Author: GEreporter

As we described in our story on Monday about the launch of the first Healthymagination Annual Report, innovation is at the heart of the initiative, which was launched last May. One of the ways it can be seen in action is in what GE calls “Reverse Innovation,” which is our approach to developing technologies in emerging markets, for emerging markets — and then finding new outlets for these less expensive, often-miniaturized technologies in developed economies. How the strategy is being played out in India is the subject of a detailed report this week, “‘Reverse Innovation’: GE Makes India a Lab for Global Markets,” published in The Wharton School’s highly regarded online business journal.

Hey, baby: A technician at our Global Research Center in Bangalore is seen here working with GE’s Lullaby Infant Warmer technology. The giant GE Healthcare lab at the research center in India, which houses all of GE’s Healthcare products, is “not a sales and marketing demo room,” GE’s Ashish Shah, general manager of global technology, tells the journal. “It is an engineering lab for our engineers to work hands-on.”

As John Dineen, president and CEO of GE Healthcare, told Wharton about one of the imaging systems being made in India: “It is about creating new markets. Over time, this product will morph and get more specialized for the unique needs and characteristics of this market. The innovations from here could lead to an entirely new line of products which in turn could create whole new market opportunities for us.”

Despite GE’s long presence in India, Wharton notes that GE wasn’t meeting its potential when it came to the immense size of the country’s market. As V. Raja, president and CEO of GE Healthcare-South Asia, told the journal: “We realized that the biggest impediment was that we were selling what we were making [rather than] making what the customers here needed. It was clear that if we had to grow here we had to shift gears and align our products to the needs of the customers.”

Wharton goes on to cite Vijay Govindarajan, a professor of international business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, who is familiar to GE Reports readers from our stories on Reverse Innovation. VG, as he is known, told the editors: “Historically, innovations have always happened in rich countries. But in the future, innovations will have to take place in countries like India and China, because this is where the bulk of the customers are. The needs are more pressing here and the sheer volumes will justify the investments that will be required for developing the appropriate products.”

GE’s Ashish Shah cited the example of GE Healthcare’s new portable electrocardiograms, which are lightweight and easy to use, but “incorporate the analysis program that is standard in GE’s more high-end ECG devices,” as a way in which innovations are born, but without sacrificing quality, the journal notes. “Other products that GE Healthcare has developed over the last few years for the Indian market,” the editors observe, “include baby warmers and X-ray and ultrasound systems.” As Dr. Devi Shetty, a Bangalore-based cardiac surgeon who is also on the Healthymagination Board of Directors, told the editors, products that come from Reverse Innovation “can definitely change the rules of the game.”

* Read The Wharton School’s full story
* Read more healthymagination stories on GE Reports

Learn more in these GE Reports stories:
“Innovation engine: Inside healthymagination’s report”
“Reverse Innovation hits Harvard’s most influential list”
“Reverse innovation: Building GE’s local growth model”
“Reverse innovation: How GE is disrupting itself”

It’s the stuff of a flea market find, or a hidden treasure in the attic. A pile of dusty film canisters in the basement of the Schenectady Museum & Suits-Bueche Planetarium has yielded some of the world’s oldest surviving radio broadcasts. The 20 shows were first heard on Schenectady radio station WGY between 1929 and 1931. One features a talk by GE founder Thomas Edison in a broadcast celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the incandescent light bulb. Another is a portion of a high school basketball game that’s believed to be the second oldest surviving sports broadcast. They were recorded on a long forgotten machine that GE developed in 1922 called a pallophotophone — after the Greek words for “shaking light sound” — in one of the earliest attempts to record sound on film. But there was only one catch with the great find: There weren’t any known pallophotophones in existence to play back the lost pieces of history. Enter the museum’s curator, Chris Hunter, and GE’s engineers, who together cracked the pallophotophone code.

Talk radio: GE founder Thomas Edison is seen here examining the quality of his motion picture film in 1912 in the library of his West Orange, NJ facility. Photo courtesy of Schenectady Museum.

When Chris came across the film canisters, he wasn’t quite sure what he had discovered. “There were just a lot of scribbles on the cans saying these were radio programs from the twenties,” Chris said.

He had been recruiting former GE engineer Jim Schneiter for the museum’s board and told him about the discovery. Jim then turned to Russ DeMuth, a GE Global Research Engineer, who jumped on the challenge and set out to build his own version of the pallophotophone by studing sketches of the original one designed by GE employee Charles Hoxie more than 80 years ago.

Russ gathered parts for his creation from eBay and elsewhere, all the time trying to figure out if it would actually work. “We didn’t know how these things were created,” Russ said. “We didn’t know whether this thing was going to work at all. We didn’t expect to hear anything.”

Déjà vu! : The recordings had stumped film preservation experts because they were made on 35mm sprocketless film, with each film containing a series of 8-10 parallel soundtracks. Russ’ machine, pictured above, uses modern motors and computer controls to recover the sound from the original film recordings.

But work it did, with the 80-year old recordings coming to life. On one broadcast is what is believed to be the oldest surviving recording of the NBC chimes. On another, the voices of Edison, Herbert Hoover and Henry Ford can be heard in the “Edison Light’s Golden Jubilee” broadcast of October 21, 1929. A portion featuring Edison is available below. At the time, GE commercialized the technology as the RCA Photophone, which was one of four competing technologies that ushered in the end of the silent movie era. The taping of the Edison broadcast in 1929 was part of ongoing tests with the technology.

At present, the museum is considering a number of options for the collection, including inventing a machine to play them for optimum quality. And there is a possibility the collection may become an exhibition at the museum, which owns 37 percent of the radio recordings made in the world before 1931.

Safe and sound: A piece of the pallophotophone film.

* Learn more about the Schenectady Museum
* Read more Global Research stories on GE Reports
* See GE’s innovation timeline

Contributor Beth Comstock is the Chief Marketing Officer at GE.

Innovation, R&D, and game-changing tech. When combined with the right market intelligence, investment horsepower, and willingness to break the rules, they can lead companies to not just weather a recession, but roar out of it. At GE, we’re betting big on the power of breakthrough technologies to do just that — and a living, breathing example of that thinking in action can be seen in our new healthymagination business initiative, which today issued its first annual report.

Beth Comstock

Since launching healthymagination in May 2009, we’ve reached our year-one goals with $700 million in R&D investments, $250 million in capital investments and the launch of 24 new products and technologies. But beyond charting the progress made in such a short time, the report hammers home the idea that innovation isn’t simply about generating more ideas. Rather, technologies must be marshaled toward specific business goals; attack real societal problems; and be wedded to a deep understanding of customer needs.

Because innovators and companies are often stuck in their current successes or current business models, there’s a critical need to generate new thinking. In the military, they call it “rearview mirroring” — which is when plans to fight the next war are made by looking back at the last war. Just as that kind of trap can prove disastrous for a country, it can also cripple a business long-term.

