In what could be a boost to U.S. geothermal energy development, Los Angeles has signed a $94-million long-term contract with Reno, Nev.-based energy developer Ormat Technologies Inc. to buy 150 MW from its portfolio of northern Nevada geothermal projects.
Class-action lawsuits against engineering firms and public officials resulting from the Flint, Mich., water-supply crisis will be heard mostly in federal courts, based on a U.S. Supreme Court action on June 12.
In the aftermath of a poorly executed Colorado veterans’ hospital project that tripled in cost from $604 million to $1.7 billion and slipped from a 2013 opening to early 2018, the U.S. Government Accountability Office has taken a critical look at U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs facility planning and project delivery in two recent reports.
Mismanagement by the U.S. Energy Dept. has added $196 million and three years to cleanup of a former nuclear fuel-processing site in West Valley, N.Y., said April Stephenson, DOE acting inspector general in an April 26 report.
For the moment, a San Francisco federal court judge’s April 25 preliminary injunction has stalled President Donald Trump’s executive order that seeks to make “sanctuary” jurisdictions, which shelter undocumented immigrants, unable to receive federal grants and funds, including billions of dollars for highway construction, seismic upgrades and other public infrastructure projects.
The Tennessee Valley Authority is working to determine what caused the structural supports of a refurbished condenser to fail and how best to repair the damage at the newly commissioned Watts Bar 2 nuclear unit on the Tennessee River.