Related Links: California Plant To Double U.S. Solar Thermal Power Production Solar Industry Races Subsidy Sunset Solar Energy Industries Association It has been a good year for solar so far. The Ivanpah project is only a part of the 900 MW of concentrating-solar power capacity expected to be commissioned in the U.S. in 2013, according to the "U.S. Solar Market Insight Q1 Report" published by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), a solar advocacy organization. But the rise in concentrating-solar and photovoltaic (PV) projects may represent a rush to secure a crucial federal tax credit before it expires in 2016.Introduced
Related Links: HUD's Rebuild by Design Competition Buoyant Foundation Project Rebuild By Design The U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development's Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force recently announced the 10 finalists in a regional design competition aimed at promoting innovation in resilient buildings after Hurricane Sandy. The winners represent some big names in design, including the Office of Metropolitan Architecture and Sasaki Associates.Among the more than 130 hopefuls cut is Team Phase US, which was pushing amphibious new buildings and retrofits. "This is a big disappointment," says team leader Elizabeth C. English, founder-director of the nonprofit Buoyant Foundation Project.English has
Related Links: Showcase Soccer Stadium in Brazilian Capital Goes for Stylish Sustainability 49ers Use 'Integrated Bridging Design-Build' To Speed Stadium Construction Before the new $60-million San Jose Earthquakes Stadium can shake with more than 18,000 soccer fans, the construction team must finish removing all the underground World War II tank parts and factory components that were left behind by the site's previous occupants.Once used to build Bradley infantry vehicles in the 1940s, the land for the new stadium came with no as-built blueprints, says Dave Kaval, president of the San Jose Earthquakes. As a result, crews led by Milpitas, Calif.-based
Photo Courtesy DC Water The vessels for the Cambi thermal hydrolysis system, the first to be built in the U.S., are up but won't be operational until 2014. Related Links: Blue Plains Embarks on Three Innovative Environmental Projects Chesapeake Bay Remains at Risk Washington water and sewer utility DC Water is considering using green infrastructure to reduce the size or possibly replace two planned tunnels that would be constructed underneath parts of the city's Georgetown neighborhood and along the Potomac River waterfront.The decision is part of the "Clean Rivers, Green District" agreement—formalized in December 2012 between the U.S. Environmental Protection
Photo By Nicholas Zeman for ENR 'Mobile lidar' is helping speed initial work on Louisville bridges. Related Links: $2.6-Billion Ohio River Spans Set For Award In December P3, Design-Build Planned For Ohio River Bridges Virtual-reality tools and ramped-up deadline goals are propelling the $2.6-billion Ohio River Bridges project out of the starting gate. Workers are driving piles now to reconstruct the ramps for the John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge and the interchanges at which Interstate 65, I-64 and I-71 intersect in Louisville, Ky.The interchange work is a $425-million portion of the project, which will entail building a second bridge that
Related Links: Saudi Arabia Upgrading Rail Passenger and Freight Service Demand In Middle East And Asia Drive Market For Building Projects Saudi Arabia is launching one of the world's biggest mass-transit construction programs. On July 29, the Riyadh Development Authority selected three international design-build teams for contracts totaling more than $20 billion for six lines on the new subway system in Riyadh. The development authority plans to compete negotiations regarding the contracts in the next few months.Extending more than 170 kilometers and including 87 stations, the government-funded program will entail some 600,000 tonnes of steel and over four million cubic
Image Courtesy of Metrolink Installation of positive train control technology on Metrolink trains will help prevent collisions and over-speed accidents. Related Links: American Companies Adopt Swiss Hardware for Railroad Surveying FRA Issues High-Speed Rail Guidelines Aimed at preventing rail disasters like the one that killed 79 people in Spain last month, Los Angeles commuter-rail operator Metrolink is installing a sophisticated control system along its 512 miles of track.The $210.9-million project involves a network of software, signal network updates and communications towers—known as positive train control (PTC)—that will interoperate with similar systems overlayed onto freight-railroad networks operated by United Pacific, Burlington
Photo Courtesy of FCC Sediment dredged from the River Ebro, into which a nearby chemical plant discharged pollutants since the 1890s, will be dumped at this specially built landfill in Flix, Spain, after treatment at the plant site. Related Links: Acuamed, Spanish Government-owned Water Resources Company A nasty mix of pollutants—organochlorides, heavy metals and radionuclides—is making remediation of Spain's tainted River Ebro unusually complicated, say engineers managing the $212-million cleanup project.Decades of pollution had gone officially unobserved until fish started dying near the small town of Flix (pronounced "fleesh"), 80 kilometers west of Tarragona on the Mediterranean Sea. Polluted discharges
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