Onions to the Rescue!

Gills Onions, the largest onion processor in the US was the focus article of the October 2010 issue of Civil Engineering Magazine. They are the only facility in the world who use anarobic digestion to convert onion water into methane, which is then used to power fuel cells.

The company processes, cuts, and peels roughly one million pounds of onions per day, thus leaving mountains of waste material. The company decided to use the waste to fuel their new $9.5 million Advanced Energy Recovery System (AERS) to convert that waste into useable energy. They have determined that disposing of 200,000 lbs of waste a day was costing the company $400,000 per year and now they are being used to pay off the system in only six years.

The process starts by collecting the onion peels and waste and placing them in a tank to be juiced. Lime is added to increase juice yield and the waste material is ground into pulp and then run through strainers to extract the juice. The juicing process generates roughly 20,000 galons of onion juice per day that is then poured into large equilazation tanks which serves as a preliminary fermenter or acidifier to increase the bolatile fatty acids and decrease the pH of the juice.

 When the juice is acified, it yields a higher methane production. The juice is then allowed to ferment in a reactor which collects the escaping gas and transports it to bio-fuel cells that are used to provide power to the facility and reduce power costs.

All in all this is a prime example of how ingenuity can produce monetary results in a green, energy effiecent way.

Considered the largest privately funded construction in the United States, the CityCenter Development in Las Vegas, Nevada, was designed by some of the worlds most renowned architects and engineers. This new "city within a city" has also scored highly with environmental accreditation programs such as the LEED system.


Built in under 4 years, this project covered nearly 18 million square feet and cost roughly $8.5 billion dollars. The project was funded by MGM Resorts International. Located on a 67-acre site bordering the Bellagio, Monte Carlo, and Las Vegas Boulevard, it is the prime strip of real estate on the Vegas Strip and will provide nearly 12,000 new jobs for the city.

The main portion of LEED credentials were earned for this project due to the fact that when the existing building on the site, the Boardwalk Hotel and Casino was demolished, 80% of the materials from the earlier building were either recycled for the new project or sent elsewhere for reuse.

Another large factor in its environmental sustainability included an 8.5 MW natural gas power plant that was built on site to provide 10% of the required energy and 100% of the heated water for the building.

Overall, this building is a colossus of building construction and the utilization of environmentally friendly technologies on large scale construction projects. The CityCenter will continue to be an engineering and environmental master achievement.

Stairway to Heaven....Not Just a Great Song.

In an article featured in the March 2010 edition of Civil Engineering, The Magazine for the American Society of Engineers, they had a center piece on the structural design and details of one of worlds tallest skyscrapers, the Burj Khalifa located in Dubai. This tower is 2,717 ft high, which is nearly twice the height of the Empire State Building. It was built for mainly residential and office use, but it also contains several retail stores and a Giorgio Armani hotel.

The buildings architectural inspiration is based on an organic form with triaxial geometry and spiraling growth. It also draws heavily from traditional Islamic forms to enrich the towers design and to provide a reference to the cultural history of the surrounding region.

The building is unique in the sense that it was designed using a Y shaped building footprint, that causes the building to "spiral" the higher the building progresses. This spiraling motion as well as the Y shape has multiple advantages structurally as well as aesthetically.

The Y shape allows for additional structural security as well as support. Since the wind loads at such a height can be difficult to counter, this Y shape allows for additional wind deflection and adds an additional safety layer of reinforcement for the structure.

The building was designed and developed using nearly 73,500 different design models on the ETABS v. 8.4 design program which utilizes 3D models to consisting mostly of reinforced concrete walls as supports. The buildings foundation consists of a solid reinforced concrete pad that is 12.5 feet deep and utilizes nearly 12,500 cubic meters of concrete (more than 3 Death Valley's filled with concrete).

This project stands as a masterpiece of concrete construction in both size and innovation and is justifiably the centerpiece of a $20 billion dollar development effort.

Wiki Wizard

I apologize this is late but for some reason my original blog post I submitted last night did not make it to my blog when I checked it this morning. Not sure how it happened, but hopefully it finds its way through cyberspace back home. Until then, here is a replacement blog about what I was talking about last night. Sorry for the delay, but hope you enjoy.

 Last night, I was slightly bored, and after some blog reading, realized I had not posted a comment on the Keen-Wales debate. That gave me an excuse to burn an hour and watch the debate again to refresh on what had been previously discussed in class and after watching it, I got to thinking about the points that Andrew Keen made against sites such as Wikipedia that allow any user to post articles or just throw in their 2 cents.

Although I do agree with him slightly that there needs to be some disgression with simply allowing any Tom, Dick, or Harry to post or alter any article they please, I feel that people are smart enought to know what they are getting into and to check their sources if something they read on Wikipedia seems a little fishy.

 Even talkshow host Stephen Colbert poked fun at this point, when he encouraged his viewers to edit Wikipedia to claim that the African elephant population has tripled in the past six months.

On the whole, I feel Wikipedia is a good source of information that is fast and effiecent as calling a friend to ask them a question about a topic.....but it never hurts to check that your friend is telling you facts and not fibs.

On a lighter note, I found it slightly ironic that Andrew Keen has his own article on Wikipedia....as seen below.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Keen

......well done Mr. Wales.