WEBVTT - Rerun: GE and the House that Jack Built 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.240 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:17.560 John Than Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:21.439 Radio and a love all things tech and uh I 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:25.560 am on vacation, y'all. If you hadn't heard that already, 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:27.880 then you need to listen to the last two episodes 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:32.000 because we are going through a series of classic tech 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.080 Stuff episodes. Classic Pig came out in two thousand nineteen. 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.920 They're all classics in my mind. Anyway, We're going through 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:43.000 this series about General Electric a k a. G. And 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:45.440 the reason we're doing that is that recently the company 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:49.680 announced that it plans to split into three separate companies 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:53.680 over the next few years, one focusing on energy, one 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.840 focusing on healthcare, and one focusing on aviation, with the 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:01.320 aviation company retaining the name GE. So with that in mind, 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.120 we're going to listen to part three of that series, 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:08.000 G E and the House that Jack Built. Now. That 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:12.680 episode originally published on September nine, two thousand nineteen. One 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:16.479 more thing tomorrow, we should have a brand new Smart 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:21.520 Talks with IBM episode, and so that will publish tomorrow. 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:26.480 But then on Friday, we will conclude the g E series. 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:31.040 So sit back, relax, and enjoy g E and the 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:36.440 House that Jack built. We are continuing our journey through 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:40.200 the history of General Electric or GE, a company that 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:44.400 has encountered some pretty significant challenges over the last decade 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.360 or so. Now. In our first two episodes, I went 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:49.720 through the founding of g E and then made my 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.160 way all the way up through World War Two, and 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:54.680 I talked about how some of the top level executives 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.760 of the company were called upon by the US government 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.120 to serve in wartime government position to help the US 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.200 meet the needs of supplying the military with the equipment 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:06.640 necessary to fight the war. I also talked about how 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.519 GE continued to grow as a company, building on new 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:13.680 departments and divisions and diversifying the company's businesses. And I 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.040 ended the last episode by talking about a court case 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:20.480 that determined GE was being anti competitive by leveraging patents 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.000 in order to act as an effective monopoly when it 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:27.000 came to manufacturing lightbulbs. Now we're almost up to nineteen 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.680 fifty and it's time to get out of this world. 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.120 The one thing I want to mention before we get 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:35.960 into the nineteen fifties. Is that in nineteen forty six 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:40.280 a scientist at GE named Vincent Schaefer developed the process 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.560 of cloud seating. And the idea is pretty elegant but 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.760 has long been a subject of scientific dispute. So here's 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:52.360 the process. It involves distributing tiny particles into clouds in 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.000 an effort to make it rain. And the thought is 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:59.079 that these particles will act as nucleic sites for rain 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:03.040 drops to form. When the raindrops get large enough, they 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.760 have enough weight to fall to Earth. And so that 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.000 is the general thought behind cloud seating. It's been practiced 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.480 ever since, but there have been many questions over whether 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.519 or not cloud seating actually works. Sometimes it would rain, 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:20.720 sometimes it wouldn't, and if it did rain, is there 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:22.800 any way to be sure that it was the cloud 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.200 seating that actually made the difference. I mean, you had 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:26.600 to have a cloud there in the first place. You 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.919 couldn't just manufacture a cloud. Experiments and labs suggested that 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:34.639 it should work, but the natural world is very different 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.680 from the controlled conditions of a lab environment. It didn't 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.960 help that many of our measuring instruments lacked the precision 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.600 to detect very small raindrops. So you couldn't really monitor 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:47.160 to see if it was actually doing what it was 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:50.880 supposed to do. An experiment in two thousand eighteen suggests 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:53.880 that cloud seating does in fact work, at least to 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:57.000 some extent. But there's another question that's still open, which 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:01.080 is does cloud seeding make economic sense? Does the amount 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:05.560 of water produced by rainfall justify the cost of flying 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:08.440 aircraft up and distributing the particles in the first place. 