Natural gas packs a tremendous punch. Cleaner than oil and coal, it is already the world’s fastest growing fossil fuel. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates the global use of natural gas will double by 2035. GE’s American workers make many of the machines that unlock the power of this abundant natural resource and turn it into electricity for people and businesses around the world.
Today there are nearly 10,000 GE gas turbines installed around the world. GE’s Greenville, South Carolina, plant is the largest gas turbine manufacturing site in the world. It employs more than 3,000 workers who make the ecomagination-qualified Frame-7 turbines and other power equipment for customers in Europe, Asia and elsewhere in the world. The bulk of turbines they make travels abroad.
In Cincinnati, Ohio, home of GE’s aviation business, American workers make advanced gas turbines with “aeroderivative” jet engine technology at their core. Like their airborne brethren, these turbines are fast, powerful and flexible. They can start pumping out 50 megawatts of electricity in as little as 10 minutes. Today, nearly 2,300 aeroderivative turbines generate 80,000 megawatts of electricity in 73 countries.
This week GE released a data visualization that illustrates how these machines work. For two weeks, engineers collected information from 713 gas turbines. A team of graphic designers then plugged the measurements into a dynamic 3D graphic shown above. Each flash in the image represents a turbine turning on at some place in the world. This information is not just beautiful but also sparkles with insight. Take a look.