Vital signs: The Annual Report also spotlights the investments GE is making in areas including our own employees’ health; partnerships with companies such as Intel, Mayo Clinic, Eli Lilly and Intermountain Health Care; healthcare IT solutions; new products that meet local needs at affordable price points; and investments to bring better health solutions to remote and underserved communities.

To tackle this challenge head-on in our healthymagination initiative, GE started by looking at our innovation strategy in three ways. First, we wanted to innovate by mining our existing product lines for technologies that meet our healthymagination goals of reducing healthcare costs while simultaneously increasing access for more people and increasing quality. At the same time, we wanted to do what we call “moving into adjacent healthcare spaces” — which is all about freeing ourselves of old thinking and taking the great technology we have today and finding new, related markets or applications. For example, one area we are pursuing is to take our healthcare imaging technologies into digital pathology.

Concurrently, we also stepped on the gas to develop game-changing technologies that will be in demand in the near future. One example can be seen on our launch of Vscan, an ultra-smart, ultra-small, ultrasound. Another example can be seen in what we call “Reverse Innovation,” which is our approach to developing technologies in emerging markets, for emerging markets — and then finding new outlets for these less expensive, often-miniaturized technologies in developed economies. For example, our lightweight, inexpensive Mac 800 electrocardiogram was born from the mobile unit created in India and China for those countries’ rural needs.

We made the decision to develop and fast-track these new products, and the others that are now part of healthymagination, by focusing on the right kind of market intelligence and insights — and by keeping our global research and technology developments tied to our marketing and sales teams. It’s why healthymagination is about bringing better healthcare to more people and at the same time, a core business strategy at GE designed to generate revenue and position us for long-term growth.

Healthymagination is a $6 billion commitment over six years. The commitment is to invest $3 billion in R&D, $2 billion in financing and $1 billion in technology and content, launching at least 100 innovations that lower cost, increase access and improve quality by 15 percent.

* Read the full Healthymagination Annual Report
* Read today’s announcement
* Learn more about Vscan
* Read more healthymagination stories on GE Reports
* Read “Reverse Innovation hits Harvard’s most influential list” on GE Reports
* Read “Reverse innovation: Building GE’s local growth model” on GE Reports

On this evening’s broadcast of ABC’s World News, and in an accompanying story on ABC News’ website, reporter Brian Ross questions whether the Joint Strike Fighter program needs the competitive engine being made by GE-Rolls Royce – calling it a “pork barrel project” and asking whether it’s a “government boondoggle.” While ABC presented the broad arguments in favor of funding the GE/RR F136 engine, the network left out key facts. We’d like to set the record straight.

Although the televised report noted that spending on the JSF engine program will ultimately reach $100 billion (the online version did not), the stories omitted the fact that a decades-long engine competition needs only to generate a 1 percent to 2 percent cost benefit to recoup the remaining dollars needed to complete the GE/RR F136 program. Without the competing GE/RR F136 engine, a sole-source monopoly will be handed to a single contractor, Pratt & Whitney, which already has $2.6 billion in cost overruns on its JSF engine.

The report incorrectly claimed that the GE-Rolls Royce engine “lost out in the initial Pentagon competition” to be the engine supplier. That is completely untrue. As recently as May 19, during a House Subcommittee hearing, John Roth, comptroller for the Department of Defense Program/Budget, agreed that there was never an engine competition for JSF. Rather, JSF aircraft designs were competed (between McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed Martin), but the engines were not. Citing commonality with Pratt & Whitney’s F119 engine for the F-22, the U.S. Air Force directed the competing aircraft manufacturers to both use the P&W engine in their concept demonstrator aircraft. Subsequently, Congress recognized in 1996 that an engine competition for the JSF was never held, and it authorized development funds to GE/Rolls-Royce with the intention of introducing a competing engine four years into the aircraft program.

The report also left out the independent Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) conclusion that the 21 percent cost benefit from a JSF engine competition will translate into $20 billion in savings — the equivalent of nearly 200 JSF aircraft.

The report also implied that that the government will need to spend $3 billion more on the project. However, GE/Rolls-Royce only needs another $1B to complete F136 engine development. Between now and 2017, we estimate additional costs associated with tooling and support infrastructure will bring the total to $1.8B.

While the ABC News story noted that Congress has been in favor of the GE/RR engine – and has funded it since the mid-1990s — the report left out the fact that the F136 development program is more than 70 percent complete. In fact, the engine will fly on the JSF aircraft next year and will be poised to compete head-to-head with Pratt & Whitney’s engine.

The report also quotes a U.S. Navy Admiral who says having two different engines and their spare parts on aircraft carriers will cause a problem with space onboard. In fact, the Navy today operates four different fixed-wing aircraft engines on the carrier with little or no commonality in terms of machinery, tools or support equipment. The interchangeable P&W F135 and GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engines reduce parts, manpower, and cost. Compared to engines for the F-14 B&D, the F136 will require 48 percent less manpower and 66 percent less support equipment.

The reports also implied that members of Congress who support the competing engine are doing so because of jobs located in their states – with Michigan being one of the states singled out. GE’s decision to increase the number of aviation jobs in Michigan is part of our broader commitment to draw on the high-tech talent pool available in the economically hard-hit state. GE’s job creation efforts include non-aviation related R&D, manufacturing, and information technology efforts.

* Read our story from earlier today: “GE and the Joint Strike Fighter: Facts vs. myths”

Learn more in these GE Reports stories:
“Fixed price offer will slash Joint Strike Fighter costs”
“GE & the Joint Strike Fighter: Let the best engine win”
“Gen. Hough: JSF engine competition ‘never happened’”
“House backs Joint Strike Fighter engine competition”

* Learn more about the arguments in favor of engine competition on the JSF
* Learn details about how the JSF engine is made
* Read the GAO’s May 2009 report on the JSF
* Read Lt. Gen. Hough’s full post on aviationweek.com
* Read Desert Storm air commander Gen. Chuck Horner’s opinion piece
* Read the JSF recommendations made by the Heritage Foundation

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee voiced its support for defense acquisition reform by voting to continue funding the competing engine for the Joint Strike Fighter being made by GE and Rolls-Royce. However, there continues to be confusion over the facts of the F136 engine program, which has led to calls for a presidential veto of the defense bill that contains the funding. We’d like to set the record straight. Without competition from the GE-Rolls Royce engine, a $100 billion sole-source monopoly will be handed to a single contractor, Pratt & Whitney, which already has $2.6 billion in cost overruns on its JSF engine. According to the Government Accountability Office, at least $20 billion could be saved over the life of the JSF program with the GE-Rolls Royce F136 engine.

High stakes: Potential production of the F-35 for the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marines and international customers can reach 5,000 to 6,000 aircraft over 30 years. The F-35 is designed to replace the AV-8B Harrier, A-10, F-16, F/A-18 Hornet and the United Kingdom’s Harrier GR.7 and Sea Harrier, all of which are currently powered by GE or Rolls-Royce. F136 engine development is being led at GE Aviation in Evendale, Ohio — a Cincinnati suburb — and at Rolls-Royce in Indianapolis, Indiana.

