Industry News Briefs

June 09, 2010

Energy

Critics Say Hydraulic Fracturing Drilling Poisons Water Supply
Mining Projects Aim to Capture and Destroy Methane Gas

Land/Buildings

New Study Explores Value of 'Recycling' Old Buildings
Philadelphia Becomes Latest Major U.S. City to Require Cool Roofs

Transportation

FTA Works to Improve Evaluation Criteria for Major Transit Projects
States Continue to Struggle to Find Road and Bridge Money

Other

Women Engineers Inch Up the Management Ladder

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Critics Say Hydraulic Fracturing Drilling Poisons Water Supply
Chemical & Engineering News (05/31/10) Vol. 88, No. 22, P. 42; Hess, Glenn

Shale rock formations in the United States contain natural gas in abundance, and a new method for tapping this resource--hydraulic fracturing--is drawing controversy because of critics' concerns that the technique could poison supplies of drinking water. Studies reckon that as much as 80 percent of natural gas wells drilled in the next 10 years will require fracturing to stay viable. Hydraulic fracturing involves pumping millions of gallons of chemically treated water and sand into the ground at extremely high pressure to crack open shale rock and release trapped gas. Because of the method's perceived threat to potable water, environmentalists and some lawmakers contend that the practice requires federal regulation. Critics are worried about the chemical additives used in the fracturing process to reduce friction, exterminate bacteria, and prevent mineral buildup. "As we use this technology in more parts of the country on a much larger scale, we must ensure that we are not creating new environmental and public health problems," says U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is planning to execute a comprehensive research study of the impact of fracturing on water quality and public health. "We're hopeful and it's our expectation that EPA's study--if based on objective, scientific analysis--will serve as an opportunity to highlight the host of steps taken at every well site that make certain groundwater is properly protected," says Lee Fuller with the Energy In Depth oil and gas industry advocacy group.

Mining Projects Aim to Capture and Destroy Methane Gas
Wall Street Journal (06/02/10) Maher, Kris

Coal miner Consol Energy Inc. is working on a project to capture and destroy methane gas. The project is one of only a handful around the world but is expected to be replicated as mining companies seek to capture greenhouse gas in order to sell carbon-offset credits. Many expect climate legislation being considered in Congress to speed the growth of gas capture projects because of the potential profits of selling emissions credits. "What really triggered this project and moved it forward was the potential to sell carbon offsets," says Steve Winburg, Consol's vice president for research and development. Consol plans to sell carbon credits to a utility to cover the project's $5 million cost. Consol and its development partner Verdeo Group Inc. expect to capture and destroy methane equivalent to 230,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year at Consol's McElroy Mine south of Wheeling, W.Va. Methane occurs naturally in coal seams and must be vented from mines before reaching explosive levels underground. Federal mine safety officials believe the April explosion at a Massey Energy Co. underground mine was caused by high levels of methane, though it's not clear how the methane was allowed to build up or what ignited it. Coal mines have traditionally vented methane into the atmosphere, which raises environmental concerns, because it is 21 times more potent as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide. Coal mine ventilation systems are the biggest source of methane emissions, accounting for 81 billion cubic feet, or 51 percent of coal mine methane emissions in 2006, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Some in the mining industry, however, believe the government could extend regulatory oversight to methane in the future. "The relatively low priority assigned to methane may be about to change," says Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association. He says the EPA will finalize a rule this summer that requires mine operators to monitor and report methane emissions.

Abbey to Strengthen Safety Requirements for Exploration and Development Plans on Outer Continental Shelf
Department of the Interior News Release (06/02/10)

Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey recently announced that, prior to drilling new oil and gas wells on the Outer Continental Shelf, operators will be mandated to submit additional information about potential risks and safety issues in their plans for exploration or development. "The moratorium on deepwater drilling that Secretary [of the Interior Ken] Salazar has ordered is a prudent step that will allow time for the Presidential Commission to complete its review of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and for immediate safety and environmental reforms to be implemented," he said. "Pulling back exploration plans and development plans and requiring them to be updated with new information is consistent with this cautious approach and will ensure that new safety standards and risk considerations are incorporated into those planning documents. In the long term, we also need Congress to approve the administration's proposal to fix the law that requires [the Minerals Management Service] to review exploration plans within a 30-day mandatory deadline." Oil and gas operations in waters of a depth less than 500 feet may go ahead if they comply with new safety and environmental requirements identified in Salazar's report to the president. Abbey's announcement clarifies that any new drilling in shallow water must be under an exploration plan or development plan that includes information indicating adherence to the new safety standards. Abbey will release the exploration plan and development plan directive under his authority to guarantee that drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf is always executed in a safe and workmanlike manner, to prevent injury or loss of life, and to prevent harm to any natural resource or the environment.
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Groups Study Value of Recycling Rather Than Razing Old Buildings
GreenBiz.com (06/03/10)

A new study on adaptive reuse, or the repurposing old buildings rather than razing them and building new ones, is being conducted by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Cascadia Green Building Council, and the Green Building Services consultancy. The study will examine the economic and environmental value of the practice, which has a long history but has never been formally studied. Old department stores, factories, transit terminals, and military bases have been transformed into hotels, corporate headquarters, and sustainable communities, and the study will evaluate a variety of these projects to determine the environmental impact as well as any cost savings that are realized when compared to the cost of building a new structure. Forty percent of energy consumption in the United States comes from buildings, and National Trust President Richard Moe says the goal of the study is to give builders, owners, developers, and policy makers the data to make the right choice about reusing existing buildings. The study will be completed in 2011.
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Philadelphia Becomes Latest Major U.S. City to Require Cool Roofs
USA Today (06/03/10)

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter in May signed into law the "Cool Roof" bill, which adds the city to others -- including Chicago and New York -- that require reflective roofs on new construction. Cool roofs, which usually are white as opposed to the traditional black asphalt, reflect the sun's rays back into the atmosphere and release absorbed heart. The result is cooler buildings and up to a 30 percent reduction in air conditioning demand. Philadelphia's law, which targets any new building with a flat or nearly flat roof, "is a simple step to reduce energy consumption and is virtually cost-neutral for new construction," according to its sponsor, Councilman Jim Kenney. While most single-family houses have sloped roofs and therefore will not be subject to the new requirement, the law is likely to affect many row houses and commercial buildings. Projects with vegetative roofs or solar arrays also will be exempt from the cool roof mandate, which is part of Philadelphia's campaign to establish itself as the "greenest city in America" by curtailing its energy usage 10 percent and retrofitting 15 percent of its housing stock by 2015.
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BIM Strategies for Building Automation
Constructech (05/28/2010)

Siemens Industry and Avatech Solutions have formed a partnership to create publishing strategies for building information modeling (BIM), which most construction companies use to build, design, and plan projects. The content they create will give contractors access to a variety of design models with appropriate standards for specific projects, encompassing hundreds of Siemens building technologies products. The models will be posted for download so that contractors can integrate them with their own applications. Joe Studzinski of Siemens says the collaboration will help contractors to operate more efficiently.
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Construction Spending Rises 2.7% in April
Builder (06/10) Rice, Alison

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that overall construction spending increased 2.7 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $ 869.1 billion. On an annual basis, that figure stands 10.5 percent below the same month one year ago. The April numbers may offer “reason to hope that the worst may be behind” the construction industry, according to Patrick Newport, a U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight. Total residential construction increased 4.4 percent on a monthly basis and 4.1 percent on a yearly comparison, to a seasonally adjusted level of $263 billion in April. Multifamily continued to struggle, however, with a $15.2 billion pace, seasonally adjusted. “The 1.9% drop in multifamily spending was one of the report's few eyesores,” noted Newport. “This drop, nonetheless, was the smallest in 13 months.”
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Square Footage of Building Starts Now Rising
Reed Construction Data (06/02/10) Haughey, Jim

The square footage of building starts this spring has risen 29 percent over last year, which is a substantial increase but ultimately merely restores numbers to pre-panic fall 2008 levels. But the increase has rebooted construction hiring, materials production, and materials prices. And experts say the square footage of building starts will rise another 19 percent over the next year, and the gains will come from all types of buildings. Multifamily housing will account for about 22 percent of that gain, with single family housing taking up about two-thirds of the increase. It should be noted that starts square footage is not an entirely accurate representation of the recovery in construction activity because it does not take into account the resumption of suspended projects. It also exaggerates the decline because it does not include renovation work, which tends to remain strong when starts decline.
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Overcoming Water Reclamation Facility Construction Challenges
WaterWorld (06/04/10) Owen Jr., Webster; Herrera, Steve

