The Tennessee Valley Authority announced on Oct. 4 that it hired France’s AREVA to begin preliminary steps to complete the 1,200-megawatt Unit 1 at the mothballed Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station in Hollywood, Ala. Photo: Courtesy Of Tennessee Valley Authority French contractor will restart TVA’s idle powerplant project. Jarret Adams, a spokesman in the design firm’s Bethesda, Md., office, says AREVA’s contract includes the plant’s nuclear island, digital instrumentation, control system and control room. “This contract is for the preliminary engineering only,” Adams says. “It’s … preliminary and only covers fiscal year 2011. Our contract is a portion of the $248

Transmission Developers Inc. says it has started talks with two large Canadian power developers that are interested in moving power over TDI’s proposed $1.9-billion transmission line from Canada to New York. The Toronto-based developer plans to build the 355-mile Champlain Hudson Power Express, a high-voltage, direct-current line with 1,000 MW of capacity from Quebec to New York City. Donald Jessome, TDI’s president and CEO, did not name the renewable-energy projects for which his company is negotiating but described them as “projects already built or currently being built.” TDI expects to begin construction of the merchant line in September 2011 and

The U.S. Energy Dept., the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington State Dept. of Ecology on Oct. 6 asked a federal district court in Spokane, Wash., to approve a 2009 agreement that would give DOE many more years to clean up 53 million gallons of radioactive waste still in 149 leaking single-shell tanks at the Hanford nuclear-waste site near Richland. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the pact “represents an important milestone in the ongoing cleanup efforts” there, but environmentalists urged the court to reject it, saying the agreement would delay cleanup. The agreement would extend some tank-waste cleanup deadlines

Preliminary investigation points to unsuitable dam foundations as a potential cause of Hungary’s Oct. 4 tailings dam collapse. Seven people died, 150 were injured, and approximately 1,000 hectares of land were polluted heavily by caustic “red mud” surging from an alumina plant at Ajka, say Interior Ministry officials. Phot: AP/WideWorld Hungarian emergency teams appear to have saved the Raba, Moson-Danube and Danube rivers from the caustic pollution. But heightened pH levels caused by the sludge devastated fish populations in the Marcal River, according to government officials. Hungary’s other tailings dams are under investigation. Interior Ministry officials estimate that more than

Like the London Bridge of the nursery rhyme, the Willamette Bridge is coming down. Under its $140-million general contract, Hamilton Construction Co., Springfield, Ore., orchestrated a complex and eco-friendly demolition for the Oregon Dept. of Transportation’s fair lady. The 2,000-ft-long box-girder bridge, built in 1962, was a key Interstate 5 link between Eugene and Springfield until shear cracks were found in 2002. Truck traffic had to be diverted by 200 miles until a temporary structure could be built in 2004. Eugene-based subcontractor Staton Cos. earlier this year completed demolition of the old bridge, starting with construction of a 120-ft-wide wood-and-steel

After several years of languishing, the performing-arts center at Ground Zero, part of the master plan for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center, is getting a boost, thanks to an agreement to create a $100-million fund to finance the project. Under the pact announced earlier this month, the center and several other projects would benefit from federal funds designated for Lower Manhattan.

President Obama has repeated his call for higher federal spending on infrastructure, stating that U.S funding has fallen behind levels in China, Russia and other countries and declaring, "We can no longer afford to sit still." Related Links: Full text of President Obama's remarks U.S. Treasury Dept. Economic Infrastructure Analysis In the latest in a series of statements pushing public-works spending, Obama said on Oct. 11, that "our infrastructure is woefully inefficient and it is outdated." His Rose Garden comments were accompanied by the release of a Treasury Dept.-Council of Economic Advisers report outlining the benefits of higher public-works funding.

In an announcement that could jump-start offshore wind development along the Atlantic seaboard, Google and investment firms Good Energies, New York, and Marubeni Corp., Tokyo, said Oct. 12 that they are backing the development of a 350-mile underwater high-voltage DC transmission line from of Northern New Jersey to Norfolk, Va. The line, being developed by Chevy Chase, Md.�based Trans-Elect, would provide a transmission backbone linking several different offshore wind farms off the coasts of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey, and add up to 6,000 MW to the Atlantic grid from wind farms. Construction of the first phase of the

The construction of a new $10-billion nuclear reactor in Maryland seem to be dead after Constellation Energy told the Dept. of Energy that it is no longer interested in negotiating a federal loan guarantee to support the project. In a letter to DOE, Constellation said it was unable to continue negotiations after it was presented with a “shockingly high estimate” of the fee the company and its joint-venture partner, Electricite de France, would have to pay to obtain the loan—$880 million. “Such a sum would clearly destroy the project’s economics (or the economics of any nuclear project for that matter),

The Dept. of Interior on Oct. 12 lifted a July 12 moratorium on deepwater drilling for offshore operators that can comply with new and existing offshore regulations and demonstrate the availability of adequate blowout containment resources. “The oil and gas industry will be operating under tighter rules, stronger oversight, and in a regulatory environment that will remain dynamic as we continue to build on the reforms we have already implemented,” said Interior Dept. Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday. Deepwater drilling was banned following the April 20 explosion on BP’s Mancondo well that left 11 dead and millions of gallons of