MYTH: The DoD says it will cost $2.9B to finish the F136 engine.
FACT: The business case is deeply flawed. GE/Rolls-Royce needs another $1B to complete F136 engine development. Between now and 2017, we estimate additional costs associated with tooling and support infrastructure will bring the total to $1.8B. We are focused on changing the DoD business model with our fixed price offer for early-production engines. With this proposal, GE/Rolls-Royce would assume all of the cost overrun risk for everything under its control during early production. This proposal meets all the tenets of the Defense Acquisition Reform initiative put forth by Congress and implemented by the Administration.

MYTH: Terminating the GE/Rolls-Royce F136 will save 5,000 American jobs.
FACT: Terminating the competitive engine program will cost thousands of U.S. jobs. About 2,500 U.S. jobs depend upon the F136 development program today and 4,000 U.S. jobs when it reaches the production phase. It’s no wonder the GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engine has been endorsed by The International Union of Electrical Workers—Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). This myth distorts figures announced by Lockheed-Martin in 2001 that 5,000 jobs would be created in the U.K. through the production of the F-35 aircraft (not just the engine), which is an international program with 8 international partners by design.

MYTH: The F136 investment will not save you money.
FACT: The JSF engine program will ultimately reach $100B, and a decades-long engine competition needs only to generate a 1 percent to 2 percent cost benefit to recoup the remaining dollars needed to complete the F136 program. Twice, the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) has concluded that it anticipates a 21 percent benefit from a JSF engine competition, using past experience from the F-16 “Great Engine War” competition in the 1980s as a comparison. That’s $20B in savings — which is equivalent to nearly 200 JSF aircraft. The GAO concluded that the F-16 engine competition yielded nearly 30 percent cumulative savings in acquisition costs alone. The GAO further concluded that savings of only 10.1 percent to 12.6 percent is needed for competition through the F136 to save taxpayers money.

MYTH: The F136 leads to a loss of JSF aircraft (50 – 80).
FACT: Just the opposite will happen. Costs from having no competition will eat into the larger defense budget and lead to fewer aircraft. In addition, the benefits of competition will increase the international demand for the JSF, just like it did for the F-16. Higher volume is a key to F-35 affordability.

MYTH: One engine supplier for JSF does not create operational risk.
FACT: By 2025, 90 percent of the U.S. fighter force will be F-22 and JSF aircraft. Never in our history have we been dependent on two fighter aircraft with no other fleets to provide alternatives. Despite advancements in engine design and technology, the JSF will push the limits on materials, pressure ratios and operating temperatures. This increases the technical and operational risks, which will be exacerbated with a sole source engine contractor.

MYTH: There was already a JSF engine competition, and P&W won.
FACT: Completely untrue. As recently as May 19, during a House Subcommittee hearing, John Roth, comptroller for DoD Program/Budget, agreed that there was never an engine competition for JSF. Rather, JSF aircraft designs were competed (between McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed Martin), but the engines were not. Citing commonality with Pratt & Whitney’s F119 engine for the F-22, the U.S. Air Force directed the competing aircraft manufacturers to both use the P&W engine in their concept demonstrator aircraft. Subsequently, Congress recognized in 1996 that an engine competition for the JSF was never held, and it authorized development funds to GE/Rolls-Royce with the intention of introducing a competing engine four years into the aircraft program.

MYTH: The P&W engine alone can serve the JSF needs.
FACT: P&W has confirmed a future technology effort to increase its F135 engine thrust by 5 percent by spending more government money — on top of the more than $7B being spent to develop the F135. So, the F135 engine being designed today for the JSF will change. Conversely, The GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engine was resized in 2005 to reflect growing demands of the F-35 aircraft. In fact, the F136 can grow in thrust by 5 percent without an engine redesign. The F136 has a clear thrust advantage.

MYTH: The JSF engines are not interchangeable and the aircraft will have to be redesigned to accommodate the F136.
FACT: The competing JSF engines from GE/Rolls-Royce and P&W are fully interchangeable. Simply put, you can pull out the engine from the JSF aircraft and quickly replace it with the engine from the competing supplier.

MYTH: The Navy won’t have room for two engines on their carriers. That alone should make us eliminate the F136 program.
FACT: Today, the Navy operates four different fixed-wing aircraft engines on the carrier with little or no commonality in terms of machinery, tools or support equipment. The interchangeable P&W F135 and GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engines reduce parts, manpower, and cost. Compared to engines for the F-14 B&D, the F136 will require 48 percent less manpower and 66 percent less support equipment

MYTH: The F136 engine is four years behind and will delay fielding the aircraft.
FACT: From onset of the JSF engine program established in 1996, the GE/RR was always to be introduced three to four years after the P&W engine.

MYTH: We don’t need the F136 because Secretary Gates doesn’t want it.
FACT: We’ve learned from experience there are times Congress should sensibly assert its own prerogative. For example, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have become almost indispensible on today’s battlefield, yet years ago DoD wanted to terminate Predator development. The program survived only due to Congressional insistence. DOD wanted to terminate the V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft 20 years ago. Again, Congress recognized the force multiplier the V-22 would be in combat and voted to continue funding the program’s development and production. Today, the V-22 is providing greatly enhanced battlefield support. The JSF competitive engine is another example of a worthy program.

MYTH: If the JSF engines are competed, other systems on the aircraft should be as well.
FACT: The F-35 engines represent the largest subsystem on the aircraft. The also represent the most critical system on the aircraft for survivability. After the aircraft is in service, the maintenance and overhaul of the engines represent a growing portion of the aircraft systems’ overhaul costs. Competing engines for a program so large (3,000+ JSF aircraft are expected to be produced) will save costs and greatly reduce operational risk.

MYTH: Procuring the F136 will delay Air National Guard deliveries.
FACT: Procuring the F136 does not delay JSF aircraft deliveries at all. The DoD’s recently announced schedule slip to the JSF program to allow for additional flight-testing is not at all related to the F136 development, which is on schedule. In addition, the F136 program will not reduce the production of JSF aircraft, as is being claimed by P&W. Savings through the JSF engine competition could reach $20B over the life of the program — thus creating funds for additional aircraft.

MYTH: The international JSF partners are neutral about competing JSF engines.
FACT: Not only do the international partners want an engine choice, the Memorandum of Understanding signed with the International Partners in late 2006 assured them that they would have an engine choice. The DoD committed to provide competing JSF engines.

MYTH: The fighter engine industrial base in the U.S. won’t be downgraded if the F136 program is cancelled.
FACT: The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) — the DoD entity that assesses industrial base issues — disagrees. DCMA studies from 2006 and 2008 highlight the probability of serious impact on the large fighter engine industrial base if the F136 engine was terminated. They show that GE’s current fighter engine programs (F110 and F414) wind down after 2010, and there is insufficient funding/workload to sustain GE’s fighter engine design capability if F136 was terminated. There is no other program planned or in development in the near term that would allow GE to keep its large fighter engine team together if the F136 is terminated.

