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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.

Speed racer: Here’s an artist rendering of what the next generation, higher speed passenger locomotive by GE could look like.

From the Western U.S., where construction has just started on a massive, half-billion dollar series of wind farms, to the East Coast, where Massachusetts is rolling out high-tech gear that allows power grids to “heal themselves” by isolating outages and rerouting power, it’s been a busy week for GE’s energy teams. The Idaho Wind Partners project comprises 11 wind farms — making it Idaho’s largest wind power project with the capacity to power approximately 39,700 average Idaho homes. The project is spread across 10,000 acres of active and inactive farmland in southern Idaho’s Magic Valley, which was a predominant migration route as part of the Oregon Trail in the 19th century, and is now becoming a critical renewable energy corridor in the 21st century.

Today’s American Airlines flight 1916 from Dallas/Fort Worth to Connecticut’s Bradley International Airport just landed in the aviation history books — and marked a new era in U.S. airspace modernization. Captain Brian Will flew the 737 using a high-tech, computerized flight path known as RNP — which stands for Required Navigation Performance technology. Put simply, RNP allows planes to follow highly precise, customized, gently curving paths that eliminate the inefficient straight-line flight segments — most noticeable in stair step landing approaches — that take longer to fly, burn more fuel, churn out more emissions and can add to air traffic congestion and delayed flights. What makes today’s flight historic is that it’s the first time a U.S. flight has used a publicly available, commercially designed RNP flight path. Prior to the path becoming a permanent fixture at Bradley, the FAA had designed all public RNP paths in the U.S. Now, with a third party — GE Aviation’s Naverus business — getting the green light to publish the path, the gateway is open for widespread adoption of the technology. As GE’s Steve Fulton says in the audio interview below, “Our vision is that there are going to be thousands of these procedures required as part of the transition underway in the United States.”

Armed with a grab bag of high-tech gadgets and a name that sounds like a league of superheroes, the “Building America Team” is gearing up to battle home energy waste in a pilot program in the Western U.S. The team — which is part of a Department of Energy project — includes technologists from GE’s Industrial Solutions, Appliances, Lighting and Research divisions and partners that include major utilities, homebuilders and local communities. The goal is to slash the $1,240 per year in electricity costs that the average U.S. household pays by more than $850 per year. As GreenTech.com notes: “The test houses, part of the Department of Energy’s Building America Program, will be a mix of retrofit and new construction. The goal of the DOE program is to cut energy use by 30 percent, but GE and its partners think they can reach 70 percent if roof top solar panels are added to the mix.”

At the heart of GE’s new $200 ecomagination Challenge is using venture capital investments in clean technologies to accelerate their development and bring them to scale. While the Challenge is currently looking for the next hot start-up or big idea, GE has already invested in an array of small companies on the clean-tech cutting edge. One of those is Massachusetts-based Advanced Electron Beams, which uses its electron beam technology to sterilize food and beverage packaging, cure printing inks, and make plastics stronger — all in a more sustainable way. As CEO Mitch Tyson says in the video below, part of a new “ecomagination CEO Series” just launched on video sharing networks such as Yahoo! Video and Blip.tv: “Our electron beam emitters produce a cloud of electrons. Anything that goes into the cloud gets transformed chemically and either makes chemical bonds or breaks chemical bonds, very similar to a thermal process that uses heat or chemicals in the process… But in each case, the electrons do it much more efficiently.” Tyson says the process not only uses 20 percent less energy to do the job, but it helps the environment by eliminating the use of chemicals and rinse water.