Courtesy of Honeywell UOP Valero's new advanced diesel plant in Norco, La., will take in waste animal fats and grease and turn them into clean fuels. Related Links: Butanol Backers Push Retrofit Effort as Ethanol Boom Fades How Equipment Suppliers Design for Clean Diesel The last pipe and tube work is under way at Valero Energy Corp.'s new Diamond Green Diesel plant, which will create fuel from waste animal fats rather than petroleum feedstocks.Believed to be the largest plant of its kind in the world, DGD will take in some 11% of waste animal fats and grease in the U.S.
Related Links: India's Deepest Offshore Platform To Boost Oil Supply Mixed Reaction to Offshore Oil And Gas Development Delay Capital costs for a newly sanctioned oil field under development 200 miles off the coast of Newfoundland have ballooned to nearly three times the original cost estimate. But despite the $14-billion price tag for the Hebron offshore drilling project, which includes construction of a gravity-based drilling platform, senior project manager and ExxonMobil Vice President Geoff Parker says official project sanction "marks a significant milestone" for Hebron."Construction … has already begun at the Bull Arm fabrication site," Parker said in a press
Cylindrical Tokamak reactor will include some 60,000 cast-in-place elements (above). Work is under way at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in France by a VINCI-led consortium (below). Related Links: In a Test of Technology, the Largest-Ever Fusion Reactor Rises in France International Program Aims To Develop Energy Supply Without Limit Contractors for the main buildings to house the next generation of nuclear-fusion research are due this month to start receiving final designs, allowing construction to start on the 42-hectare French site this fall. The roughly $410-million contract was signed in December. Now, the main concern for the team delivering the
U.S.-led joint ventures have won multiple front-end engineering and design, or FEED, contracts to build or install Mozambique's first liquefied-natural-gas facilities, both on- and offshore, as the scramble intensifies for additional sources of energy in Africa.
Related Links: Cost Pressures, Delay Worries Sour Two Southern Co. Projects Vogtle Suppliers Continue to Miss the Mark for Quality Control Nuclear-power boosters have pinned their industry's future on the on-time and on-budget completion of the first new reactors being built in decades in Georgia. Such success, they hope, will erase memories of the over-budget and behind-schedule nuclear construction cycle of 30 years ago.But those expectations may already be falling short.In January, the watchdog groups Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) and Friends of the Earth released a report that highlights perceived problems with the $8.33-billion federal loan guarantee for
Photo Courtesy of Cianbro Corp. Facility built by Cianbro Corp. at the University of Maine, Orono, will test full-length offshore turbine blades. The 87,000-sq-ft building includes a pool in which blade stability will be analyzed in April. Related Links: Maine Surges Forward With Offshore Turbine Plans In Maine, Tidal Power Shows More Promise Maine regulators have approved construction of a 12-MW offshore wind farm, one of two offshore projects developing separate technologies to harness, by 2016, deepwater wind energy from the Gulf of Maine and link it to the state's power network.Despite earlier concerns about the cost impact on ratepayers,
Related Links: First $1.8B Leg of U.S. Offshore Wind Transmission Link Is Set Bechtel Tests the Wind for Great Lakes Alternative Energy Website of Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Takoma Park, Md. The third time could be the charm for Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's push to get state legislators to support a 200-MW offshore wind project. Passage of enabling legislation now appears likely as the primary statehouse opponent of two past efforts has exited a key committee.Two bills introduced in the House of Delegates and state Senate on Jan. 28 are substantially identical to legislation that was blocked in the Senate
Photo Courtesy of Cheniere Energy The Sabine Pass, Texas, import terminal was modified to export LNG. Most expansion plans are along the Gulf Coast. Related Links: NERA: Macroeconomic Impacts of LNG Exports From the U.S. (PDF) Under Oil and Gas Price Pressure, It's Back to the Future Following a recently released Dept. of Energy macroeconomic study that concluded exporting natural gas would have an overall positive economic benefit, U.S. contractors are supporting a rush of feasibility and engineering work for potential liquefied-natural-gas, or LNG, export terminals.DOE could begin deciding within a month whether to let developers export LNG to countries
Courtesy BNFL Sellafield complex has some 200 building scheduled for decommissioning. Related Links: URS-Led Team Assumes Control Of U.K.s Sellafield Nuclear Site Owner Separates From Building Team Fees paid by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to the U.S.-led consortium managing decommissioning the U.K.'s giant Sellafield nuclear facility is not “a good deal” for British taxpayers, claims a new report by the influential parliamentary Public Accounts Committee. The average cost charged last year by the Nuclear Management Partners consortium for 16 executives reached $1.1 million with the highest earner costing the NDA $1.9 million. Nuclear Management Partners is effectively winding down remaining operations
Photo Courtesy of Duke Energy Duke Energy is planning to place its Crystal River nuclear plant in a "safe-storage configuration" until final decommissioning, which will take place in 40 to 60 years. Related Links: Cost and Schedule Explosion for Florida Nuclear Plant Repairs Crystal River Plant Fix Central to Duke CEO Ouster Florida, Progress Energy Reach Fix Plan for Crystal River Utility Duke Energy announced on Feb. 5 that it is canceling previous plans to repair its broken Crystal River nuclear plant in Citrus County, Fla. Instead, it will build a new natural-gas powerplant elsewhere in the state to replace
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