Placerville, Calif., has modernized its Hangtown Creek wastewater treatment plant into a nutrient removal facility that complies with recycled water discharge regulations. The upgrade entailed the addition of nutrient removal, replacement of gaseous chlorine disinfection, and enhanced sludge digestion. The rebuilt plant featured process upgrades, modifications to existing structures, and a power service. It was a requirement that the plant remain in operation and meet waste discharge requirements during the nearly three-year construction period. The hydraulic profile of the facility was raised four feet without requiring additional pumping through the installation of a new headworks sited upstream of the main plant. Existing concrete tanks were converted from secondary clarifiers to anoxic basins, while new filters were added to generate tertiary filtered effluent. The depth of the primary clarifiers was increased 80 percent via structural modifications with buttress and T-Wall reinforcing; a pair of circular secondary clarifiers with patented inlet arrangements that increased capacity was installed. The existing chlorine disinfection system had to keep running until a new ultraviolet light system was installed, tested, and commissioned, and the new low pressure, high-output ultraviolet disinfection system will help remove disinfection byproducts. A new Operations, Control, and Laboratory Building was engineered and built on the site of an old animal control facility. Among the advanced treatment features incorporated into the project were effluent cooling towers, changes to the aeration system, and a general process upgrade that has facilitated significant decreases in effluent concentrations for heavy metals and dissolved solids.
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FTA Works to Improve Evaluation Criteria for Major Transit Projects
Department of Transportation News Release (06/03/10)

The Federal Transit Administration is seeking feedback on ways to improve the way major transit project proposals are rated and evaluated. The aim is “to ensure we invest wisely in public transportation infrastructure projects of national importance,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Specifically, the agency is looking for the best way to measure cost-effectiveness of a project and public benefits such as making communities more livable and preserving the environment. The effort is part of the federal government’s drive to change the way projects are selected for the New Starts and Small Starts programs, and budget restrictions imposed by the Bush administration have already been lifted. The agency will also hold pubic listening sessions, with the dates and times to be announced.
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States Continue to Struggle to Find Road and Bridge Money
Stateline.org (06/02/10) Vock, Daniel C.

Many states are finding it difficult to locate funding to build roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, as tax revenues are falling while larger economic forces and congressional inaction exacerbate the problem. In South Dakota, for example, gas and car sale taxes are down, which were the main source of funding for road projects, and materials prices were increasing while previous delays made the cost of repairs more expensive as well. Some lawmakers proposed a tax increase, but it did not have enough support to pass, and the state’s roads continue to be neglected. And the problem is found all across the country, as states struggle just to maintain existing roads rather than building new ones. Some are considering toll booths at state borders, while others are exploring the idea of charging drivers for the number of miles they travel, asking counties to pitch in to fund road projects, and issuing new bonds.
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FHWA Pilot Points to Carbon Sequestration Potential
Successes in Stewardship (05/10)

In 2008, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) created a groundbreaking Carbon Sequestration Pilot Program (CSPP) to explore the possibility of State Departments of Transportation reducing carbon emissions and earning revenue by changing vegetation-management practices in State-DOT-owned rights-of-way (ROW). The FHWA conducted a study using two pilots programs and data from across the country, and concluded that highway ROW sequesters significant amounts of carbon. The potential of such programs varies from state to state, and state DOTs should explore a variety of actions to determine which are most appropriate for their individual situations and objectives. Many state DOTs recognize that ROW has values beyond just safety, operations, and maintenance of highway operations, but few have developed land-management plans that focus on the value of ROW in regards to wildlife habitat, nutrient reduction, and other ecosystem services. The FHWA estimates that National Highway System (NHS) ROW has already sequestered 91 million metric tons (MMT) of carbon, and that it continues to sequester about 3.6 MMT each year nationwide, which equals the carbon dioxide emissions of about 2.6 million passenger cars. At maximum capacity, the entire NHS network could sequester between 425 million and 680 MMT of carbon.

