The U.S. Dept. of Energy's Oak Ridge and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories are teaming with Dow Chemical Co. to fund research projects that develop the next generation of “cool roof” technologies. DOE announced the agreement on April 14. The goal is to develop solar reflective roof coatings that increase energy savings from existing cool-roof technologies by more than 50% for new and existing commercial buildings. The labs will work with Dow to improve the ability of roof coatings to continue reflecting sunlight even after years of exposure to the elements.
A U.S. Energy Dept. facility in Idaho that has stored melted fuel from the Three Mile Island nuclear plant since 1999 has not done enough to address crumbling concrete modules encasing radioactive material, says the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The facility holds damaged fuel from TMI unit 2, whose partial meltdown in 1979 resulted in the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history. The concrete modules are “showing significant cracking and degradation,” though they were built to last 50 years, NRC says. DOE has determined the problem is worsening, NRC says. The cracks have no impact on the safe storage of
The U.S. government will formally examine potential failure points of blowout preventers following a four-month-long forensic examination by a Norwegian firm into the failed device on BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in an April 5 conference call. Image: Courtesy of Det Norske Veritass Forensics firm Det Norske Veritas showed that pressure buckled a 5½-in.-dia steel pipe, pushing it off-center and preventing the Macondo well�s blowout preventer from working. Following the well's April 2010 blowout, its blowout preventer (BOP) failed to stop the flow of oil and gas. The report, by Oslo-based Det
As New Orleans' complex $14.6-billion storm-surge risk reduction system—which was federally funded, designed and constructed—races toward substantial completion, local stakeholders now are asking if the federal government will help them maintain it. Photo: Courtesy Of USACE New Complex drives largest interior drainage pump house in the world. The facility is new to the system, as is the O&M bill. Photo: Courtesy Of USACE Complex sector gates on federal waterways are built under emergency provisions that will leave locals footing the O&M bill. Related Links: New Orleans Flood Defenses Detailed With Operations and Maintenance In Mind The U.S. Army Corps of
The federal team investigating last year’s Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 men in the Gulf of Mexico will conduct a week of hearings on April 4-8 in Metairie, La., to focus specifically on a forensic examination of the failed blowout preventer on the well. Conducted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement as well as the U.S. Coast Guard Joint Investigation Team, the hearings follow the March 20 release of a report by Norwegian risk-management specialist Det Norske Veritas on the blowout preventer. DNV tested, examined and investigated the failure of the 50-ft, 300-ton BOP in
Part of the reason that professor André Sorensen, an urban geographer at the University of Toronto, chose Japanese city planning in the early 1990s as his academic niche is that the topic had barely been explored at the time, at least in English. “Japan was the second-largest economy in the world, and there was almost nothing written about it,” says Sorensen, whose Ph.D. focused on Tokyo’s problematic sprawl and whose books have included 2004’s “The Making of Urban Japan.” Photo: Courtesy Of André Sorensen André Sorensen is the author of “The Making of Urban Japan.” From 1994 to 2002, Sorensen
Beyond the Nuclear Nightmare: Quake Takes a Daunting Toll 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. Restoration will
Florida politicians at the state and national level are trying to prohibit, defund or at least slow down implementation of a new water-quality standard for phosphorous and nitrogen. The new rule, recently issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, addresses the problem of algae blooms and establishes numeric criteria for nutrient pollution, mostly related to nitrogen and phosphorous, in the state’s lakes and flowing waters. Florida’s current standards are narrative-based, or verbal descriptions of clean- water conditions. EPA developed the rule as part of a 2008 lawsuit settlement with the Florida Wildlife Federation and finalized it in November 2010, according
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 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
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