BHGE Sets Carbon Reduction Goal To Net Zero By 2050

FLORENCE, ITALY – Baker Hughes, a GE Company (BHGE) announced its strategy to reduce CO₂ equivalent emissions to net zero by 2050 during the first day of its annual meeting. The company plans to achieve this with new technologies designed to reduce its carbon footprint, as well as by evaluating its supply chain for emissions-saving measures and investing in its technology portfolio to assist customers with their own CO₂ emissions.

“It is a journey we have already started,” said Lorenzo Simonelli, BHGE’s chairman, president and CEO. “That (reducing emissions) will be very important as we go forward and confront the next 20 years.”

Derek Mathieson, BHGE’s chief marketing and technology officer, said emissions regulations worldwide, coupled with more companies becoming emissions conscious, are the driving forces behind BHGE’s strategy. Since 2012, the company has achieved a 26% emissions reduction through its new technology and operational efficiencies. By 2030, BHGE expects to have reduced its CO₂ equivalent emissions by 50%.

“We’ve made a lot of progress since 2012,” Mathieson said. “There’s much more to do to get where we want to be in 2050.

“There is a bottom pressure of emerging carbon regulations around the world, which affects oil and gas and the way they produce,” he said. “There are lots of solutions out there to reduce carbon emissions.”

Those solutions run the gamut for BHGE, which will continue to employ a broad range of emissions reduction initiatives across manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, energy sourcing and generation. The company has also established a global additive manufacturing technology network aimed at bringing commercial-scale production closer to customers, reducing transportation and associated emissions.

BHGE’s Gaffney, Cline and Associates, an oil and gas consultant, has also launched a new Carbon Management Practice. The practice enables Gaffney, Cline and Associates to assess carbon intensity, evaluate carbon-reduction products and provide accreditation for emission-reduction efforts.

In terms of BHGE-related technology, the company has two new offerings for the oil and gas market – LUMEN and a new configuration for its NovaLT gas turbine.

LUMEN is a full-suite of methane monitoring and inspection products that can stream live data from sensors to a cloud-based software dashboard for real-time monitoring. It consists of a ground-based, solar-powered wireless sensor network and a drone-based system for over-air monitoring.

BHGE also has an agreement with H2U, an Australian hydrogen infrastructure developer, to configure its NovaLT gas turbine generator to operate entirely on hydrogen. The gas turbine will be used in the Port Lincoln Project, a hydrogen power plant facility in South Australia.