ACEC Weekly NewsLine
July 21, 2010

Energy

Report Projects 250 Percent Increase in Renewable Power by 2025
Grid Sets Electric Cars' Green Standard
New Rules May Cloud the Outlook for Biomass
Stimulus Funding For Clean Energy Raised Most Co-investment from Private Sector

Land/Buildings

Measuring the Green in Greenspace
U.S. Green Building Market Will More Than Double by 2015, Report Says

Water

Utility Mapping Has Growing Impact on Damage Prevention

Transportation

Movement on the Sound
National Intelligent Transportation Vision Begins to Take Shape
New Rule Increases Railway Bridge Safety, Strengthens Federal Oversight
Roads to Ruin: Towns Rip Up the Pavement
LaHood Announces FHWA's Largest Highways Noise Reduction Initiative
Some Cities Want Fewer Roadways, Not More

Other

New Orleans Corps of Engineers Defends Using 'Sacrificial' Steel for Pilings
Recycled Cigarette Butts Can Keep Steel From Rusting

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Report Projects 250 Percent Increase in Renewable Power by 2025
RenewablesBiz (07/02/10) Opalka, Bill

A new study quantifies the pace of renewables growth going forward in IHS Emerging Energy Research's "U.S. RPS Markets and Utility Strategies: 2010-2025." IHS estimates that cumulative demand across all states with renewable portfolio standards (RPS) will grow from an expected 137 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2010 to 479 TWh by 2025, an increase of approximately 250 percent by 2025. The United States' renewables market has experienced explosive growth since 2005, doubling from 30 gigawatts (GW) then to over 60 GW at the end of 2009. "With increasing challenges including low power pricing and uncertain federal policies, escalating RPS demand will define the timing and location of renewables growth across the U.S. over the next few years," says IHS Renewable Power Research Director Alex Klein. The study finds that RPS policies are estimated to require more than 1,000 investor-owned utilities, load-serving entities, and competitive retail suppliers to procure renewable power over the next decade. Beginning in 2010, significantly escalating RPS demand will create gradually intensifying compliance pressure across the United States. Signing power purchase agreements will remain the predominant mechanism for utility RPS compliance, expected to account for approximately 70 percent of total renewables added to the U.S. supply mix over the next three years, according to the study. Spurred on by long-term transparent state mandates, utilities are increasingly moving toward development and ownership of renewable assets in several key renewable markets such as the Midwest, Northwest and California. According to the study, state RPSs would be significantly strengthened if complemented by a federal RPS or energy policy that addresses transmission bottlenecks and siting issues on federal lands, both of which will be critical to sustaining renewables growth toward the middle of the next decade.
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Stimulus Funding For Clean Energy Raised Most Co-investment from Private Sector
Government Executive (07/10) Peters, Katherine

A report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers measuring the effects of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the second quarter of 2010 found that spending and tax incentives in clean energy had generated the largest co-investment from the private sector, noting, "A federal contribution of $46 billion will support more than $150 billion in total investments in energy efficiency, renewable generation, research and other areas of the transformation to a clean energy future." Through the Recovery Act's Energy Cash Assistance program, individuals and businesses that install certain types of renewable energy generation can receive a grant equal to 30 percent of the project's cost. The program has so far disbursed $4.7 billion, supporting more than $13 billion in total investment activity, according to the report. The report also noted the private sector has invested $6 billion in smart grid projects aimed at creating more efficient electricity use as a result of $4.5 billion in spending under the Recovery Act. The report specifically examined the effect extensions of tax credits and cash assistance grants had on wind energy production in 2009, and concluded the Recovery Act bolstered generation 20 percent and generated substantial private sector investment. "It appears that government support was responsible for about 6,000 megawatts of wind capacity installation that might not otherwise have occurred," the report stated. "Moreover, the challenging credit conditions during 2009 and the introduction of the [cash assistance] grant program in the Recovery Act suggest that the overall effect on wind capacity installation may have been even larger."
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Grid Sets Electric Cars' Green Standard
San Francisco Chronicle (07/19/10) Baker, David

