ReleaseWire Connect

High speed rail projects have had something of a tough time in recent years but with the arrival of a more transit-friendly administration in Washington there is now a drive towards securing more federal support for deployment of these systems across the USA. The current focus on infrastructure has been identified as a 'once in a generation opportunity' to get more support in place for all transport systems, including high speed rail. American Public Transportation Association President and CEO Paul Skoutelas has suggested that there is a need to now establish a long-term funding source for projects such as high-speed rail, along the lines of the Highway Trust Fund. Many routes that have been earmarked for high-speed rail currently face significant challenges and secure funding could make all the difference. That's especially so given the opportunities that exist for integrating electrified high-speed rail as a solution to climate change.

Renewable energy engineering projects tend to be a hotbed for innovation with some of the most talented minds in the world focused on finding new ways to generate cleaner power. Solar has long been a great source of renewable energy but there have also been challenges, such as securing enough land for the solar PV design and systems that are required to generate the energy that we need. Now, a new era in renewable energy engineering projects is dawning as engineers start to look at how to do this on water. A new partnership, called PV2 Float, has been put together to look at floating solar PV, analyzing whether this might be a cost-effective way forward, as well as identifying technical requirements and the ecological impact of this approach. The PV2 Float project will run over three years and is designed to show how it's possible for organizations to expand their solar capacity without taking up any extra land space to do it.

Traffic is a problem that has affected infrastructure all over the country. However, the solutions offered by technology have the potential to help ease this. The Maine and New Hampshire transport departments are about to put to the test new technology that is designed to help avoid traffic issues on the bridge that connects the two states.

Solar energy is well established as a sustainable power option but it's not an area where innovation ever stands still. Given that the energy from sunlight amounts to 10,000 times more than the energy requirements that the world currently has there is clearly more that can be done.

The impact of the pandemic has been widely felt in construction but new figures indicate that some parts of the industry are getting hit more forcefully than others. Recent statistics from the United States Department of Commerce have revealed that construction spending rose by just 0.2% in March 2021.

Green energy has become an accelerating growth area across the world as countries look for more sustainable power options moving forward. The Biden Administration has now taken a big step towards the targets set for renewables with approval of the first commercial scale offshore wind farm built in the US and permitted in federal waters.

Industrial engineering jobs can take talented people in many different directions. Space programs are fairly familiar territory in the US but there are many jurisdictions where this is developing work that still has plenty of firsts.

Forensic Structural Engineering is a field of engineering which involves the study of structure and determining the causes of failure of structure. Forensic structural engineering is evolving into a designated field of professional practice of determining the causes of structural failures and identifying the parties responsible.

The global civil engineering market is expected to grow significantly between 2021 and 2028, despite the impact of national lockdowns and restrictions on movement and travel in the past 12 months. Residential construction in particular has created thousands of civil engineering jobs and is considered largely responsible for predicted growth rates that could achieve a CAGR of 5.7% in the next seven years.

2021 was challenge for many sectors, however, the rise of remote work and e-commerce has had a knock-on effect and increased the need for specific services. For example, companies need more storage space for the products sold online, and their expanding e-commerce platforms must be supported by data centers. The COVID-19 pandemic also increased awareness about the importance of healthy buildings, and the importance of indoor air quality. Cooperatively US engineering firms are continually catering for these types of specific services.