Redevelopment of Lower Manhattan’s World Trade Center site has been beset with problems: design changes, funding problems, and political squabbling. And, there wasn’t even much to see at the site for nearly a decade, save for the tops of cranes and a few rumbling trucks, as a tall fence wrapped the perimeter. Photo � Joe Woolhead Redevelopment of Lower Manhattan�s World Trade Center site. Related Links: Downtown Moves Organized Chaos The Next Grand Central But nine years after the September 11 attacks, there finally are tangible signs of progress. A memorial and a tree-filled plaza will be completed next year,
A Houston company has completed construction of a pair of power-generation barges that, when installed later this year in Venezuela, will become the world’s largest floating power-generation facility. Photo: Courtesy Walker Marine Inc. Floating powerplants will move from Signal International Shipyard in Orange, Texas, to Venezuela in September. Waller Marine Inc. completed work on the two $125-million vessels, Margarita I and Josefa Rufina I, earlier this month at the Signal International Shipyard in Orange, Texas. Each barge boasts a single GE 7FA turbine generator and is capable of producing 171-MW. When installed in a prepared basin at Tacoa, Venezuela, near
As Haiti rebuilds after its cataclysmic earthquake, the government there has launched a first-of-its-kind design competition to help replace the country's decimated housing stock.
The effort to build the longest bridge in Peru began in 1978, and, if all goes as planned, the 722-meter-long span over the Madre de Dios River in the Peruvian Amazon will be completed in December. Constructing the Guillermo Billinghurst Bridge—a task spanning more than three decades—will cap the effort to build a paved road in South America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean: the Interoceanic Highway. The $2.37-billion project to build the road across southern Peru was expanded last year to include the long-awaited span. When completed, the $25.71-million bridge will link the city of Puerto Maldonado
As the works to complete the dam and tunnel that will divert water across the Andean Continental Divide in northern Peru struggle toward completion, the Brazilian company handling the job� is already preparing for the next phase of the project. La Concesionaria Trasvase Olmos S.A., a business entity created solely for the project by general contract Odebrecht Peru, is seeking the 20-year contract that will divert the waters from the Los Olmos project to irrigate 38,000 hectacres on the arid Pacific coast. On May 11, Peruvian President Alan Garcia signed the document clearing the way for the regional government of
The battle of Belo Monte came to the headquarters of Brazil’s National Electric Energy Agency, Aneel, in Brasília on April 20. While government and business leaders convened inside, hundreds of protesters gathered in the streets. Indigenous tribes fight proposal. In response to the project being awarded inside the National Electric Energy Agency building, vocal protesters dumped hundreds of pounds of horse manure onto its steps. The project has become a flashpoint for the need to conserve the vast but fragile Amazon as well as meet the country’s growing energy needs. Caught in the middle of the conflict are hundreds of
A controversial 11,200-MW hydroelectric dam deep in the Brazilian Amazon was awarded to a nine-company consortium on April 20, setting aside years of controversy and last-minute protests. The Belo Monte dam will harnass the Xingu River’s power. Brazil’s electricity regulating agency Aneel awarded the tender to build and operate Belo Monte dam to the Norte Energia Consortium led by Compañía Hidro Eletrica do Sao Francisco (CHESF), a unit of state-run Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA. The group presented an offer to sell electricity from the project for 77.97 reais, or $44.24, per megawatt-hour. The other companies in the consortium include Galvão,
Public transportation in Peru’s capital of Lima can be an intimidating affair. A bewildering cacophony of privately operated buses, minibuses and vans crisscross the city with men hanging out the doors, cajoling pedestrians to hop aboard. There is little respect for traffic rules. In an interview last year, Lima Mayor Luis Castañeda referred to city travel as “total and absolute chaos.” But city officials are hoping to bring some order to that chaos later this month when they unveil Lima’s new $538-million integrated urban bus system, El Metropolitano. The project—known as the Segregated High-Capacity Corridor, or by its Spanish-language acronym
Brazilian-backed proposal to build a 2,000-megawatt hydroelectric plant in the Peruvian Amazon has gained momentum in recent weeks as the government of the Andean nation has thrown its weight behind the effort. Photo: C.J. Schexnayder Inambari River project would supply 2,000 MW of power, but displace 3,300 people. + Image Image: C.J. Schexnayder. The Brazilian consortium behind the $4-billion project, Empresa de Generación Eléctrica Amazonas Sur S.A.C. (EGASUR), is expected to present feasibility studies for constructing the hydroelectric plant on the Inambari River to Peru’s Ministry of Mines and Energy early this month. EGASUR is composed of Brazilian construction firm