A new report from the Columbia University Water Center, in conjunction with Veolia Water and Growing Blue, reveals that businesses and cities in America’s most iconic regions are now under greater risk of water scarcity. Utilizing a new research metric called the Normalized Deficit Cumulated (NDC) index in the America’s Water Risk: Water Stress and Climate Variability study, Columbia identifies top ten U.S. areas facing the highest climate-related risk of water shortages, including Washington, D.C and New York City. (PRNewsFoto/Growing Blue)

Posted by Heidi Schwartz

A new report from the Columbia University Water Center, in conjunction with Veolia Water and Growing Blue, reveals that businesses and cities in some of America’s most iconic regions are now under even greater risk of water scarcity.

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The explosion and fire released massive quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere over much of the western USSR, Europe and Scandinavia. The Politburo hacks running the last vestige of the Soviet empire decided not to warn anyone for three long days until reindeer meat in Sweden started registering on Geiger counters and the truth could no longer be denied.

The Soviets claimed the official casualty count from Chernobyl did not exceed 31, which of course belongs in the dustbin of whopping Orwellian falsehoods issued by the USSR’s now-defunct Ministry of Information. It took hundreds of firefighters, most of whom were not equipped with radiation suits, to put out the fire at Chernobyl so work could begin to entomb the melted reactor core. Nearly 500,000 workers toiled for months to erect a concrete sarcophagus around the shattered and woefully inadequate structure that had been Chernobyl’s containment vessel.

We’ll probably never know how many of them died hideously within days from radiation poisoning, or slowly over the years from radiation-induced cancer. It’s also hard to tally the collateral damage from Chernobyl, but here’s an example that can serve as a starting point for extrapolations: thousands of Latvian children — a small Baltic nation whose people have a natural iodine deficiency — eventually developed thyroid cancer because their bodies eagerly absorbed unnatural radiation from Chernobyl.

For more than 25 years, Chernobyl stood as a stark warning that the panacea of cheap electricity from nuclear power came wrapped in a deadly package that always is one breach from global catastrophe. Even before Chernobyl blew up (and since), there has been no long-term solution for the problem of where to put a growing radioactive stockpile of spent fuel rods. So we’ve built up smoldering clumps of the stuff all over the world, atom bomb-ready waste with a radioactive half-life of 50,000 years. But after Chernobyl, one could at least hope that adequate precautions would be taken to prevent a repetition of the 1986 disaster.

Japan apparently did not get the memo. On March 11, 2011, an earthquake spawned a monster tsunami that flooded the Fukishima Daiichi nuclear complex on Japan’s northeastern Pacific Coast.

It was never a good idea to build nuclear power plants in a nation that has experienced more earthquakes than any other, but we can understand how energy-starved Japan concluded the risk was worth it. It’s much harder to fathom how they could decide to put no less than six nuclear reactors in a facility standing just a few yards from the ocean, with a low-lying wall its only protection, no back-up cooling system if ground-level generators failed and an open pond on the roof for storage of spent fuel rods.

It made no difference to the outcome that half of the reactors at Fukushima had been shut down or defueled when the disaster hit. When the cooling system was overwhelmed and disabled by the tsunami, the three remaining reactors overheated and began to melt.

As at Chernobyl, brave firefighters were given the suicidal task of putting out fires and workers rushed in to spray the red-hot reactor cores with water. You might assume they simply hooked their mobile pumps up to the largest supply of water in the vicinity — the ocean — but you’d be wrong. The intrepid managers of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Fukushima’s operator, delayed this critical step for days because they knew saltwater would permanently destroy their expensive reactors.

The TEPCO managers assured the world they had the situation under control, until the meltdown breached metal cladding surrounding the fuel rods in the reactor cores and touched off huge hydrogen air-chemical explosions in units 1 and 3. Because reactor 3 was connected to reactor 4 by piping, the latter also exploded. The explosions occurred at the top of each unit, known as their upper secondary containment structures, so an open pool containing nearly 1,000 spent fuel rods also began to heat up. TEPCO’s hapless crisis managers couldn’t have done a more thorough job if they’d invited Godzilla to walk in and kick the place to smithereens. And so the world’s second Level 7 Event commenced.

