Builders of the U.K.’s tallest skyscraper, London’s Shard, will save valuable time by excavating its three-floor basement while slipforming the core. A novel machine is now at work, plunging columns into pile tops some 15 meters below ground to prop up the rising core as soil beneath is removed. Slide Show Photo: Peter Reina / ENR The small site sits hard against the busy London Bridge railroad hub. Related Links: Top Down To Speed Shard Building With the core on the critical path, “the month or two” top-down exercise is “giving us breathing space,” says Bob Gordon, chief engineer of

The U.S. Energy Dept. said June 12 it would move forward to build a flagship clean-coal power plant in a small Illinois town, reversing a previous Bush administration decision to scrap the ambitious FutureGen project entirely in favor of smaller carbon-capture and storage projects (CCS) around the country. 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 power plant that could cost between $1.3 billion and $1.8 billion. The plant, to be sited in Mattoon, Ill.,

Under an extremely tight deadline mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, New York City is building its first-ever water filtration plant, which, once operational in 2012, will end a long, costly and often controversial saga that began nearly two decades ago. Slide Show Photo: New York Daily News / Howard Simmons Once crews have a section of the foundation set, they go vertical, resulting in a tiered site that is at base slab in some areas and roof level in others. Originally estimated at $992 million, the now $2.8-billion Croton Water Filtration Plant entailed more than 10 years of

Energy Northwest is gingerly wading back into the waters of nuclear energy. The Richland, Wash.-based not-for-profit “joint operating agency,” which supplies electricity at cost to its 25-member public utilities in Washington state, is the renamed Washington Public Supply System, which made history in 1983 with the largest municipal-bond default ever when it walked away from $2.25 billion in bonds issued to construct five nuclear powerplants. The agency now is cautiously polling its customer utilities about their interest in a new nuclear plant to come online between 2017 and 2020. The utility is considering a plant composed of six 45-MW light-water

Three years after the state of Connecticut failed to generate any bids on the nation’s first extradosed bridge project—a hybrid cable-stayed, box-girder structure—three firms now are competing for the superstructure work. The low bid is about $33 million below engineers’ estimate. Photo: URS Corp. Reduced bid package helped generate three bidders for Q bridge superstructure work. When bids were opened on June 3 for the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, known as the Q bridge because it spans the Quinnipiac River, the joint venture of Walsh Construction Co., Sharon, Mass., and PCL Civil Constructors, Tampa, Fla., was the apparent low bidder

The Highway Trust Fund is in trouble again. Last September, Congress rescued the fund’s highway account with an $8-billion injection. Now a new shortfall, estimated at $5 billion to $7 billion, is looming in August. The picture is even darker for 2010, when an additional $8 billion to $10 billion will be needed. The search is on for more revenue, but the White House is insisting that any new money for the trust fund must be offset, presumably by spending cuts or a revenue-raising mechanism. Source: Federal Highway Administration Ending balance for FY 2008 includes $8.017 billion transferred from the

Anearly 7,000-ft-long railroad bridge is undergoing an extreme $35-million makeover over the Hudson River, thanks to hundreds of precast concrete panels, community zeal and the windblown determination of engineers and contractors. When completed by October, the revamped 121-year-old Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad Bridge may be the world’s longest pedestrian bridge at 6,768 ft, say officials. Photo: Bergmann Associates Old railroad bridge will become a soaring walkway over the Hudson River when it opens later this year. Photo: Bergmann Associates Work in high winds over the river was a challenge. The historic bridge’s 3,094-ft-long, 25-ft-wide main span consists of seven trusses supported on

Much to the relief of Miami officials, the Florida Dept. of Transportation and the Miami Access Tunnel (MAT) consortium have reached agreement on commercial terms for the revived $1-billion Port of Miami Tunnel project. MAT, led by Paris-based Bouygues Publics Travaux, brought in a new French partner, Meridiam Infrastructure Finance, after its original 90% equity partner, Australia’s Babcock & Brown, bailed out late last year. FDOT approved the switch in early May. “We signed an agreement to proceed; now they have to find financing,” says Dick Kane, FDOT spokesman. The state has set a deadline of Oct. 1 for financial

Federal water-pumping in California’s Central Valley Project jeopardizes the continued existence of several threatened and endangered species, says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Fisheries Service. Changing water operations to reduce the threat will reduce water available for drinking, irrigation and industry by an estimated 5% to 7%. The cutback could lead to higher water-use rates and, depending on the level of drought, further rationing. The Bureau of Reclamation’s pumping operations will not be immediately affected.

Engineers are getting better at picking up the pieces after hurricanes and reducing the next-flood risk in devastated areas. But places vulnerable to catastrophic events generally must wait until they have been wrecked before significant risk-reduction measures are planned, funded and applied. Grand Isle berm rebuilt around geotube core. As the 2009 hurricane season opens, $14.3 billion worth of levee repairs and new defense construction is roaring ahead in the area smashed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Construction began in May on a massive, roughly $1.8-billion surge barrier to protect the southeastern flank of New Orleans, where the Corps of