{"id":577882,"date":"2010-05-25T12:09:36","date_gmt":"2010-05-25T16:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gereports.com\/?p=7846"},"modified":"2010-05-25T12:09:36","modified_gmt":"2010-05-25T16:09:36","slug":"wind-expo-3000-blade-signatures-a-great-lakes-1st","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/577882","title":{"rendered":"Wind expo: 3,000 blade signatures & a Great Lakes 1st"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\" Wearable art!<\/span> This design was created by artist Rodrigo Jimenez \u2013 who also works for GE in our IT department! Rodrigo came up with the 70\u2019s vibe artwork on his own, and we liked it so much we asked if we could put it on thousands of t-shirts that were handed out at each wind blade stop.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The world\u2019s largest wind energy conference is underway in Dallas, Texas, with the glitterati at the event including former President George W. Bush, singer Elvis Costello, “Seinfeld” star Jason Alexander — and GE\u2019s giant wind blade, now covered with over 3,000 signatures. The 131-foot blade has been stopping in communities across the country to drum up support for a clean energy future as it makes it way to the conference, held by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)<\/a>. The big expo was also the forum for the announcement that GE will be providing what\u2019s known as \u201cdirect-drive\u201d turbines — the newest gearless technology — for the first offshore, freshwater wind farm in North America. The 20 megawatt wind project — which the developers hope to grow into a 1,000 MW farm — is in the Ohio waters of Lake Erie and marks a major step towards accelerating the deployment of offshore wind in the Great Lakes.<\/p>\n

While the wind blade tour helped raise awareness about the immense possibilities that renewable energy has in the U.S., it also underscored just how big the clean energy economy is in this country \u2013 and how it, and the jobs that come with it, can grow exponentially in the near future. In the video below, Chaz Allen, Mayor of Newton, Iowa, talks about the impact in his town.<\/p>\n

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Echoing that jobs theme was Ohio Governor Ted Strickland. Describing the newly-announced offshore wind deal, which will use new technology specifically designed for harsh offshore conditions, he said: \u201cOhio’s greatest potential for creating wind energy is offshore in Lake Erie, and this partnership marks a significant step forward. In Ohio, we have all the right assets to make offshore wind energy successful, including an innovative workforce and the manufacturing strengths that would allow us to build all the component parts for wind turbines. This partnership will not only advance offshore wind technologies, it will also advance Ohio\u2019s economy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\" A star is born:<\/span> GE\u2019s blade became a bit of a celebrity in front of the Dallas wind conference.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

And in our final video, GE\u2019s Reporter at Large, Vivek Kemp, caps the 2,436-mile journey with this report from Dallas — and as you can see midway in the video, he\u2019s got a future as a TV weatherman!<\/p>\n

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* Read the Lake Erie offshore wind announcement<\/a>
\n* Watch Part 2 of our series: \u201c\u2018Capture the Wind\u2019 tour: At the fair & atop the tower<\/a>\u201d
\n* Watch Part 1: \u201cCapture the Wind tour: Honk if you like green jobs!<\/a>\u201d on GE Reports
\n* Learn more about the tour on http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ecomagination<\/a><\/p>\n

Learn more in these GE Reports stories:
\n* \u201c$450M manufacturing investment powers offshore wind\u201d<\/a>
\n* \u201cTook a whole lot of trying, just to get up that hill<\/a>\u201d
\n* \u201cRenewables study: 274,000 jobs can be added<\/a>\u201d
\n* \u201cBuilder of largest US wind farm inks $1.4B turbine deal<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

You can still be a part of the tour by signing the blade virtually and showing your support for a clean energy future<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wearable art! This design was created by artist Rodrigo Jimenez \u2013 who also works for GE in our IT department! Rodrigo came up with the 70\u2019s vibe artwork on his own, and we liked it so much we asked if we could put it on thousands of t-shirts that were handed out at each wind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4069,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-577882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}