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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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.