive train testing facility in North Charleston.
As wind and other alternative energy technologies become larger and more complex, South Carolina is positioned to become a manufacturing hub that can serve the growing energy demands along the U.S. East Coast and beyond, he said.
“We have everything required to serve the industry,” Rigas said.
Further, a South Carolina-based energy hub would keep dollars in the state rather than sending money to other regions of the country that generate power used in this state.
For South Carolina to be successful, the state must be competitive, build on its existing infrastructure, develop a work force for the future and push for public policy, Rigas said.
“The green economy train is leaving,” Rigas said. “The only question is, do we want to drive the train or be on board as a passenger?”
John Kelly, executive director of the Restoration Institute and vice president of public service and agriculture at Clemson, said the meetings will help lay the groundwork for a renewable energy cluster in South Carolina.
The meetings will help shape South Carolina’s energy future by establishing public policy and fostering partnerships that could create thousands of jobs from the Upstate to the Lowcountry, Kelly said.
“By engaging the minds of industry leaders like Secretary Chu and Jeff Immelt, combined with the intellectual capacity of Clemson, we can position South Carolina at the forefront of alternative energy research and development,” he said.