We’ll skip over the details here of the near-term consequences of the Fukushima disaster, including a still-incomplete tally of casualties, a 20-square-kilometer evacuation and widespread radioactive contamination of crops and water supplies. Japanese officials maintain the overall release of radiation at Fukushima still totals only about a sixth of what escaped from Chernobyl, but in a sad echo of the cataclysm in the Ukraine they’ve been rebutted by the silent testimony of test results which show that more than 36 percent of the children in the Fukushima Daiichi region are now experiencing abnormal growths in their thyroid glands.

While the near-term picture has been terrible, a recent report on the front page of The New York Times tells us the long-term prognosis for Fukushima may be even worse. Our second Level 7 Event will be with us for a long, long time and it is likely to eclipse Chernobyl in terms of its overall impact.

According to the Times report, ongoing efforts to keep the three melted reactors at Fukushima from overheating — by pouring water into the wreckage of the reactors at a rate of 75 gallons per minute and then pumping it out so it doesn’t swamp a makeshift cooling system — have generated a flood of highly radioactive wastewater.

Focused as they understandably have been on stabilizing the damaged reactor cores, the TEPCO team — yes, they’re still in charge — apparently hasn’t figured out a permanent solution for the larger problem of what they’re going to do with the growing ocean of radioactive wastewater they’re creating on a daily basis. In the two years since the tsunami, the Times reports, an army of workers has filled huge silver storage tanks that have been set up on 42 acres of parking lots and lawns surrounding the Fukushima complex. Each tank holds the equivalent of 112 Olympic-size swimming pools of highly radioactive water.

Unable to develop a more sustainable solution, TEPCO’s managers have belatedly admitted they’ve now run out of space to store the wastewater and the situation is — cringe alert — “an emergency.”

So TEPCO has sent out an all-points bulletin for tree-cutters. They plan to chop down a forest on the southern edge of the Fukushima complex to make room for hundreds more tanks. While they’re looking for Paul Bunyan-types with axes, the TEPCO team also has to figure out what caused a 29-hour power failure in the makeshift cooling system at the crippled complex, a system they had proclaimed was failsafe.

The Times’ description of the makeshift cooling system in use at Fukushima reads like a script for a disaster movie. A snakelike maze of pumps, filters and pipes crawls for more than two miles along the ground through the complex. The pool for storing spent fuel rods remains precariously perched on the roof of one of the damaged reactor buildings while TEPCO tries to figure out how to safely move them (and where to put them).

The status quo is bad enough to contemplate, but did we mention that the Fukushima Daiichi complex sits on one of the most active earthquake fault lines on Earth just a few feet from the Pacific Ocean? The last time we checked, the planet was still geologically active and Fukushima has even less protection than it had before the 2011 tsunami. While they were busy not figuring out what to do with the wastewater at Fukushima, TEPCO reportedly rejected a proposal to build a concrete wall more than 60 feet into the ground to surround the complex and block water from reaching the reactors and turbine buildings. Instead, they erected plastic- and clay-lined underground pits around the buildings which quickly developed leaks.

TEPCO apparently assumed it eventually would be able to resolve the entire problem by routing tons of wastewater — after filtering out 62 different types of radioactive particles, including lethal strontium 90, they assured everybody — into a nearby repository that has more than an adequate capacity to absorb it. That would be the Pacific Ocean. Fortunately, the outcry provoked by TEPCO’s admission they secretly vented a limited amount of wastewater into the ocean in 2011 has forced the Japanese government to prohibit any further dumping into the Pacific. But you might want to skip the fish platter the next time you order dinner in Honolulu.

Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of Japan’s recently created Nuclear Regulation Authority (yes, they didn’t have one, and the one they created only has nine inspectors), told the Times his concern is rising that another meltdown cycle is looming. He’s suggested that perhaps it’s time to take the cleanup responsibility away from TEPCO and bring in some experts. (We’re very tempted to draw an analogy here with the global financial crisis and the banking industry, but a simple “Duh!” will suffice).

We hate to end these reports on a down note, without making a useful suggestion or two. So here’s our two cents worth: for decades, the oil industry has had an international team of disaster experts on standby, ready to jump on a plane and race to the scene when a wellhead blows up. These wildcats risk life and limb to cap humongous torches of crude. They are the best in the world.

If we’re going to continue to satisfy our insatiable appetite for electricity by setting off nuclear reactions in tons of enriched uranium and plutonium fuel rods in concrete barns — while filling the planet with deadly radioactive garbage dumps — would it be too much trouble to organize an international SWAT team of nuclear experts to dispatch when one of these plants blows up?

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Under the Natural Gas Modernization, Public Safety & Jobs Act (SB 1665/HB 2414), Ameren Illinois will invest $330 million and create 250 much-needed jobs to accelerate its ongoing efforts to strengthen and update its massive natural gas transmission, distribution and storage facilities in central and southern Illinois. The 10-year blueprint will reduce non-hazardous leaks and trim maintenance costs while delivering long-term savings for customers. The ICC will closely monitor the process and level penalties if Ameren Illinois fails to comply.

“This is an opportunity for Illinois to develop an important long-term energy infrastructure strategy and plan that creates savings and benefits for our customers while helping grow our economy,” said Richard Mark, president and CEO of Ameren Illinois. “The natural gas plan will help lay the foundation for economic development for years to come. As other states aggressively modernize and upgrade their natural gas infrastructures, Illinois cannot afford to fall behind.”

Ameren Illinois maintains approximately 1,250 miles of natural gas transmission lines and nearly 17,000 miles of delivery lines that feed service to more than 806,000 Illinois customers within a 43,700 square-mile territory in Central and Southern Illinois.

“A strong, modern energy infrastructure is critical to retaining and attracting employers who put Illinoisans to work,” said Jeff Mays, president of the Illinois Business Roundtable. “Illinois can regain its economic strength by creating vibrant employer growth, investing in technology and embracing new ways of doing things. It’s time to move Illinois forward.”

“Hundreds of dedicated men and women work hard every day to maintain a safe, reliable natural gas delivery system that millions of central and southern Illinoisans rely on every day to at work, school and home,” said Don Degonia, Business Manager of Plumbers and Fitters Local 360. “The Natural Gas Modernization, Public Safety & Jobs Act will enable us to make needed upgrades and enhancements to the system to the benefit of our customers and local economies.”

“The Natural Gas Modernization, Public Safety & Jobs Act requires crucial investment in the state’s infrastructure and workforce, giving Illinois a much-needed economic shot in the arm by creating and supporting 1,250 jobs statewide,” said Glyn Ramage, Business Manager LIUNA 12 Counties.  “We urge the legislature to pass this bill and put people to work modernizing these critical systems.”

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“I want to congratulate GGL on this great announcement and say ‘thank you’ for their investment in Hamilton County and Tennessee,” Gov. Haslam said.

“GGL is an excellent example of how innovation drives economic development,” Hagerty said. “We are focused on supporting innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives, which will help grow Tennessee’s economy and give our state a distinct competitive advantage. Thank you to GGL for bringing these jobs to Hamilton County and for creating the technologies that have translated into economic opportunities for our citizens.”

Chattanooga is the first U.S. test city for Global Green Lighting.

GGL recently acquired a 180,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Chattanooga and has set up production lines to assemble its flagship product, a light emitting diode (LED) street lamp combined with the latest AMI (automated metering infrastructure) smart grid metering technology.