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.160 Because it may very well work, but it might not 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.760 work well enough to make sense from a financial perspective. 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.960 I just find it fascinating that we've essentially been doing 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.479 this for seventy years and we still don't know if 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.400 we should be doing it. Now. I can certainly see 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.120 why cloud seating companies feel we should be doing it. 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:31.200 I mean, that's their business. But the jury is still 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.159 technically out over whether or not it makes sense, and 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:37.360 there's still a little bit debate on whether or not 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.359 it really truly works, or if it works in enough 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:45.520 conditions for it to be reasonable. Now, in ve Ge 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:48.880 made the first two door refrigerator freezer combo, and I 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:53.880 only mentioned it here because I think it's cool. That's 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.800 a pun. Now we're up to the nineteen fifties. So 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.040 in nineteen fifty one, GE built a new jet engine 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:05.279 called the J seven nine. And here's an interesting historical note. 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:10.680 When engineers tested the J seven nine, which had variable statters, 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:15.560 the efficiency ratings were so high that the engineers thought 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:20.000 their instruments were malfunctioning. There's no way we're getting this 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:23.279 level of energy efficiency out of this thing. But then 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:25.240 that raises a question for a lot of people, what 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:27.600 is a statter? What does that actually mean? Well, the 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:31.640 name gives you a hint. Statter stationary, that kind of thing. 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.640 So in jet engines, you have fan blades that rotate. 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.919 Those are rotors, and you had fan blades that hold 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.120 in place. Those are called statters. And the purpose of 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:46.600 this combination is to both draw air into the engine 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.760 and to compress that air before it enters into the 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:54.040 combustion chamber. The adjustable status meant that the engine could 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:58.320 be finely tuned to produce higher compressor pressures and to 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.840 produce more usable energy as opposed to waste heat when 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:06.279 you're actually burning fuel. In nineteen four, g E Research 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:10.440 Laboratory scientists named Tracy Hall announced that his team had 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:14.239 discovered a way to create synthetic diamonds in the lab. 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:19.320 Hall's team used a process involving high pressure high temperature 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:24.400 or hp HT. They were successful in producing synthetic diamonds 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:28.760 on December sixteenth, nineteen fifty four. Now, other teams were 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:33.040 using different methods to create diamonds of in other companies 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.880 as well, but it was Hall's efforts that would receive 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:40.560 the credit for designing the first reliable, reproducible methodology to 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.440 create commercially viable synthetic diamonds. So there are a lot 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:46.960 of qualifiers there because there were people who were working 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:51.039 on different methodologies and they were also producing diamonds, but 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.200 it wasn't considered to be as reliable nor as viable 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:59.280 for a commercial use. And these were not diamonds meant 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:03.040 to adore engagement rings or other jewelry. For one, they 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.760 were brownish in color, so they weren't terribly attractive. They 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.360 also were very very tiny. The largest diamond they produced 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:15.080 in that early batch measured point one five millimeters across, 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:19.520 so these were not large stones. More importantly, this purpose 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.760 would be put to commercial uses. In fact, it wouldn't 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:25.320 be until the nineteen seventies that scientists would actually be 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.400 able to create diamonds of sufficient quality and clarity that 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.400 they could be used in the gem industry. And even then, 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.880 the process was so labor intensive and so expensive it 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:42.200 was not economically feasible to create synthetic diamonds for decorative purposes. 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.880 The cost of the synthetic diamond would be so high 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:48.000 that would actually be cheaper for you to go out 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:52.520 and buy a ring with a natural diamond on it. Also, 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.760 the whole topic of diamonds is one that I find 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:01.600 particularly upsetting, but that's a that's a topic for a 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:06.600 totally different podcast. So how did they make synthetic diamonds? Well, 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:09.640 I'm sure most of you know, diamonds are a form 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.880 of carbon. It's a it's a crystalline form of carbon. 