On the Forefront of Intelligent Infrastructure
Rebuilding America's Infrastructure (05/01/2010) Drake, Bob

Technology continues to advance in the construction industry, from structural health monitoring (SHM) to intelligent transportation systems (ITS), and intelligent infrastructure is starting the slow pilgrimage from academic research to practical application. However, many engineers and owners are still learning how to make sense of the plethora of data available to them. While experts widely agree on the benefits of SHM, there are different perspectives on its current status. LifeSpan Technologies president and CEO Peter J. Vanderzee says SHM has been commercially available for nearly 10 years and provides significant benefits to infrastructure owners, including condition assessment that can support repair and replacement decisions, and too few projects use the technology. Conversely, Digitexx Data Systems president and CEO Mark Sereci says SHM on bridges is still in its infancy in the U.S., and the world, and additional research is needed. "The challenge is developing the algorithms that measure performance and help to immediately detect changes in a bridge’s behavior which are key indicators of permanent structural damage that may not be visible to the naked eye. The good news is there is a lot of new technology available today and a lot of research taking place in sensor technology, bridge materials, and algorithm development," says Sereci. HNTB Corporation bridge engineer Ryan Woodward says making sense of the data continues to be a problem. Ultimately, managing and understanding data is as important as collecting it in the first place. Woodward recommends that bridge designers take the lead in implementing SHM, as the design team is best suited to interpreting the data because they are the most familiar with the design assumptions and intended behavior of the bridge.
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Women Engineers Inch Up the Management Ladder
IEEE Spectrum (05/10) Patel, Prachi

Leadership roles in engineering can be isolating for women, and the challenges of obtaining a leadership role in engineering can be daunting for women new to the field. Female undergraduate engineering majors are outnumbered by men four-to-one, and in the workplace women are outnumbered nine-to-one. In management, women are outnumbered 14-to-one. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2006, only 7 percent of engineering managers were women. While a growing number of women are becoming engineers, it will take years for them to reach management positions. Society of Women Engineers executive director Betty Shanahan says it is not as if male counterparts treat women with less respect, but simply that women happen to be different from their male colleagues, and can feel out of place. Even some women in the field can have an unconscious bias, believing that managers and executives should be aggressive, dominating, decisive, and, ultimately, masculine. Fortunately, the corporate world is rapidly changing, and the top-down military-style corporate structure of yesterday is being replaced by a more collaborative and team-oriented environment, which plays into the strengths of women. Technology is also making careers easier for women, as it is now far easier to work from home when needed, which actually benefits both men and women. Women may also be helped by current share prices. Catalyst, a New York City–based nonprofit aimed at advancing women in business, recently found that among Fortune 500 companies, the more women in the company's top management circles, the better that company's financial results. "Particularly in engineering, you get better results if you have diversity," says Shanahan. "You make better products, you make better decisions."
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Construction Employment Drops Again as 35,000 Workers Lose Jobs in May, While Sector's Unemployment Rate Stays Above 20 Percent
Associated General Contractors of America (06/04/10)

The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) reports that construction employment fell in May as 35,000 workers were let go, negating most of the industry's gains in the preceding two months. "Growing stimulus activity was clearly offset by weak private sector demand and diminished state and local construction budgets last month," notes AGC economist Ken Simonson. "Unfortunately, construction employment is likely to remain both relatively low and unstable until at least early 2011." The construction unemployment rate slipped from 21.7 percent to 20.1 percent between April and May 2010. However, with close to 2 million construction workers jobless, Simonson observes that the industry's unemployment rate was still more than twice that of the national rate and was the highest May rate since the series began in 1976. Nonresidential construction employment constituted more than four out of five of the jobs lost in construction in May, and AGC officials point out that developer-funded construction investments, including office, retail, and multi-family residential, are down substantially this year. Officials note that private sector construction demand will probably stay weak for many additional months in view of high vacancy rates, and they project that state and local construction demand will remain soft for even longer given most state and municipal governments' budget shortages. They have advised Congress and the Obama administration to exploit low construction costs by acting on held-up infrastructure bills, such as the six-year surface transportation legislation. "With construction prices low, now is the perfect time for Washington to modernize the nation's aging transportation, water, and building infrastructure," argues AGC CEO Stephen Sandherr.
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