“By marrying our locally designed and manufactured LED and Induction light fixtures with our innovative wireless radio control technology, we have created the world’s most advanced lighting and energy monitoring system,” said Lepard.  “In addition to certified, measured energy savings, and carbon credits, the GGL system offers countless improvements over traditional street lights – improved lighting quality and color, wireless monitoring to track exact energy usage, and situational functionality such as scheduled or manual override dimming or flashing. The adjustable ‘up light filters’ offer an optional elimination of light pollution. The system also self-reports the location and diagnostics for malfunctions within 15 seconds of the occurrence, and the expected life of these lights is five times longer than the old, traditional lights.”

GGL’s expansion will create 40 new jobs immediately. By the end of 2013, GGL expects to hire 160 assembly workers. The company also expects to hire 50 people for sales, marketing, customer service and equipment maintenance.

Chattanooga City Mayor Ron Littlefield cites GGL as a leading example of how the city’s world-class technical infrastructure is sparking innovation and job creation. “Two years ago, Chattanooga introduced America’s first community-wide Gig fiber network offering every home and business Internet service up to 200 times faster than the national average, and today we’re on our way to making all of our streets brighter, safer and more energy efficient thanks to Global Green Lighting’s unique wireless radio controlled street lamps,” Mayor Littlefield said. “We are excited to partner with a forward thinking company like GGL to enhance efficiency while supporting job creation, and we are proud that this kind of innovation is happening in the heart of Chattanooga.”

Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger applauded GGL, emphasizing the region’s global competitiveness. “GGL’s investment shows how our local companies and workers are competing in the worldwide economy,” Mayor Coppinger said. “This is another example of how our region has come to the forefront of the resurgence in American manufacturing.”

“GGL has been designing and marketing lighting solutions from Chattanooga for many years,” said Charles Wood, vice president of economic development for the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce. “We were pleased to deploy our existing industry team to support him in growing his operations to include assembly and gear up for a major marketing push.”

Chattanooga’s deployment of America’s first community-wide “Gig” fiber network offering up to 1 gigabit-per-second Internet service inspired Lepard to pair his energy efficient (LED) street lamps with a wireless radio controlled, smart grid-based lighting system that allows the city operators and officers complete and measured control of every light to maximize both energy savings and public safety.

After a very successful pilot project in one of Chattanooga’s premiere public parks, the City of Chattanooga contracted with GGL to replace all 27,000 street lights with the innovative new technology. Upon completion of the project at the end of 2013, Chattanooga officials expect to cut lighting bills up to 75 percent per year.

While many cities have already embraced LED lights as a way to reduce energy costs, Chattanooga is the first American city to combine LED lighting with a smart grid metering, wireless radio controlled and utility certified energy management system that will also slash maintenance expenses by as much as 75 percent.

“We are thrilled to execute our first community-wide street lighting project in our home city of Chattanooga,” Lepard said.  “Following Chattanooga’s introduction of America’s first community-wide fiber optic network, the city has continued to raise its stature as a smart grid city and haven for innovation. Our state-of-the-art wireless radio controlled street lighting system offers an unparalleled combination of energy savings and functionality.”

Other cities are also taking notice of GGL’s sustainable, low energy lighting system. The company is in active communications with 26 cities, the first of 250 identified in its target marketing strategy. In addition, GGL also plans to market the lighting technology to private developments and enterprises which can tie their outdoor lighting into the same infrastructure used by the public sector. “It’s the perfect example of the public and private sector benefiting together by sharing the advantages of a new technology,” Lepard said.

With GGL’s radio network lighting, the city can turn street lamps on and off in real time and tailor the brightness of each lamp based on a neighborhood’s lighting needs. The system records the GPS coordinates of each lamp post and correlates the location with dawn and dusk times, so the lights only come on only when they are needed. Each individual street lamp includes a residential grade meter and alerts maintenance workers via the wireless network when a bulb is out, power is lost, or if repairs are needed. Energy usage is automatically fed back to the local electric company billing system, eliminating the need for manual meter readers. In other words, each light auto meters and auto reports its status.

