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SUSTAINABILITY 38 airportbusiness October 2014 By Steve Smith Advancements In Green GSE As airports look to become more sustainable, it's essential to know what their partners on the ramp are doing. Here are a few new developments that promise to take the GSE industry down a greener path. LITHIUM Last year, the Idaho National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy research operation, pitted lithium batteries against the commonly used flooded lead-acid batteries used through- out the GSE industry. "Validation testing previously had not been performed within fleet operations to determine if the performance of current advanced batter- ies is sufficient to withstand the duty cycle of electric baggage tractors," according to the report's introductory remarks. A rigorous day-to-day GSE vehicle perfor- mance test was set up with Southwest Airlines' ramp operations at Ontario International W e've heard the old chestnut that there's nothing new within the GSE world more often than not. The truth is there is always someth i ng new to d isc uss about the future of GSE product development. Here are just a few of the advance- ments we've heard about recently, all with a particularly energy-efficient theme: 1. The Corvus lithium battery pack, with a specially designed container for the tractors. 2. A tractor integrated with the battery pack. 3. The Corvus battery integrated into a tractor with additional ballast weight for the six- month test. 1 3 2