On March 24, the grand jury indicted Matthew D. Correll, who was on the staff of a subcontractor of Bechtel Group Inc. at the $2.5-billion Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear powerplant expansion site in Rhea County, Tenn. Correll was charged with falsely indicating last August that he had measured and inspected cables that were to supply energy to safety systems in the unit’s nuclear reactor containment structure. In a March 25 statement, the subcontractor, Williams Specialty Services LLC, Tucker, Ga., said Correll’s employment ended last September. The firm is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Williams Industrial Services Group LLC, which ranks
New Orleans has a better defense should another big storm hit the city. But it’s never going to be completely safe. JoEllen Darcy (left), assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, speaking in New Orleans. At right are Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, chief of Engineers for the Corps of Engineers and Colonel Edward Fleming, commander of the Corps’ New Orleans districts. “You can’t eliminate risk no matter where you are,” said Jo Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, at a March 22 press conference in New Orleans. “What we are doing here is buying down
The state of Massachusetts is seeking damages from the manufacturer of a 110-lb light fixture that fell onto a Central Artery tunnel roadway in early February. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority informed the public about the incident last week. “One of the 23,000 light fixtures in the Central Artery Tunnel system fell onto the roadway on the morning of February 8,” says a spokesperson for the MBTA. Although there were no injuries or property damage, the incident has reignited concerns about safety of the $2 billion project. The Massachusetts Dept. of Transportation claims it immediately began to inspect all of
The Government of the Northwest Territories, Canada, has reached a settlement with individuals from the Deh Cho Bridge Corp. over questions of unpaid work on the failed design of the Deh Cho Bridge, a 1,045-meter span crossing the Mackenzie River near Fort Providence. After work was delayed one year due to a substandard design, Andrew Gamble, former project manager, and Jivko Jivkov, former design adviser, were removed from the project when the government took over from the private Deh Cho Bridge Corp. They filed a claim for $1.3 million. Earl Blacklock, a government spokesman, says the mediated settlement, while undisclosed,
The first of nine potential geothermal powerplants being developed by Reno, Nev.-based Gradient Resources will be built by McLean, Va.-based Science Applications International Corp.’s design-build subsidiary, Benham Constructors LLC. Construction of the 60-MW powerplant at Gradient’s Patua site, near Fernley, Nev., will begin the second quarter of this year, with commercial operation expected in the third quarter of 2017. No contract value was given to the engineering, procurement and construction contract for the estimated $270-million project. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District already has contracted for a portion of the plant’s production. SAIC will use TAS Energy technology for the project.
Japan’s nuclear disaster has pushed new debate and pause on global nuclear power development, but few nations are canceling projects. Photo: AP Images The Chinese government has called for a revision of nuclear plant safety standards as the country continues its push to develop 80 gigawatts of capacity by 2020. Related Links: Life After Fukushima Beyond the Nuclear Nightmare: Quake Takes a Daunting Toll Citing concerns over Fukushima Daiichi, China called for a timeout March 16 in developing the world’s largest nuclear fleet (see chart) to revise safety standards. The announcement could affect four AP 1000-design units being built by
After spending much of his career examining the vulnerability of nuclear powerplants to earthquakes, Greg Hardy, a senior principal at Los Angeles-based Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc., is comfortable living between two facilities along California’s coast— even after the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant. But Hardy says that he can understand how other people—including his wife—might not be as comfortable after seeing images of the crippled and ominous nuclear units. “They just think it could happen anywhere,” he says. “It’s going to be a difficult job to convey that and convince people” that the U.S. plants are safe. “It
While Pacific Gas and Electric prepares to explain to the California Public Utilities Commission at a March 24 hearing why it didn’t supply all its records for pressure tests of natural gas pipelines in high-consequence areas (HCA) as requested, other federal entities and elected representatives are getting more involved in the gas pressure spike controversy. Photo: NTSB Utility as-built drawings showed San Bruno pipeline sections as seamless, but investigators found pipe fragments that had been welded. PG&E failed to satisfy CPUC’s terms under a March 15 deadline to provide data on its pipeline system. The utility says it supplied records
The U.S. government on March 17 gave final regulatory approval for the first floating production storage and offloading facility in the Gulf of Mexico. The FPSO will be used instead of permanent production platforms. Operators in the gulf have not needed the technology previously because of the vast infrastructure that already exists in the Gulf of Mexico. The FPSO, the BW Pioneer, will have the capacity to produce up to 80,000 barrels of oil per day and 16 million cu ft of gas per day. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement says the facility will soon be
With estimates of at least 110,000 buildings damaged or destroyed and 20,000 fatalities in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, rebuilding Japan will be a long and expensive undertaking, dwarfing the financial impact of the 1995 Kobe quake disaster. The World Bank estimates dam- age at up to $235 billion, 4% of Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP), compared with $100 billion for Kobe, or 2% of GDP. Private insurers could pay up to $33 billion to cover the destruction, compared with $783 million for Kobe, according to the bank. Photo: Kit Miyamoto/Miyamoto International U.S. engineer Miyamoto surveys coastal damage. Related
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