Related Links: Next Step in U.S. Nuclear Market Could Be Built Round Small Modular Reactors Feds OK New Georgia Units The Dept. of Energy has announced the winner of the initial part of a two-phase award for the commercial deployment of small modular reactors, or SMRs, in the U.S.The first project award, announced on Nov. 20, goes to a joint-venture team of Charlotte, N.C.-based Babcock & Wilcox and San Francisco-based Bechtel, working in partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Bechtel is the architect-engineer, and B&W is the technology provider. TVA hopes to acquire a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license for
Approximately 10% of the 126,000 sites in the United States that currently contain contaminated groundwater are unlikely to be completely restored for decades, a new report from the National Research Council concludes.
As Long Islanders went days and even weeks without power following Superstorm Sandy's Oct. 29 landfall, anger intensified at the Long Island Power Authority, or LIPA, for the utility's inept handling of power restoration to local homes and businesses.
In an historic settlement announced Nov. 15, BP agreed to plead guilty to felony manslaughter, environmental crimes and obstruction of justice and to pay more than $4 billion in criminal fines and penalties for its conduct leading to the devastating Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. The settlement, the largest of its kind in U.S. history, should give the cleanup and restoration effort in the Gulf of Mexico a boost: A significant portion of the fines will go directly toward Gulf restoration and cleanup, Justice Dept. officials said at a Nov. 15 press conference
A new study from the National Research Council warns that the electric grid in the United States is vulnerable to terrorist attacks and needs immediate attention.
Environmental organizations and the oil-and-gas industry say one of the first litmus tests for President Obama's second term is his highly anticipated decision over a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.
Related Links: A Second Obama Term Could Look Much Like the First (ENR 9/17/12 issue) Consruction's Campaign Dollars Are Streaming In (ENR 11/5/12 issue) After an estimated $6 billion in spending and months of fierce campaigning, the results of the Nov. 6 federal elections have left things about where they were: President Obama is still president, the Democrats have increased their Senate majority by a couple of seats, and the Republicans’ control of the House remains nearly as strong as it was.Will bipartisan deals now prevail where conflict once was the rule?"It's a new ball game, but the teams are
Related Links: Access the CPR Database for Construction Spending Can Leo Linbeck's Super PAC Remake Congress? As presidential and congressional campaigns head toward the Nov. 6 finish line, construction industry companies, associations and labor unions have pushed their campaign contributions to new highs. Even before final totals are in, they have surpassed the records set in 2008, the last presidential election cycle.Despite construction's still-tough market conditions, construction organizations and firms had contributed $101.1 million to federal candidates as of Oct. 25, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). The total for the full 2008 cycle was $94.9 million. In
After Hurricane Sandy had done its worst, more than 8 million residents along the East Coast and other affected states were without power, according to the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability.
Related Links: EPA website on Pavillion investigation USGS report on sampling from Pavillion, Wyoming wells The American Petroleum Institute on Oct. 18 said its analysis of data released by the U.S. Geological Survey in September suggests the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s water-quality investigation in Pavillion, Wyo., could be flawed.That finding could point to bigger problems regarding the agency’s ongoing national study of the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on groundwater, the oil-and-gas advocacy group’s upstream director told reporters.Eric Milito, API’s upstream director, said that EPA’s approach in the Pavillion study could forecast the approach the agency will take for its
