December 12, 2019
ENGINEERING A BRILLIANT CAREER
Jobs in science, technology, engineering and math are growing quickly and, with a median annual wage of nearly $85,000, they offer a lot of bang for the buck. But right now, less than a third of STEM professionals are women. There are a variety of reasons for the disparity, but parents looking for role models for their STEM-curious daughters might check out five women at GE whose jobs have put them in the coolest situations imaginable — from testing labs for enormous wind turbines to the insides of the world’s largest jet engines.
A woman’s place: Meet Vera Silva, for instance. With a doctorate in electrical engineering and four books under her belt, Silva has a lifelong fascination with electricity that befits her position as chief technology officer for GE Renewable Energy’s Grid Solutions unit. Silva is envisioning and designing the electrical grid of the future, which, she says, will be more sustainable and flexible. It’ll also be a lot less centralized, drawing on local resources like solar and wind power just as it relies on traditional sources like gas. “In the future, everyone will have access to electricity,” she said. “The solution might be in their own house or a small microgrid in a community.”
Then there’s the rugby player with a passion for renewable energy. And the space-travel enthusiast using space-age technologies to build jet engines. Click here for just a sample of the places a STEM career can lead.
SENSES AND SENSIBILITY
Internet of things? Virtual and augmented reality? That’s so early-21st-century, according to respondents to a new Ericsson ConsumerLab survey. They expect that, by 2030, many of the hot technologies of today, including VR and AR, will be folded into an immersive “internet of senses” that integrates seamlessly into our daily lives. The report outlines 10 trends consumers expect to see realized over the next decade, when brain-computer interfaces will allow us to touch, taste and smell with the assistance of digital devices. That’s what consumers expect, anyway. A world where all senses are digitized could have intriguing knock-on effects, said Michael Björn, a co-author of the new report, including the reduction of carbon emissions: “You could go to work, go on vacation, and travel the world, all from your home.”
Save yourself a plane ticket: An early preview of that experience is already available to GE field engineers working at, for instance, liquefied natural gas plants in blazing-hot Qatar. Equipped with augmented-reality “smart helmets,” those technicians can transmit real-time video to colleagues around the world for a consultation, and summon documents, videos and drawings for display on the helmet’s visor. Elsewhere, GE Healthcare is designing virtual-reality apps for doctors to “walk through” patients’ bodies to examine tumors and polyps, and trainees at GE Grid Solutions are using VR headsets to lift high-voltage circuit breakers into place in electrical substations, ensuring that rookie mistakes won’t harm any actual equipment (or any rookies).
Learn more here about Ericsson ConsumerLab’s 2030 outlook, and here about how GE is already making creative use of VR and AR technologies.
THE POWER OF BATTERIES
Consumers will be more eager to drive electric vehicles when they’re the same price as internal-combustion vehicles, and part of that depends on the cost of batteries. A new report from research service BloombergNEF is good news, then: It finds that battery prices have dropped 87% in real terms since 2010 — from over $1,100 per kilowatt-hour to $156/kWh in 2019 — and estimates they’ll be close to $100/kWh in 2023. Falling below $100/kWh in 2024, EV prices will start to reach parity with traditional cars. It’s not just passenger cars that stand to benefit, though: BNEF finds that, as batteries become cheaper, various sectors are apt to electrify. Delivery vans are one example — but when it comes to batteries, everybody’s thinking bigger.
An electrifying trend: Take GE Renewable. Responding to the breakneck growth in renewables like wind and solar and the plummeting costs of battery storage, the company recently created its new business unit Renewable Hybrids, which combines green sources with state-of-the-art battery storage tech. Smart software brings it all together, acting like a traffic cop that directs that renewable energy straight onto the grid — or, if it’s not needed straightaway, into batteries like GE’s Reservoir, a grid-scale solution that can store enough to power 145 U.S. homes for a day.
Click here for more about the promising battery market, and here on how battery storage is the perfect complement to GE’s energy solutions.
— VIDEO OF THE WEEK —
This additive center is leading the future of manufacturing.
— QUOTE OF THE DAY —
“In the future, everyone will have access to electricity. The solution might be in their own house or a small microgrid in a community.”
— Vera Silva, chief technology officer of GE Renewable Energy’s Grid Solutions unit
Quote: GE Reports. Image: Tomas Kellner for GE Reports.
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