MYTH: A vote for the F136 will create political fallout.
FACT: The F136 has received 15 years of bi-partisan support. Champions of this program represent every region of the country, from liberal Democrats to conservative Republicans. If the F136 is cancelled, the government will have wasted $3 billion on developing the engine, and receive zero benefit, which carries its own political fallout.

MYTH: The GE/Rolls-Royce F136 testing program is not going well.
FACT: The GE/Rolls-Royce F136 test program is on schedule, and poised to power JSF test aircraft next year. The engine is exceeding all performance goals and running just as we expected in terms of thrust, temperatures, and operability. Earlier this year, we completed a highly successful test phase on the engine’s afterburner and control system, and are now running a second engine. By year’s end we expect to run 1,000 hours on six test engines. The test program is moving full steam ahead.

Learn more in these GE Reports stories:
“Fixed price offer will slash Joint Strike Fighter costs”
“GE & the Joint Strike Fighter: Let the best engine win”
“Gen. Hough: JSF engine competition ‘never happened’”
“House backs Joint Strike Fighter engine competition”

* Learn more about the arguments in favor of engine competition on the JSF
* Learn details about how the JSF engine is made
* Read the GAO’s May 2009 report on the JSF
* Read Lt. Gen. Hough’s full post on aviationweek.com
* Read Desert Storm air commander Gen. Chuck Horner’s opinion piece
* Read the JSF recommendations made by the Heritage Foundation

At an event this evening, Brazil’s Central Bank President Henrique Meirelles and GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt will share the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce’s Person of the Year Award, which each year honors one Brazilian and one American leader for helping to forge closer ties between the two nations. For the occasion, we asked Joao Geraldo Ferreira, GE CEO of Brazil, to write a guest post on GE’s latest work in the country.

Joao Geraldo Ferreira

GE has been an industrial partner in Brazil for 90 years, playing an increasingly crucial role in helping propel the country’s economic, infrastructure, and energy growth. We’ve been excited to watch GE Brazil grow at an average rate of 12 percent for the last five years, and the opportunities are expanding by the minute. And now Brazil will be host to GE’s fifth Global Research Center, which will offer local research and development services for our major Brazilian industry partners, including Petrobras, the fourth largest energy company in the world; Embraer, the main jet engine manufacturer in Brazil; VALE, the country’s largest mining company and the second largest mining company in the world; and countless other partners throughout Latin America. Locating our next Global Research Center in Brazil is not only about creating jobs and bringing more investments into Brazil. It’s a major part of our “company to country” initiative.

GE is making global efforts to provide more local decision-making, products, and investment opportunities within the countries it serves, and Brazil is a prime example. Later this year, we’ll be opening our first healthcare plant in South America in the city of Contagem, Minas Gerais, where we already have lighting and transportation plants. The plant will initially produce X-ray and mammography equipment, working first to address local demands, then Central and South American needs, and also further export needs as demand and supply capabilities grow.

On the right track: In an op-ed published today in Valor Economico, the main business paper in Brazil, Jeff Immelt said, “I am very optimistic about the partnerships that the U.S. and Brazil are building as Brazil assumes its place on the global stage.” GE’s presence in Brazil stretches back to 1919 — and it was GE that helped light Brazil’s famous “Christ the Redeemer” statute in the 1930s. Pictured above is the GE Transportation plant in Contagem.

Believe it or not, we’re also gearing up for the 2016 Summer Olympics, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro. We hope to bring our expertise to the Games in a highly localized way. We were sponsors of the Olympic Games in Beijing two years ago and are sponsoring the Games in London in 2012. While we’ll certainly bring our experience from those two partnerships to bear in Brazil, we hope to develop a partnership in Rio de Janeiro that is inherently Brazilian. Our idea is to create a “Sustainable City,” where we work with government here on the state and federal levels to provide clean technology solutions for energy, water, and healthcare. We’re already meeting with government officials in Rio on a weekly basis to talk about how we can bring sustainable solutions to the Olympics and leave a legacy for the city when the Games are over.

Brazil is one of the countries (Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, for example, are others) where we are pursuing this “company to country” approach. GE may be a global company with global reach, but we also want to be local for the local people. Brazil, which accounts for some 40 percent of our Latin American revenue, is going to be a major proving ground for that initiative.

* Read more stories about Brazil on GE Reports
* Read more Global Research stories on GE Reports
* Read an English version of Jeff Immelt’s op-ed in Valor Economico

The GE Aviation team in South Wales drew national attention yesterday when David Cameron chose the engine testing and servicing facility for his first public meeting — and his first official visit to Wales — since becoming Prime Minister. The facility at Nantgarw, which is about eight miles from the center of Cardiff, the capital of Wales, is regarded as a showcase example of a high tech industrial facility in the U.K. — and it’s one of only a few sites in the world that has the capability to service the new double-decker Airbus A380. Cameron, who chose GE as part of his message to encourage more private sector jobs, cited GE’s commitment to job creation and investing in young talent. The newly elected Prime Minister particularly praised the site’s apprenticeship program as a strong example for the rest of Wales and the U.K. to follow.

Ready for take-off: “We do not do enough to support apprenticeships [in the UK]…,” Cameron told the crowd, “but if we can start saving on welfare we can recycle some of that money. We need to encourage people onto [such] training programs.” The GE site at Nantgarw, which has 1.2 million sq. ft of workshop space and employs a workforce of approximately 950 people, offers overhaul, repair and maintenance services on a range of engine product types and associated components.

Under the hood: The GE facility services engines that include the CFM56 (the world’s most popular aircraft engine), the GE90 (the world’s most powerful aircraft engine) and the GP7000 (the engine that powers the new Airbus A380). The A380 engines are made by Engine Alliance, a 50/50 joint venture of GE and Pratt & Whitney. CFM International is a 50/50 joint venture between GE and Snecma.

The jet set: As UK’s The Independent said of the visit: “They [GE] take in engines after every five years of service and they’re stripped, cleaned, fracture-tested, rebuilt and restored. It’s what general elections are supposed to do to governments,” adding with wink, and “here he comes, our young PM.” From left: Adrian Button, Managing Director of GE Aviation Engine Services in Wales; Cameron; Mark Elborne, CEO & President of GE UK, Ireland and Benelux; and Cheryl Gillan, Welsh secretary in the UK government.

High flying: At the GE Aviation site, it takes between 45-80 days for an engine to be completely overhauled depending on the size and scope of the project and the company handles about 350 engines in a year.

