In response to Japan’s Fukushima disaster, the European Commission on June 1 began stress tests on143 nuclear powerplants operated within the 23 member states of the European Union. The EC expects tests to be complete by year’s end. Later this month, the commission will invite neighboring countries, including Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, to follow suit. For the most part, stress testing is a desktop exercise to review safety factors and is already a part of the licensing procedure for nuclear plants, says Andrej Stitar, chairman of the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group, which helped devise the methodology. “All the natural
The Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency that markets electric power from the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam in the Pacific Northwest, is saving millions of dollars on construction of its latest transmission line and expects to save more in the future, thanks to new tower design and analysis software developed by one of its own engineers. Photo:Courtesy Bonneville Power Administration A new high-voltage transmission tower is tested at a facility in India. Force is applied via dozens of cables at various angles to see if the tower will hold up in extreme conditions. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" Portland,
Swedish home-furnishings giant IKEA officially powered up its Brooklyn, N.Y., store’s rooftop solar system this spring after several delays, including a mid-construction switch of its main contractor. Photo: By Esther D'amico Store-top installation enables four different types of photovoltaic panels to be evaluated. The store is one of four worldwide participating in a $11.7-million pilot program IKEA established in 2009 with Loughborough University, Leicestershire, U.K., and the now-defunct contractor Perpetual Energy Ltd., Knutsford, U.K., to monitor and evaluate performance of photovoltaic systems. While the systems at each of the four sites are operational, their monitoring capabilities are as yet limited
Photo: Strukton Groep N.V. / G. Dubbelman A joint venture of Dutch contractors Strukton Groep N.V., Utrecht and Van Oord N.V., Rotterdam, on 31 May lowered and inserted a 136-meter-long, 20,000-tonne sunken-tube tunnel element into a predredged trench under Amsterdam’s historic Central Station. Thousands of timber piles were replaced by new concrete foundations to make way for the new tunnel under the adjacent IJ River and through the station. The tunnel is part of the city’s new north-south metro, scheduled to open in 2017.
A controversial new cable show is thrusting America’s crumbling infrastructure into the spotlight. The debate stems not from the show’s content but from the engineering qualifications of its host, who criticizes others’ engineering and maintenance decisions in the name of public advocacy. Photo: By Tudor Van Hampton For ENR The history Channel’s “Inspector America” cites the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis as one example of the country’s infrastructure crisis. Some say the show and its host are sensationalizing the truth. “Inspector America” debuted on Sunday, April 17 on the History Channel. The cable program examines roadways, dams, tunnels, levees, bridges
Officials with the Florida Dept. of Transportation and the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority on May 25 announced an agreement to move forward with construction of the Wekiva Parkway, a 27-mile-long toll road estimated to cost $1.8 billion. The parkway would provide the last component of a beltway around the Orlando metro. The long-planned project has languished due to a lack of available funds. OOCEA and Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise, a division of FDOT, are still determining their respective commitments to the project but announced September 2011 as a goal for starting design work. Construction could start by late 2012 and is
Leaders of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee—two Democrats and two Republicans—have taken the first major action this year toward passing a long-delayed multiyear surface transportation bill. Industry officials welcomed the May 25 announcement that the four lawmakers had agreed on a framework for a $339.2-billion highway-transit measure that could stretch to as long as six years. But the plan is a long way from getting enacted. The senators haven’t lined up firm sources for all the funding, and a not-yet-introduced House version may well come in far south of $339 billion. Construction officials praised the milestone proposal, announced
In May, the U.S. Energy Dept. approved plans by Cheniere Energy Partners, Houston, to expand its Sabine Pass Liquefied Natural Gas terminal to export domestically produced LNG to any country in which trade is permissible. Cheniere is planning to spend about $2 billion to expand the terminal. The owner will add equipment to clean up the gas from domestic pipelines and cool it to 260ºF. The company has scheduled construction to begin next year and selected San Francisco-based Bechtel as contractor. DOE will allow Cheniere to export up to 800 billion cu ft a year.
Alaska’s 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest will again be roadless, a U.S. district court in Anchorage has ruled. Environmental groups that filed suit say the decision blocks new logging roads and timber clear-cuts in the southeastern Alaska forest but does not rule out “other economic development,” such as small hydropower, transmission-line, mining or tourism projects.
Spring is in the air for two firms selected to construct a new spring training and western headquarters facility for the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball team in Mesa, Ariz. Populous, Kansas City, Mo., beat out nine competing firms to win the design contract, while Hunt Construction Group, Scottsdale, Ariz., bested eight others for the general contractor job. Photo: Baseball Image Courtesy City Of Mesa Conceptual drawings show possible layouts for the Cubs’ new spring home. Photo: Baseball Image Courtesy City Of Mesa The project will be built as a construction manager-at-risk project. “It’s a complex project, and we want
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