The Arizona Research Institute for Solar Energy (AzRISE) and the Laboratory for Advanced Subsurface Imaging (LASI) at the University of Arizona, together with Southwest Solar Technologies, Inc., are investigating the use of excavated cavities for renewable-energy storage using compressed air.  The cavities may be trenched, augered,  solution mined, or constructed by other methods.  Cavities of opportunity, such as former mines, and excavation of valuable materials in combination with construction of an air-storage cavern, are also of interest.  We are searching for suitable excavation technologies as well as low-cost liners that will provide low permeability and structural stability for compressed air at pressures up to 300 psi over long times.

We are interested in hearing from companies that have commercial solutions in this field.  We are also interested in developing collaborative efforts with other organizations that have an interest in this technology.

Please contact Ben Sternberg, Professor and Director, Laboratory for Advanced Subsurface Imaging at the University of Arizona, 1235 E. James E. Rogers Way, Tucson, AZ 85721, or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Leading Geotechnical Software Developers to Integrate Solutions

Windsor, CA – September 29, 2008 –  gINT Software, Inc.

gINT Software, Inc., developer of gINT data management and reporting software for geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering professionals, has signed a mutual distributorship agreement with Fine s.r.o. of Prague, Czech Republic, maker of the GEO5 geotechnical analysis software programs. gINT Software will represent GEO5 on an exclusive basis in the USA, Canada and Mexico. In addition, Fine has been granted exclusive rights to represent gINT in the Czech Republic and surrounding Eastern European countries, including Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

[Editor] All screen shots courtesy of gINT Software, Inc. Click through for the rest of the press release. [/Editor]

If you haven't read today's gINT Software press release on their new Google Earth capabilities in gINT, do that first. Go ahead..I'll wait.

As readers of this site know, I'm a big fan of utilizing Google Earth as a geoengineering tool, and since I'm a big fan of gINT as a geoengineering tool as well, this news for me was like a match made in heaven! The good folks over at gINT were kind enough to give me a sneak peek at the new Google Earth functionality a couple days ago. And they also discussed a shift in their approach to updates and upgrades that will be of particular interest to all gINT users. Click through for more info. (Screenshot courtesy of gINT Software)

Related Images, Calculations, Automated Displays Programmable by Users with New Interface

Windsor, CA – September 11, 2008 –  gINT Software, Inc.

A new upgrade to gINT geotechnical and geoenvironmental software lets users publish boreholes to Google Earth, Google’s satellite imagery–based mapping product. The version 8.2 upgrade enables users to specify an icon, color, label, and description to associate with the borehole via an easy-to-use Google Earth Setup dialog in gINT.  When the borehole icon on the Google Earth map is clicked by a viewer, a user-designed description will appear in a popup window.  The window can also contain links to any type of file, including images and PDFs displaying the boring log, enabling users to visually provide a substantial amount of information for each borehole.

[Editor] Click through for the rest of the press release and more screen shots. All screen shots courtesy of gINT Software, Inc. [/Editor]

[UPDATE 9/11/08] Yesterday the senate broke through their deadlock and approved $8 Billion to restore the solvency of the highway trust fund. Very good news indeed. [/UPDATE]

[Editor] From American Association of Highway and Transportation Officials, released September 9, 2008.  Contact: Tony Dorsey 202-624-3690 [/Editor]

States have put the brakes on millions of dollars of highway construction projects and are scrambling to substitute scarce state funds for the federal funds that have been cut off due to the crisis in the Highway Trust Fund.

“States are suspending new contract awards, halting right-of-way acquisition and looking for ways to stop on-going construction while maintaining public safety,” said AASHTO Executive Director John Horsley. “It is truly a crisis that Congress must resolve immediately. Every day the federal IOUs are piling up and the states’ financial hole gets deeper.”

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters announced on Friday that the federal government would slow down reimbursements to the states, and would likely be able to make only partial payments beginning next week, due to insufficient funds in the Highway Trust Fund. She has urged Congress to enact by the end of the week an $8 billion transfer from the General Fund to preserve the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund. Action is pending in the Senate.