* Read more GE Aviation stories on GE Reports
* Learn more about GE Aviation
* Read coverage about the visit in The Independent, The Guardian, and The BBC

Four weeks ago, we launched a new healthymagination data visualization project that examined how health affects work performance and vice-versa. GE’s interactive tool was powered by a survey of over 500 global corporate executives by The Economist Intelligence Unit – which is the business-to-business arm of The Economist Group, publisher of The Economist magazine. Now the survey results have been fused with new research and analysis, interviews, case studies, videos and volumes of data pulled from international sources such as the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the United Nations and the OECD to produce our comprehensive new “Health of Nations” online tool. The goal of the wide-ranging investigation and data index is to help assess how countries are positioned to meet the critical healthcare challenges facing them in the years ahead.

Global check-up: The Health of Nations Index extends to 50 countries and the assessments are based on each nation’s performance in 21 core indicators. Interactive maps and menus allow site visitors to compare specific countries or specific metrics, such as the percentage of children with the measles vaccine in a particular country, or the number of hospital beds per capita.

In the index, a site visitor clicking the “Strength in Numbers” tab, as shown above, would see how health care inputs, such as numbers of doctors and hospitals, correlate to actual patient outcomes. For example, the data found that Russia ranks alongside Norway, Japan, the Netherlands and other rich-world countries as “well above average” when it comes to inputs. But when measuring healthcare outcomes, Russia falls into the “well below average” category. Likewise, the U.S. spends well above the OECD average on healthcare, but receives only an “average” healthcare outcomes rating in the index. It’s hoped that analyzing data in new ways will highlight those types of disconnects — and ultimately lead to solutions.

In fact, as seen in the U.S. and Russian examples, one of the key findings in the index is that when it comes to healthcare, it’s not what you spend, it’s how you spend it. The overall results of the investigation show a low correlation between the total amount of healthcare inputs (number of doctors, hospital beds, vaccinations, and the like) that a country buys, and the corresponding outcomes (adult mortality rates, prevalence of cancer, and so on) that it gets back in return.

Another finding in the research is that organizations that take better care of their workers tend to outperform the market. For example, The Economist Intelligence Unit’s global survey of 554 executives indicates that those firms that do provide additional health benefits and incentives also tend to perform “significantly better” than other companies in their sector.

The “Health of Nations” index and it’s precursor, the “Fit to Perform” data visualization tool, are part of the healthymagination team’s ongoing effort to turn oceans of health data into usable information that can actually impact people’s lives. This newest project is centered on the fact that healthcare systems around the world are, and will face, profound challenges. For example, changing disease patterns, demographic shifts and tough economic conditions are just some of the forces combining to drive change in healthcare provision in many countries.

Does in equal out? Health challenges can differ from country to country due to factors such as differing levels of economic development, climate, or culture. For this reason, the Index is divided into three separate components. Healthcare Inputs measure indicators such as a population’s access to hospitals, doctors and key types of preventive medicine. The Healthcare Outcomes Index looks at mortality rates, the prevalence of diseases and nutritional health. And the Risk Index is based on the recognition that future demands on healthcare systems are also influenced by exogenous factors, such as smoking, access to clean water and air, and obesity levels.

* Watch seven videos on the site about real world healthcare challenges and solutions
* See the full findings at http://www.healthofnations.com/
* Read “Visualizing health with The Economist Intelligence Unit” on GE Reports
* Learn more about the philosophy behind data visualization with Ben Fry
* Read more healthymagination stories on GE Reports

GE’s 2010 annual shareholders meeting is getting underway this morning at 11 a.m. ET in Houston, Texas, which is home to an array of GE’s energy businesses. The theme of the meeting is “Renewal,” and it’s an opportunity for Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt to underscore that the business environment for GE continues to improve and that the 2010 framework outlined for the company remains achievable with upside potential. It’s also a chance for GE’s leadership and board members to hear directly from shareowners and get direct feedback about the company’s direction, business performance, and opportunities for growth. Click here to see a live webcast of the remarks made by Jeff and Keith Sherin, Vice Chairman and CFO. A rebroadcast will also be available later in the day.

Feeling energized: GE has nearly doubled its size in Houston in recent years through the acquisitions of PII Pipeline Solutions in 2002 (which moved to Houston); VetcoGray in 2007, and Hydril Pressure Control in 2008 (both based in Houston originally). More than one-third of the world’s electricity is generated by GE technology. The photo above shows a large generator stator, which is the stationary part of a rotor, being checked. A turbine supplies the mechanical energy that feeds the generator.

With Houston in the spotlight this week, GE’s presence in the region’s energy sector is on display for the 700 shareholders expected to attend the meeting. GE currently employs more than 4,100 in the greater Houston area in eight businesses: Aeroderivative Gas Turbines, Jenbacher Gas Engines, Gasification, Oil & Gas, Water, Optimization and Control, Power Services, and Consumer and Industrial. As Jeff wrote in this year’s annual report, the continuous research underway in new technologies in these businesses is one of the key drivers of GE’s current, and future, success. “In 2010, we will spend about 5 percent of our industrial revenue on R&D,” he wrote. “We have filed 20,000 patents this decade. We have nearly 40,000 engineers and scientists around the world.” That R&D focus can be seen in areas such as wind power, where a $1 billion investment has led to $29 billion in orders.

Healthy Houston: The grant will “allow us to increase access and improve our services for the more than 33,000 patients and almost 130,000 visits we have annually,” said Legacy Community Health Services executive Katy Caldwell, pictured above with Jeff Immelt at the press conference.

Building on GE’s long presence in the city, the GE Foundation — which is the philanthropic organization of GE — and the GE Corporate Diversity Council yesterday announced the award of $1.25 million in total to five Houston community health centers toward the goal of increasing access to primary care for uninsured and underserved populations across the city.

The grants are part of the GE Developing Health Program’s nationwide, 10-city healthcare effort that will provide $25 million in grants over three years. The grant announced yesterday in Houston is the largest grant to date for the Developing Health Program and follows similar ones made in New York City and Milwaukee.

Each of the five health centers will receive $250,000 — and GE employees from the area will also volunteer their time. The unique approach ensures that the health centers also benefit from GE’s expertise in areas such as process improvement and business management. “This program and the volunteers supporting it are a living example of GE’s healthymagination strategy to help change the world’s approach to healthcare by touching more lives and improving quality of care,” said Mike Barber, VP, GE healthymagination.

In the video below, we’ve combined eight clips featuring the GE team and leaders of the clinics receiving the grants:

* Read “Twenty thousand patents this decade, and counting… “ on GE Reports
* Read the Developing Health grant announcement
* Learn more about Developing Health
* Learn more about the sister program, Developing Health Globally
* Visit GE’s Annual Report website
* Read Energy stories on GE Reports
* Read “Milwaukee clinics upping access with new grants” on GE Reports
* Watch a video: “Developing Health: A clinic grows in Brooklyn” on GE Reports

The GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team today announced that they’ve offered the Pentagon a fixed price contract on their F136 engines for the Joint Strike Fighter. The unique approach would shift significant cost risks away from taxpayers and back onto the engine makers — and it would accelerate engine competition and help dramatically change the procurement process for defense. The offer is designed to reflect the spirit and intent of the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009, which was signed into law to mandate competition on major defense programs and to drive fixed-price contracts. The proposal is in contrast to Pratt & Whitney’s competing engine for the F135 Joint Strike Fighter, which is funded by what’s known as a “cost plus contract” in which a manufacturer is paid for its total costs of doing the work, even if overruns result.

