Casaburi.com Kasmer�s �hydristor� is drawing interest from heavy equipment makers. Tom Kasmer believes he can save the Earth with the power of hydraulics. The Binghamton, N.Y.-based inventor wants to use his patented “hydristor” powertrain to clean up the millions of cars and trucks on the road. He also thinks he can make construction equipment operate more efficiently and become less polluting. But there’s one little catch: While Kasmer’s high-pressure hydraulic transmission has been sitting on the drawing board for over a decade, few manufacturers have shown real interest in testing it out. “I could save the auto industry if they’d
Podcasts: Drivers of Change: A discussion with Chris Luebkeman, Director for Global Foresight & Innovation, Arup Group, London. Listen >> Green Talk: Sustainable Building Center Co-Director Discusses LEED, Green Guide for Health Care Listen >> A new U.N.-backed report by over 600 scientists from 40 countries says there now is at least 90% certainty that human activity is contributing to climate change. In its Feb. 2 scientific assessment, its fourth, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecasts continuing global warming, sea-level rises, erratic weather and widespread melting of ice and snow. IPCC was formed in 1989 by the World Meteorological
ZEDfactory Ltd U.K.'s BedZED is carbon-neutral pioneer. Global warming, already a hot topic, will likely heat up more following this month’s assessment by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Feb. 2 report cites, with more than 90% certainty, human use of fossil fuels as the main cause of climate change. IPCC’s findings, based largely on peer-reviewed reports by hundreds of scientists around the globe, immediately prompted calls for high-level talks to extend the historic greenhouse-gas-emission-cutting Kyoto Protocol as it nears its second anniversary on Feb. 16. IPCC’s periodic predictions are the scientific basis for the Kyoto Protocol.
Podcasts: Drivers of Change: A discussion with Chris Luebkeman, Director for Global Foresight & Innovation, Arup Group, London. Listen >> Green Talk: Sustainable Building Center Co-Director Discusses LEED, Green Guide for Health Care Listen >> By signing the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 7% from 1990 levels by 2012, more than 300 mayors have pledged to meet Kyoto Protocol goals, even though the U.S. did not ratify the pact. “This will take a grass-roots movement that U.S. mayors are in a position to help lead,” says Douglas Palmer (D), mayor of Trenton, N.J., and
Massachusetts Water Resources Authority Deer Island treatment plant was elevated for climate change. The particulars of climate change and sea-level rise will bedevil planners and engineers for decades to come. How much, how fast and where the impacts will fall are uncertainties that have the potential to shift many of the assumptions used in the profession. Nowhere is this understood better than in the Arctic, where ice packs that have long protected shoreside villages from storms are withdrawing, and where the permafrost that bears the loads of columns, beams and roadbeds is threatened by the change of a single temperature
Angelle Bergeron/ENR Piecemeal housing development is more traditional in the area because of limited lot availability. More than a year after Hurricane Katrina, troubling questions still remain about the wisdom of building in parts of New Orleans and the city’s ability to sustain jobs and economic growth. A recent failed housing megaproject there provides some insight into the problems, but many other project opportunities are popping up. The 3,000-acre Churchill Farms development on the city’s west bank was to have been New Orleans’ first mega-housing project since Katrina ripped up the city in August 2005. With potentially thousands of homes,
You have to admire the tenacity of surety bond underwriters. Through four years of industry losses—pinned on them by overstretched or incompetent contractors—sureties have observed an iron discipline in order to return to profitability. They have refused to bond contractors that failed to meet rigid financial standards, increased the scope of their analysis and cut their concentrations of risk with individual companies and projects. The sureties also shaved their own costs. In 2005, the surety industry was rewarded for its faith and saw a modest, industry-wide profit. In 2006, the profit was substantial, with the loss ratio for the year
People have always moved to where the water is, settling near rivers, oases and springs. But a dry, fast-growing Southern California water supplier is bringing the water to where the people are. San Marcos-based Vallecitos Water District, which serves part of San Diego County, is constructing what many call the largest prestressed concrete water-storage tank in the U.S. The 40-million-gallon reservoir will boost the district’s storage capacity by 55%. When completed in 2008, it will be buried in the hills and become nearly invisible. The reservoir, called Twin Oaks II, is not VWD’s first monster tank. The district completed construction
Alaska DOT Less than 20 years ago, U.S. crews had one basic response to a winter event that threatened to slicken roads—plows, salt and more salt just in case. Trucks went out in a race against the chance that ice would bond to the road, creating the “black ice” that helps create 400,000 cold weather-related crashes a year. But technology has come a long way since then. For instance, when Colorado was smacked with three snowstorms this month, road crews used a year-old software test program, the Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS), to make better decisions in deploying equipment and
With the election of Peruvian President Alan Garcia last July, one of the key priorities of the new administration was continuing the economic progress and a major aspect of that has been infrastructure. La Republica Zavala grapples with a highway system in a state of disrepair. The $1.3-billion InterOceanic Highway Project is just one of the major infrastructure projects currently underway in Peru. Major road projects in the north and central highlands are under way as well as a massive ongoing upgrade program. Overseeing that is the new Minister of Transportation Vernica Zavala Lombardi. The Harvard-trained lawyer previously served as
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