BP to boost renewable energy funds

LONDON -- BP PLC, Europe's largest oil company, plans to double spending on alternative and renewable energy, creating a business unit that may generate about $6 billion a year in revenue within a decade.

The company will invest $1.8 billion over the next three years on solar, wind, hydrogen, and carbon-sequestration, focusing on new technologies that can replace oil-and-gas-based generation, which accounts for more than 40 percent of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, the company said.

Under sequestration, carbon dioxide would be pumped into oil and gas fields, curbing output into the atmosphere, where it may promote climate change.

''We see a business opportunity and we are making plans to seize that opportunity," chief executive John Browne told reporters at a London meeting. ''We're responding to climate change by making a business."

An investment of $600 million next year would equal 4 percent of BP's total capital expenditure of about $15 billion in 2006, according to the company's latest earnings statement, published on Oct. 25.

BP would like about 7 gigawatts of installed capacity around the world within 10 years, enough to supply about 10 percent of Britain's power needs, said Steve Westwell, who will run the company's alternative energy business, said at the meeting.