A win for defense reform: The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program creates the perfect opportunity for spending reform as potential production for the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marines and international customers can reach 5,000 to 6,000 aircraft over 30 years. Without competing engines for the fighter, a $100 billion monopoly will be handed to a single supplier.

The offer could change the Government’s acquisition model for procuring approximately 150 F136 engines in the early years of the fighter program, allowing the Government to know immediately its costs over this period. Also, the approach is intended to drive lower pricing between the two competing engine suppliers. The offer applies to engines purchased in 2012, followed by further price reductions for engines procured in each 2013 and 2014. “We can create a competitive environment that will save the government $1 billion over the next five years, and $20 billion over the life of the JSF program,” said David Joyce, president and CEO of GE Aviation.

Flight test is next: With more than 70 percent of its development complete, the GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engine program is poised for flight-testing next year. The F-35 is designed to replace the AV-8B Harrier, A-10, F-16, F/A-18 Hornet and the United Kingdom’s Harrier GR.7 and Sea Harrier, all of which are currently powered by GE or Rolls-Royce. F136 engine development is being led at GE Aviation in Evendale, Ohio — a Cincinnati suburb — and at Rolls-Royce in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Pratt & Whitney’s F135 development is estimated to grow 50 percent beyond its original contract, from $4.8 billion to $7.3 billion, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which noted that “F135 engine development cost increases primarily resulted from higher costs for labor and materials, supplier problems, and the rework needed to correct deficiencies with an engine blade during re-design.”

With this offer, GE and Rolls-Royce assume the risk of meeting or beating price targets for early production engines while creating a competitive behavior to drive lower costs as the learning curve phase of production must be achieved earlier. Recently, the GAO anticipated a 20 percent benefit from a JSF engine competition, using the hugely successful competition on the F-16 engine as a comparison. There are also vast benefits beyond sheer cost of the $100 billion engine program related to operational readiness and contractor responsiveness.

* Read today’s announcement
* Learn more about the arguments in favor of engine competition on the JSF
* Learn details about how the JSF engine is made
* Read “GE & the Joint Strike Fighter: Let the best engine win,” on GE Reports
* Read “Gen. Hough: JSF engine competition ‘never happened’” on GE Reports
* Read “House backs Joint Strike Fighter engine competition” on GE Reports
* Read an acquisition reform timeline
* Read a fact-sheet on the case for engine competition
* Read the GAO’s May 2009 report on the JSF
* Use our online tools to tell your senator your views about the F136
* Read Lt. Gen. Hough’s full post on aviationweek.com
* Read Desert Storm air commander Gen. Chuck Horner’s opinion piece
* Read the JSF recommendations made by the Heritage Foundation

With plug-in vehicles on track to create a revolution in the auto industry, the race is on to build a smart-charging infrastructure that can support the millions of cars that one day will be plugging in. It’s why GE and Nissan today announced that they’re teaming up in a three-year Memorandum of Understanding to research new technologies that will be needed in the car, on the grid and at home or work to make smart charging a reality. Simply put, smart charging is the ability to control how the grid delivers electric power to a vehicle — at what time of the day and at what rate. For example, if drivers want to charge their cars when the price of electricity is lower, smart charging would automatically give them the ability to do that.

What a tank-less job! The all-electric, zero-emission Nissan LEAF is scheduled to launch later this year in Japan, the U.S. and Europe. The MOU combines Nissan’s electric car expertise with GE’s energy sector leadership and grid expertise, which includes a customer base that cuts across the entire electric grid network.

For the launch of the agreement, GE and Nissan have outlined two key areas for potential collaborations. The first relates to the integration of electric vehicles with homes and buildings. The second focuses on electric vehicle charging dynamics with the larger electric grid. The research team says the combined expertise will give them a full picture — from energy generation to the vehicle itself — of what it will take to make the grid ready.

Revved up: GE scientist Matt Nielsen, who’s the research lead on the MOU with Nissan, is seen here in the Smart Grid Lab at GE’s Global Research Center in Upstate New York.

As Matt Nielsen, pictured at left, says in his post today on the Global Research blog: “Initially the small numbers of electric vehicles will not strain the grid;” however, there are a number of potential issues that must be studied and quantified, such as whether clusters of electric vehicles will tax the local electrical distribution system, including transformers. “The purpose of this program will be to quantify the impact through both modeling/simulation and actual experimental data… The good news is that the electrified transportation community has recognized these issues and is proactively developing solutions. Many of the utilities I have spoken with have active programs to make sure their networks and systems are ready for electric vehicles, and that they can provide a great experience for the customer.”

As part of GE’s ecomagination initiative and Smart Grid research efforts, electric transportation is already a key focus area. For example, GE has invested more than $150 million to develop advanced battery technologies that will provide energy storage for several future product applications, including GE’s ecomagination certified hybrid locomotive, tugboats, mining trucks, and heavy service vehicles. GE has also recently increased its investment in battery maker A123 Systems, which is which is a leader in the lithium-ion battery technology used in hybrid cars.

* Read today’s announcement
* Read Matt’s full post on the Global Research blog
* See an animated video about electric cars and the Smart Grid
* Learn about “Vehicle Projects Through the Years at GE”
* Learn more about GE’s investment in battery technology
* Read GE’s backgrounder on hybrid and battery technologies
* Read about GE’s investments in battery-maker A123Systems
* Visit Nissan’s Zero Emissions website

Contributor Mike Epstein is the leader of Alternative Fuels for GE Aviation.

Pond scum, grass clippings and old T-shirts may not seem to be terribly appetizing topics, but they are providing food for thought as alternative energy sources that can power today’s United States military aircraft and support broader military strategy aimed at fuel independence. GE F414 engines are at the front line, having powered the Boeing F/A-18 “Green Hornet” on its initial biofuel-powered flight yesterday — the first Naval fighter to be powered by a biofuel blend. The Navy noted that the F414 engine performed as expected during the 45-minute flight — and indicated “the aircraft did not know the difference between the bioblend and its traditional fuel source.”

Mixed drink: The Navy chose Earth Day to showcase the supersonic flight of the F/A-18 Super Hornet strike fighter jet, which was powered by a 50/50 biofuel blend. The flight, pictured above, drew hundreds of onlookers that included Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, who has made research, development, and increased use of alternative fuels a priority for the Department of the Navy. (U.S. Navy photo by Kelly Schindler/Released)

In addition to environmental stewardship, biofuel blends of petroleum and non-petroleum sources can offer significant advantages. Designed to be “drop in” replacements, their physical and chemical properties are similar, if not identical, to conventional fuels they replace. As a result, customers do not necessarily need to spend time or money making costly aircraft modifications. Applied to today’s aircraft, the ‘Green Hornet’ initiative can increase capability by reducing reliance on fossil fuels from foreign sources and reducing volatility associated with long fuel supply transport lines.

