Map by ENR The North-South Transnational Corridor project aims to be the most direct link for freight shipments from Russia or Central Asia to the Persian Gulf. Related Links: The Ten Most Noteworthy Rail Projects: Overview and Related Stories Project: North South Transnational CorridorCost: $1.4 billionConstruction period: 2007-2012 Central Asian nations have been slow to establish rail links with their neighbors to the south for numerous reasons. During the era when the Central Asian nations were part of the Soviet Union, all their rail lines headed north to Russia, their major trading partner.Of the five Central Asian nations, Kazakhstan occupies
Related Links: The Ten Most Noteworthy Rail Projects: Overview and Related Stories Project: Tehran-Khosravi Rail LinkCost: $2 billionConstruction period: Unknown China, which wants to create more robust rail corridors across Asia, is offering to build a $2-billion freight rail line in Iran. If continuous railway corridors were in place and, standard-gauge track installed from end to end, containerized freight could travel from China to Europe much more rapidly by rail than it does by ship, the Chinese claim.In September 2010, Liu Zhijun, China's railway minister, and Hamid Behbahani, Iran’s minister of roads and transportation, signed an agreement that calls for building
Photo courtesy of Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District MRES plans to add powerplant on right side of Red Rock Reservoir spillway. Missouri River Energy Services plans to build a 36.4-MW hydroelectric plant on an existing dam near Pella, Iowa. The project is indicative of a slow but developing trend in the U.S.MRES, a Sioux Falls, S.D.-based municipal utility power supplier, has hired MWH for engineering work on the $220-million project, Tom Heller, MRES chief executive officer, said on Sept. 16. MWH is an engineering consultant headquartered in Broomfield, Colo.MRES plans to build the Red Rock hydroelectric facility on
Etihad Rail Co. Emirates' rail network would carry 50 million cargo tons and 16 million passengers per year, according to its owner. Related Links: The Ten Most Noteworthy Rail Projects: Overview and Related Stories Project: Emirates Rail NetworkCost: $11 billion Construction period: 2012-2018 Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Rail Co., the government-owned company that is set to build an estimated $11-billion passenger and freight rail network across the United Arab Emirates (UAE), says it will award the project’s first construction contract before the end of the year.The company is set to select an unspecified number of contractors from at least 10 local
Photo courtesy of La DOTD Data cables and sensors join rebar and hand tools as elements of the construction landscape on the I-10 Twin Span Bridge. Photo courtesy of Geocomp Rebar cages for columns on the M19 pier are laced with cables and sensors, which were put to early use in a load test to simulate the 1.8-million-lb lateral load of a ship collision. Related Links: How Sensors on I-10 Twin Span Bridge Reduce Unknowns When the power is activated on the new 5.4-mile-long, $803-million I-10 Twin Span Bridge outside of New Orleans in October, it will transform an icon
Related Links: The Ten Most Noteworthy Rail Projects: Overview and Related Stories Benguela RailwayCost: $1.56 billionConstruction period: 2006-12For decades, the east-west, 1,344-kilometer-long Benguela Railway spanning Angola provided the shortest way to transport the Congo’s mineral riches to Europe and was the key leg of Africa’s only transcontinental route. The railway company, Caminhos de Ferro de Benguela, was also Angola’s largest employer, with a payroll of 14,000 by the 1960s. But Angola’s long civil war, from 1975 to 2002, terminated the line. Trains and repair crews were ambushed, stations bombed and bridges dynamited, and the right-of-way was mined.In 2006, the China
Related Links: The Ten Most Noteworthy Rail Projects: Overview and Related Stories Project: Harbin-Dalian High Speed RailwayCost: $14.4 billionConstruction period: 2007-11 China’s high-speed-rail building program is a bold commitment to increase passenger-carrying capacity on major routes while simultaneously freeing up other lines for additional freight service. One of the routes that is nearing completion is the 904-kilometer line linking the major port of Dalian with Harbin, the commercial hub of northeast China. The project was split into three separate construction contracts. China Railway Group Ltd. built the southernmost section, spanning 377 km from Dalian to Shenyang. China State Construction Engineering
Plans for federally controlled power lines to transmit solar power are moving ahead in the Southwest, but in the Northwest, lines to move wind power are being slowed while wind developments there are being re-evaluated.Earlier this month, the Western Area Power Administration announced it will hire construction firms to upgrade and build parts of a $91-million transmission- line project in southern Arizona.The 109-mile Electrical District 5-to-Palo Verde transmission project includes a mix of new and upgraded WAPA-owned 230-kV lines as well as the acquisition of capacity on a 500-kV line that runs to the Palo Verde hub.The federal power marketer
MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company 2011 / Scott Sinklier RISING MARKET The production tax credit, set to expire in 2012, is spurring wind-farm construction. The expiration of the federal production tax credit for renewable energy, scheduled to take effect at the end of 2012, is spurring a boomlet in the construction of wind farms.The federal production tax credit (PTC), an important economic incentive for developers of renewable-energy facilities, provides wind-farm owners with a 2.2¢/kWh tax credit for wind power generated during the first 10 years of a facility's operation. However, the legislation under which the PTC was most recently extended—the American
Photo courtesy U.S. Coast Guard AFTER THE BLAST Federal review suggests changes, but new rules already are under way. Released on Sept. 13, a final federal report on the cause of the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil platform did not immediately result in a rush to re-engineer wells, rigs or platforms, largely because new offshore regulations have been in development since the April 2010 blowout of BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.The report ties up more than a year of research and hearings into the well blowout that took 11 lives and resulted in a months-long oil
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