ACEC Weekly NewsLine
September 1, 2010
Land/Buildings Prototype "Active House" Melds Technologies to Achieve Carbon Neutrality
Water Despite Stimulus, Water Sector Funding Gap Continues to Widen
Transportation Charlotte Incorporates Sustainable Design in 20-Year Growth Plan
Other Integrated Project Delivery Demands New Approaches to Design
Energy
USDA Awards $1.2 Billion for Rural Electric Infrastructure Improvements
U.S. Department of Agriculture (08/30/10)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that 37 rural utilities and cooperatives in 20 states have been selected to receive guaranteed loans that will benefit more than 60,000 rural electric cooperative consumers by financing the construction and repair of almost 7,000 miles of distribution and transmissions lines. "USDA is investing in electric infrastructure improvements to provide reliable and affordable power to homes and business in rural America," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "These guaranteed loans will enable cooperatives to deliver better service to rural customers." The $1.2 billion in funding is being awarded through USDA Rural Development's Electric Program.
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How to Get Prompt Payback From an Aging Icon That Guzzles Energy
New York Times (08/24/10) Dixon, Darius
In the Empire State Building in Manhattan, workers are setting up to dismantle the landmark skyscraper's 6,514 double-hung window frames to reuse the glass and make them anew. It is part of one of the country's most ambitious energy-efficiency programs. The $20 million project aims to cut the 79-year-old building's overall energy use by 38 percent while shrinking the building's carbon footprint and reducing its $11 million annual utility bill. The plan calls for the suite of upgrades to pay for itself in just three years. The energy consumed by residential and commercial buildings nationwide represents nearly 40 percent of the country's energy use and overall carbon dioxide emissions, reports the U.S. Department of Energy. The issue is especially acute in New York City, where there are about a million buildings. According to PlaNYC 2030, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's environmental program, more than 75 percent of the city's total energy consumption goes into heating and electrifying its stock of commercial and residential buildings. Only 2 percent of the buildings citywide -- about 22,000 -- are larger than 50,000 square feet. However, this more spacious variety consumes 45 percent of the city's total energy. To this end, PlaNYC states that new "green" construction cannot meaningfully address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions without addressing existing building stock.
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Land-Based Energy Projects Increase
USA Today (08/27/10) Watson, Tim
Energy companies are earning revenue by shifting employees and capital spending to land-based U.S. projects as the Obama administration continues to curtail deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The movement has the most momentum among service companies -- those that supply project infrastructure and rig maintenance, for example -- whose income is primarily dependent on active drilling projects. While an energy producer can sit on a shut-down rig while locating long-term revenue, service companies do not have that option. In the words of Apache CEO Steven Farris, "If we don't drill wells, they don't work." Some companies that have benefited from more land-based work in the three months since the moratorium went into effect include: Oilfield services behemoth Halliburton, which saw a $38 million rise in total drilling and evaluation income in the second quarter; and Schlumberger, the largest oilfield services firm, which saw North American land operations increase 36 percent in the same three-month period.
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Land/Buildings
Prototype "Active House" Melds Technologies to Achieve Carbon Neutrality
IEEE Spectrum (08/01/10) Vol. 47, No. 8, P. 34; Hansen, Ellen Kathrine
VKR Holding's Home for Life is the first prototype of Denmark's "Active House" concept, which encompasses a residence that is carbon neutral through the implementation of various technologies, including a climate control system, self-adjusting window blinds and skylights, and a roof with solar panels and collectors to produce heating and electricity. In addition, the home is constructed from building materials such as wood and slate, which can be manufactured with less energy. The house's residents can observe the dwelling's energy performance and adjust the internal climate controls via a touch-screen computer display. Through Active House installations in Denmark and elsewhere, VKR seeks to build a sustainable, affordable home that employs readily available technology to negate its impact on the environment and to promote the health and comfort of its residents. The core of the Home for Life in Denmark features doors and windows deliberately placed in a "light cross" configuration that inundates the first floor with natural light. The Home for Life is designed to use about 60 percent of the energy of a traditional single-family Danish house, and it consumes only 50 percent of the heat of an ordinary home.