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:16.000 You've gotta crystalline structure where you have a carbon atom 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.440 that's surrounded by four other carbon atoms and they're all 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:23.280 connected to each other through strong covalent bonds. And diamonds 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:27.200 are incredibly hard. They are the hardest natural substance we 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.320 found so far. They also have a lot of different 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:34.120 industrial uses. They can operate at high temperatures where they 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.800 can hold firm at high temperatures. They don't really operate 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.160 at all. They're just minerals, but they hold together well 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.240 at high temperatures, so you put it on something like 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.439 a high speed cutting tool, and the hardness combined with 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:49.200 the fact that it's not going to break down at 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:52.080 high temperatures, means you can run that very high RPMs 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:56.160 and start cutting through stuff pretty well. In nature, diamonds 0:08:56.200 --> 0:09:00.320 form as carbon is compressed at very high temperatures over 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.400 a very long time, and if it weren't for stuff 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.920 like volcanoes, we probably never would have found the things 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.199 because they tend to form in the Earth's mantle, which 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.720 is not easy to get to. They they the zone 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.520 where they form is about a hundred miles beneath the 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.200 surface of the Earth. That's far deeper than we've ever drilled. 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:25.360 Hall's lab used a belt press, and this press could 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:29.400 exert more than ten giga pascals of pressure. A pascal 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.680 is a unit of measurement for pressure, and it equates 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:36.280 to a Newton per square meter. Standard atmospheric pressure is 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:40.360 about one one point three to five kilo pascals, so 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:45.520 a giga pascal is one billion pascals. Ten giga pascals 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:50.480 would be ten billion pascals, So that's a lot of pressure. 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:52.679 G E would actually put it in another way for 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:56.280 those of us who don't use you know, scientific notation 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.720 for everything. They said, the press could exert one point 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:03.120 five if million pounds per square inch of pressure, So 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:05.679 in other words, it's just a whole lot of pressure. 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:09.199 And plus it would operate at a very high temperature. 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:11.280 It would be heated to a temperature of more than 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:15.000 three thousand, six fifty degrees fahrenheit or two thousand ten 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:20.079 degrees celsius. This press pushed against a mixture of graphite, 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:24.079 which is another form of carbon, and the graphite would 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.680 be dissolved in a catalyst metal and catalyst metals could 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.720 include stuff like nickel or iron. A catalyst in a 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.200 chemical reaction is something that facilitates and speeds up the 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.920 chemical reaction. So in this case, and meant that we 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:40.360 didn't have to wait millions of years for synthetic diamonds 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.960 to form. Instead took about twenty minutes. The largest of 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:46.800 those diamonds, like I said, was point one five millimeters across, 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:51.040 so pretty darn tiny. The following year, g E introduced 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:55.800 hermetically sealed relays. These are electronic components that could be 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.960 used in lots of different applications that otherwise might be 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:03.040 sensitive to their environments, particularly in stuff like high altitude 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:08.440 airplanes and aerospace applications, and variations of these components would 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:13.040 be used throughout the next few decades in those particular applications. 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:15.920 There's just one early example of how GE would become 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:19.160 an important part of the space race, which was just 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.360 heating up in the nineteen fifties between the United States 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:26.720 and the then Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the company continued to 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:30.760 expand its consumer product line. It had introduced a toaster 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.319 decades earlier, but in nineteen fifty six it introduced the 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:40.640 toaster oven. Specifically, it was one called the tree toast 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.599 our oven, and it's adorable. You should look up a 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:47.920 picture of it. That same year, GE built a commercial 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.600 jet engine based off the J seventy nine design, which 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.280 was intended for military aircraft that wasn't meant to be 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:58.360 for commercial aircraft. So this new engine, which had the 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:02.839 designation c J eight oh five, would mark General Electrics 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:06.440 entry into the commercial jet engine business. So now they 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.280 were building jet engines not just for the U. S Military, 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:13.079 but also for companies like Boeing and other companies were 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:17.400 creating aircraft would be a really big year for GE. 