The GE Brief: October 5, 2021
NASA Partners With GE On Hybrid Electric Flight Research
“Decarbonizing flight is our industry’s moonshot,” GE Aviation president and CEO John Slattery wrote after a visit to NASA last month. Now GE engineers and the U.S. space agency get to work on the moonshot together: NASA last week awarded GE $179 million to help mature electric flight propulsion technologies. Find out more about what that means here.
World’s Most Powerful Wind Turbine Moves The Bar Again
GE Renewable Energy engineers first tested the Haliade-X, the most powerful wind turbine ever built, in November 2019. Less than two years later, that 12-megawatt model has been optimized to produce 14 MW of electricity. At that level, GE Renewable Energy says the turbine “can generate up to 74 gigawatt-hours of gross annual energy production, saving up to 52,000 metric tons of CO2, which is the equivalent of the emissions generated by 11,000 vehicles in one year.” Learn more here.
First Clean-Sheet Turboprop Engine Design In Half-Century Makes Its Maiden Flight
Berlin had a new kind of airlift last week when a test plane powered by a GE Catalyst engine completed its first flight outside the city. The Catalyst is the first new clean-sheet turboprop engine design built for the business and general aviation market in more than 50 years and incorporates technologies from GE’s commercial jet engines as well as digital engine controls that will allow pilots to feel like they’re flying a jet. Catalyst will officially launch powering Textron Aviation’s Beechcraft Denali. Read more here.
A hundred years ago this month, the GE News Bureau opened its doors under the guidance of newspaperman Chester Lang. Lang’s idea of telling “genuine news stories” to explain to the public GE’s innovations and impact on the world eventually involved names like Vonnegut and Reagan. “Lang’s stories helped people understand how the technical work of the GE scientists and engineers could improve their lives,” said Chris Hunter, of the Museum of Innovation and Science in Schenectady, New York. We at GE Reports are proud to be part of that tradition. Read all about it!
The 5 Coolest Things On Earth ?
1. An AI-driven tool to help clinicians diagnose breast cancer.
2. Wooden flooring that generates electricity when you walk on it.
3. Superstrong glass inspired by mollusk shells.
4. Lab-grown human heart muscle that beats after cryopreservation.
5. A vaccine patch that’s 10 times more effective than a needle.
— Quote Of The Day —
“We expect to realize significant improvements in the economic and environmental performance of subsonic transports through incorporation of these novel alternative propulsion and energy technologies into the fleet.”
— Robert Pearce, associate administrator for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate at NASA
Quote: NASA. Images: GE Aviation, GE Renewable Energy, GE.