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HUD Awards $312 Million in Disaster Recovery Grants to Help States Reduce Damages from Future Disasters
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (08/26/10)
U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan recently awarded almost $312 million to 13 states for them to invest in reducing human, physical, and economic loss due to future disasters. The grants are provided through the HUD's Disaster Recovery Enhancement Fund (DREF), and are intended to encourage states to adopt programs and strategies that will reduce damages caused by future natural disasters. Over the past two years, HUD has allocated over $5.6 billion to disaster recovery funding. "An ounce of prevention today can spare communities a world of hurt tomorrow," said Donovan. "We're making a serious investment in our future by making certain that when disaster strikes, the impacted communities in these states can weather the storm." A study from the National Institute of Building Sciences reports that every dollar spent on disaster mitigation activities saves taxpayers $4 in future disaster recovery expenses. The 13 states that received funding through the DREF invested nearly $876 million in disaster mitigation, which translates to a total anticipated return on investment of more than $3.5 billion. The purpose of the DREF is to reward states that invested in Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery funding through activities that reduce the risk from future disasters. HUD acknowledges that these programs are often more expensive in the short-term, but that they significantly cut recovery costs in the long-term. DREF funds can be used toward projects meeting unmet disaster recovery needs, including improvement and enforcement of building codes and the creation of land-use plans that reduce development in high-risk areas.
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Water
Despite Stimulus, Water Sector Funding Gap Continues to Widen
Water & Wastes Digest (08/10) Vol. 50, No. 8, P. 12; Simeonova, Neda; Cunningham, Caitlin
More than $12 billion dollars in stimulus funding was allocated to the water sector 18 months ago. By March 2010, over $200 billion in recovery dollars had been awarded and $62 billion received, as reported by recipients under Section 1512 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Among the water projects that stimulus money has been apportioned for are treatment plant upgrades, collection line extensions, reservoir dam repairs, and meter installations—but there are doubts that the cash infusion has helped span the U.S. water infrastructure funding chasm. "The industry has done such a good job of convincing the public that it is self-supporting that only a few percent of the stimulus funds were directed to water or wastewater projects," says consultant Edward J. Donahue III. Deferred infrastructure maintenance and regionalization represent the most substantial funding challenges facing municipal clients of Donahue's consultancy. "We routinely suggest to our clients that they need to develop a long-term plan to reinvest in infrastructure—that they need to sell this plan to the public and to regulators, and that they need to then stick to the plan," says Donahue. Fair water pricing constitutes the core of such plans. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculates that the need for water and wastewater infrastructure investment over the next 20 years is $635 billion, and some of the most pressing areas requiring attention are the replacement or renovation of buried water and wastewater infrastructure, specifically, water mains and sewage collection handling massive volumes of water. Tom Curtis with the American Water Works Association (AWWA) says that the public still does not understand the value of infrastructure investment, and as a consequence many elected officials and utility boards are hesitant to hike rates and other local charges sufficiently to tackle the investment challenge. However, hope resides with industry organizations such as the AWWA, which are working on the National Water Infrastructure Bank, a new tool designed for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects that will yield low-cost funds. If established, the bank would enable the reduction of financing costs by allowing drinking water and wastewater systems, as well as State Revolving Fund programs, to access funds at the Treasury bond rates; the bank would subsequently repay the borrowed funds with interest and limited cost to the federal government.
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Pump-less Flow Diversion
Trenchless Technology (07/10) Smith, Jon
Pump-less flow diversion was used for a new pipe connection and rehabilitation for two large interceptor structures at Sand Creek in Colorado Springs, Colo. The effluent line needed to be abandoned and the flow shifted to a new line tied into the interceptors, and a surface pump bypass would have risked a negative impact to the environmentally sensitive Sand Creek. A pump-less flow diversion system contains all of the flow within existing interceptors walls, reducing the risk of environmental impact. But because the entire diversion would have to be lowered into place horizontally, the flow was too great to push the inflatable diverters into the influent pipe, and contractors instead used a steel bypass tube with a high flow diverter at each end with inflatable rubber bladders to seal against the inside wall of the pipe and divert flow into the steel tube. Hydraulic cylinders controlled remotely extended the end bladders into the pipes, and once the new effluent pipe was connected and the channel formed, the bladders were deflated and retracted and the entire flow diversion removed. The pump-less flow diversion was rented for $42,000, while a surface bypass would have cost more than $300,000. The project was completed more quickly as well because there was no setup and tear down, saving more than 16 work days.