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.439 The company secured a contract with the United States Air 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:23.839 Force to provide the engine for an experimental supersonic aircraft, 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:28.239 the x B seventy Valkyrie. Now the X in aircraft 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:31.719 names is a big tip off that that's an experimental prototype. 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:35.439 You'll often see X as part of the designation at 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:39.559 the beginning of various aircraft that usually means experimental. The engine, 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.920 called d J ninety three, was capable of producing enough 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:46.360 thrust to propel the experimental aircraft to three times the 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:49.440 speed of sound, and it would travel an altitude of 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:53.559 seventy thousand feet or about twenty one meters. Not the time, 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.520 the thinking was that the greatest threat to bombers were 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:01.200 intercept aircraft. So if you could fly high enough and 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:03.720 fast enough, you wouldn't have to worry about that. No 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:05.880 one would ever be able to get a bead on you. 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:08.560 They wouldn't be able to to track you and fire 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:11.160 on you at that speed and at that altitude, so 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:15.280 the Valkyrie would be safe against typical defenses. However, the 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:19.559 Soviet Union was developing service to air missile technology and 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.400 that started to bring into question whether or not the 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:26.440 Valkyrie would be equally as effective against that sort of 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:30.679 defense system. And one of the ways to get around 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.720 that would be to fly the Valkyrie at lower altitudes 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:37.120 where it could fly beneath radar. But if you did that, 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:40.120 you also had to fly slower. You couldn't fly at 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:44.439 the same mock three speed at lower altitudes. That meant 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:47.600 that the bomber would be flying lower and slower than 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:49.960 it was designed to do, and it would be no 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.280 more effective than other bombers that were already in use 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:56.440 at that time, and it was more expensive. So with 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:01.199 all of those considerations stacked again into the Valkyrie, the 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.640 ultimate decision was not to go into production and build 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:07.840 those out as a production model, so it just remained 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.480 an experimental prototype. But it is super cool to look at. 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:11.920 If you ever want to look at a picture of 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:16.080 a x B seventy Valkyrie, they're pretty neat looking. Something 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:18.640 else that happened in nineteen fifty seven was that General 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:23.560 Electric constructed a nuclear power plant in Alameda County, California, 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.840 and it was the first nuclear reactor to be connected 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.480 to a commercial electricity grid. In other words, General Electric 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:34.200 was able to produce electricity that would go to average 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:38.200 citizens over an Alameda County. And I've talked a little 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.000 bit about how nuclear power plants work, I'll just give 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:45.200 a very very high level rundown. So you have a 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.760 nuclear material that undergoes nuclear decay, and as part of 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:53.400 that process, it releases subatomic particles, typically neutrons, and those 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.520 neutrons collide with other atoms of that same nuclear material. 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.760 This is your fuel, and when they collide with those 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:04.080 other atoms, it initiates a chain reaction. Those atoms then 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:07.640 go undergo radioactive decay and they release neutrons and so 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.680 on and so forth. So if there's enough thistle material, 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.640 that is material that can split apart in the fuel, 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:17.280 this reaction can be sustained until the amount of fuel 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.680 dips below critical levels, in which case you start to 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.200 have fewer and fewer reactions and you've spent the nuclear fuel. 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.240 Doesn't mean that all the nuclear radiation stuff is gone, 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:30.960 far from it, but it's no longer producing the reactions 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:34.160 that the level you need to sustain that reaction indefinitely. 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.760 This is a nuclear power plant. Now, the concentration of 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:42.560 nuclear material is really high where that reaction starts to 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.000 pick up speed over and over and over again, and 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.120 this happens in the blink of an eye. Then you 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.000 can set off a much more explosive chain reaction. In 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.720 that case you have a nuclear bomb rather than a 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.720 power plant, and that that concentration is key there. That's 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:02.760 why you'll hear stories about how how much UH uranium 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.440 you would need for a nuclear power plant versus one 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:10.080 for you know, refined uranium for a nuclear bomb. Now, 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.640 this reaction produces a lot of heat, and it's the 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:17.000 heat that's the key for these nuclear power plants. That heat, 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:22.480 usually through a paired system of pipes, transfers to a boiler, 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.680 and the water in the boiler boils into steam, and 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:29.440 that steam then turns turbines which generate electricity. So a 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:33.200 nuclear power plant is, if you think about it, really 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:37.440 just a way to boil water, really fast and really efficiently. 