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NY Times off course on Hudson dredging

Sep 02, 2010

The New York Times gets a big point right and some big points wrong in its Sept. 2 editorial on the Hudson River dredging project ("On Course for a Cleaner Hudson"). The Times is correct that a panel of independent scientists have recommended major changes in the Hudson River dredging project. Here's where The Times gets the facts wrong:

The photo above is from the dredging project's first phase.

Software R&D team-up with EPA eyes water & energy

Sep 02, 2010

Water world: The new sensor-based, data-driven, and software-assisted system will monitor water quality and energy use while integrating data from all over the water system. The picture above is from EPA’s testing lab. Photo: EPA

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. municipal water industry collectively consumes 4 percent of the total amount of power generated in the U.S. So, slashing that energy use -- and the dollar and emissions costs that go with it -- is a major goal of water utilities everywhere. At the same time, upping the quality of drinking water is always the primary goal. Now a new cooperative research and development agreement between GE and the EPA is tackling both simultaneously. The goal is to increase the effectiveness of the municipal drinking water distribution network while using 10 percent to 15 percent less energy. They plan to attack the problem from a computing perspective by focusing on how to connect volumes of data being generated and analyzed from widely dissimilar sources -- and integrating them into a single software-based platform. That would give the municipal water operators more useable information that can, in turn, improve their decision-making ability. “Today’s U.S. water system is running on aging, disparate technology and a crumbling infrastructure that experts predict is in need of $600 billion in replacements and repairs,” explained Alan Hinchman, Global Industry Manager Water/Wastewater for GE Intelligent Platforms. “Since most utilities expanded and automated over a 30-year period while technology was rapidly advancing, many were left with a combination of different automation equipment creating an environment for information silos that make it impossible to share information with plant operators.”

A historic 1st: Smart grid tech links Turkey to Europe

Sep 01, 2010

Europe will see a historic exchange of power this month when, for the first time ever, Turkey is connected to the European electric grid. That link-up, which uses GE smart grid technologies, is part of seismic energy changes underway in Turkey, ranging from an aggressive plan to generate 20 percent of its electricity production from renewable resources by 2020 to ambitious cleantech initiatives that are being launched in coordination with the World Bank. As blog cleantechies.com noted in its story last year: “As Turkey aims at taking its place among the top-ten biggest economies by 2050, an increase in its energy consumption is inevitable. Electricity demand has been growing with an annual rate of 6.5 percent since 2002 … [and] scenarios forecast a 6 percent growth rate until 2020.” On the down side, the site points out that “Turkey’s growth of electricity supply barely matches its fast growth of demand.” But on the good, the World Bank observes that the country is “one of the leaders among developing countries creating clean power and energy efficiency projects.”

Power play: Bob Gilligan, vice president -- digital energy for GE Energy Services, said that the smart grid communications and control technologies such as those being deployed in Turkey are “enabling international trade and power-sharing breakthroughs that seemed nearly impossible just a few years ago." Photo: World Bank.

GE’s locomotive tech to power passenger rail in Mass.

Aug 31, 2010

In the rail industry, all eyes are on the race to put the world’s best technologies into the next generation of higher-speed rail projects -- especially those that may soon get the green light in the U.S. Already, California is in talks with manufacturers to build its own high-speed network, and Amtrak is considering massive upgrades that will include trains running between 110 and 124 mph in 10 U.S. corridors. As part of its push into that higher-speed arena, GE Transportation, which is the industry leader in diesel-electric locomotives, is already leveraging its latest breakthroughs in the passenger space -- and one example is a deal announced today that will help power trains in the greater Boston area. Diesel engines, power systems, computer control systems and traction systems from GE -- born from the Evolution series of more energy-efficient locomotives -- will be going on 20 next-generation passenger locomotives as part of a contract between the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) and Wabtec’s locomotive-manufacturing MotivePower unit. With GE supplying components from plants in Erie and Grove City, Pennsylvania, and Wabtec building the locomotives at its Boise, Idaho facility, the project is expected to create or retain 1,246 jobs.

Speed racer: Here’s an artist rendering of what the next generation, higher speed passenger locomotive by GE could look like.

JetBlue soars & Polaris dune-hops with GE Capital

Aug 30, 2010

With JetBlue Airways set to mark its 10th birthday this February, CEO Dave Barger is busy jetting off to each of the 61 cities the airline serves as part of the celebration. As Dave told the New Orleans Times-Picayune during his visit there last week, JetBlue is adding a new plane to its fleet about every 30 days. While it’s less than the new jet every 10 days that characterized a rapid expansion in 2006, Dave told the paper: "It's still significant growth. It allows you to be more surgical in terms of where you are deploying aircraft. It allows the time to be innovative." Behind that deployment is financing from GE Capital Aviation Services, or GECAS, which first started working with JetBlue in 2003, helping it finance 10 Airbus A320s and another 30 Embraer E190s. Today, GE Capital is JetBlue’s largest aircraft financier. Of the airline’s 155 planes, GE Capital has provided over $1 billion in financing for 42 of them. In the video below, which the GE Capital team just placed on their website, Dave talks about the ongoing relationship.