More than a dozen states have detailed the impacts of the federal default on state programs, either in news releases or via media reports. Those impacts are available on the AASHTO website www.transportation.org or at the following links: [Editor] Read on for the rest of the press release. [/Editor]

A report has been released by the NYSDOT on the Scoby Hill Landslide which has impacted a 4.2-mi improvement project of Route 219. The report, dated May 20, 2008 was headed to an FHWA peer  review panel.

The Feds were call in to help because of the unusual nature of the landslide. The slip surface is very deep, approximately 30-m (100-ft) below the surface and below all of the design phase investigations. And the remolded shear strength of the silty clay forming the slip surface was only 12-14 degrees.

Read on for more details of the slide. (Photo by NYSDOT)

The Progressive Engineer website has an interesting article profiling Colwyn Sayers, a geotechnical engineer with the Lexington, Kentucky office of Stantec. His specialty is inspecting underwater bridge foundations which requires either wetsuit or drysuit diving using topside air sources. Occasionally a hyperbaric chamber is required as well. (Photo credit: Progressive Engineer)

On a typical dive, Sayers looks for signs of deterioration that may cause instability or even collapse of the bridge. This includes scour, undermining from flowing water that erodes the streambed, deterioration, cracks, section loss, and impact and abrasion damage from trees. Tree debris caught in the bridge leads to scour and erosion. “It depends on the construction type as well as the materials on the bridge,” he states.

I stumbled across this video for the geotechnical engineering centrifuge at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Centrifuge testing is a popular way to economically test models at much higher loads and pressures than you would normally be able to in the laboratory. The goal is to more accurately represent the real world conditions. Click through for the video.

A new study published in the current issue of Geoarchaeology claims that earthquake-prone areas along the edges of tectonic plates were far more likely to give birth to great ancient civilizations than less dynamic landscapes. The author of the paper, Eric Force, a (U of A Wildcat!) says that 13 of 15 ancient civilizations sites aren't the product of chance. Instead, ancient people appear to have chosen to settle close to a tectonic plate boundary. The exceptions were in ancient China and Egypt. [Image Adapted from Eric R. Force, Geoarchaeology: An International Journal, 23 (2008)]

That is the title of a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article on post-Katrina levee issues in New Orleans (by way of ASCE Smart Brief). I think the article is somewhat sensationalized, but they do cite some interesting parallels between the levee reconstruction efforts made after Katrina and the levee construction/reconstruction that occurred after Hurricane Betsy in 1965.

The article also discusses a recent US Army audit with some disturbing although not unexpected findings:

An initial September 2010 target to complete the $14.8 billion in post-Katrina work has slipped to mid-2011. Then last September, an Army audit found 84 percent of work behind schedule because of engineering complexities, environmental provisos and real estate transactions. The report added that costs would likely soar.

A more recent analysis shows the start of 84 of 156 projects was delayed - 15 of them by six months or more. Meanwhile, a critical analysis of what it would take to build even stronger protection - 500-year-type levees - was supposed to be done last December but remains unfinished.

In case you missed the background on the Kilbuck Landslide (or here or here), it happened in Kilbuck Township, PA back in in September of 2006. To deal with the political hot potato and media nightmare, Wal-Mart bought out the developer on the unfinished property and began handling remediation of the slide itself. Now, it appears as if they want their money back from the developer! Read on for more details. 

According to Reuters, there is a shortage of steel pipe that the drilling industry uses to drill and case wells. I presume the shortage also applies to geotechnical and well drilling as well. The run on the pipe has been spurred by the increased surge in the U.S. onshore oil and natural gas drilling market. The situation is not helped by record high steel prices as well. (Photo by yak23flora)

I talked to our local geotechnical/geoenvironmental drilling contractor to see if he has been affected by this shortage, and he said that he had, but that the supply shortages on all manner of drilling equipment and parts has been even more challenging. He cited the booming mining sector and their desire for exploration holes as a major source of his problem. He said one of his rigs had a broken overshot for an NQ coring system, that's the device that attaches to the wireline and retrieves the inner tube from the drill stem while coring. He said there wasn't a single overshot in North America that he could buy!