An Even Bigger Cleanup Job

A few years ago, saying "General Electric" in a room full of environmentalists could prompt a round of boos and hisses. The company had dumped 1.3 million pounds of toxic PCBs into New York's Hudson River over the course of three decades, and then dragged its feet on cleanup efforts. But since 2005, the company has spiffed up its image, accepting responsibility for the Hudson cleanup and launching a new initiative, dubbed Ecomagination, to unite the company's green technologies, such as wind turbines and solar panels, under a single umbrella. The associated marketing campaign is not without its critics, who accuse GE of trying to capitalize on environmental sentiment. NEWSWEEK's Fareed Zakaria spoke with Lorraine Bolsinger, the GE executive in charge of Ecomagination, about green energy. Excerpts:

Zakaria: What is the solution to America's energy problem?
Bolsinger: That's an omnibus question, isn't it? There has to be a broad portfolio of conclusions. One thing that is a particular weakness is the ability of our grid to accept all these different alternatives [like wind and solar power]. It's going to take both hardware and software to fix it. With a smart meter, homeowners can make choices about how much energy they use. Or, alternatively, the utilities can reach into the homes and shut unnecessary things off—maybe it's the thermostat or the refrigerator, which might not be needed for 10 minutes at a time.

A lot of GE's green products are improvements of existing technology. Don't we need a truly disruptive technology, like a hydrogen fuel cell, to give us the necessary quantum jump?
It depends on how you think about the quantum jump. We have made a quantum leap in getting a 15 percent more efficient jet engine. However, we all know that the aviation industry is growing at 4 to 5 percent a year, so they'll gobble that up pretty quickly. So what's the next wave? I think we have to look at disruption in systems. So in other words, let's look at the total aviation system, everything from ground handling, idling on the tarmac and air-traffic management. You can get another 15 to 20 percent without bending any new metal. This is all information technology; it's all policy decisions.

So government has a significant role here.
Absolutely. These are large, regulated industries with huge infrastructures. So yes, absolutely.

GE and other companies are investing heavily in wind and solar power, but how do you solve the chief problem of these technologies, which is the intermittent nature of the energy they produce?
We're investing in battery technology because we believe there's got to be a storage solution. But frankly, we don't have a solution yet.

Why is battery technology so difficult? For a complete layman, this doesn't seem like quantum physics.
It is the classic engineering problem. You trade off weight, efficiency and cost. You can have two but you can't have three. I had an argument with my brother, who's a brilliant engineer. I told him, "I don't get it. This isn't rocket science." And he said, "You are so ignorant about what it takes to make a battery and how to dispose of it." When you talk to people close to the issue, they say it is very difficult to get extra life out of them, or to lower the cost or the weight.