Plant Design Industry

The News Review:

- Battery plant is pristine with an automated assembly
- TVA pledges ‘first rate’ cleanup from Kingston spill
- Sasol closes Germiston plant after fire
- Solar-cell maker halts construction plans for new plant in Hillsboro
- Engineer: Tenn. ash spill warning signs ignored
- Making gulf water drinkable too costly for now

Battery plant is pristine with an automated assembly
Detroit Free Press United States 
The rest would be engineering and management posts. The battery factory planned for southeast Michigan would be highly automated and likely look more like a clean and sophisticated silicon chip factory than an automobile factory. Although one step of the process — making large battery system boxes — will look much like the operations in an auto plant the plant will have coating and assembly operations that will resemble the environments used for making semiconductors. Picture a brightly lit room where workers would oversee the fast-paced process through plexiglass shields monitoring their chemical vital signs.

TVA pledges ‘first rate’ cleanup from Kingston spill
Chattanooga Times Free Press TN 
?We are going to be able to look our neighbors in the eye and say that TVA is doing the right thing. Boxer questioned why TVA decided in 2006 against a $25 million proposal to convert to dry ash disposal at the Kingston plant. The cost of that $25 million is going to seem like pennies compared to what it is going to cost to clean this up? she said. For more details see tomorrow?s Times Free Press.
Related from Prmonster: TVA Manages Easy PR Victory in Kingston Coal Ash Disaster
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Sasol closes Germiston plant after fire
Creamer Media’s Engineering News South Africa 
Sasol group communications manager Jaqui ?Sullivan told Engineering News nline that while the cause of the fire was not yet known investigations thus far had determined that there was no evidence of an actual chemical explosion. It was likely that the exploding sounds resulted from tyres of the tankers bursting because of the heat. The incident took place at the loading bay of the plant. ?The fire was quickly contained and then extinguished. ne injury was sustained a possible broken ankle and the patient is currently being treated in hospital? the company said. The extent of the damage was yet to be assessed and the plant was shut while investigations took place however Sasol assured all concerned that customers would continue to be supplied with product from the company?s Durban facility. The facility produced solvents such as butanol and methanol.
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Solar-cell maker halts construction plans for new plant in Hillsboro
The regonian – regonLive.com R 
But that highly specialized 1 million-square-foot factory is far larger than what SpectraWatt needs Wilson said. SpectraWatt’s decision to apply the brakes was abrupt. Hillsboro officials were 85 percent done with reviewing its building-permit applications on Dec. 17 when design and engineering firm CH2M Hill told them to put the project on indefinite hold. com See more in.
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Engineer: Tenn. ash spill warning signs ignored
The Associated Press 
(AP) — The nation’s largest government-run utility ignored two small leaks that could have provided a warning years before a coal ash pond collapsed flooding a neighborhood with a billion gallons of sludge a former federal regulator contends. Jack Spadaro a retired mining engineer who investigated a 1972 coal waste dam break that killed 125 people in West Virginia said states have done a poor job monitoring huge ponds of coal ash which aren’t regulated by the federal government. Three homes were destroyed and 42 parcels of land damaged when one such pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Steam Plant collapsed Dec. Also on Tuesday a coalition of environmental groups including the Sierra Club notified TVA it plans to sue the utility on behalf of 40 families arguing TVA broke federal law by not fully disclosing the extent of spill contamination. A TVA spokesman said the utility would respond in court. Another environmental group said last week it also plans to sue and a group of landowners has already filed a lawsuit.

Making gulf water drinkable too costly for now
Houston Chronicle United States 
html BRWNSVILLE Texas — The state’s first attempt at purifying salty seawater sucked from the Gulf of Mexico yielded two lessons: adding the gulf to the state’s mix of water resources is technically feasible but at least for now too expensive on a large scale. Data gleaned from the 18-month pilot project on the Brownsville ship channel will ultimately aid the state in its quest for a drought-proof water source. But according to a state report released last month it also put the cost of building a full-scale sea water desalination plant beyond reach. To keep the program on track without breaking the bank local and state water managers have proposed a demonstration project — a plant on the ship channel that would be about one-tenth the size of the one they had hoped to build but would provide about 9 percent of the Brownsville Public Utilities Board’s water by 2012. To help pay for the $67 million demonstration project the Texas Water Development Board has asked the Legislature for $28. 2 million in grant money said water board spokeswoman Leslie Anderson. The utility would tap other state resources to cover the balance of the plant’s cost.