Jet engine maker CFM International took a key step t bring the much-anticipated next-generation LEAP-1B engine close to production. CFM, a joint venture between GE Aviation and France’s Snecma, completed a design freeze for the new jet engine that includes for the first time components made from advanced ceramic composites and parts manufactured using 3-D printers. “All of our testing and design work leading to this moment demonstrates that we are on track to meet all of our program commitments,” said Gareth Richards, LEAP program manager at GE Aviation.
El próximo 10 de junio, a partir de las 11 de la mañana, se desarrollará en la Sala Ariz, del Edificio LKS, sito en Goiru kalea nº 7, Polo de Innovación Garaia de Mondragón una sesión de presentación de las actividades del Centro de Excelencia de EPC’s y Desarrollo de Negocio de GENERAL ELECTRIC.
La presentación correrá a cargo de Jaime Elguero, Director General, y Juan Carlos García Alcazar.
La misión del Centro de Excelencia es dar apoyo en conocimiento de mercado y tecnología a las empresas de ingeniería, suministro y construcción (EPC, en el argot del sector) de la Península Ibérica en sus procesos de internacionalización.
Is a blustery day a boon for a wind farm or too much of a good thing? It depends, says Keith Longtin, general manager for wind products at GE’s renewable energy business. “The grid can’t always accept wind power as fast as it comes up,” Longtin says. “When it’s gusting, turbines turn their blades out of the wind and let some of the power pass through. That revenue is gone with the wind.”
Ever since Samuel Hopkins received the first U.S. patent for making potash in 1790, inventors and companies have used patents as shield and sword to protect their ideas. Not anymore. Channeling the lean startup vibe, GE has invited innovators to turn swords into gadgets.
For the first time in the company’s history, GE will open thousands of patents to a community of inventors and tinkerers gathered around Quirky, an innovative design company using online collaboration and crowdsourcing to develop new products.
GE agreed to acquire Lufkin Industries, Inc., a leading provider of advanced pumping technologies used by energy companies to extract more oil and gas faster.
The industry calls these technologies artificial lift. They represent a booming $13 billion patch of the oil and gas industry, fueled by shale and other unconventional sources of energy, and also by the need to make mature oil fields productive again.
Back in January, we reported that GE would be partnering up with healthtech startup incubator StartUp Health and selecting 13 consumer healthcare startups (originally 10) to participate in a three year program designed to nurture and accelerate their growth. After a two month screening process, today they’re announcing those 13 finalists.
Last month, yet another massive storm gathered over the Northeast, dumped several feet of snow from Connecticut to Maine, and plunged thousands of locals into freezing darkness. Although we can’t yet engineer weather, we can use software engineering to soften its blows.
Internet companies like Google have long known that the value of their networks grows in proportion to the number of their users. This is called Metcalfe’s law. The same logic applies to industrial networks like power grids. The combination of the Internet and infrastructure could now yield billions in savings for utilities and better service for their customers.
How tall is a wind turbine? The rotor of the latest GE wind turbine sweeps a circle the size of the London Eye, the giant Ferris Wheel that looms across the River Thames over the Big Ben. In fact, the turbine is so large that engineers had to find a way to compensate for the difference in wind speed between the top and the bottom blade. “When the top tip is 650 feet high, the bottom blade is 25 stories below,” says Vic Abate, vice president of GE’s renewable energy business. “The pitch of the blades keeps changing as they rotate. Think about it like sails on a sailboat. The fuel is free and you take this fuel and you concentrate it so that machine can produce more power more often.”
The Institute of Medicine estimates that tens of thousands of Americans die needlessly every year from avoidable medical errors, including infections acquired during surgery. GE and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have now teamed up to change that. They will develop an “intelligent” system using robots, computer vision and automatic identification technologies like RFID tags to fetch, sort, and sterilize surgical tools. The system could save lives, and money.
Carbon dioxide emissions from coal have been falling over the last five years in the U.S., hitting the lowest point for any quarter since 1986 in March 2012. Cheap natural gas allowed utilities to cut back on coal, the most “carbon-intense” fossil fuel used for power generation. But coal-fired power plants are not going away anytime soon in the U.S., and countries like China and India, which already burn half of the world’s coal, are leading in building new ones.
