City of Bellingham Crushed toilets are added to concrete mix in Bellingham, Wash. Contractors bidding on projects for the City of Bellingham, Wash., have the option of adding a new element to concrete mixes—toilets.The city wants recycled aggregate in concrete flatwork projects to catch on, so much so that engineers have experimented with using crushed toilets in a new “poticrete” mix. They unveiled the first stretch of sidewalk sporting poticrete in late September.Freeman Anthony, Bellingham city engineer, says he was working on upping recycled products in city concrete specs when a local nonprofit that does green building called and asked
Related Links: Bright Outlook for New Jersey Solar Energy The U.S. photovoltaic industry is expected to hit a milestone this year by surpassing the 1-GW mark, or generating enough electricity from the sun to power more than 200,000 homes. While California remains firmly in the lead as the nation’s largest solar power generator, the Northeast region is catching up and accounts for much of the milestone thanks to aggressive business and homeowner incentive programs, said speakers at the PV Power-Generation Mid-West & East conference, held in New York City on Nov. 8-9.“The Northeast is the new California market,” Shaun Chapman,
Related Links: Bright Outlook for New Jersey Solar Energy The U.S. photovoltaic industry is expected to hit a milestone this year by surpassing the 1-GW mark, or generating enough electricity from the sun to power more than 200,000 homes. While California remains firmly in the lead as the nation’s largest solar power generator, the Northeast region is catching up and accounts for much of the milestone thanks to aggressive business and homeowner incentive programs, said speakers at the PV Power-Generation Mid-West & East conference, held in New York City on Nov. 8-9.“The Northeast is the new California market,” Shaun Chapman,
Courtesy of Whole Water Systems LLC Utilities often do not allow constructed wetlands and other decentralized treatment systems. Courtesy of the Internatonal Living Future Institute Composting toilet systems are the most environmentally benign of the decentralized wastewater treatment systems studied in a recent report. For cities to be truly sustainable and resilient, wastewater treatment needs to be localized, not centralized, chorused landscape architects and others at the American Society of Landscape Architects' 2011 Annual Meeting & Expo, held on Oct. 29 to Nov. 2 in San Diego.“There is room for improvement in the modern approach to stormwater management,” said Jack
Courtesy of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Three of the museum buildings' roofs have glue-laminated arches supported on cables. Courtesy of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art The buildings are open, but the creek has yet to be filled with water. The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened to the public on Nov. 11, 2011. The complex was completed on schedule, according to Bill Greek, senior vice president of Linbeck Group LLC, which led the joint venture that built the project. Construction of the 201,000-sq-ft museum—a collection of 10 linked buildings—was challenging, thanks to its setting over and
Mexico City’s wastewater system is undergoing major surgery, with work under way on a large tunnel and a wastewater treatment plant as well as several pumping stations.The Valley of Mexico, which contains 21.4 million residents across 2,020 sq kilometers, is an enclosed valley with no natural outlet for water to flow. It contains the lakebeds of five extinct lakes.Overextraction of groundwater has been causing the land on which the city rests to sink for decades. Currently, the rate of sinking is between five and 40 centimeters per year. The existing system of tunnels and pumps, which carry sewage and stormwater
Related Links: Blog: The Tappan Zee Bridge and Wind Energy Center? The environmental impact statement for a new Hudson River crossing north of New York City is still in draft, but it will not include an expected mass transit component. With work on replacement spans for the Tappan Zee Bridge expected to begin as early as next fall, state officials say that they had to limit the current project's scope.A plan to replace the deteriorating bridge has been debated for years. Carrying the New York State Thruway over the Hudson River north of New York City, the 56-year-old cantilever bridge
PHOTO COURTESY OF J.F. White / Stephen SetteDucati The bridge replacement contracting joint venture used quick-setting concrete to speed work on 14 bridges. Related Links: List of Bridges Video of the Fast 14 weekend demolition/construction work Mass. Governor Talks About the Innovative Bridge Replacement Program In just 10 weekends last summer, a joint- venture contractor demolished and replaced 14 bridges on I-93 north of Boston. Using conventional methods, the work could have taken four years.The $98.1-million design-build project—called the "93 Fast 14"—was part of the Massachusetts Dept. of Transportation's Accelerated Bridge Program. The 2010 blowout of two bridge decks, which
AP Global engineers and contractors are moving to restore ties in war-ravaged Libya, but work to restore buildings infrastructure damage, including here in Tripoli, remains a complicated process. As the business of rebuilding Libya gears up after its civil war, global firms are looking to resume work and pick up new projects.Repairing the damaged Tripoli International Airport runway appears to be a top priority. The Libyan National Transition Council and civil administration officials are discussing repairs with Istanbul-based TAV Construction, which has dispatched an expert runway team to the capitol to assess the situation. With the damaged runway, all current flights
Related Links: TEPCO Crews Try To Cool Damaged Reactors at Fukushima Powerplant Life After Fukushima After Fukushima, the Non-Nuclear Options Special Report: Rebuilding Japan Eight months after the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant, the site has become a massive construction site. In fact, Japan is about to reach an important milestone: putting into cold shutdown Fukushima Daiichi's four damaged reactors.Last month, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the plant's owner, announced it would stabilize the crippled reactors and have the nuclear fuel cooled below 100 degrees Celsius by the end of December.The March 11 tsunami caused the loss
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