In addition to helping the Navy meet its goal of deriving half its energy needs from alternative sources by 2020, the F404/F414 program is proceeding with an eye on green on several other fronts. New technologies could help reduce specific fuel consumption (SFC) for the Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fleet by 3 percent and save two million gallons annually – the equivalent of driving your car around the world about 1,200 times if it got 20 miles to the gallon.

GE is also developing a noise reduction kit for the F414 using a chevron exhaust nozzle. These nozzles have serrated edges where each “lobe” penetrates into or out of the primary flow and generates a secondary flow, significantly reducing jet noise. Testing has shown a 2-3- decibel reduction, which is equivalent to turning off one of the F/A-18’s two engines.

I’m glad to be a part of this exciting transformation … and I may think twice before discarding all of my old concert T-shirts!

Power plants: Prior to flight testing, GE ran more than 500 hours of component tests and close to 20 hours of F414 engine testing to validate that the engine would operate successfully using the biofuel blend, which used a fuel derived from the camelina plant — a U.S.-grown, renewable, non-food source. In 2008, Virgin Atlantic flew its GE CF6-powered Boeing 747 from London to Amsterdam, becoming the first airline in the world to fly on biofuel. (U.S. Navy photo)

* Read today’s announcement about the test flight
* Learn more about GE’s fuel work with the Navy
* Learn more about GE’s F414 engine
* Read about the science in the test flight in Discover magazine and National Geographic
* Watch the test flight, shot at the Naval Air Station in Patuxent River, Md.
* Read the Navy’s story about the test flight
* Learn more about Virgin Atlantic’s biofuel flight
* Lean more about GE Aviation’s work with biofuels

With today marking the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, we’re taking the data visualization toolkit that we’ve recently been applying to our healthymagination initiative and instead focusing it on ecomagination. The simple idea behind data visualization is to take what can often be intimidating amounts of scientific data and turn it into useable information that makes an impact in people’s lives. The new interactive visualization below provides a number of different views on how the appliances in your home consume energy. You can use the tool to measure the average impact of over 50 different electronic devices — from hair dryers and coffee makers to phones and fans — in terms of watts used; the dollars it costs to operate; and the equivalent power consumption in gasoline. The tool even shows what one kilowatt hour yields for each appliance (a toaster produces 36 pieces of toast in one kilowatt hour; a water heater gets just 125 minutes of use). As the visualization team notes, in the United States over 20 percent of our total energy consumption is residential. In fact, the U.S. is the 7th largest per capita consumer of residential energy.

Are you living with a gas guzzler? Click the image to launch the data visualization. Blue stars indicate ENERGY STAR models are available.

In recent data visualizations, we’ve partnered with the team at GOOD and visualization guru Ben Fry. Today’s project is part of a new partnership with designer Lisa Strausfeld and Pentagram, which Fast Company magazine recently cited in its list of the “Top Ten Most Innovative Design Companies.”

Meanwhile, it wouldn’t be Earth Day without Dwight Schrute from “The Office” dressed in green and sporting a third eye as “Recyclops.” Check him out and others in an operatic take on the “Green is Universal” campaign at GE’s NBC Universal in the video below.

Learn more about data visualization in these GE Reports stories:
* “Visualizing health with The Economist Intelligence Unit”
* “Data visualization: A GOOD look at affording care”
* “Ben Fry at SXSW 2010: Visualizing data challenges”
* “A GOOD look at the ‘Cost of Chronic Diseases’”

*See all of our recent healthcare data visualizations in one place
*Learn more about designer Lisa Strausfeld
*Read Fast Company’s “Masters of Design” feature on Lisa Strausfeld

With energy experts forecasting substantial increases in solar power in the coming decades, scientists at GE Global Research are working with Arizona Public Service, the state’s largest electric utility, to understand how large amounts of solar can best be integrated into today’s grid. The first-of-its-kind study, which was approved earlier this month by the state’s regulators and is part of the utility’s ongoing smart grid efforts, will focus on methods and technologies to make the grid more reliable and efficient in a setting in which solar power is generated and delivered in close proximity to its customers.

Here comes the sun: The team at the Arizona Public Service Solar Test and Research Center studies a wide variety of solar technologies, such as this array made up of many different types of photovoltaic panels. Photo: APS

As Kathleen O’Brien, Project Leader for GE and an Electrical Engineer in GE’s Smart Grid Lab explains: “Much of the focus has been on new cell developments and system improvements to make solar more cost competitive, but the larger question is how to reliably integrate the higher penetrations of solar power expected. Through this study, we hope to gain more insight and answers.”

Kathleen says her team will also look at the effect fluctuating solar power production has on the power network’s stability and how new features on GE’s Solar Inverter technology — which plugs solar power into the grid — can improve stability. The work in Flagstaff, Ariz. has been green-lighted by the U.S. Department of Energy — which recently awarded APS, along with four partners including GE, a $3.3 million High Penetration Solar Deployment grant to pursue it. In the project, APS will integrate 1.5 megawatts of solar power — about one-third each from residential, commercial, and solar park sites. That’s enough power for about 500 homes.

Middleman: GE’s Brilliance Solar Inverter was adapted from the technology used with GE’s fleet of over 13,000 1.5 MW wind turbines. It turns the direct current generated by solar cells into the alternating current that we use with our appliances. It also has advanced grid functions that meet critical needs for utilities, such as regulating voltage and adjusting for voltage dips — known in the industry as “low voltage ride-through.”

The solar power in this study is known as “distributed energy” because it is generated and delivered in close proximity to its customers and is often decentralized from the larger electric grid network. The researchers say that’s an important distinction for this demonstration project — as it will help the teams simulate what will happen when larger amounts of solar power eventually impact the grid from many locations. Although 1.5 megawatts of solar by itself is not a lot of power, it will represent a substantial amount for the study area’s distributed energy system.

As Kathleen writes on the GE Global Research blog today: “This evaluation is more complex than it sounds because both the load (the amount of power being drawn from the feeder) and the source (the amount of power being created by the sunlight) are constantly changing.”

* Read the announcement
* Hear straight from our scientists on their blog

Learn more about our solar technologies in these GE Reports stories:
* “From the lab: ‘Why it’s time to take solar seriously’”
* “Cracking the thin film solar code in GE’s 4 global labs”
* “The GE Genius Series: Catching rays with ‘solar sails’”
* “Sipping on sun-water at SOS Children’s Village in Haiti”
* “Smart grid wind technologies breeze into solar”
* “Reflecting on solar’s bright side at industry confab”
* Read more Global Research stories on GE Reports

As part of GE’s sponsorship of the Ronald Reagan Centennial Celebration — which is a two-year-long commemoration of President Reagan’s 100th birthday on February 6, 2011 — we’ll be taking an ongoing look at Reagan’s GE years through the lens of the employees he met and the technologies they made.

