The GE Brief: March 25, 2021
AIR ANTARCTICA
Flying hardly gets cooler than this. In February, a Boeing 767 passenger jet operated by an Icelandair subsidiary landed on a wind-whipped field of blue ice, deep in Antarctica. The jet, powered by a pair of GE CF6 jet engines, dropped in to pick up a group of scientists returning home from the Troll research station run by the Norwegian Polar Institute in Dronning Maud Land. It also left provisions for the remaining staff who were staying at this forbidding place in mid-winter.
Ice, ice landing: This time of the year, Troll is a frigid and windy place — the high temperature on arrival on Feb. 26 was just 9 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind was blowing at a brisk 30 miles per hour — but the pilots handled the landing handsomely. “The Norwegians have built a runway on the blue ice that is special because of its strength and structural nature,” co-pilot Bjartmar Örn Arnarson wrote in his log. “It has been beaten down with constant hurricane-force wind that has squeezed the air bubbles out of the ice, and it appears deep blue. And because of its solidness it can hold a massive airplane like the B767 and is really smooth.” The airline crew, which included six pilots, 13 crew and one flight engineer, took pictures with the researchers and serviced the plane. Within 2 hours, they were back in the air.
Click here to read more about Icelandair’s trip to Antarctica.
ADVANCED POWER
How should fast-growing economies in Asia balance their rapidly expanding need for electricity with their goal of cutting emissions? Urban density and geography make large-scale wind and solar farms difficult here, but Malaysia may have an answer. Southern Power Generation turned to GE Gas Power’s advanced turbines, which can spin natural gas into record amounts of lower-carbon electricity. Last month SPG became the first power producer in the world to use a pair of 9HA.02 turbines to generate electricity. And on Monday, GE announced it has secured another Malaysian order for two more turbines in the 9HA family.
Gas for growth: It’s welcome news for Malaysia, which is targeting a 45% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030. The SPG plant is located in Pasir Gudang, an industrial city at the southern tip of Malaysia’s peninsula, just a few miles from Singapore. It will serve some 3 million people living in the area. In general, the carbon footprint of a natural gas power plant can be 60% lower than that of a coal plant, according to a recent report published by GE.
Click here to learn more about how Malaysia is working to reduce emissions.
TIPPING POINT
GE has used 3D printing to make a number of parts for jet engines and gas turbines. It now wants to apply additive manufacturing to the way wind turbine blades are made. GE Renewable Energy and the U.S. Department of Energy set up a partnership last month that will 3D-print turbine blade tips that could be lighter and stiffer compared to current designs, and even recyclable.
Fit to print: In a vigorous wind, the last 10 to 15 meters of a spinning wind turbine blade can approach one-quarter of the speed of sound. These sections also capture as much as 40% of the wind energy that spins the generator. That’s why they are the focus of this 25-month, $6.7 million project. GE and its partners will print a full-size blade tip assembled from a 3D-printed, skeleton-like structure, and covered with thermoplastic skin. The GE team and its partners, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, will test the structural properties of one tip in a lab and install another three tips on a wind turbine. GE Renewable Energy’s subsidiary LM Wind Power, which makes blades for onshore and offshore turbines, could eventually use the technology on an industrial scale.
Click here to find out more about GE’s project to 3D-print turbine blade tips.
See how GE used lean management principles to reinvent its birthplace in Schenectady, New York.
— QUOTE OF THE DAY —
“The Norwegians have built a runway on the blue ice that is special because of its strength and structural nature.”
— Bjartmar Örn Arnarson, co-pilot of the Boeing 767 passenger jet operated by an Icelandair subsidiary that landed in Antarctica
Quote: GE Reports. Images: Icelandair, GE Gas Power, GE Renewable Energy.