Utility Portland General Electric is taking over completion, with new contractors, of a 440-MW natural-gas-fired powerplant in Oregon after declaring the estimated $515-million project’s Spanish-owned builder in default.
$600-million, 160-MW concentrated solar powerplant scheduled for start-up on Dec. 27 is ready to go but awaits delayed ceremonial launch. By Shem Oirere
In a huge deal that Wall Steet analysts said posed both rewards and risks for its key participants, Chicago Bridge & Iron on Oct. 27 said it would sell its nuclear construction business in the U.S. and China to Westinhouse Electric.
In a move that appears to have surprised power-market observers, the U.S. Supreme Court last month agreed to decide whether a state can offer subsidies for powerplant construction to provide needed capacity—without infringing on the authority of federal regulators and distorting the wholesale price of electricity.
Entergy Corp. says it would be premature to discuss the contract delivery method or whether the New Orleans-based energy firm would request competitive bids for decommissioning work at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Mass.
Although a World Bank inspection panel has criticized on environmental and other grounds a mammoth coal-fired powerplant under construction in South Africa, the project will proceed and the bank
There are a few people in the powerplant construction business who would love to see James M. Bernhard Jr., the smooth-talking multimillionaire chairman of what is probably the world's most sophisticated pipe fabricator, The Shaw Group, fall flat on his face. Bernhard, through a series of contracting acquisitions, has gone into competition against some of his customers, including powerful Bechtel Group Inc. He began easing his way into the turnkey powerplant construction business from 1997 to 1999, adding value, he would say, to the pipe fabrication work at which Shaw Group excels. Eighteen months ago, he upset the power pecking
