The commercial success of plug-in hybrids and pure electric car companies such as Tesla will help to drive innovation and competition, accelerating solutions for the range and cost issues.
To keep turbine sales spinning, Immelt has turned to a process that partially burns pulverized coal in the presence of pure oxygen to turn it into a flammable gas that can drive linked gas and steam turbines.
It was a big step away from pure, basic research, sniffed some dons, but Friend argued it was the best way to drive his technology to market and fund improvements in the basic science along the way.