The GE Brief – December 2, 2021
Another First For Flight
From the outside, there’s nothing unusual about the Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet operated by United Airlines that flew from Chicago to Washington, D.C., yesterday. But the plane made history. It was the first commercial flight with passengers on board to use 100% drop-in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for one of the aircraft’s two engines. “Drop-in” SAF is non-petroleum-based fuel that can be used interchangeably with conventional jet fuel and requires no modifications to engines and airframes. This also makes it compatible with the existing commercial fleet and the existing fuel distribution and storage infrastructure. “These molecules don’t know where they come from,” says Gurhan Andac, GE Aviation’s engineering leader for aviation fuels and additives. The jet was powered by a pair of LEAP-1B engines built by CFM International, a 50-50 joint company between GE and Safran Aircraft Engines. Read about it here.
Spotlight On The Future
Expo 2020 Dubai, which started in October, has brought together 192 countries and millions of visitors around the theme of “connecting minds and creating the future” through sustainability, mobility and opportunity. In November at the Expo, GE organized a summit called Spotlight Tomorrow, featuring speakers who discussed how innovation can make energy, aviation and healthcare more sustainable. Roger Martella, GE’s chief sustainability officer, arrived in Dubai directly from the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. He said that while COP26 focused on what we can do in terms of setting targets and taking actions to address climate change, the Dubai Expo focuses on how innovation and technology must be part of the solution. We’ve got highlights here.
Oregon’s Smart Hospital System
Rolled out during the pandemic, a software application powered by artificial intelligence and developed by GE Healthcare gives clinicians in Oregon near real-time information about ICU beds and other critical care resources in the state. The Oregon Care System (OCS) uses 4.2 million data points per day to match patients with required medical resources. GE Reports sat down with Jeff Terry, who leads Clinical Command Centers, the GE Healthcare unit that developed the software, to get an up-close look at how OCS works.
Strong Wind
GE said on Wednesday that the Dogger Bank Wind Farm, a 3.6-gigawatt (GW) project to be located in the North Sea off the coast of the U.K., reached financial close on debt financing for phase C, the third 1.2-GW phase. Upon completion, Dogger Bank is expected to be the world’s largest offshore wind farm. The financial close marks a significant fourth-quarter order for GE and the first commercial order for the most powerful version of GE’s Haliade-X offshore wind turbine platform. Dogger Bank C will be equipped with 87 Haliade-X 14-MW offshore wind turbines, the first turbines anywhere in the world to operate at 14 MW. Today’s announcement brings the total number of Haliade-X units to be installed at Dogger Bank to 277. Read more about the close here and about the 14-MW Haliade-X here.
Blue Sky Thinking
GE Aviation’s services business is an unsung hero of the aviation industry. It is helping customers keep their planes flying and allowing them to open new sources of revenue — like supplying them with engines for converted cargo planes. The services unit is also an important source of income for GE Aviation and GE.
— Quote Of The Day —
“Drop-in SAF is something our industry can adopt now to begin making inroads on our commitment to be net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.”
— Gaël Méheust, president and CEO of CFM International
Quote: GE Reports. Images: United Airlines, GE Reports, GE Healthcare, GE Renewable Energy. Video: GE Reports.