Interest in electric cars continues to increase as the nation looks for ways to fight global warming and reduce dependence on oil. However, electric cars are only as green as the power grid that supplies their juice. Even when power plant emissions are included, electric cars still pump far less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than do their gasoline-burning brethren, analysts say. "In California, you plug into the grid with an electric vehicle, and you're going to see a two-thirds reduction in your global warming pollution," says Roland Hwang, transportation program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's a big benefit." The amount of greenhouse gas emissions saved by electric cars varies widely from state to state. California's grid is relatively carbon-free, drawing 14.4 percent of its electricity in 2008 from nuclear plants, 11 percent from large hydroelectric dams and 10.6 percent from renewable sources such as geothermal plants and wind farms, according to the California Energy Commission. More than 45 percent of the state's electricity comes from burning natural gas, which produces less carbon dioxide than coal. Many states in the Midwest or Southeast, however, rely heavily on coal. There, electric cars will still produce fewer emissions than gasoline vehicles, but the difference won't be as great. "A Tesla in Georgia would give you about the same greenhouse gas emissions as a good Prius," says Hwang. "You're not going backward, but you're only doing as well as a Prius." The Natural Resources Defense Council, using data from the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Air Resources Board, estimates that a typical gas-powered car produces 465 grams of carbon dioxide per mile. Electric cars feeding off of California's power grid produce 142 grams per mile. Electric cars plugged into the grid elsewhere in the country - drawing power from the nation's average mix of natural gas, coal and nuclear plants - produce 214 grams of carbon dioxide per mile. Energy analysts say the benefits of electric cars will increase as the use of renewable power grows.
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New Rules May Cloud the Outlook for Biomass
New York Times (07/10/10) P. B1; Zeller Jr., Tom

Biomass power plants are growing in the United States, and states such as California, Michigan, and Maine operate a number of plants that qualify for renewable energy tax credits or other benefits. But Massachusetts is debating the environmental benefits of biomass, and new rules that will limit the projects that will receive renewable energy incentives there. If other states, or Congress, follows Massachusetts, it could hurt biomass developers and states trying to meet renewable energy requirements. The new proposals would require the projects to have large near-term greenhouse gas dividends and definitions of "residues" and "waste wood." The state also plans to create carbon accounting rules for biomass power, and back plants that produce power and heat because they are more efficient. The new provisions in Massachusetts come after a recent study commissioned by the state that shows that regulation is needed to stop biomass development from having a negative effect on New England forests and the climate in general. "Our policy should reflect this current science by moving to support the development and operation of facilities that have the greenhouse gas profile needed to fulfill our emission-reduction mandates," says Massachusetts secretary for energy and environmental affairs Ian A. Bowles. Biomass industry officials are concerned new rules could hurt renewable energy goals, but environmentalists are happy with the standards because they will protect forests and create responsible development of electricity produced from biomass.
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U.S. Green Building Market Will More Than Double by 2015, Report Says
Fast Company (07/10) Schwartz, Ariel

The most recent issue of EL Insights reports that the U.S. green building market value will jump from $71.1 billion now to $173 billion by 2015. Commercial green building is expected to grow by 18.1 percent annually during the same time period, from $35.6 billion to $81.8 billion. In the report, green building is defined as building with resource use and employee productivity in mind. The high project growth is attributed to a growing recognition of green building's potential cost savings and incentives from the government, like the multi-million dollar Sustainable Communities Challenge Planning Grant program and the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant program. Green renovation is also expected to be a major part of future green building, largely due to government projects like the Recovery through Retrofit initiative, which offers $80 billion in energy and environmental retrofits for federal buildings. Green building growth will create many changes in the greater building market, according to EL Insights. For example, construction workers will increasingly pursue green training programs, companies will spend more money on green building technology, and homes with green features will do better on the real estate market. These changes will lead to cost savings for building and home owners, who will benefit from lower energy and heating bills.
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Measuring the Green in Greenspace
American City & County (06/01/10) Vol. 125, No. 6, P. 44; Kapp, Amy

