Rhode Island wind developer Deepwater Wind plans to develop two, $1-billion offshore underwater transmission networks for moving up to 2,000 MW of offshore wind energy to southern New England and New York.“A merchant transmission network would reduce the cost of servicing the wind farm by providing multiple points of interconnection,” says Bill Moore, CEO of Deepwater Wind, Providence, R.I. “By combining a utility-scale offshore wind farm with a regional transmission network, we can deliver firm power to address the area's electricity demand.”The submarine transmission lines are part of Deepwater's overall plan to develop four wind farms in the northeast, including
PHOTO COURTESY OF NeW YORK DEP The $800-million New York City portion of the new City Tunnel No. 3 supply line is designed to provide redundancy for an aging system. Regardless of size, location and system configuration, most of the water and wastewater utilities in the U.S. share a common attribute: the continuing need to upgrade and improve their treatment facilities and underground infrastructure.Though the sluggish post-recession economy has largely removed capacity expansion from the list of priorities, there remains no shortage of needs on utilities' to-do lists.Most often, the driver is meeting federal discharge mandates, as is the case
Related Links: Corps Unveils Public National Levee Database Corps Pulls Out All the Stops To Cope With Rising River Corps of Engineers' List of 93 Mississippi Basin Critical Flood Repair Projects As time races toward fall floods and potential disaster along the Mississippi River and Tributaries System, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is at work on 10 projects—damaged by high water this past spring and summer—that the agency deems most critical to protect life and safety. This work is worth an estimated $75.8 million, but the Corps wants to focus on the long term. Both the public and policymakers
How did a company like FedEx Corp. set its strategic direction for sustainability? That was the task given to D. Mitchell Jackson, FedEx staff vice president for environmental affairs and sustainability, when he took the post in 2007.Staff members suggested reducing fuel usage. Jackson responded, “That's a tactic, not a strategy.” He found the answer in what FedEx does every day. “We deliver eight million packages, but more than that, we connect the world, allowing customers to do business in 220 countries and territories.” Its sustainability strategy, therefore, was to “connect the world responsibly and resourcefully.”Jackson, a mechanical engineer by
If you want an early briefing of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ new, National Levee Database, register soon because there are only 120 spaces available for each of three webinars that have been scheduled to introduce it, starting Oct. 27.The Corps is announcing public access to the NLD, a dynamic information source that provides, for the first time, map-based visualization and search capabilities for the location and condition of levee systems nationwide. Developed by engineers and scientists, it is said to have a "distinctly technical feel." There will be at least two levels of access, one, will make available
Related Links: Audit: Deficiencies in N.Y. Wastewater Treatment Plant Before Collapse Binghamton-Johnson City, N.Y., Sewer Board Files Collapse Suit Safety Report on Upstate New York Treatment Plant Due in June The owners of the Binghamton-Johnson City Joint Sewage Treatment Plant, site of a 100-ft wall collapse in May, are eager to begin repairs but they first must determine if Hurricane Irene-related flooding undermined the structure's foundation.The two south-central New York state cities, which own and operate the plant, are also dealing with a pair of engineering reports that blame construction errors and changes for the wall failure and that limit
In the wake of the stunning devastation left by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tohoku Tsunami, there were teetering remains of scattered mangled structures interspersed with standing, unscathed structures.Japanese and American forensic engineers still are combing the debris and data from the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami to study the forces and suss out how the wounded and surviving structures differ from those that are gone. Now one group, a tsunami loads-and-effects subcommittee sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers, is preparing to publish early next year approximately 350 pages filled with engineering analysis and case studies
Photo courtesy of DOE Highly radioactive buildings are among many in Hanford's former atomic-bomb fuel-production area that are scheduled to be demolished. Photo courtesy of DOE Workers seal a waste disposal container, while excavators take apart the so-called 327 production building last year. In the last substantial cleanup of highly radioactive waste in an area of the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Hanford nuclear-waste site that was once the core of nuclear-reactor fuel production for atomic bombs, crews will use a gantry crane and grout to move and seal a vault and tank weighing 1,700 tons. The pick, part of the
Related Links: Chesapeake Bay Remains at Risk The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority's wastewater treatment plant is going green in a big way. The authority, known as DC Water, is in the early stages of projects that will help meet stringent regulatory requirements for nitrogen as well as make improvements primarily aimed at improving water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.One of the projects is to reduce total nitrogen in the plant system to under 4 milligrams per liter (mg/l) from current levels of about 5 mg/l. The second approach will build a system of tunnels to accommodate and
Photo courtesy of Vermont Agency of Transportation Hoping to restore roads before winter snow arrives, National Guard troops help fix three miles of state road in Cavendish, Vermont. Related Links: Hurricane Irene Provides a Laboratory For Testing Bridge Innovations Before winter arrives, crews are working hard in the Northeast to assess and repair infrastructure damaged from tropical storms Irene and Lee in August and September, respectively.Vermont was hit hard by Irene. The storm killed five, closed roads, bridges and rail lines, shut down the state office complex in Waterbury and left more than 50,000 people without power.Dept. of Transportation officials
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