Lorenzo Simonelli: Fostering a More Sustainable Africa
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New Engineering Challenge Offers $1 Million in Seed Money to Inventors. Iguanas Might Hold Some Clues.
Few people mention marine iguanas, honey bees and oil sands in the same breath, but scientist Brian Gregg believes the combination might hold an elegant solution to a hard engineering riddle.
Follow the Ones and Zeros: How the Most Critical and Complex Big Data Around Brings Productivity and Profits
Blowout preventers, or BOPs, are incredibly complex machines that weigh 750,000 pounds and tower 60 feet above seafloor oil wells. They serve as the last line of defense in case anything goes wrong. It takes workers about 18 months to build one and they serve for as long as 30 years.
GE to Open Global Oil & Gas Research Hub in Oklahoma
“The vast majority of existing fracturing operations now pump in millions of gallons of pressurized water to do the job,” says Mike Bowman, an engineer in the sustainable energy advanced technology lab. “But the new process could one day eliminate the need for it and make fracturing cleaner and more effective.”
This Software Can Read the Minds of Giant Subsea Machines
Blowout preventers, or BOPs, are incredibly complex machines that sit deep on the sea floor and serve as the last line of defense if something in the oil well goes wrong.
These 250,000-pound, 60-foot steel behemoths have to be regularly pulled up, inspected and serviced. As a rule of thumb, workers often replace as many as 20 percent of their parts to keep them safe, effectively rebuilding the entire machine every five years. “That’s one way to do it,” says Bob Judge, director of product management at GE Oil & Gas.
Jet Testing Method Brings Inspectors to the Cloud
It could happen anywhere. An airline is about to send a jet to the gate, when a mechanic detects a possible crack in the fuselage during a routine check.
Full Fathom Five Thy Factory Lies: Machines Are Rising from the Seafloor
GE machines are working deep underground, on the International Space Station, and even in the interstellar space. Now the sea floor is opening up to underwater factories designed to recover oil and natural gas deposits that used to be out of reach.
Knowledge Transfer: The Doctor Will See You at the Bottom of the Sea. How Eclectic Ideas Fertilize Innovation across GE
Jeff Immelt, GE chairman and CEO, writes in the company’s 2013 Annual Report, which GE released today, about the benefits of looking at innovation with a broad lens.
The theme of the Annual Report, and Immelt’s letter to shareowners, is “Progress,” which, he writes, is reflected in GE’s ability to spread ideas and technology across the entire company.