The issuance of the U.S.'s first rating system for the cultivation and maintenance of sustainable landscapes was announced by the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) in November 2009, and the U.S. Green Building Council anticipates embedding the rating system's guidelines and performance benchmarks into future versions of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System. "We are moving away from an oil economy to a carbon economy ... an element we need to pay attention to for the future of life on the planet," says landscape architect Jose Alminana. "Carbon markets will develop themselves and it will be a different economy, and landscapes will have significant value. Parks will be seen as tremendously valuable greening structures for cities." The SITES rating system will be tested over the next several years using 175 public and private projects throughout the nation, with the results utilized to form assessments, recognize problems, and adjust the system. The rating system urges a comprehensive evaluation of a site, including soils, vegetation, recycling of materials, and construction techniques. "The SITES rating system should lead to a greater understanding of the value of parks and recreation areas because of the critical roles those landscapes play in the ecosystem and their positive impact on health and welfare," says American Society of Landscape Architects CEO Nancy Somerville. "And, placing a higher value on these landscapes should lead to greater investment."
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Utility Mapping Has Growing Impact on Damage Prevention
Trenchless Technology (06/10) Vol. 19, No. 6, P. 38; Peterson, Ron

Utility mapping can be a valuable damage prevention tool as increasing numbers of utility companies locate their facilities underground. Instilling accuracy in utility mapping involves meshing all available technologies to develop a suite of services designed to meet and surpass the mapping needs of any utility or municipality. The precise locations of underground facilities can be determined through subsurface utility engineering, while traditional electromagnetic instruments can be used to pinpoint metallic lines. The involvement of nonmetallic facilities may dictate the use of various options, such as acoustical locators, ground penetrating radar, and radar tomography. Most underground utilities can be located through a combination of these technologies with global positioning systems, furnishing X and Y coordinates. Vacuum excavation is then employed to supply exact X, Y, and Z coordinates. No matter what collection technique is utilized, the next step after acquisition of field data is its insertion into a mapping system. Geographic information systems can provide not just the mapping solutions, but also can store almost limitless volumes of data. Utilities and their locators should cultivate lines of communication so that a method to relay errors or omissions regarding existing maps is provided.
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New Rule Increases Railway Bridge Safety, Strengthens Federal Oversight
U.S. Department of Transportation (07/14/10)

Federal Railroad Administrator (FRA) Joseph Szabo recently announced a new rule requiring railroad track owners to adopt and follow specific procedures for ensuring the safety of their bridges, as well as a strengthening of federal oversight of railroad bridge maintenance programs. The new rule is a requirement under the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008. "This Final Rule will help ensure the 100,000 railroad bridges in the United States are maintained and inspected to the standards accepted by sound engineering practices," says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "The structural integrity of bridges that carry railroad tracks is vitally important to the safety of railroad employees and to the public." The rule requires track owners to implement bridge management programs including at least annual inspections of railroad bridges, knowing the safe capacity load of bridges, and conducting special inspections if the weather or other conditions warrant additional inspections. The rule also requires an inventory of all railroad bridges, audits of bridge management programs, and inspections by the FRA. Railroad companies must also maintain design documents for each bridge to document all repairs, modifications, and inspections. Szabo notes that there has not been a single fatality, and only nine injuries, caused by the structural failure of a railroad bridge, and that most older bridges in the U.S. were designed to carry loads far heavier than today's trains. However, Szabo goes on to say that the Final Rule will institutionalize best engineering and inspection practices for all railroad bridges, and give the FRA greater enforcement authority to continue the record of excellence.
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LaHood Announces FHWA's Largest Highways Noise Reduction Initiative
Federal Highway Administration Release (07/13/10)

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood recently announced a new rule that will help reduce highway noise for people living and working near major roads. The rule is the largest noise reduction ever required by the Federal Highway Administration, and the first major update to its noise abatement rules since the mid-1990s. "Reducing the noise of traffic and highway construction improves the quality of life for people living and working in communities near major roadways and just makes sense," says LaHood. Increases in traffic, particularly in urban areas, have made stronger noise reduction standards necessary. The new rule establishes more consistent federal noise management standards for states. Currently, there is a great deal of variation and no minimum standard for the reduction of road noise. Noise reduction strategies include sound walls near high-volume traffic and highway construction. The new rule, which only applies to federal-aid highway projects, will reduce noise levels by 7 A-weighted decibels (dBA) or more. On average, a normal conversation is 60 dBA and a vacuum cleaner operating at 10 feet away is generally 70 dBA. On highways, noise can often be measured at 90 dBA, but it is more often in the upper 70s in nearby neighborhoods. "We are not eliminating road noise," says Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez, "but, for the first time, we are strengthening regulations which will reduce it and help to make communities more livable." Development of the new rule started in 2007, and the rule reflects the input of environmental noise technical and policy specialists from across the country. States will have 12 months to ensure their noise abatement procedures and standards follow the new rule.
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Movement on the Sound
Point of Beginning (06/10) Gouvin, Pierre

