Photo Courtesy of the White House/Pete Souza President Obama visited the PortMiami tunnel project and called for increased infrastructure funding from public and private sources. Related Links: Transcript of Obama 3/29/13 remarks in Miami WRDA Bill Clears Senate Committee (ENR 4/1/13 issue) President Obama paid a March 29 visit to PortMiami—the site of a $1-billion tunnel project financed partly by private funding—and promoted ways of increasing both public and private funding for infrastructure."There are few more important things that we can do to create jobs right now and strengthen our economy over the long haul than rebuilding the infrastructure that
Related Links: Secret Study on Nuke Plant Fix May Hold Clue to Duke CEO's Ouster Duke Energy Moves To Become Largest Utility in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission engineers and Duke Energy Carolinas representatives met on March 25 to discuss the utility's plan to protect the Oconee nuclear station's standby shutdown facility, or SSF, in the unlikely event the Jocassee Dam, located upstream of the station, were to fail catastrophically.In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident in March 2011, the NRC has been expanding its review of U.S. nuclear units' ability to withstand natural phenomena, including flooding, said commission
Related Links: Building Owners and Managers Association A $100,000 study sponsored by building-owner interests has concluded there is no positive correlation between mandatory building-energy labeling and energy use. The six-month project was a response to increased interest among cities in passing legislation mandating energy scores and energy-efficiency programs."The biggest surprise to me was that we found, in what was a … comprehensive review of [labeling studies], no empirical evidence that these mandates have any effect on energy use," says Robert N. Stavins, co-author of "An Economic Perspective on Building Labeling Policies" and a professor of business and government at Harvard
White House Photo by Pete Souza While visiting PortMiami on March 29, President Obama toured the ongoing tunnel project, which was funded partly with private funds. Photo courtesy Bouygues Civil Works Florida President Obama touted his proposals for increasing public and private investment in infrastructure projects. Related Links: Transcript of Obama's March 29 remarks in Miami Video: President Obama Speaks on Infrastructure and the Economy Miami's Big Dig Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) used the occasion of President Obama’s March 29 visit to PortMiami to highlight the state’s increasing investments in port improvement projects, while chiding the president and the
Photo by Jeff Rubenstone for ENR San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge file photo (2012) Related Links: Caltrans Responds to Alleged Testing Flaws on New Bay Bridge Emergency repairs are getting under way on thirty-two steel-threaded connecting rods on the $6.4-billion San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge’s 10,176-ft.-long eastern span, after California Dept. of Transportation officials revealed the rods snapped after being tensioned. The 525-ft-tall self-anchored suspension (SAS) structure is still expected to open on Labor Day weekend, as scheduled, carrying 280,000 vehicles daily over two stacked 5-lane roadways. American Bridge-Fluor Enterprises is the joint-venture general contractor, with T.Y. Lin International, San Francisco, and
Image Courtesy of MassDOT A historic station will receive a major expansion, but not before planners using modern simulation tools attempt to identify every possible construction scenario. Image Courtesy of MassDOT Related Links: Massachusetts Presents Ambitious Transportation Vision Boston South Station A historic Boston transit hub is undergoing a high-tech examination in preparation for its future. Early-stage work on Boston's $850-million South Station expansion proposal is deploying a robust level of construction-sequence modeling in hopes of minimizing major construction conflicts within a rail hub that sees more than 100,000 daily commuters.South Station, a 110-year-old architectural icon, is Boston's busiest multimodal
Photo Courtesy of ERC Construction activities continue for a new Virginia tunnel as a lawsuit looms. Related Links: Virginia Takes Steps To Propel Two Transportation Projects The $2.1-billion Midtown Tunnel project in Virginia is the latest flashpoint in the ongoing debate over the imposition of tolls on existing transportation infrastructure.On March 13, the Portsmouth, Va., City Council unanimously endorsed a citizen-driven lawsuit challenging the use of tolls to help fund construction of the new tube parallel to the 50-year-old, 4,300-ft-long Midtown Tunnel, which carries more than one million vehicles a month between the city and Norfolk.The public-private project (P3) involving
Related Links: AREVA (Transnuclear's parent company) website Columbia, Md.-based Transnuclear has developed a training facility in Aiken, S.C., to help workers become proficient in transferring and loading fuel from wet pools to dry-cask storage.The training facility, completed in 2012, is part of Transnuclear's NUHOMS University program, which works with contractors involved in fuel transfers at nuclear facilities and utilities. The facility replicates the equipment and situations workers would encounter on a typical loading campaign.Approximately 40 workers have graduated from one of the program's five-week training sessions, and another 30 have come to the facility for specific training tailored for utilities.
Photo Courtesy of NAES U.S. nuclear powerplants adding spent-fuel storage capacity. Related Links: Transnuclear Facility Trains Workers for Dry Storage Campaigns Cask Storage For Spent Fuel Nuke Waste Disposal Solution Still Elusive The U.S. nuclear-generation fleet's steady, predictable output of spent nuclear fuel and the federal government's inability to establish a permanent geologic repository point to several decades of regular, high-value work for contractors that install dry-cask storage systems for spent fuel.Thanks to a government plan to establish one or more large-scale, consolidated sites for dry storage of spent fuel by the early 2020s, the next few years could be
Related Links: Ferrante Hall official web page A Conversation with the Design Team (Video, 2:22) Thanks in great measure to an 80-ft x 20-ft falsework platform that rose 50 ft from the bottom of a deep fissure in Syracuse, N.Y., Onondaga Community College will soon have its new music building and bridge its gorge, too.The design architect's idea to span a two-story building across a 200-ft-wide fissure and link the east and west sides of the State University of New York campus was music to the ears of college officials, who initially had conventional sites in mind. But crossing the
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