Clarification: An earlier version of this article included an inaccurate statement. EPB has not certified any products or services of Global Green Lighting (GGL) for energy efficiency, reliability or for any other purpose. EPB does not have a certification program for any products. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

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The United States has made much progress in energy efficiency in the last few decades, but there are still large, cost-effective opportunities available to advance efficiency even further, while improving the economy at the same time. However, a variety of market failures and market barriers contribute to keeping us from fully realizing our energy efficiency potential.

“Eliminating barriers that keep us from reducing waste is an approach both sides of the aisle can support,” said ACEEE Executive Director Steven Nadel. “By removing these barriers, Congress and state policymakers have an opportunity to let smart investments help strengthen the economy while saving the nation billions.”

The report discusses several targeted policies that leverage market mechanisms and address specific market failures to energy efficiency, without requiring substantial spending or government mandates. For example, the development of a comprehensive building labeling and benchmarking program could save approximately 1.6 quads of energy and $60 billion between 2014 and 2030. Even more impressive are the benefits gained from adjusting corporate tax legislation to encourage the replacement of inefficient equipment and from removing regulatory barriers to combined heat and power (CHP) projects. These two policies alone could reduce national energy consumption by 7 quads and save the economy close to $300 billion.

“We want to show policymakers that there are a number of cost-effective policies out there that could promote energy efficiency and kick start the economy at the same time. This report highlights a number of inventive approaches that we haven’t made much use of to date,” said lead author and ACEEE Senior Research Analyst Shruti Vaidyanathan.

The report includes policy interventions targeted at residential and commercial buildings, the industrial sector, and the transportation sector, as well as a number of policies with economy-wide benefits. For each measure, the report provides a brief description of the policy, its legislative history, general estimates of associated costs and benefits, and recommendations about future policy design.

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The designation of Corridor Park as a primary data center site will be a useful recruiting tool for the area.

The Tennessee Valley Authority and Deloitte Consulting have approved TVA’s first metro-area primary data center site in the Corridor Park in Knoxville. To be considered a metro site, the location must have at least 10 acres, a minimum of 5 megawatts of power capacity and diverse fiber optic feeds available.

The selection process is part of TVA’s Economic Development target industry recruitment efforts. Knoxville is one of only 20 available data center sites designated as “primary ready for development” in the TVA service area.

“Having this site identified as a primary data center location gives the Knox County area an advantage in the highly competitive site selection process,” said John Bradley, TVA senior vice president for Economic Development. “We are glad to work with the Knoxville Chamber, local utilities and other community, state and regional leaders to actively market these sites to companies as part of our global economic development recruitment efforts.”

Doug Lawyer, vice president of economic development for the Knoxville Chamber, believes the designation will be a useful recruiting tool for the area.

“I look forward to touting the advantages of the Knoxville site to intensive capital investment and high wage prospective data center end users,” Lawyer said. “Thanks to TVA and my local utility and development partners for helping us along in this process.”

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We don’t know where all the climate-change skeptics have gone, but we don’t expect to hear from them again.

Most of us now accept the grim reality that weather patterns which have endured for centuries have dramatically and perhaps permanently shifted in our lifetimes. A national conversation has begun on the short- and long-term measures we must take to deal with this new normal.

From Washington comes news that the U.S. has signed an agreement with the Netherlands for broad collaboration on disaster mitigation and sustainable planning.

Water-logged Holland probably has more experience than any other nation on what needs to be done to combat rising sea levels in low-lying areas. The Dutch have erected the world’s most sophisticated network of dams, floodgates, storm-surge barriers and levees to manage the tidal flow of the North Sea into Holland’s ubiquitous canals.

Two gigantic moving sea walls, each of which cost billions, are now operational and can be closed to cut off the surge of water which periodically threatens Rotterdam, Europe’s busiest port. In the U.S., serious discussion has begun about whether it will be necessary to build a similar mega-structure to protect lower Manhattan, which when it was founded in the 1600s went by the moniker — irony alert! — New Amsterdam.

