Energy giant GE plans to spend £6billion on energy research by 2020.
As part of its ‘ecoimagination’ budget, GE plans to ramp up spending on research focusing on complex energy projects such as water-less fracking and gas turbine efficiency.
In a bid to address water use in fracking, GE will carry out work with Norwegian operator Statoil looking at the use of carbon dioxide in hydraulic fracturing.
The process is currently not economical, but GE says it hopes to find a way to collect CO2 at the wellhead, recycle it, use it to frack again, then collect the CO2 to repeat the process.
It is also looking at how to boost the efficiency of natural gas-powered turbines to 65%, from the current 62% norm.
The company’s chief technology officer Mark Little said research into jet enfine efficiency should help meet this goal.
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