“Green & Emissions Issues” was the topic as GE Transportation’s Ed Hall and Pete Lawson delivered a webinar presentation during the rail industry’s first virtual trade show last week.
The online trade show, sponsored by Progressive Railroading magazine, was a one-day, 3-D virtual experience enabling registered visitors to tour exhibitors’ booths, ask questions via live chat windows, download documents and attend webinars.
Hall, Senior General Manager, Engineering, and Lawson, Marketing Manager, Emissions & Government Initiatives, demonstrated GE’s technology leadership - notably in greener solutions - by teaming up to present a 40-minute PowerPoint presentation followed by a live 15-minute session to answer the webinar attendees’ questions.
Hall and Lawson addressed emissions, fuel and infrastructure capacity issues. Lawson introduced the presentation by noting Transportation’s commitment to develop greener products as part of our ecomagination program.
Next, Hall discussed compliance with Tier 3 and 4 regulations, covering the EPA regulations, Transportation’s approach to reduce emissions while maintaining or reducing fuel use and some of the levers that can be used achieve the required results. He emphasized that for both Tier 3 and 4 programs, Transportation planned for plenty of testing time to ensure reliability on delivery. He noted Tier 3 models have been in testing for quite some time in preparation for the 2012 deadline. Hall also said Tier 4 models will be on the test track in 2013—well ahead of the 2015 delivery deadline.
Lawson then reviewed fuel impact noting the current highly efficient use of diesel fuel by locomotives compared to trucks. He also covered the impact of rising fuel costs, the benefits of fuel efficiency to the bottom line, and the status of bio-fuel and natural gas alternatives.
In the final section on capacity issues, Lawson cited Transportation’s achievements with the Evolution Series Model ES44C4 alternative for current DC locomotives, GE’s Trip Optimizer for more efficient train operations and GE’s RailEdge Movement Planner for more efficient use of existing railway networks.
Following the presentation Hall and Lawson fielded questions from the audience ranging on issues from Tier 3 field test performance to Transportation’s potential use of bio-fuel.
“The online trade show was a unique way to connect with industry partners and solicit informal questions and feedback. No doubt there will be more of this in the future,” Hall reflected. “It was gratifying that we had a solid audience and got a lot of questions about our efforts to provide industry leading ‘green’ products.”
Lawson thought the event was worthwhile as well. “I was very impressed with the entire experience from the interactive nature of the booths to the number of people attending our presentation and the quality and breadth of the questions,” he said. “The chat window was full of questions we were not able to get to. Not only were people out there, they were clearly listening,” he added.
There was no doubt about that. As one of the webinar attendees sent in a chat note at the conclusion: “Thank you all…this was the most informative session.”
Click to view the “Green & Emissions" presentation slides.