Special boring machines used to excavate tunnels in urban environments are being used in Seattle as part of a long-range, capital investment plan called Sound Transit. Starting in 2011, the tunnel-boring machines will excavate a 3.5 mile, twin-bored tunnel from downtown Seattle to the University of Washington as part of the first stages of the construction. Tunneling under Interstate 5, a major artery near downtown Seattle, without disturbing the highway's aging infrastructure, deep foundations, and existing utility lines, will be crucial to the projects success. In addition to measurements obtained using traditional geotechnical instruments like tiltmeters, inclinometers, and linked beam sensors, the design team requested the use of scanners integrated into a fixed monitoring systems. The result was the world's first know automated pulsed laser scanner application for near-real-time geotechnical monitoring, and the first wireless sensor network in North America. In early 2011, the tunnel-boring machine will start excavating an average of approximately 44 to 50 feet of tunnel per day, placing concrete rings that will form the exterior of the structure. Dirt from the excavation will travel through the machine and onto a conveyance system that will bring it to the surface. The data provided by the monitoring system will be used to measure the performance of the retaining structures, and provide the owner with near-real-time information on wall and structural movement.
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National Intelligent Transportation Vision Begins to Take Shape
Government Technology (06/10) Collins, Hilton

The Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission (BAMTC) is building an 800-mile express lane network in California that will create high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes that use wireless technology to monitor traffic. BAMTC plans to use wireless technology developed by the U.S. Department of Transportation's IntelliDrive project to automatically detect how many passengers are in a vehicle, give drivers estimated commute times, and calculate the charge toll fees. IntelliDrive was developed by DOT's Research and Innovative Technology Administration's ITS Joint Program Office, which is working on vehicle-to-vehicle projects involving wireless communication between vehicles and vehicle-to-infrastructure projects involving wireless communication between vehicles and surrounding structures. "IntelliDrive requires each vehicle to have an onboard unit, like a personal navigation device, where you have lots of time and space to communicate information to the driver," says BAMTC project manager Janet Banner. IntelliDrive also supports SafeTrip-21, a California Department of Transportation initiative to use technology to reduce congestion and improve safety. SafeTrip-21 software enables users to receive data and incident reports for traffic arteries. "We wanted to do something near term that could be useful to a large population," says Jim Misener, executive director of California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways at the University of California, Berkeley, which worked on SafeTrip-21. "SafeTrip-21 was the bridge between now and the future."
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Roads to Ruin: Towns Rip Up the Pavement
Wall Street Journal (07/17/10) Etter, Lauren

As states and counties are being forced to cut back on spending and find savings, many are abandoning paved roads in favor of gravel, even going so far as to tear up asphalt roads and process the material into a gravel-like substance to be redeployed. In Stutsman County, N.D., some roads had become so deteriorated that residents reported seeing ducks floating in pothole puddles. Old Highway 10 became so bad that the cost of repaving became too great, so the county spent $400,000 on an RM300 Caterpillar rotary mixer to grind up the road, turning it into an old country road like it once was. Many paved roads, considered by many a symbol of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and being replaced with gravel and other rough surfaces. In Michigan, at least 38 of the 83 counties have converted some asphalt roads to gravel, and last year South Dakota turned at least 100 miles of asphalt road surfaces into gravel. Counties in Alabama and Pennsylvania have downgraded asphalt roads to cheaper chip-and-seal roads, also known as "poor man's pavement." This trend has angered some residents, because of the dust and damaging stones gravel roads can kick up, as well as the "washboard" effect of driving on rutted gravel. Rebuilding or repaving asphalt roads now is particularly expensive, as the price of asphalt cement, a petroleum-based material mixed with rocks to make asphalt, has more than doubled over the past 10 years. Some experts warn that gravel roads are more expensive in the long run because gravel needs to be graded and smoothed. Others are worried that the gravel roads will hurt business, as tourists in classic cars or on motorcycles will avoid gravel roads.
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Some Cities Want Fewer Roadways, Not More
Marketplace (07/14/10)

