News & Notes: Briefly Noted
By Anonymous
Duke Energy of Charlotte, N.C., has expanded its wind operations with the acquisition of Catamount Energy Corp. The price was $240 million plus assumed debt. Catamount Energy, based in Rutland, Vt., was formed in 1992. Since 2001, the company has focused on developing wind projects in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Catamount has approximately 300 megawatts of renewable energy in operation, including its interests in the Sweetwater project in Nolan County, Texas, which is said to be one of the largest wind projects in the world. * DuPont of Wilmington, Del., and SFC Smart Fuel Cell AG announced that the M-25 portable fuel cell, which they jointly developed, has been deployed for its first limited use in the field for the U.S. Army. When worn by soldiers in the field for extended missions, the M-25 is up to 80 percent lighter than conventional power sources, yet is capable of powering a wide range of equipment, according to the Army. * The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded Pratt Gl Whitney Rocketdyne of Canoga Park, Calif., a $2.2 million contract for the fabrication and ground test of a solar thermal propulsion rocket engine. This contract extends the current High Delta-V Experiment Program another six months and follows a successful critical design review last March. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is a United Technologies Corp. company. * Ormat Technologies Inc. of Reno, Nev., said that one of its subsidiaries entered into a supply contract for a new geothermal power plant to be built in Turkey. The contract is valued at approximately $16 million and delivery of the equipment is expected to be completed within 16 months from the contract date. The customer, MEGE-Menderes Geothermal Elektrik Uretim, A.S., a private developer and owner of the resource in Turkey, has one operating geothermal power plant that was supplied by Ormat in 2004. * Edmonton, Alberta, plans to use an industrialscale facility to produce biofuels from municipal solid waste. It has signed a 25- year agreement with GreenField Ethanol, Canada’s largest ethanol producer, and Enerkem, a leading biofuels technology company. The $70 million plant will initially produce 36 million liters of biofuels per year and reduce Alberta’s carbon dioxide footprint by more than six million metric tons over the next 25 years. * MSC. Software of Santa Ana., Calif., which provides Nastran software and services, has acquired the MacNeal Group of Altadena, Calif. The MacNeal Group was founded by Richard MacNeal, an authority on finite element technology. The acquisition helps optimize Nastran technology, according to a statement from MSC.Software. * Adobe Systems Inc. has turned over the Portable Document Format to the International Standards Organization, which will publish specifications for the current version and will develop future versions of the standard, ISO 32000-1.
Copyright American Society of Mechanical Engineers Aug 2008
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