In a settlement with federal agencies, AVX Corp. has agreed to pay more than $366 million, an infusion that officials say will dramatically speed up the long-running cleanup of the PCB-contaminated New Bedford, Mass., harbor.
The Boston Water and Sewer Commission received a $235,000 federal fine in August for Clean Water Act violations in discharging sewage- and stormwater-related pollutants into Boston Harbor.
Related Links: NYC Building-Energy-Use Reg Steps Toward Saving Energy Work Continues on Updated Commercial Building Energy Survey (subscription req.) SOM Website: Freedom Tower & BIM Wikipedia: Moore's Law Backgrounder Dept. of Energy SEED Program Computing power has grown 100 times over last 10 years, helping to create rapid and profound changes in the tools of building design and construction. But as sophisticated building- information-modeling tools help create ever more complex buildings, why aren't they doing more to design buildings that have greater energy efficiency?These were some of the key points—and challenges—that building experts outlined during Architectural Record's "Innovation Conference 2012"
Related Links: N.Y.C. Greener Greater Building Plan Green-building boosters are lauding the disclosure last month of private-sector building energy-use data for nearly 1.8 billion sq ft of space in New York City. The data, collected as part of the city's "Greener, Greater Buildings Plan," is seen as a positive step toward energy conservation.The report is an eye-opener, especially for small and midsize building owners, says Kevin Hamilton, CEO of NuEnergen, a White Plains, N.Y., energy consultant. "They can see in black and white what they are consuming and … they can start to think about what to do to conserve,"
As critics decry the large quantities of water that fracking demands, putting pressure on resources, manufacturers and energy-services firms are touting new technologies that use less.
In the early days of the shale-gas boom that is now at full throttle around the U.S. and the globe, speculators rushed into hydrofracking with high hopes, often with little attention to how much water would be needed or the best practices for managing the water when they were done with the wells.
The Shaw Group's recent initial rejection of more than 200 steel embedments supplied to Georgia Power's $14-billion Plant Vogtle nuclear power project, sited near Waynesboro, Ga., is the latest in a series of quality-control lapses by various project suppliers.
Nigeria moved closer to implementing major infrastructure projects with a $600-million loan, which will fund a light-rail line in the capital, Abuja, as well as a government internet-connectivity project, and a $500-million loan, which will finance the construction of five airport terminals.
Photo Courtesy of Andrew Craft At 2,000 ft, an old communications tower in Elizabethtown, N.C., becomes tallest structure to be felled by explosives. The operation was done at no cost, and proceeds of the scrap metal will go to the Green Beret Foundation. Related Links: Watch the implosion of the structural-steel tower in Elizabethtown, North Carolina. A demolition contractor imploded a 2,000-ft-tall structural-steel tower on Sept. 20 in Elizabethtown, N.C. The structure, the tallest in the U.S. east of the Mississippi River, had been used as a Raycom Media communications tower but became obsolete in 2008 when television station WECT
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