New freeways, highways, and road expansion projects are a major part of the stimulus plan, but many urban areas are actually looking to reduce the number of roads in their area, including tearing down highways and freeways. The White House says the stimulus package has created about 3 million jobs in the past year, many of which are in infrastructure construction, including building and fixing bridges and highways. New York architect Michael Sorkin says three levels of traffic, including the FDR Drive, an interchange to get people onto the Brooklyn Bridge that runs over FDR Drive, and finally the Brooklyn Bridge, is unnecessarily complicated, and tearing down a section of the elevated highway, the on-ramps, and the cloverleafs, would allow people to actually see the Brooklyn Bridge, one of the most beautiful architectural achievements in history. Tearing down these highway elements would also make room for parks, plazas, and restaurants. While the idea of tearing down existing infrastructure sounds crazy, it is becoming increasingly popular across the country. In Cleveland, the city is planning to convert a lake-front expressway to a boulevard by 2012, and Seattle is looking to tear down a double-deck highway by the same year. In the 1970s, New York tore down a crumbling highway. Sam Schwartz, the NYC Department of Transportation chief engineer at the time, says people panicked, but removing the highway increased public transit use. San Francisco lost freeways in the 1989 earthquake, and engineers found that traffic volume fell from 93,000 cars a day to to 45,000. John Norquist, mayor of Milwaukee from 1988 to 2004 and current president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, a group that promotes denser communities, says in 2002, when he tore down the Park East Freeway, congestion did not jump, but traffic instead dispersed around city streets and business activity in the area went up. So far, New York has not endorsed any plans to dismantle the southern tip of the FDR Drive, but around the country a growing number of mayors and governors are considering urban highway teardowns as the key to development.
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New Orleans Corps of Engineers Defends Using 'Sacrificial' Steel for Pilings
New Orleans Times-Picayune (LA) (07/14/10) Grissett, Sheila

Months of interagency debate have not resolved concerns that a decision by the Army Corps of Engineers not to coat steel pilings to protect against rust will, at best, burden local levee districts with greater maintenance demands, and, at worst, shorten the life of pilings being driven to stop seepage and stabilize floodwalls. Instead of coating the thousands of pilings being used in several projects in Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard parishes, the Corps is using slightly thicker pilings, which are intended to have a "sacrificial layer" of steel that will corrode down to designed thickness. The Corps argues that using thicker steel is an acceptable industry practice that will provide plenty of protection, and will last beyond the required minimum 50-year lifespan for floodwalls and other hard structures that has been implemented since Katrina. Levee and state coastal authorities argue that if the Corps is wrong the integrity of the flood protection system could be at risk. State coastal and regional levee executives have asked for independent peer reviews of the practice. If a peer review team decides the extra one-eighth inch of steel is not sufficient, Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority president Tim Doody says the corps would have to come back with a retrofit or remedial response, because uncoated pilings are already being driven into the ground. Corps representatives point out some old sections of untreated pilings pulled up following Hurricane Katrina that did not rust over the last 30 years, though levee officials have also identified pilings that have rusted.
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Recycled Cigarette Butts Can Keep Steel From Rusting
USA Today (07/08/10) Steinberg, Stephanie

A new study suggests that nine chemicals in cigarette butts can help prevent steel from rusting, prompting a New York state lawmaker to propose a cigarette butt recycling program. The study was conducted by doctoral student Jun Zhao and colleagues at Xi'an Jiaotong University in China. The researchers submerged cigarette butts in water to create an extract that was applied to N80 steel. The researchers estimate that millions of dollars could be saved annually by reducing the oil industry's need to repair corroded steel. The study says that roughly 4.5 trillion cigarette butts pollute the environment annually. New York State Assemblyman Michael DenDekker has proposed legislation to establish at least one recycling facility in each county in New York, with consumers receiving a 1 cent refund per cigarette.
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