The good news is that all the talk about disaster preparedness has quickly focused on a central priority: we must engineer our ongoing disaster recovery response so that whatever emerges will have a much better chance of dealing with future onslaughts. When he announced this week’s agreement with the Netherlands, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan stressed that a key goal of the collaboration is “to mitigate the impact of future natural disasters.”

Business Facilities is doing its part to keep the conversation going. The keynote address at our annual LiveXchange event (May 19-21, Westin Stonebriar, Dallas, TX) will be delivered by John Copenhaver, the former FEMA director for the Southeast region of the U.S.

Mr. Copenhaver’s talk is entitled “Self-Reliance: The Key to Disaster Recovery.” He will focus on the need for locations big and small in vulnerable areas to make sure they have the resources in place to deal with the megastorms and other disasters to come. He also will explain why it’s critical to tailor today’s disaster recovery to produce a result that makes us safer when tomorrow’s natural catastrophes arrive.

The need to do this is being embraced on the state and local level as well as in the White House. At a public policy symposium hosted this week by the New Jersey chapter of NAIOP, the commercial real estate development association, Gov. Chris Christie, NJ State Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald each addressed the ongoing Sandy recovery with an eye towards the future and the big storms to come.

A $60-billion federally funded recovery effort is now underway in the NY-NJ region. To get a sense of the scope of this undertaking, consider these statistics cited by Gov. Christie in his keynote to the NAIOP gathering:

In the wake of Sandy, electricity was cut off to 7 million of New Jersey’s 8.8 million residents; 136,000 families were left homeless; more than 10 million cubic yards of debris had to be cleared from public property; the Jersey Shore, which generates more than $40 billion in revenue annually for the state, was decimated.

The night after the storm passed through, Christie said, he logged onto Google Earth and took a look at his state from space. “It was dark,” the governor said.

Thanks to the heroic efforts of Gov. Christie and many others, more than 1 million NJ residents were evacuated before the storm hit, limiting the death toll to 40; 95 percent of the power was restored within 14 days and the debris on public lands was cleaned up within 90 days. Now, the arduous task of rebuilding has begun.

Assembly Leader Greenwald emphasized that how New Jersey rebuilds is as important as how fast. ”It is critical that the rebuilding be done in a way that diminishes the impact of future storms,” he said. “We have to make sure that we don’t have to spend this money all over again.”

In terms of climate, Sen. Sweeney noted, “the New Jersey we grew up in is not the one we live in now. We have to be ready for tornados, floods and everything else.”

Perhaps the most critical issue still to be resolved in the Sandy recovery is whether all of the damaged structures should be rebuilt in New York and New Jersey. NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo is proposing that the Empire State undertake a $400-million program to buy up the most vulnerable shoreline properties and convert them back to wetlands.

Asked whether NJ is considering following New York’s lead on this, Greenwald conceded that a serious discussion of whether to put limits on rebuilding has yet to take place in Trenton.

We’ll keep you posted.

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The Baxter bio-pharmaceutical facility, an integrated campus which will include three main manufacturing components as well as warehousing, utilities and lab support facilities, is expected to directly create 1,800 jobs with an economic impact of $6.2 billion.

Over a 10-year period, the bioscience complex will generate a regional economic impact estimated at nearly $13 billion, creating more than 8,700 direct, indirect and induced jobs. The campus will be located in Covington, GA in Stanton Springs, a 1,620-acre master-designed industrial park west of Interstate 20 at the intersection of Newton, Walton, Jasper and Morgan counties.
Baxter’s new biologics manufacturing facility will include an advanced plasma fractionation facility that will give the bio/pharma giant additional capacity for testing and purification of its medications. Products to be made at the Georgia site include immunoglobulin treatments for patients with immune deficiencies and albumin products used as plasma-volume replacement therapies in critical care, trauma and burn patients.

