Pumped Up. Biodiesel is gaining ground. The use of biodiesel has grown considerably in the last year, but the green fuel source probably will not replace petroleum diesel any time soon. Consumers bought 75 million gallons of biodiesel in 2005, an increase of 300% over the previous year. Fifty-three plants currently produce the fuel and 38 new plants are expected to open within the year. Until recently, the cost was almost $1 more per gallon than petrodiesel. But thanks to government subsidies, tax credits and other incentives, the price of biodiesel today is about the same. Click here to view
(Photo courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.) With people crowding into the Las Vegas area amid persistent drought, local officials are being forced to tap new water options. The Southern Nevada Water Authority needs an estimated 400,000 acre-ft more annually by 2025, according to Deputy General Manager Kay Brothers. “We have to be creative,” she says. The water level in Lake Mead, the valley’s primary supply, is 74 ft lower than it was six years ago. To conserve, Clark County has banned new golf course construction and decorative fountains in commercial developments, among other things. In 2004, SNWA paid businesses
(Photo courtesy of Nevada Power Co.) Nevada Power Co. was broadsided by California’s energy crisis in 2000-01. Tightened credit halted construction by the private-power developers that it was counting on for electricity supplies. And it was left holding the bag for $437 million of energy costs disallowed by the state Public Utilities Commission. The Las Vegas-based utility saw its bond ratings reduced to junk and it has been trying to make up lost ground ever since. “Nevada Power Co. has been making progress catching up from the deficit of a few years before,” says Neill Dimmick, deputy direc-tor of the
Playing the Blues. Louisiana politicians (seated) feel shortchanged by White House. Most of New Orleans remains a ghastly ruin six months after the greatest disaster to hit a U.S. city. And if you are an elected official in Louisiana, the Bush administration’s rejection of the state’s preferred plans for rebuilding areas flooded by Hurricane Katrina, including creation by the federal government of the Louisiana Recovery Corp. to buy and redevelop broad areas of the city, is a stinging disappointment. The White House is telling Louisiana that it must make do with $6.2 billion in Community Development Block Grants and the
Mississippi Steel. Casino barges used a lot of steel and contractors on private jobs are doing heavy recycling. Six months after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers launched its debris removal mission in the Gulf Coast, much of the area still looks like a battlefield. Although the Corps says the work is on schedule, contractors say progress is gummed up by sporadic population return, uncertainty about future flood risk, politics, hesitant cash flow and miles of red tape. Still, particularly for contractors in Louisiana, debris cleanup is about the only grease for the economy these days. The size of the
(Photos by Michael Goodman for ENR) Nestled in the valley of “Mount Katrina,” roughly 20 mucky acres on the eastern end of the recently reopened, massive Old Gentilly Landfill in eastern New Orleans, lies the “white goods” processing and staging area. The white goods waste stream is comprised of stoves, washers, dryers, household appliances, air conditioners, water heaters and big, smelly refrigerators. When a half million New Orleanians evacuated, they left behind refrigerators and freezers full of what people love to eat—pots of red beans and rice with sausage, gumbo, shrimp, fish, venison, alligator sausage and andouille. Mix it together,
Like a middle-aged rake too long on the party circuit, Las Vegas is starting to show the strain of 20 years of unrelieved excess. Roads are congested, schools crowded, water supplies dwindling and the pressures of growth are distorting the market for construction labor and contracting capacity. Construction prices are rising along with soaring real-estate prices, driving the Manhattanization of the city. But in the tight market, local bidders are choosing their targets while the high-rise growth is attracting outsiders with experience in vertical construction. Multimedia: Slideshow Showing the Strain in Las Vegas click here to view Since 2000, Clark
Tudor Hampton/ENR Bauma 2004�s exhibit size will increase by at least 8% this year. What do Germany and Bahrain have in common? Both nations’ top engineers and contractors will be joining together in Munich this April to exchange ideas, cash and machinery at the largest construction and mining equipment show in the world. The number of visitors expected at Bauma 2007—at least 500,000—is nearly the population of Bahrain itself. But the show’s reach will extend far beyond the booming Middle East. Related Link: Podcast Gearing Up for Bauma: A talk with David C.A. Phillips, Managing Director of Off-Highway Research Listen
Enlarge + (Photo by Michael Goodman for ENR) Robert S. Boh wasn’t exactly a wallflower before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, but since then has become something of a local hero and his family business, Boh Bros. Construction Co., has emerged from the shadows with him and into an unfamiliar limelight. The key event in the transformation occurred Jan. 6, when the 5.4-mile westbound span of New Orleans’ Interstate 10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain reopened eight days ahead of schedule. That lifted the spirits of a devastated city. Although Boh had won a tidy $1.12-million bonus for opening the eastbound
With construction virtually complete on Boston's $14.6-billion Central Artery/Tunnel project, officials now are eyeing final finishes on a $100-million surface restoration program that will reunite the center city with its historic waterfront. Three separate projects now are under construction along the 1.5-mile long strip that runs through the heart of the city. Finishing Touches. Greenway themes for the North End (top), Wharf and Chinatown sections will reunite Boston's center core. (Rendering courtesy of MTA) Boston's urban center was torn asunder in 1959 with the opening of a six-lane viaduct, the Fitzgerald Expressway, which bulldozed large sections of the historic North
RSS