More than two million Muslims travel to Mecca each year to participate in the annual Hajj, or pilgrimage, which takes place over six days. To improve traffic movement, the Saudi government will build an 18-kilometer-long monorail system linking the pilgrimage sites. Trains on four elevated tracks will carry up to 20,000 pilgrims per hour, transporting as many as 500,000 pilgrims every six to eight hours. According to a report issued by the Supreme Hajj Committee, once the monorail is operating it will allow for removal of 53,000 buses and other vehicles. The monorail is being built by China Railway Construction

Only the giant cruise ships sidled up against the riverbank offer any hint of what lies below Shanghai’s newest stretch of green along the Huangpu River in the resurgent North Bund district. The Shanghai Port International Cruise Terminal Development Co. Ltd. wanted its 30,000-sq-meter passenger terminal, which had its soft opening last year, to disappear below grade, except for an iconic, 4,000-sq-m observatory on stilts that resembles either a bubble, spaceship or a giant bug. The public owner, part of the Shanghai port authority, wanted the world’s first underground cruise terminal to be topped by a park. Slide Show Photo:

Four big consortiums are due next month to begin calculating bids for the estimated $1.9 billion of tunneling work on the next 15.5-kilometer underground extension of Denmark’s Copenhagen metro, the Cityringen line. As arbitrators continue grappling with $385 million in claims for extra payment over the system’s seven-year-old first phase, Copenhagen officials plan to start work on Cityringen by next summer. By bidding construction of Cityringen’s 17 stations separately from the tunneling work, project owner Metroselskabet hopes to avoid the sort of dispute that reportedly impeded progress on early phases, says procurement project manager Jens Gravgaard. Photo: Metroselskabet More test

Geothermal energy experts are playing down worries about the threat of induced seismicity connected with enhanced or engineered geothermal systems (EGS) following news reports about an earthquake apparently caused by an EGS project in Germany. The project in the western German city of Landau in der Pfalz is continuing operation while a panel of experts evaluates data from the mid-August magnitude-2.7 temblor. Officials of Geox GmbH, the plant’s owner, deny the temblor was caused by their plant. +Image Photo: AltaRock Energy Inc. Enhanced Geothermal System Globally, about 9,000 MW of geothermal projects are operating today. Most of them tap water

The Maryland Energy Administration encouraged wind-energy developers on Sept. 15 when it issued a request for expressions of interest for future projects. “We have very significant wind off the Maryland coast, and we want to look into cost-effective ways to build offshore wind parks,” says Malcolm Woolf, agency director. The state seeks information to assist it in developing options, including financing, technologies, water depths and preferred capacities, he says. However, Maryland won’t consider wind parks in the Chesapeake Bay, Woolf says. He adds it could take at least two years before construction could start on the first offshore wind park.

Son La Dam, located on the Da River in northern Vietnam, will be the largest hydropower project in Southeast Asia when it is completed in 2012. Under construction since 2005, the roller-compacted-concrete dam will measure 139 meters tall, 900 m long and 4.8 million cu m in total volume. Installed capacity will be 2,400 MW. Over 5,000 workers were on-site by May 2009. Electricitie de Vietnam (EVN) is the owner. Colenco Power Engineering Ltd. (Switzerland) was responsible for design. SMEC International (Australia) is the lead construction supervision partner, along with Nippon Koei and J-Power of Japan. Song Da No. 9

Federal agencies have released seven draft reports aimed at creating a framework for the cleanup of Chesapeake Bay. Among the recommendations are new, more stringent regulations for controlling stormwater runoff and stricter enforcement of existing regulations. Despite efforts over the past 25 years to clean up the Chesapeake, the bay remains severely polluted with nitrogen and phosphorous from urban and agricultural runoff. The landmark Chesapeake Bay agreement—a voluntary pledge signed in 2000 by the governors of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia as well as by the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the mayor of Washington, D.C.—was the first

The Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), a not-for-profit applied research group supported by property insurers, issued a study of property damage from last September’s strike of Hurricane Ike near Galveston, Texas. It concludes that significantly more Gulf Coast homes and businesses are at risk of disastrous flooding from such storm surges than previously recognized. Photo: The Institute for Business and Home Safety Related Links: Damage Report: Study Claims Codes Are Still Weak The federal National Flood Insurance Program’s base flood-elevation requirement for homes on the area ranged from 13 ft for homes built in the 1970s and 17

The governing board of the South Florida Water Management District on Sept. 17 is scheduled to vote on a $12-million claim settlement for canceling the construction of the 25-sq-mile Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir A-1. The district canceled the project late last year, anticipating the state’s planned purchase of U.S. Sugar Corp.’s property in the Everglades Agricultural Area south of Lake Okeechobee would result in substantial revisions of the plans for Everglades restoration. The district suspended construction on the reservoir in May 2008, citing uncertainty over its ability to continue constructing it because of a lawsuit by environmental groups against the

After years of controversy and a total redesign, Forest City Ratner Cos., the developer of the Atlantic Yards megadevelopment in Brooklyn, N.Y., says it expects to begin construction of the development's centerpiece, an arena for the NETS basketball team, later this year. Ratner "anticipates" opening the facility, called Barclays Center, for the 2011-12 basketball season. Photo: SHoP Architects and Ellerbe Becket Redesigned basketball arena in Brooklyn. Ratner released renderings Sept. 10 of the redesign by Ellerbe Becket in collaboration with SHoP Architects. The original architect was Frank Gehry. Under the new design, the 675,000-sq-ft arena is clad in weathered-steel and