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Solar Thermal Water Heating: Opportunity Knocks
Plumbing Systems & Design (08/10) P. 16; Ross-Bain, Jeffrey
Water heating accounts for around 3.5 percent of all U.S. energy consumption, and there are substantial energy savings to be realized from the implementation of solar thermal systems. Whereas solar photovoltaic systems convert solar energy into electricity, solar thermal energy heats fluid for a useful purpose through the direct radiant energy of the sun. The primary applications of solar thermal systems are hot water, space heating, pool heating, and electricity production, while utility scale power generation is a growing use of solar thermal technology. Fluid heating via solar energy includes a collector for capturing solar energy, a water tank to store the energy, pipes and pumps to distribute the energy throughout the system, controllers and sensors to ensure that everything functions, and temperature- and pressure-control devices, secure mounting, and so on to ensure safety. There are three types of collectors—flat plate collectors capable of handling liquid or air, evacuated tube collectors appropriate for high temperatures, and integral collector storage or batch collectors that store water volume in a tank on the roof. There are four solar thermal system types categorized by operational attributes: Active systems where a mechanical pump circulates fluid through the systems; passive systems in which there is no pump, with fluid circulated by convection currents; direct or open-loop systems where the fluid to be used is heated directly in the collector; and indirect or closed-loop systems wherein the working fluid is heated and then circulates via a heat exchanger, where it heats the water to be used through a heat-transfer mechanism. A solar thermal water heater is not considered a replacement for a conventional water heater, but rather a supplementary system that can supply as much as 80 percent of hot water requirements. A commercial solar water heater is best implemented for large users of hot water in areas marked by costly hot water usage, such as hotels, kitchens, hospitals, prisons, and laundromats.
Transportation
Charlotte Incorporates Sustainable Design in 20-Year Growth Plan
Roads & Bridges (08/10) Vol. 48, No. 8, P. 24; Stutts, Jennifer L.
Charlotte, N.C., is using sustainable urban design principles to transform farm routes. "We're one of the first government entities to actually formalize this process, to come up with a way to document how we should go about planning and designing roadways from this point on," says Tom Sorrentino with the Charlotte Department of Transportation. He says the guidelines are designed to help plan, design, and construct better streets that will produce more sustainable neighborhoods by offering multiple transportation options and a diversity of street types and sizes that fit with the surrounding community. Charlotte has devised a Transportation Action Plan that identifies the ultimate build-out of the city over the next two decades and includes slightly less than $4 billion in transportation improvement projects. Initiatives run the gamut from major road widenings to the building of new sidewalks and bicycle facilities, all of which will comply with the city's new Urban Street Design Guidelines. The project includes redesigning Oakdale Road as a three-lane street with a planted median in some sections and left-turn lanes in others, and the addition of a curb-and-gutter, a new traffic signal at an intersecting road, bike lanes, and a sidewalk. Project manager Mark Grimshaw says the Urban Street Design Guidelines have encouraged project teams to account for all roadway elements to develop a "complete street" that better serves all users, rather than just one set of users. Following the design guidelines involves the team first identifying the existing and future land uses and transportation conditions surrounding the roadway, while the next step entails identifying deficiencies in the existing road, as well as future goals. In the final stages of the process, the team ascertains the desired street type, and then assesses trade-offs between various design elements affiliated with the street type. The result is a recommended cross-section design that is optimally aligned with the roadway and land-use context.
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Bus Rapid Transit and Land Use
Urban Land Magazine (08/10) Vol. 69, No. 8, P. 77; Peterson, Sarah Jo
Transit-oriented development (TOD) would seem to be well suited for both trains and buses. However, in the United States rail stations have not drawn the most development attention because the rail service infrastructure is perceived as both more impressive and more permanent. Bus rapid transit (BRT) has the potential to satisfy various criteria -- providing a high quality of service, traveling through permanent and impressive infrastructure, and contributing to place making -- and, in doing so, transform TOD into BRTOD. BRT is now being introduced in a number of U.S. communities following an international trend of expansion. For instance, now under construction in the Minneapolis region are two new BRT lines. They include the Cedar Avenue Transitway, a 16-mile route spanning from Lakeville to the Mall of America, where riders can transfer to the area's growing rail system. The $250 million project is constructing stations, parking facilities, and bus lanes on the shoulders of Cedar Avenue. Station-to-station service is planned to start in 2012. In its 2009 handbook, the National Bus Rapid Transit Institute identified seven elements as areas undergoing innovation as BRT emerges as a transportation alternative: running ways or corridors, stations, vehicles, fare collection, transit signal priority technologies, service and operations, and branding.
Newest in Construction Technology: GPS On Earth-Movers
Desert News (08/28/2010) Hancock, Laura
The construction site of the future Mountain View Corridor in Utah features a new technology. Huge Global Positioning System devices have been added to the equipment that is being used to grade the future road. The equipment is used to push dirt at about 7-10mph, and the operators can used computers inside their cabs to show their position in relation to where the future road will be built. "It can tell him to go to the right or left," says Copper Hills Constructors survey manager Randy Norton. "Or which corner of his blade needs to come up." The GPS computers are used to determine whether the grading is being done in the right places and at the right depth. Mountain View Corridor project director Teri Newell says the GPS helps with precision grading, which will ultimately provide drivers with a smoother ride. The GPS technology also helps reduce the time needed for the project, because operators can be confident that their blades are correctly set and they are on the correct course. GPS technology is increasingly being used in construction. The technology can either be sold with new equipment, or installed on existing equipment for about $85,000. Mountain View Corridor is a future west-side freeway that will someday connect I-80 to Lehi's Main Street. Ground was broken on the project in January 2010, and it is expected to be completed by the fall of 2011.