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:41.400 Cold power plants also boil water, but obviously they do 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:45.360 it through combustion rather than through a nuclear reaction. So 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:50.520 the interesting thing to me is that the the part 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:53.520 that generates the heat is different, but the end result 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:56.480 is very much the same in the sense that you're 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:01.920 boiling water to create steam to turn turbines to generate electricity. Now, 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.720 I'll not go down the nuclear power rabbit hole because 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:09.080 there's much more to talk about just with general electric 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:11.840 But if you want to learn more about nuclear power plants, 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:14.640 do a quick search over at tech stuff podcast dot com. 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:16.560 That's where we have an archive of all of our 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.520 past episodes. You can also learn the difference between fission 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:23.760 nuclear reactors, which are what we use today, and fusion 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.239 nuclear reactors, which we hope we can make feasible in 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:31.439 the near future. We have done fusion reactions already, but 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.280 the question is can you make that sustainable? Can you 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.080 make it economically feasible. That's a question that we have 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.639 not yet answered, but if we are able to do it, 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:44.960 it could transform the world anyway. The GE facility, which 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.959 was called the Valacitos Nuclear Center, it still exists. Uh. 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:52.879 It was only an active power plant until nineteen sixty three. 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.080 At that point the federal government told g E to 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:59.360 shut it down, so the boiler reactor was shut down 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:03.159 in nineteen sixty three, but GE maintains the facility mainly 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:07.800 for the purposes of testing an analysis, particularly testing radiated 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:12.920 materials to see how long they remain at dangerous levels 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:17.280 of radiation. For example, So if you have instruments or suits, 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.399 things like that that would exist in a radiation radiation 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:23.720 UH filled area, you want to know how long is 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.640 that stuff going to be dangerous UM. That's just part 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.800 of what they do now. A major part of that facility. 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.960 UH One of the largest of the reactors on that 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.080 site got shut down in ninety seven. It was still 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:39.360 being used for research purposes, but not to generate electricity. 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:42.360 Why was it shut down, Well, it was discovered that 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:46.119 it had the unfortunate distinction of sitting nearly directly on 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.320 top of a fault line. There was a legitimate concern 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:53.000 over what might happen should an earthquake hit while the 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:56.640 reactor was an operation. There is still a smaller reactor 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.480 on the site that operates in the one kilowatt range, 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.399 but it's the only one as far as I can tell. Otherwise, 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:07.160 all the other reactors have been completely decommissioned to shut down. 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.560 We've got a lot more to say about general electric 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:13.280 but before I get into that, let's take a quick break. 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:24.400 The work out of GEES Research Lab was pretty incredible 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:27.920 in the nineteen fifties. You had the nuclear scientists building 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.280 that first licensed power plant to provide electricity to a grid. 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.600 You had synthetic diamonds, and you had Robert H. Windorf 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.920 who created a substance called borazon in the lab. Borizon 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:41.280 is is a man made substance. You don't find it 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:46.199 in nature, but it's almost as hard as diamond, and 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:49.000 it can be used in temperatures much higher than even 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:51.440 diamonds can be used in. Like, diamonds will break down 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.040 once you get over a certain temperature, but borizon can 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.720 hold together longer. So it would also become a very 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:00.520 useful component in industrial cutting tools, for example. Now around 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.399 the same time, a different group of engineers were building 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:08.800 something perhaps a bit less lofty in the grand scheme 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:12.280 of things, but that would be the humble electric can opener. 