virtual tour

Photos: Baker Hughes sets up interactive hub to showcase technology, sustainable energy solutions

The Baker Hughes Technology Showcase permanently displays the company's technology and clean energy solutions. Photo courtesy of Baker Hughes

When not traveling the world and being showcased internationally at various events and opportunities, the technology displays that Baker Hughes constructed to use as demonstrations and sales tools sat mostly in storage collecting dust until their next gig. That didn't sit well with Matt Hartman.

As sales and commercial enablement director, Hartman saw an opportunity for another use for these displays — one that would take them out of far-flung storage facilities.

"I wanted to reduce our storage and carbon footprint there, but I also wanted to make all of these items accessible at all times. And what better place to do it than one of the energy capitals of the world here in Houston," Hartman tells Energy Capital. "We moved everything out here and displayed it in a way that tells the full Baker Hughes story from drilling through production and including our new energies."

Now, the Baker Hughes Technology Showcase exists permanently at the company's Western Hemisphere Education Center in Tomball just outside of Houston.

There are more than 30 physical displays — some scaled down and 3D printed while others are exact replicas of the technology out in the field. In addition to these tangible pieces, hundreds are available to peruse on the touch-screen displays.

While there's the full technology spectrum represented, there's a particular focus on clean energy technologies — ones that aren't just future facing but are actually being used in the field today.

"It's all in line with our commitments that we made in 2019 to be net-zero by 2050," Hartman says, noting that Reuters reported the company's carbon footprint to 28 percent this year.

The showcase is designed for visitors and in-house teams alike, including current and potential customers, new hires, university students, and more.

"This particular building — the Western Hemisphere Education Center — is a really good building to have it in because we do anything for our training for our employees and our customers here," Hartman says. "What better place to have pieces of our technology or solutions here that they are learning about in a classroom and then they can come out here and actually put hands on."

The pieces of technology still travel of course, but when they aren't being displayed internationally, they now have a permanent place of residence to continue to be showcased.

Photo courtesy of Baker Hughes

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A View From HETI

Researchers from Rice University say their recent findings could revolutionize power grids, making energy transmission more efficient. Image via Getty Images.

A new study from researchers at Rice University, published in Nature Communications, could lead to future advances in superconductors with the potential to transform energy use.

The study revealed that electrons in strange metals, which exhibit unusual resistance to electricity and behave strangely at low temperatures, become more entangled at a specific tipping point, shedding new light on these materials.

A team led by Rice’s Qimiao Si, the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Physics and Astronomy, used quantum Fisher information (QFI), a concept from quantum metrology, to measure how electron interactions evolve under extreme conditions. The research team also included Rice’s Yuan Fang, Yiming Wang, Mounica Mahankali and Lei Chen along with Haoyu Hu of the Donostia International Physics Center and Silke Paschen of the Vienna University of Technology. Their work showed that the quantum phenomenon of electron entanglement peaks at a quantum critical point, which is the transition between two states of matter.

“Our findings reveal that strange metals exhibit a unique entanglement pattern, which offers a new lens to understand their exotic behavior,” Si said in a news release. “By leveraging quantum information theory, we are uncovering deep quantum correlations that were previously inaccessible.”

The researchers examined a theoretical framework known as the Kondo lattice, which explains how magnetic moments interact with surrounding electrons. At a critical transition point, these interactions intensify to the extent that the quasiparticles—key to understanding electrical behavior—disappear. Using QFI, the team traced this loss of quasiparticles to the growing entanglement of electron spins, which peaks precisely at the quantum critical point.

In terms of future use, the materials share a close connection with high-temperature superconductors, which have the potential to transmit electricity without energy loss, according to the researchers. By unblocking their properties, researchers believe this could revolutionize power grids and make energy transmission more efficient.

The team also found that quantum information tools can be applied to other “exotic materials” and quantum technologies.

“By integrating quantum information science with condensed matter physics, we are pivoting in a new direction in materials research,” Si said in the release.

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