Construction on a 250-MW hydroelectric powerplant in Nicaragua is slated to begin in November after financing for the $700-million project was lined up through a slate of Brazilian firms and regional organizations. Earlier this year, a consortium led by Brazil’s state utility Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras (Eletrobras) and Centrales Hidroelectricas de Centroamerica (CHC)—a subsidiary of the Brazilian construction firm Queiroz Galvao—was awarded a 30-year, build-operate-transfer concession for the Tumarin hydroelectric facility on the Rio Grande de Matagalpa River, located northeast of the capital Managua. When completed in 2014, the 60-meter-high dam will create a 55-sq-kilometer reservoir in Nicaragua’s south Atlantic autonomous
Belgian dredging firm Jan de Nul has won the Panama Canal expansion’s last major contract, a $54.5-million job to dredge and excavate 4 million cu meters at the entrance of the historic waterway’s Pacific access channel. The contract will make way for construction of new and larger locks. + Image Photo: Courtesy of Panama Canal Authority Excavation work to build an access channel from the Panama Canal to new, larger locks at the Pacific entrance of the waterway is more than half completed. Photo: Courtesy of Panama Canal Authority Excavation proceeds at the canal’s Atlantic entrance for the new, larger
An ill-starred effort to bore one of the deepest tunnels in the world has restarted in the mountains of northern Peru after months of delays due to rock bursts. The $247-million Los Olmos irrigation project was halted when the tunnel-boring machine at work on the 12.5-mile-long tunnel (with 6,890 ft of overburden) was damaged by rock bursts in April. On July 8, engineers with Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht were able to restart the TBM, but rock bursts continue to hinder progress. In August, work began on the tunnel’s opposite approach using conventional drill-and-blast methods. The tunnel breakthrough is now slated
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.
Construction on Ecuador’s 1,500-MW Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric project is slated to begin by the end of the month after a months-long stalemate between the country and the Chinese groups financing 85% of the effort. Ecuador broke off discussions with Sinohydro in March over the terms of the $1.7-billion financing agreement but resumed talks after overtures from the Chinese government. The dam is on the Napo River, a tributary of the Amazon, about 75 miles east of Quito. Coca Codo is expected to supply up to 70% of Ecuador’s electricity needs, reducing its dependence on imported power.
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