“This mega-project will anchor Georgia’s thriving bioscience sector for years to come, moving the Peach State into the front ranks of national biotech players,” Business Facilities Editor in Chief Jack Rogers said.

Rogers said BF‘s judging panel for the Economic Development Deal of the Year competition was particularly impressed by the regional cooperation that brought this project to fruition, and the flexibility shown by state and county agencies in tailoring solutions to meet Baxter’s needs. Baxter narrowed the location search to four candidates internationally in 2009.

The entities involved in landing the project included the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the Joint Development Authority of Walton, Newton, Morgan and Jasper Counties, Georgia Power and the Technology Park of Atlanta.

The quick turn-around time between the site selection decision announcement in April of this year and construction of primary facilities in the Baxter project is unprecedented, Rogers noted.

“Baxter announced its decision in April and by August 1 ground was already broken on a 1-million-plus-square-foot facility,” he said. “Georgia’s willingness to cut red tape  will be followed by a ribbon-cutting on a world-class bioscience complex.”

Construction of the first manufacturing buildings at the new Baxter campus is expected to be completed in 2015, with full commercial production commencing in 2018.

Projects nominated for Business Facilities’ annual Economic Development Deal of the Year competition are asked to submit an Economic Impact Analysis for the project (using standard analysis methods including RIMS II, REMI or IMPLAN) and a narrative detailing how the project came together.

The judging panel, including industry experts and leading site selection consultants, evaluates the overall impact of the project and assesses the effectiveness and innovation of the location’s approach to landing the deal. Key factors in the evaluation include creative use of incentives, regional cooperation, partnerships with higher education resources, potential for growth and execution of overall economic development strategy.

Click the highlighted links to read about winners in Silver, Bronze and Honorable Mention categories along with the winner of BF‘s State of the Year Award.

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“Even in a recovering economy, Time Warner Cable continues to grow and is pleased to offer valuable, good paying jobs in Columbia,” said Carol Hevey, executive vice president, Time Warner Cable East. “The addition of 644 jobs, which increases our South Carolina workforce by more than 50 percent, emphasizes our strong commitment to South Carolina.”

Time Warner Cable plans to expand its Retention Center, Telesales Operations Support and Payment Services departments at its West Columbia campus. The company currently employs nearly 1,300 across the state.

“We are excited to start the year off with today’s job-creating announcement by Time Warner Cable. While we work to bring new companies to South Carolina, it speaks to the strength of our state’s business-friendly climate when existing businesses like Time Warner Cable succeed and grow,” said Gov. Nikki Haley.

Time Warner Cable is the largest cable provider in South Carolina and the second largest in the country. The company provides residential customers with video, high speed Internet and digital phone, and business customers with a range of communication solutions and tools, including cloud services, for all size businesses.

“Time Warner Cable has been an important part of our state’s business community for years and this announcement shows they are committed to growing in South Carolina. The company’s growth will bring good-paying jobs that will have an impact throughout Lexington County and the Midlands as a whole,” said Secretary of Commerce Bobby Hitt.

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As part of the non-binding MOU, FirstEnergy would supervise construction of the four combustion turbine units that are capable of producing 873 megawatts (MW).  AMP will provide the construction financing and own 75 percent of the generation output upon completion, while FirstEnergy will fund and own the remaining 25 percent of the output in 2016.  Plans call for the facility to be operational in early 2016.

Plant construction is expected to begin in the latter half of 2014 and will take approximately 15-20 months to complete.  It is expected that up to 150 temporary construction jobs will be created for this project.

FirstEnergy’s Eastlake Plant was selected for the new combustion turbines due to its existing transmission system interconnections and the fact it is located in a region that could be impacted by the deactivation of older power plants.  Earlier this year, FirstEnergy announced that nine older, coal-fired power plants, including the Eastlake Plant, would be deactivated as a result of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) and other environmental regulations.

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