environment

In just a few short decades, the use of horizontal directional drilling, as a method to install pipelines and utilities, has become common place.

The advantages of HDD are two-fold. HDD has already saved billions if not trillions of dollars in bottom line construction costs.

In this issue, Managing Editor Rita Tubb provides a round-up of oil, gas and product pipeline construction currently under way or projected around the world. It’s a reduced number, as expected, compared to recent years. However, it is a very realistic number as the “pipe-in-the-sky” projects that are inevitably thrown about during boom times have been dropped. The remaining projects are considered solid with a strong chance of coming to fruition. The numbers lead us to anticipate a reasonably healthy pipeline market going forward.

Despite criticism of his company's proposed, nearly 2000-mile pipeline, Robert Jones, vice president, Keystone Pipelines, TransCanada Corporation, says he is very confident that the U.S. State Department will approve construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

According to a report released in August by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, despite grim predictions at the close of 2008, the U.S. wind power industry experienced another record year in 2009. At the same time, the report’s primary authors and scientist, Ryan Wiser and Mark Bolinger say the combination of the financial crisis and lower wholesale electricity prices has taken a toll on the wind power industry, dampening expectations for 2010.