Q&A: Mark Little, Head of GE Global Research

GE is pushing the smart grid and thin-film solar, but don’t expect new kinds of nuclear reactors.

Mark Little, head of the $6 billion-a-year research effort at GE, sat down with Technology Reviewrecently to talk about his company’s latest technologies and how GE will respond to pending carbon emissions caps, such as those proposed in the Waxman-Markey energy and climate-change bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Little is the director of GE Global Research, a massive, 2,600-person research organization based in Niskayuna, NY, that employs about 1,000 PhDs. The company’s research funding includes nearly $1.5 billion directed toward “clean tech,” such as wind turbines and hybrid locomotives. Little says that advances at GE in thin-film solar, the smart grid, coal gasification, and capturing carbon dioxide emitted by power plants will prove key to meeting future emissions goals.

Technology Review