+ Image Graphic by EIA and Lippman Consulting Related Links: Power Sector Sees Mini Boom In Natural-Gas Projects Energy experts agree that investing in sustainable energy technologies is a must for the United States. But amid a booming global energy market, is it a realistic investment?That depends on which expert you ask."We're in our Sputnik moment" for energy and sustainable innovation, claims Lauren Azar, senior adviser to Steven Chu, the U.S. Secretary of Energy. "If we don't invest in green technologies, we will be left behind. We will be clinging to the past instead of sprinting toward the future. I
Courtesy BlueFire Ethanol BlueFire Ethanol's construction site is ready to break ground in Fulton, Miss. China's biggest electric company, China Huadian, has agreed to provide financing and engineering services for the project. BlueFire Ethanol, one of the competitors not chosen this year to receive U.S. Dept. of Energy loan guarantees to build an advanced biofuels plant, is taking its cause abroad. Last month, the cellulosic ethanol producer attracted China's largest electrical utility, China Huadian Engineering Co. Ltd., which has 75,000 megawatts of generation capacity and $51 billion in assets.This past September, alternative-energy companies were waiting to hear who would win
A $146-million reservoir project in Florida that was once the pride of utility Tampa Bay Water and engineer HDR Engineering is now the focus of a high-stakes, increasingly public legal battle between the two parties.
Courtesy of the Council on Tall Buildings & Urban Habitat Most of the projected 20 tallest buildings in 2020 would be in Asia, says the tall buildings council. The Council on Tall Buildings & Urban Habitat is adding a new noun to its dictionary—a megatall—which it defines as a building 600 m or taller. As of 2020, there will likely be eight megatalls, says the council. That assumes, of course, that none of the megatalls on the drawing boards or under construction is canceled, mothballed or cut short.The projected 20 tallest buildings in 2020, just listed by the CTBUH, are
Related Links: Korea's Songdo IBD is Model for Sustainable, High-Tech Living Delivery of the future-tallest building in the Republic of Korea is a family affair—or the closest thing to it. Lotte Group, the owner-developer of the planned 555-meter Lotte World Tower in Seoul, is bringing back the master-builder model for its first supertower by keeping project management, construction management and general contracting under its own roof."This is the first time in the world this is happening" for supertower delivery, says Y K Kim, executive director of the CM division of South Korea's fourth-largest family-run conglomerate, or chaebol. Kim should know.
Related Links: Lotte, Koreas First Supertower, is an All-in-the-Family Affair U.Life. It sounds like a New Age movement. For developer Stanley C. Gale, the driving force behind the $35-billion Songdo International Business District, U.Life actually is a "new age movement" of sorts, except the "new age" is the digital age and the "movement" is variously called smart cities, intelligent urbanization or, in Gale's lexicon, ubiquitous life, or U.Life. If Gale has his way, everyone living and working in the 1,500-acre Songdo IBD will be linked through a common backbone of information and communications technology.The master-planned new town in Incheon, Republic
Image courtesy of Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension The light-rail crossing will reflect ancient traditions and showcase new technology. Traditional art and modern-day seismic technology will join in an iconic structure to be built as part of the first phase of the $735-million, 11.5-mile Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension in Los Angeles County. Last month, the Foothill Extension Construction Authority unveiled the winning design for an $18.6-million bridge over the 210 freeway in Arcadia that will also sport "smart column" seismic-assessment wiring.Dubbed the "Gateway to the San Gabriel Valley," the 584-ft-long bridge is scheduled to be completed next summer. It
With space at such a premium that a parking lot was converted into a construction staging site, two design-build teams are squeezing improvements and a new terminal into San Diego International Airport, one of the world's busiest single-runway airports.
Photo by Tudor Van Hampton Chicagos $1-billion Red Line rehab falls on the heels of a $530-million modernization of its Brown Line, which wrapped up in 2009. The Red Line is one of the busiest transit routes in the U.S. A $1-billion program to modernize Chicago Transit Authority's Red Line—the backbone of the city's century-old urban rail and one of the busiest routes in the U.S.—is about to get under way.The long-overdue project will rehab Chicago's most traveled passenger rail, which serves 240,000 daily riders. The train stations are outmoded, and track deterioration has prompted slow zones that bog down
Related Links: Midwest Floods of Summer Hit U.S. Railroad Network The joint-venture Iowa team of Peterson Contractors Inc., Reinbeck, and Reilly Construction Co. Inc., Ossian, established one goal in late September when it started rebuilding Interstate 680 near Crescent: get the flooded highway repaired and reopened as quickly as possible. The contractor's $19.2-million contract came with a $2 million bonus if all four lanes of the 2.56-mile segment were open by Nov. 20. The team finished the job in 33 days, well ahead of the owner's Dec. 23 deadline."Everybody went to work," said Cork Peterson, Peterson vice president. "Everybody had
RSS
