Photographer Chris New captures a beautiful shot of the full breadth of Deepwater Wind’s Block Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island. While the five GE Haliade turbines tower 600 feet above the water, there’s a lot going on under the surface. Photographer David Doubilet captures a lion’s mane jellyfish gliding underneath a turbine during our #OffshoreBlockParty — one of many marine creatures, native to Block Island, that have begun using the turbines' steel supports for shelter. Read more about our latest InstaWalk at GE Reports.
We’ve officially cruised out to our #OffshoreBlockParty — with five photographers— to get a closer look at Deepwater Wind’s Block Island Wind Farm, America’s first offshore wind farm.
The farm brings together five impressive GE Haliade wind turbines that are twice as high as the Statue of Liberty, holding a 400-ton power-generating nacelle in each of their towers. The blade tips tower 600 feet above the water, and GE’s innovative gearless permanent magnet generators can each produce 6 megawatts of power. That’s a combination that has the potential to transform the renewables business both in the U.S. and abroad.
To receive more updates, head over to our Instagram, and be sure to also follow photographers Jeffrey Milstein, Reuben Wu, Humza Deas, Tyson Wheatley and Sharon Radisch, who have come along for the ride with us.
Photo captured in order by: Jeffrey Milstein, Reuben Wu and Tyson Wheatley
What if light could measure athletic performance? GE Lighting answered that question by attaching biosensors to brilliant LEDs to measure the biometrics of Olympic athletes and hopefuls. The result was a beautiful visual of these Olympians writing their performances in the language of light.
As the 2016 Olympics Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil come to a close next week, GE is proud to have been a global sponsor, helping power the sounds, images, and technology that bring the world’s largest and most-watched sporting event to life.
Watch the full video here.
While our GEnx engines normally power the Dreamliner, GE Aviation’s latest version, the GEnx-2B, is optimized for Boeing’s brand new 747-8 freighter. The plane carries a quartet of these GEnx engines which can generate 66,000 pounds of thrust, along with an aluminum and composite body which allows it to travel the length of two football fields in one second. It’s also 16 percent more fuel efficient and able to lift 24 more tons than its predecessor. Now that’s a seriously powerful machine.
Learn more about the GEnx-2B and follow our progress at the 2016 Farnborough International Air Show here.
GE is going under the microscope to celebrate the life sciences and feature some cool nanongrams. Here, we can see a low-magnification image of the upper body region of a common fruit fly, which can carry serious diseases and destroy crops. But they can also be useful: housefly larvae feed on a wide range of decaying matter and waste. Research suggests that this adaptation could be used to combat ever-increasing amounts of waste and trash. Does that make them a friend or a foe?
Scientific practice can never exist in a vacuum and must always work in conjunction with everyday life. Rosalind Franklin was best known for her role in pioneering the use of X-ray diffraction, which later aided her discovery of “the secret of life” — the structure of DNA.
Last summer, Drone Week brought new perspectives on how our technology impacts the world. This year we’re taking it a step further with LIVE looks at the rarely-seen GE technology that’s powering Brazil, home of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Drone Week Rio takes off this Monday, June 13th. Tune in to our Facebook page for more details and updates.
While there’s still a lot of progress to be made, over the last six years, the Earth’s global renewable energy capacity has consistently grown by at least 8% each year. At the end of 2015, it amounted to 1,985 GW, thanks to the growing potential of Hydro, Wind, and Solar energy as upcoming mainstream alternatives. As a company invested in a more sustainable future, we’re proud of this progress.
Happy World Environment Day, Tumblr!
GIF by Cindy Suen
Here’s an inside look at our new Center for Additive Technology Advancement (CATA) located in Pittsburgh, PA. Funded by various GE businesses, CATA brings additive technologies like 3D printing into the mainstream. Brian Adkins, additive manufacturing engineer, prepares to vacuum a DMLM 3D printer to salvage unused metal powder and prevent cross-contamination. Stay tuned for more glimpses inside CATA this week by following us on Instagram. Photos captured by Chris New.