In postwar America, GE found its ideal goodwill ambassador in Ronald Reagan. The former president projected optimism and reassurance, the perfect spokesman for a company introducing the public to new technologies. Reagan helped sell GE’s “Progress Is Our Most Important Product” slogan to millions of Americans looking for not only a better and more comfortable way of life, but a brighter future. During Reagan’s early years with GE, the progress could be seen in revolutionary home appliances such as the world’s first toaster oven and the automatic portable dishwasher, or in the latest TV sets that Ronald and Nancy Reagan described in our last story. Some of GE’s most innovative discoveries in the 1950’s also came in the area of plastics — and when combined with optical research born from those early entertainment systems — together they paved the way for GE’s latest breakthroughs in holographic storage.

As it happens: Ronald Reagan, then a spokesperson for GE, is seen here in 1957 observing a chemist working at GE’s foundry laboratory in Erie, Pennsylvania.

With the discovery of Lexan polycarbonate resin, a “transparent plastic of unsurpassed impact resistance,” GE was setting the groundwork for a myriad of applications and uses, including space helmets for NASA and the manufacture of compact discs, cell phones and pagers. That expertise in materials research fueled discoveries that enabled GE scientists to use the full volume of a DVD-type disc, rather than just the surface, as is now the case. The result is holographic technology that will soon allow consumers to store 100 traditional DVDs on a single disc — and will help support a new era of sophisticated 3-D TV.

“We’re talking about producing hardware that gives viewers a cinema experience superior to movie theatres at reasonable costs,” says Peter Lorraine, manager of the Applied Optics Lab at GE Global Research. “In the Reagan era of early television, you could only get a postcard box with flickering green and black images. Now we’re going for unparalleled color and capacity.”

He should know! In the video above, General Electric Progress Reporter Don Herbert gives a tour of GE technologies. In case you didn’t know it, Don is none other than TV’s “Mr. Wizard” from the hit science show that ran from 1951 to 1965.

Peter says the need for additional digital storage is crucial in a world where huge amounts of data are being lost every day, costing companies billions of dollars. “There is a spectacular amount of data that cannot be maintained,” he says. “Consumer video is like an onion, peeling away a new layer all the time.” For example, holographic data storage would allow television networks producing live sports to retain more of the digital video — and it provides significantly faster access to archived information when compared to traditional computer hard drives.

Peter says consumers can expect to find an entire TV series available on one high definition disc. And holographic storage technology will be able to support 3-D television that will make the home viewing experience comparable to seeing Avatar on the big screen.

Learn more in these GE Reports stories:
* “Leaps in the lab: From Reagan’s TV to digital x-rays”
* “Coast to coast with 250,000 employees: Reagan at GE”
* “The Reagan centennial: A legacy of progress”
* “GE’s holographic disc lands “Coolest Tech” award”
* “GE unveils holographic disc breakthrough”

* Read Reagan essays on our website by Thomas W. Evans, Peggy Noonan, Andrea Mitchell, Tom Brokaw, and Rudy Giuliani
* See more of Reagan’s General Electric Theater spots by clicking the videos in this slideshow
* Read GE’s Centennial announcement
* Learn more about the centennial at www.reagancentennial.com
* Watch a rebroadcast of Jeff Immelt’s speech at the Reagan Library

The biggest players in the oil and gas industries are assembling in Oran, Algeria today for the 3-day LNG 16 conference, which brings together more than 2,500 attendees for the largest event in the world dedicated to the liquefied natural gas industry. As a global leader in LNG technology, GE Oil & Gas — which has been operating in Algeria for over 45 years — not only has a big presence at the summit, but it has just announced new deals in the country. In a $100 million contract with Petrofac, which provides services to many of the world’s largest oil & gas companies, GE is providing turbo compression equipment for the use in the El Merk Project, which is located in a harsh, remote section of the Sahara. It comes as GE’s new $36M investment in Algeria to expand the ALGESCO Service Center — which will be the largest GE Oil & Gas Service Center in the world — is nearing completion and will be formally inaugurated later this year.

Thinking big: GE Oil & Gas, with $7.7 billion in revenue in 2009, has more than 12,000 employees in 100 countries. Algeria, which is the third largest supplier of gas to Europe, has one of GE’s largest installed equipment bases including more than 400 gas turbines, more than 340 compressors and 35,000 km of inspected pipelines.

In LNG production, gas is liquefied to make it easier to transport via ship or pipeline. As The Center for LNG describes it: “Natural gas is converted to LNG by cooling it to -260° F, at which point it becomes a liquid. This process reduces its volume by a factor of more than 600 — similar to reducing the volume of a beach ball to the volume of a ping-pong ball.”

GE supplies technologies used up and down the full LNG chain, including the critical series of compressors known as “compression trains” that are required for virtually all of the major LNG processes. For example, in the massive Gorgon project off the coast of Australia, GE’s “Refrigerant Compression Trains” will be chilling the natural gas to a liquid state. That technology is also driving the QatarGas 2 project, which now boasts the largest LNG plant in the world, featuring four trains. And at the heart of those LNG trains are twelve of the largest refrigeration compressor systems manufactured by GE.

Tech talk: Liquefied natural gas is loaded onto ships and eventually offloaded and turned back into a gas. In addition to presenting technical papers at the summit, the Oil & Gas team is participating in a panel with Shell and ExxonMobil on “Technical Innovations for the Future of the LNG business.” Some of GE’s latest innovations are being put through their paces in Massa, Italy, where GE Oil & Gas recently invested over $9 million in a new test bed in preparation for the oncoming increase in liquefied natural gas activity. The new facility is designed for thermodynamic and mechanical tests on large compressors.

In addition to the Algeria news, GE Oil & Gas last week announced a joint venture in India to design, manufacture, supply, sell and service advanced technology steam turbines. It also announced a new memorandum of understanding with Vietnam that will be the basis for a long-term collaboration on the supply of advanced oil and gas equipment, services and spare parts.

Filling the pipeline: The M.O.U. with Vietnam was signed by Nguyen Quoc Thap, vice president of Petrovietnam and Marco Caccavale, general manager of GE Oil & Gas in North America. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, center, attended the ceremony in Washington D.C.

* Read today’s Algeria announcement
* Read the announcement about GE’s joint venture in India
* Read the announcement about GE’s new agreement in Vietnam
* Read “A monster of a deal gets bigger: Gorgon passes $1.1B” on GE Reports
* See more GE Oil & Gas stories on GE Reports
* Read about GE’s new turbine becoming an ecomagination-certified product
* Learn more about LNG technology
* Learn more about our LNG test facility