Jeff Immelt talks about the economy, global warming, and GE's role in providing energy and infrastrucure solutions

Back on December 10th GE CEO Jeff Immelt spent an hour being interviewed for USAToday's CEO Forum in front of Carnegie Mellon Students and Alumni. Mr. Immelt discussed the current state of the economy as well as GE's future with USA Today senior reporter David Lieberman, and, surprisingly, a good portion of the interview questions were about GE's role in energy infrastructure, the environment, and climate change.


A few highlights:

• 2007 marked the first year that GE's sales outside of the US were greater than sales within the US
• GE's Wind Turbines have already sold out through 2010
• GE's Ecomagninaiton line - wind, solar, biomass, batteries, etc is rapidly growing
• GE spent significant time and resources talking to customers about their feelings on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change - well before oil prices and climate change hype were at their current levels
  
• Immelt did not take a position on carbon cap-and-trade systems but says he believes that market based incentives are the best way to bring about change in regards to climate change
• Immelt stated that GE tries to avoid getting involved in politics, but he feels that our political leaders around the world should be doing the things necessary to protect our environments
  

Overall, it was a very interesting look at GE, the global economy, and Immelt's views on the economy, politics, climate change, health care, and the energy infrastructure business.

Video of the hour long interview can be found here.

A more comprehensive review can be found over on another CMU alum's blog.