From Idaho’s largest wind farm to ‘self-healing’ grids

Aug 27, 2010

From the Western U.S., where construction has just started on a massive, half-billion dollar series of wind farms, to the East Coast, where Massachusetts is rolling out high-tech gear that allows power grids to “heal themselves” by isolating outages and rerouting power, it’s been a busy week for GE’s energy teams. The Idaho Wind Partners project comprises 11 wind farms -- making it Idaho's largest wind power project with the capacity to power approximately 39,700 average Idaho homes. The project is spread across 10,000 acres of active and inactive farmland in southern Idaho’s Magic Valley, which was a predominant migration route as part of the Oregon Trail in the 19th century, and is now becoming a critical renewable energy corridor in the 21st century.

Power pioneers: “Idaho Wind is among the projects helping us to reach our goal of accumulating investments of $6 billion in renewable energy by the end of this year,” Alex Urquhart, President and CEO of GE Energy Financial Services, told the crowd at the ceremony. The other investors include Reunion Power, Exergy Development Group and Atlantic Power Corp. One of the sites is pictured above.

An airspace 1st! High-tech flight path debuts in U.S.

Aug 26, 2010

Today’s American Airlines flight 1916 from Dallas/Fort Worth to Connecticut’s Bradley International Airport just landed in the aviation history books -- and marked a new era in U.S. airspace modernization. Captain Brian Will flew the 737 using a high-tech, computerized flight path known as RNP -- which stands for Required Navigation Performance technology. Put simply, RNP allows planes to follow highly precise, customized, gently curving paths that eliminate the inefficient straight-line flight segments -- most noticeable in stair step landing approaches --- that take longer to fly, burn more fuel, churn out more emissions and can add to air traffic congestion and delayed flights. What makes today’s flight historic is that it’s the first time a U.S. flight has used a publicly available, commercially designed RNP flight path. Prior to the path becoming a permanent fixture at Bradley, the FAA had designed all public RNP paths in the U.S. Now, with a third party --- GE Aviation’s Naverus business -- getting the green light to publish the path, the gateway is open for widespread adoption of the technology. As GE's Steve Fulton says in the audio interview below, "Our vision is that there are going to be thousands of these procedures required as part of the transition underway in the United States.”

Solar ’smart’ homes aim to slash energy use by 70%

Aug 25, 2010

Armed with a grab bag of high-tech gadgets and a name that sounds like a league of superheroes, the “Building America Team” is gearing up to battle home energy waste in a pilot program in the Western U.S. The team -- which is part of a Department of Energy project -- includes technologists from GE’s Industrial Solutions, Appliances, Lighting and Research divisions and partners that include major utilities, homebuilders and local communities. The goal is to slash the $1,240 per year in electricity costs that the average U.S. household pays by more than $850 per year. As GreenTech.com notes: “The test houses, part of the Department of Energy's Building America Program, will be a mix of retrofit and new construction. The goal of the DOE program is to cut energy use by 30 percent, but GE and its partners think they can reach 70 percent if roof top solar panels are added to the mix.”

Digital energy: At the heart of the new project is GE’s recently unveiled Nucleus, a home energy command center. It delivers real-time energy usage consumption data to PCs and smart phones and serves as the hub of conversations taking place between smart meters and smart appliances.

$2M boosts New Orleans’ school-based health centers

Aug 24, 2010

With this weekend marking the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’ comeback battle has been in the national spotlight. On the healthcare front, efforts to improve access to primary care for those underserved has been a major focus, especially as the greater New Orleans area experienced a sharp decrease in primary care physicians in Katrina’s aftermath. Further compounding the problem, Charity Hospital -- the primary access point to healthcare for the uninsured -- closed permanently after being hit by severe flooding during the disaster. One way the city has been addressing this care delivery gap is by investing in a community-based primary care delivery model -- with health centers based inside schools an integral part of this model. Today, the GE Foundation, which is the company’s philanthropic arm, announced a $2 million grant to the Louisiana Public Health Institute as part of GE’s Developing Health program. The funds will underwrite the work led by School Health Connection -- a partnership formed after Katrina by local and state governments, universities, hospitals and others -- in Orleans Parish, LA.

Back to school: Developing Health is a 3-year, $25 million, GE program that aims to improve access to primary care in targeted underserved communities across the U.S. The grant announced today will be used to grow enrollment in New Orleans' school-based health centers and extend those health services to neighboring schools, family members and nearby residents. From left to right at today's ceremony in New Orleans were Keith Singleton, Kyla Davis, Ronesha Turner and Felica Ennis -- all Students at Walter J. Cohen High School.

Hurricane hero: Ochsner Health five years after Katrina

Aug 23, 2010

As part of our look at what it takes to make hospitals healthier on Friday, we used New Orleans-based Ochsner Health System as an example of one of the places that is getting it right when it comes to driving better care with increased efficiency. As the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches this weekend, today we take a closer look at Ochsner, which has grown to encompass eight medical centers and more than 35 health centers since the hurricane hit. As you can see in the video below, Ochsner was on the frontlines during the disaster relief efforts following Katrina. And in the true spirit of those rebuilding New Orleans, Ochsner didn’t just survive -- it drew on its systematic approach to medicine to become an even stronger, more efficient healthcare presence in the region.