Standards Engineers To Develop Guidance On Disproportionate Collapse The Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers is seeking volunteers to join a two-year project to develop a standard for the mitigation of disproportionate collapse in buildings. Among its many provisions, the standard likely will address the risk assessment necessary to determine the need for extra collapse resistance against extraordinary damaging events. In another standards action, SEI/ASCE plans to release for public comment an updated standard on seismic rehabilitation for existing buildings; that standard is expected in May. ASCE/SEI 41-13 is scheduled for completion in September; it will
Innovative dam and levee design construction for sustainable water management is the theme of the United States Society of Dams 32nd annual meeting and conference, which will be held in New Orleans April 23-27.
Concerned that the Mississippi Supreme Court's mid-March decision to throw out the regulatory approval the state's Public Service Commission had granted Mississippi Power's $2.4-billion-plus integrated gasification combined-cycle project nearly two years ago, the PSC held a special meeting March 30 at which two of its three members voted to grant the project a "temporary" certificate.
Opportunities in the wastewater sector continue to grow, particularly in developing countries. Although large wastewater systems are being built around the globe, the market is changing, with new approaches to looking at wastewater and different mechanisms emerging for financing projects. According to Lux Research, a Boston-based research firm, the global wastewater market should reach $27.5 billion in 2012, with work divided roughly evenly between developed and developing countries. Glen Daigger, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Englewood, Colo.-based CH2M Hill, says that in 2010 the United Nations declared sanitation is a basic human right. Moreover, according to the
Even as India moves to complete by this fall a planned 45-MW hydroelectric project on the Indus River, it still faces objections from neighboring Pakistan to the structure's design and to the award of U.N. carbon credits.
The government of Kenya and the African Development Bank have signed agreements totaling $366 million in financial aid for two projects: a geothermal steam field and a road upgrade, which will open landlocked Ethiopia to the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa.
Rendering Courtesy Elkus Manfredi Proposed New Balance headquarters building (left) will anchor a 14-acre complex that will include a 175-room hotel (center). Athletic shoe manufacturer New Balance plans to build a 14-acre world headquarters complex featuring LEED-certified buildings in Boston's blighted Allston-Brighton area, located along the Massachusetts Turnpike. The proposed complex includes at least four office buildings, restaurants, a 175-room hotel and a sports complex with a 200-meter track-and-field facility, according to a master plan filed with the Boston Redevelopment Authority on March 21. The new 250,000-sq-ft headquarters building, designed in the shape of a running shoe, will not exceed 130
RSS
