The News Review:
- News Today – An English evening daily published from Chennai
- Use of mine water may help avert pollution disaster
- Chron.com | News search and shopping from the Houston Chronicle
News Today – An English evening daily published from Chennai
News Today – Oct 21, 2007
The project is to be completed in 39 months. This project is being executed as a part of NTPC's expansion plan for the Simhadri STPP enhancing the installed capacity from 1000 MW to 2000 MW by adding 2 units of 500 MW each. L&T's scope of work includes design engineering procurement supply erection testing and commissioning two streams of 1600 TPH Coal Handling Plant including civil structural electrical and instrumentation works. This involves construction of 7 km of belt conveyors supplying 2 stacker reclaimers 4 crushers and 4 paddle feeders including associated electro-mechanical equipment. Incidentally L&T constructed the Coal Handling Plant of Simhadri Super Thermal Power Project Stage-I which was successfully completed and put in to operation in 2002. L&T’s Construction Division also secured three other contracts worth Rs 226 crore from Public Health and Municipal Engineering Department Government of Andhra Pradesh. This include Rs 93 crore order for engineering procurement and construction of an underground drainage scheme for Nizamabad Township.
Use of mine water may help avert pollution disaster
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – Pittsburgh Post Gazette – Oct 21, 2007
– n a muddy hilltop northwest of Morgantown that was until recently a cow pasture work is progressing on a controversial $1. 8 billion power plant that some day may help avert a water pollution disaster over the border in Pennsylvania. The 695-megawatt Longview plant which opponents say will damage air quality when it begins operating in 2011 will draw water from the underground Shannopin Mine pool in Greene County reducing chances that the acidic iron-orange water from a labyrinth of seven connected abandoned underground mines will build up bust out and pollute the upper Monongahela River. “The pumping rate will offset the natural recharge rate of the Shannopin Mine pool and will actually draw the pool down” said Paul F. Ziemkiewicz director of the National Mine Land Reclamation Center at West Virginia University in Morgantown. “therwise the mine water would pop out and flow into Dunkard Creek a tributary of the Monongahela River… “That’s never been done before. Jim Kotcon vice chair of the Sierra Club’s Mon Group said the facility’s developers haven’t filed engineering blueprints as required and opponents will continue to monitor the facility for permit compliance while it’s being built but conceded that most of the battles have been fought. “Whether it gets built is now in the hands of the developer and financiers” Mr. “There are appeals on water permits pending but most of the regulatory agencies have signed off and they won’t hold up the plant. Still several farms and rural homes around the construction site have large signs in their front yards urging opposition to the power plant.
Chron.com | News search and shopping from the Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle – Oct 21, 2007
"Congress is working to prime the cellulosic ethanol pump. The Senate version of the energy bill being considered would require the oil industry to use 21 billion gallons annually of "advanced biofuels" including cellulosic ethanol by 2022. A tax break would allow companies to deduct half the cost of a new plant in the first year of operation. And cellulosic ethanol would draw generous subsidies for oil refiners who mix it into their gasoline. Still many technological hurdles remain and much of the venture capital poured into the cellulosic ethanol industry is going into companies like SunEthanol that are searching for ways to make the manufacturing process more efficient and profitable. A key part of the challenge is figuring out how to better break down cellulosic material – such as cornstalks or wood chips – into ethanol. Many firms are trying to do that in two steps first breaking down cellulose into sugars and then fermenting sugars to produce ethanol for use in motor fuel… A key part of the challenge is figuring out how to better break down cellulosic material – such as cornstalks or wood chips – into ethanol. Many firms are trying to do that in two steps first breaking down cellulose into sugars and then fermenting sugars to produce ethanol for use in motor fuel. Engineering enzymesMany companies are genetically engineering enzymes to do the first task. Those enzymes tend to be expensive. Last week Genencor a division of Danisco announced that it had developed a new product Accellerase 1000 that it said contains a combination of enzymes that reduces cellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars. "Lots and lots and lots of groups and companies are looking for new cellulases" or enzymes that process cellulose said J. Craig Venter who raced the federal government in mapping the human genome.