This year, we celebrated Mother’s Day by sharing some incredible stories from women that have helped us build, cure, power, and move the world on the GE team. Join us by sharing your own story using #MothersOfInvention and celebrate all the amazing women in STEM.
Photo of the GE Transporation team by Carra Sykes and Lauren Marek.
Happy Earth Day, Tumblr!
Taking steps towards a more sustainable future requires all of us to participate on a daily basis. Whether it involves saving water, biking instead of driving, or switching to LED bulbs for lighting, here are four easy ways you can make every day Earth day.
GIF by Cindy Suen.
In 1941, while WWII raged on in Europe, a secret group of GE engineers were tasked with building the first American jet engine, bringing it to mass production, and helping the Allies win the war.
Joseph Sorota, 96, was still a student when he joined GE’s factory in Lynn, 10 miles north of Boston. Soon enough, he was thrust into the opaque world of the industrial war effort, becoming employee number 5 of an inner circle of engineers that knew about America’s efforts to help England. Because of their secrecy, they were known as ’The Hush-Hush Boys.’
Sorota — now one of the last living members of the legendary team — set out to win the war, but ended up shrinking the world. Read and watch more of his story here.
This week, GE Aviation unveiled its new suite of engine service offerings: TrueChoice. The services combine GE’s depth of #aviation product knowledge with rapidly growing digital capabilities — a marriage of physics and analytics that is delivering better customer outcomes faster. Click here to learn more.
Traveling faster than the speed of sound is actually quite noisy, creating sonic booms that prohibit these planes from flying over populated areas. The Concorde — the first supersonic jet in passenger service — last landed in 2003. Now, NASA is teaming up with Lockheed Martin and GE Aviation to develop a concept for a new jet that breaks the sound barrier, without making such a racket. Read more on GE Reports.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Tumblr. Here at GE, we're celebrating with our very own Shamrock Wind Turbine. Have a great, green, energy-filled holiday!
GIF by Cindy Suen.
Happy Pi Day, everyone!
From our GEnx jet engines to the massive ecoROTR, circles and spheres are fundamental to the GE family of machines. And what better day to celebrate the beauty and utility of circles than today.
This International Women’s Day, we commemorate the legacy of Nancy Reagan, whose death at 94 was announced this past Sunday. Reagan had an impact that lasted long beyond her — or her husband's — eight years in the White House.
As first lady, she supported numerous causes, serving as honorary chairwoman of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., the National Republican Women's Club and the National Child Watch Campaign, to name a few.
Before all that, she was also a regular feature on the nationally and critically acclaimed TV show, General Electric Theatre, hosted by her actor and soon-to-be-President husband Ronald Reagan.
Read more about GE Theatre’s relationship with the Reagans here.
What we consider possible or impossible is rarely a function of our capability. American author Robert A. Heinlein was often known as the “dean of science fiction writers.” Speculating and writing about everything from organized religion to space travel, Heinlein pushed many boundaries, becoming one of the first science fiction writers to break into the mainstream in the 40s.
When something is nearly impossible to do, people often say that it’s like “catching lightning in a bottle.” For the members of the dielectrics lab at GE Global Research, it posed an unimpossible challenge.
Using their combined efforts and diverse knowledge from across the GE Store, the team of scientists and engineers manufactured and captured a million volts worth of lightning in a glass bottle fitted with super capacitors. They then used the stored charge to start an old Fiat 600 and drive off into the sunset.
For more Unimpossible Missions, head over to GE’s YouTube channel.
According to the scientists and engineers at GE Global Research, unimpossible. In an attempt to push boundaries, GE’s snowball team decided to take the experiment to an old foundry where the molten metal reaches temperatures of over 2,000 degrees. There, they placed the snowball in a 3D-printed holder, which was then put inside a vessel, consisting of a nickel-based super alloy used to build gas turbine shrouds and alumina-silicate used on the outside of jet engines.
The result? A success. The hot and beaming vessel emerged from the pool of molten metal slag — with the snowball inside it, untouched.
For more Unimpossible Missions, head over to GE’s YouTube channel.