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:16.080 G introduced the first consumer electric can opener in nineteen 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:19.800 fifty eight, and pet ownership has never been the same since. 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:25.280 In nine g E introduced the halogen lamp. These work 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:29.000 in a way very similar to incandescent lamps. There's a 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:33.480 tungsten filament inside a very small bulb, and encasing the 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:37.840 filament is a quartz envelope. Inside the envelope is a 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.840 gas from the halogen group of gases, so this is 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:43.320 different from what the kind of gas you would find 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:48.000 in your typical incandescent bulb. The benefit of halogen gas 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.960 is that it can combine with tungsten vapor. So when 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:54.760 the tungsten filament heats up and it starts to give 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.960 off light, it's also giving off tungsten vapor. You know, 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.640 tungsten is essentially burning off of the filament. That vapor 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:05.040 combines with the halogen gas, and then it gets deposited 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:08.960 back onto the tungsten filament, at least some of it does, 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.879 so some of that vaporized tungsten gets returned. That actually 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:16.600 helps extend the useful life of the halogen lamp. Halogen 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:19.520 lamps can produce a lot more light per unit of 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:23.280 energy compared to an incandescent bulb. They also produce a 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:26.919 lot more heat, and as someone who has sadly a 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.720 few halogen lamp fixtures in his house, I can speak 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:35.359 from experiences. Those things get real hot. Guys like you 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:39.240 will burn your fingers. I know I have. Anyway. In 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:42.600 nineteen sixty a device built by g E became the 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.600 first man made object to be recovered after going into 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:49.080 orbit around the Earth. It was codenamed by g E 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:52.680 the r v X to a reentry vehicle that was 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:57.479 part of the Discoverer thirteen satellite. The discovered thirteen satellite 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:00.840 kind of set the stage for space based connaissance and 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:04.480 spy missions. Now, granted, that was not the public facing 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:09.040 part of the mission. Obviously, letting everyone know, hey, this 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:12.520 is a spy satellite is not the best plan if 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:15.080 you want to use it for you know, spy stuff. 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:17.440 So there was a cover story, and the cover story 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:20.159 was essentially that it was a science experiment, but in 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:23.360 reality it was a classified mission that was overseen by 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:26.680 both the Air Force and the c I A. G 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:29.280 would go on to open up a space center in 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:33.639 Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in nineteen sixty one because they were 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.040 getting more and more involved in building components for the 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:40.920 space race. Also in nineteen sixty there was a guy 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:45.080 named Jack Welch who joined GE as a chemical engineer. 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:50.000 He'll be really important later, so remember that name, Jack Welch. 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:53.880 We'll get back to it. Nineteen sixty two, scientists from 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:57.320 GE would develop one of the first solid state lasers 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:02.240 using semiconductors. Interestingly, siists at IBM and over at M 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:05.600 I T were independently doing the exact same thing, and 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:08.840 all the parties pretty much cracked the problem right around 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:11.600 the same time. This set off a bit of a 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:14.639 patent rush, with GE beating IBM to the punch by 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:17.040 a little more than a week. I just find it 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:20.200 fascinating that the solid state laser was one of those 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:23.920 things that multiple parties invented at around the same time, 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:27.879 independently of each other. But to be fair, the stage 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:31.840 had already been set with early work in masers and lasers, 0:23:32.040 --> 0:23:34.600 so these were not the first lasers. They were the 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:38.280 first solid state ones. Solid state lasers would then find 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:42.480 their way into numerous technologies and applications. Early on, scientists 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:45.919 theorized that they could be incredibly useful in communications, but 0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:49.000 they would become so commonplace that we'd rely on them 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:51.240 to play our tunes for us. Because the laser and 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:54.800 stuff like CD players, DVD players, Blu ray players, those 0:23:54.840 --> 0:23:57.879 are all solid state lasers. So what was truly cutting 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:01.399 edge technology in nineteen sixty two is also commonplace that 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:03.399 you can go out and buy one and use it 0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:05.520 to frustrate your pets. You know, you can just go 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:07.879 get a little key chain with a solid state laser 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:10.800