Hydro-Quebec broke ground last month for its Romaine Complex, a $6.5-billion hydropower project comprising four rockfill dams on the Romaine River, ranging in height from 34 m to 114 m and generating a total of 1,550 MW. The first powerplant will be commissioned in 2014, with final completion scheduled for 2020. The workforce is expected to peak at 2,000 between 2012 and 2016. The river is 500 miles east of Quebec City and flows into the Saint Lawrence River.

The board of Tampa Bay Water has approved staff recommendations for an estimated $125-million repair program for the agency’s four-year-old, 15.5-billion-gallon C.W. “Bill” Young Regional Reservoir. The earthen structure, which cost roughly $140 million to build, has been experiencing significant cracking since late 2006. Image + Source: Tampa Bay Water Cracking problem seems to be centered in erosion-control system, officials say. The authority also is moving ahead with a lawsuit against the three lead members of the project’s design and construction team: designer HDR, Omaha; contractor Barnard Construction Co., Bozeman, Mont.; and construction manager Construction Dynamics Group, Columbia, Md. The

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has released interim guidelines for its much-awaited High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Planning Grants program, which includes $8 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act aid and other federal high-speed and intercity rail funds. States now must hustle to apply for the money, because FRA has set a July 10 deadline for filing "pre-application" forms. Related Links: DOT High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program Guidelines The first round of the rail grants will be awarded by mid-September, based on merit. In its guidance document, released June 17, FRA says projects will be evaluated and rated according

A joint venture between TAV Construction, based in Istanbul, and Consolidated Contractors Group, based in Athens, has won a $1.17-billion contract to expand Muscat International Airport, formerly Seeb International Airport, in Oman. The expansion includes a 240,000-sq-meter terminal building, runway, control tower and a rail link to the existing terminal. Work is expected to be completed by 2011. The project manager is a joint venture of France’s Aeroports de Paris and Pakistan’s National Engineering Services Pakistan & Partners.

The U.S. Energy Dept. says it will build a flagship clean-coal powerplant in Illinois, reversing a previous Bush administration move to scrap the ambitious FutureGen project in favor of smaller carbon-capture and -storage projects (CCS) around the U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and his industry partner, the FutureGen Industrial Alliance, a group of 20 leading power utilities and coal companies, reached agreement on the project: a 275-MW integrated gasification combined-cycle powerplant that could cost between $1.3 billion and $1.8 billion. The plant will be sited in Mattoon, Ill., 180 miles south of Chicago, and will be the first commercial-scale, coal-fired

Citing a need for smaller and more affordable nuclear reactors, Babcock & Wilcox Co. is developing a self-contained, modular 125-MW nuclear reactor to be built in its U.S. plants and shipped by rail to construction sites. B&W would like to secure turnkey contracts with utilities to manufacture and install the reactors, says Christofer Mowry, president and chief executive officer of the new Lynchburg, Va.-based division of Babcock & Wilcox, B&W Modular Nuclear Energy LLC. Photo: The Babcock & Wilcox Co. Four reactors combine for 500 MW. An array of the 15-ft-dia x 75-ft-tall modules could create small and mid-sized nuclear

By 2016, a solar satellite could begin beaming up to 4,000 MW a year via microwave to a receiving station in Fresno, Calif., now that Solaren Corp. has signed a 200-MW power sales contract with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Solaren, Manhattan Beach, Calif., is still designing the system, but plans call for an array of geosynchronous orbiting mirrors several miles wide to focus sunlight onto photovoltaic cells. An amplifier will convert the electrical power into a microwave beam aimed at a ground receiving station in Fresno County, where it will be converted to AC power and fed into the

The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) has chosen a site for permanent storage of highly adioactive spent fuel from Swedish plants. The site, near Forsmark, is 75 kilometers north of Stockholm. Estimated to cost between $2.5 billion and $3.2 billion, the repository includes 50 km of tunnels in granite bedrock 500 meters underground, requiring the excavation of 1.8 million cu m of rock. Spent fuel would reside in 25-tonne copper-coated canisters, surrounded by a buffer of bentonite clay that would act as a watertight barrier. SKB plans to submit two applications to Swedish environmental and nuclear authorities

After a delay lasting two years, construction began last month on a $2-billion chemical plant in Zhangzhou, in China’s Fujian Province. The plant site is on the Gulei peninsula, 50 miles from Zhangzhou, a city with 4 million people. Officials in neighboring Xiamen, the original site, cancelled the project in 2007 following protests over potential pollution and health problems. Central-government agencies reassessed the project, and in January the Ministry of Environmental Protection approved an environmental impact review. The plant owner is Tenglong Aromatic PX Co. Ltd., whose parent company is the Xianglu Group, from Taiwan. The plant will produce paraxylene

Zaha Hadid Architects, London, has unveiled its plan for a 525,000-sq-meter office and retail development in New Cairo, Egypt, a satellite district east of Cairo. The Stone Towers development will include 18 office buildings containing 28,000 employees and 1,400 luxury apartments within a 45-acre site surrounding sunken gardens. The project owner is the Rooya Group. New Cairo is already home to 350,000 residents and is targeted as a hub for multinationals living in Egypt. New Cairo’s population is projected to reach 2 million by 2020. Photo: Zaha Hadid Architects