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Repaving Project A Testament To Technology
Nascar.com (08/25/10) Aumann, Mark
Lane Construction Corp. is a bit of an expert at paving a superspeedway. Lane Construction has done several speedway projects, including a repaving of the Talladega Superspeedway, and has been working on the Daytona International Speedway since July 5. The Daytona project involves tearing out the current asphalt, leveling the crushed rock base, and laying down a seven-inch-thick layer of new surface, all in time for Speedweeks 2011. The repaving job will cover 1.4 million square feet, and use approximately 50,000 tons of asphalt, not including new concrete pit boxes. Lane Construction has been working on highways, bridges, and airports across the country for over a century, and started working in the specialized field of speedway paving in the past decade. "When they contacted us, we obviously had to price it really quick and get everything mobilized," says Lane project manager John Rauer. "It wasn't a matter of whether we could do it in that timeframe. It was a matter of whether we could get ready to do it. That was the most challenging thing, getting ready to kick off July 5." Both Talladega and Dayton are high-banked superspeedways, which makes it difficult to keep the paving machine in place on the banking. Daytona has banks of 30 degrees. Lane uses bulldozers as counterweight, and cables and winches to hold the paver in place. The track was first paved in 1959, and a second layer was added in 1978, but in recent years small movements of the underlying layers has created a bumpy surface. To smooth out the track, everything was removed, down to the original lime rock. The paver can lay down asphalt in 40-foot wide strips, but the track is wider than that, so crews will create longitudinal joints to keep the pavement from cracking or raveling in that area.
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U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood Announces $11.6 Million in Grants for Minority- and Women-Owned Businesses
U.S. Department of Transportation (08/26/10)
The U.S. Department of Transportation has announced $11.6 million in grants to help disadvantaged business enterprises (DBEs) compete for federal highway contracts in 30 states and Puerto Rico. The grants from the Federal Highway Administration’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise/Supportive Services (DBE/SS) program provide federal aid to DBE firms to improve their ability to compete for and fulfill federal highway contracts. “Giving these small businesses the assistance they need to compete for federal highway contracts creates jobs and ultimately helps taxpayers by reducing project costs,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “Any way you look at them, these grants are a ‘win-win’ for the American people.”
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Other
Integrated Project Delivery Demands New Approaches to Design
Structural Engineering & Design (08/10) Emdanat, Samir
Most design and construction projects have traditionally involved sequential transfer of paper-based documentation, but as this only works well in the ideal—and rare—situation where there is plenty of time to fully develop, evaluate, and revise each stage, today’s complex projects require a solution like integrated project delivery (IPD) which allows design and construction teams to work simultaneously and with incomplete information. However it will require a team to step back and define a flow of information that will work for the project and the individual team’s needs, which is a first for many teams, but tremendously useful. Some best practices include to engage key stakeholders in planning the process, including design decisionmaking and the processes and technologies for sharing and evaluating design representations; redefining deliverables so that they are concrete rather than abstract; and identifying savings to avoid cycles of long-duration generic tasks followed by review tasks.
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Cement, the Glue That Holds Oyster Families Together
National Science Foundation (08/23/10); White, Tammy
Purdue University and University of South Carolina researchers have demonstrated that oysters produce a unique adhesive material for attaching themselves to each other. The material is essentially a cement and is different from other glues used by marine organisms. As we understand more about the important role oysters have in filtering water, preventing erosion, guarding coasts from storm damage, and providing habitats for other organisms, researchers have increasingly focused on how oyster reefs form and how to assist oyster re-introduction projects. Simultaneously, researchers have been studying the various adhesives used by marine animals, discovering fundamental properties that could yield new innovations such as replacements for medical sutures or surface coatings that prevent marine life from sticking to marine craft. "Our results indicate that there is a chemically distinct adhesive material holding the oysters together" says Purdue University chemist Jonathan Wilker, a lead researcher on the study. "The cement contains significantly more protein than the shell. We also observed both iron and highly oxidized, cross-linked proteins, which may play a role in curing the material." The unique oyster adhesive appears to be composed largely of chalky calcium carbonate. The researchers hope to be able to learn more about the cement's organic and inorganic components and eventually be able to create new classes of synthetic materials and adhesion-resistant surfaces.
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