TerrAqua Resource Management's (TARM) new treatment facility in Williamsport, Pa., for wastewater generated from hydrofracking, well development and production was the first of its kind in Pennsylvania and required the firm, a subsidiary of Williamsport, Pa.-based Larson Design Group, to obtain a special “beneficial re-use permit” from the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection. < Photo: Courtesy of TARM The custom facility contains 96 “frac” tanks to store and keep separate the watercoming from different clients. Related Links: Drilling for Treasure LDG principal Marty Muggleton says TARM saw a need that local sanitary authorities had trouble meeting and stepped in with

The ongoing crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant quickly triggered demands from politicians and activists from California to New York to Germany and elsewhere to shut down aging nuclear reactors, but replacing existing nuclear generation isn't as simple as flipping a switch. At best, taking nuclear powerplants off line might encourage more development of renewable generation and push distributed generation, but only years or decades from now. At worst, taking a nuclear powerplant or two off line could cause spikes in wholesale electricity prices and problems with electric reliability. It's not realistic to prematurely retire nuclear power, says Mark

ENR Award of Excellence winner Jeffrey Baker’s pet project—the ultra-green, ultra-affordable Research Support Facility (RSF) at the Dept. of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo.—is but a tiny example of the work funded through DOE’s Office of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. For Baker, the completion of the RSF last year signaled a second mission: to spread the word about the new model for affordable, energy-efficient buildings so that others might adapt it to their projects. Related Links: 2011 Award of Excellence Winner: Jeffrey M. Baker Closely Watched Building Lives Up to Expectations Risky ‘Golden’ Job Proves

The ongoing crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant quickly triggered demands from politicians and activists from California to New York to Germany and elsewhere to shut down aging nuclear reactors, but replacing existing nuclear generation isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. Photo: Keith Philpott, Courtesy of Black & Veatch Power play Coal-fired base-load powerplants, such as the 655-MW plant. Photo: Courtesy of Alstom U.S. Osceola, Ark., will remain, but the dawn of renewables is fast approaching. At best, taking nuclear powerplants off line might encourage more development of renewable generation and push distributed generation, but only years or

Lufkin Industries, a U.S.-based manufacturer of oil-field pumps and power transmission products, is building a new hub in Romania to serve the European, Middle Eastern and Central Asian markets. Architect-engineer-constructor Epstein, based in Chicago, is performing the design-build job of Lufkin’s manufacturing complex in Ploiesti, an industrial center. One factor in Epstein’s favor was that it had worked previously in Ploiesti for another American client. Lufkin’s project consists of a 300,000-sq-ft manufacturing building, a 38,000-sq-ft post-production plant and a single-story, 12,000-sq-ft office building. The $126-million project broke ground in October 2010. The precast concrete structure is fully erected for the

Chile has green-lighted a $4.4-billion coal-fired plant in the northern part of the country that will boast an installed capacity of 2,354 MW when completed in 2016, making it the largest powerplant in South America. The Hacienda Castilla project is being developed by MPX Energia SA, a Chilean unit of Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista’s mining, energy and engineering group EBX. In February, the company was granted a license for the project by the Chilean environmental agency, overturning an earlier environmental ruling that had threatened to derail the effort. Hacienda Castilla will involve building six 350-MW power-generating units as well as

Japanese officials managed to restore electricity to three damaged reactors at Fukushima Daiichi by March 28 but were battling to keep the unit’s radioactive water from leaking into the sea. Tokyo Electric Power Corp. (TEPCO) reported that water in concrete tunnels beneath Unit 2 was emitting radiation levels of 1,000 millisieverts per hour, or about 100,000 times the reactor’s normal level. The Japanese government also reported that it had detected the presence of plutonium in the soil around the reactors, a possible indication that a partial meltdown could have occurred at one of the three units. “The crisis at the

A Scotland-based utility has secured government approval to build a 10-MW demonstration marine power farm that will use a novel turbine to harness the kinetic energy of tidal streams. Installation of the 10 units off Scotland’s west coast is scheduled to start in 2013, following prototype testing at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney starting at the end of this year. Photo: Courtesy of ScottishPower Renewables A 300-MM prototype of the 1,000-MW Scottish machine was installed off Norway some eight years ago. Photo: Courtesy of ScottishPower Renewables Innovative HS300 turbine capitalizes on the kinetic energy of tidal streams. The

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

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.