Archive for the ‘Borderplex Expansions’ Category

Article courtesy to the Las Cruces Bulletin

By Gabriel Vasquez

Not many people know about the West Mesa Industrial Park, a 1,820-acre development located on Interstate 10, eight miles west of Las Cruces. It is home to several companies specializing in light and general manufacturing, and more are coming.

Most recently, Alaska Structures (AKS), a company in Las Cruces for more than 10 years, has expanded from its South Main Street facility into the 180,000-square-foot West Mesa building previously occupied by Rea Magnet Wire.

“I can confirm they are now occupying the old Rea building, and have taken over part of the Parkview site as well,” said Davin Lopez, president and CEO of the Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance.

The Parkview Metals site, vacant since 2007, stands at 100,000 square feet. AKS leased all but the office space in the building as it continues to consolidate its El Paso operations into Las Cruces.

“(AKS) will need more employees, but I do not know if they are hiring right now,” said Christine Logan, administrator for the city’s Economic Development Department. AKS designs, engineers and manufactures fabric-building systems for extreme environments for both military and commercial use. It recently was awarded a large contract that called for the expansion. Expected employment for the Rea site is 75 to90 employees, city officials said, with a possible expansion of up to 170 employees once the Parkview site is fully operational.

“It’s safe to say, that any local company that expands at this rate can only be a great opportunity for us,” Lopez said.

Although industrial buildings are still available for lease, space on the West Mesa is becoming more of a hot commodity.

“Don Billings has a 6,000-square-foot spec building available on Trigg Loop and NAI 1st Valley is marketing a 23,000-squarefoot facility on Crawford Boulevard,” Logan said. “Although there are not many buildings available, there are several development ready land parcels available through private land owners and the city.”

Current West Mesa tenants include Samson Equipment, which continues to do well and is looking to acquire additional land for expansion. F&A Dairy Products has completed a significant expansion and has recently upped its employment number to 93.

The Sapphire Energy research and development site continues to grow and now employs 24 full-time and has added several interns from New Mexico State University.

Onion producers Barker Produce have a new facility under construction on the West Mesa and Premier Distributing opened a facility there in February and employs 63 people in the park.

For more information on the West Mesa Industrial Park, a city-owned light manufacturing and industry development, call (575) 541-2286.

In a recent online article, CNNMoney.com ranked Dona Ana County number 14 out of 25 counties that have experienced the most job growth over the last nine years. The article reports that between 2000 and 2009, Dona Ana County’s job growth was 34.5%.

The article mentions Foxconn, Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic, and New Mexico State University. The article and the other counties mentioned are available online by clicking the CNNMoney.com link above.

Release courtesy of NMSU News Center

July 26, 2010

NMSU photo by Harrison Brooks

WRITER: Justin Bannister, 575-646-5981, jbannist@nmsu.edu

CONTACT: Vickie Galindo, 575-646-5265, vigalind@nmsu.edu

The U.S. Economic Development Administration has awarded New Mexico State University’s Arrowhead Center a $1.5 million grant for infrastructure improvements to the Arrowhead Business and Research Park and to expand the newly created Arrowhead Drive.

The Arrowhead Business and Research Park covers 224 acres at the southern end of NMSU’s Las Cruces campus between Interstates 10 and 25. Its goal is to link scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs in developing emerging technologies that contribute to the state’s economic development.

“This funding will help the park continue its expansion and aid us in attracting companies seeking to work with NMSU faculty members and students,” said Pam Wood, research park director.

The university completed a mile-long extension of Payne Street through the research park earlier this year. This new grant will allow the university to expand that section of road, now named Arrowhead Drive, from two lanes to four. The grant will also allow NMSU to finish the park’s wastewater system, to install street lighting and to conduct an engineering study to help better plan for the next stages of development.

The Arrowhead Center won a similar, $900,000 grant from the EDA to help pay for construction on the first part of Arrowhead Drive and its accompanying utilities. Other money for that project came from the state of New Mexico, local road funds, the New Mexico Department of Transportation and NMSU.

“These investments by the Economic Development Administration and other partners are not only making the park more accessible and attractive to new businesses, they’re also helping lay the groundwork for a lot of exciting developments yet to come,” said Vickie Galindo, Arrowhead’s director of business development.

The Arrowhead Business and Research Park’s most recently completed building, Spaceplex 2, is home to General Dynamics and opened last summer. The park’s next building will be more than 8,000 square feet and broken into smaller, 1,700-square-foot pads for businesses intending to establish themselves before jumping into larger spaces. That building is currently under construction and scheduled for completion in the coming weeks.

Other plans for the research park include working with the Las Cruces Public School District to construct an early college high school where high school students could take college-level courses for credit.

Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin

By Marvin Tessneer

The NRG Energy Company is planning to use a different power generation system than originally proposed for its Santa Teresa facility. It now plans to use tracking mirrors and photovoltaic panels to convert New Mexico’s ample sunlight into electrical power, a company spokesman reported.

Previously, NRG had planned to use a solar-thermal system that reflected and directed sunlight with mirrors at a steep angle into towers that boiled water for steam-powered turbines to generate electric power.

The company now intends to use solar panel arrays to generate electric power with a photovoltaic system because using a solar-thermal array would take longer, said NRG spokesman David Knox.

“What we have in this system is transforming solar power directly into electrical power,” Knox said. “We’ve been working with El Paso Electric Co. to determine a schedule to bring solar power on line as soon as possible.”

NRG decided to make the change to comply with New Mexico Public Regulations Commission (PRC) time line requirements. NRG also has a purchase agreement with El Paso Electric (EPE) Co.

NRG and EPE had first agreed on a 92-megawatt generation facility, but because the photovoltaic system is a new technology, they agreed to reduce the generation to 20 megawatts, the power company reported.

Construction dates for the photovoltaic plant proposal are pending a review and approval by the PRC, Knox said.

The photovoltaic panels will be set up in arrays. The panels will absorb light photons to turn into electricity.

“When photons strike the solar cells contained in a solar panel, they can be reflected, absorbed or passed through the panel,” according to a First Solar information source. “When photons are absorbed, they have the energy to knock electrons loose, which flow in one direction in the panel and exit through connecting wires as solar electricity, ultimately providing power for residential and commercial users.”

First Solar is the leading photovoltaic panel manufacturer in the United States and has been providing panels for the NRG Blythe Solar Project in Riverside County in southeastern California.

“Power generated by the Blythe Solar Plant can provide enough energy to serve the needs of about 17,000 homes at peak capacity and will replace more than 12,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year from fossil fuel generation,” a First Solar information release states.

NRG is planning to install the photovoltaic arrays on 450 acres near Santa Teresa, 10 miles west of El Paso. But it has not named a solar panel manufacturer for the project, pending PRC approval, Knox said.

When completed, the solar-power system will be connected with an EPE transmission line, avoiding additional construction, the utility company reported.

NRG has been conducting a 21-megawatt solar power research and development project at the commercial Blythe plant since 2009. The solar-generated power has been sold to Southern California Edison under a 20-year purchase agreement.

“This project demonstrates leadership for California in the utility-scale solar market, providing the lowest-cost solar energy available and helping the state meet its renewable portfolio standard,” the company reported.

Article courtesy of Las Cruces Sun-News

By Brook Stockberger

As you travel on Interstate 10 south of Las Cruces near Mesquite, the discernible aroma of cow is often in the air. Now that smell could be a multimillion dollar business that helps the environment as well.

R-Qubed Energy, a New Mexico-registered company operated by a group of El Paso business folks, hopes to break ground this summer on a $74 million, 11-acre plant that will employ 80 to 90 full-time workers and turn methane from cow manure into energy.

And, oh yeah, the process could cut down on the odor in the area by collecting up the manure. Sound too good to be true? Michael Weatherly, who owns Buena Vista farm in Mesquite, believes in the process. He is selling land to R-Qubed to build the facility. “You have the cows and they produce manure (and) people have complained about the odor of the dairies,” Weatherly said. “This is kind of a win-win for everybody. It takes our dairy waste and converts it into energy. It’s just better for the communities and the neighbors.”

The company already has a deal to sell gas to PNM, the utility company that provides electricity to much of the state, although not Dona Ana County.

Lori Hughes, manager director with R-Qubed, said that the company researched a variety of places, but that the location of multiple dairy farms near Mesquite made the most sense. “Within about 16 miles, you have between 40 and 50,000 cows,” she said. “And of course you’ve got the waste stream here 24/7, it just doesn’t stop.”

John Davis with the company said that, as green source of energy, this will be one of the most consistent. “Wind will produce as long as wind blows and sun as long as the sun shines but biogas is a very stable, 24/7 product,” Davis said.

The plant will be built by Austrian-based company Entec Biogas GMBH. It will be constructed in four quadrants, with the first scheduled to break ground in June or July.

Manure will be captured and piped to the plant, into what is called a digester. There, it will spend about 30 days in a one of several, 60-foot tanks, where it will be constantly stirred and kept at a temperature of about 100 degrees. The methane released will be routed through a pipe in the top of the tank, go through a scrubbing process and sent on its way to a PNM transmission pipe.

“It’s like a continuation of a cow’s stomach,” Davis said. “It works on the microbes that are already in the manure, so putting it in digester is just continuing the process.”

After 30 days, much of the manure will have been degraded, or converted to methane, and what Hughes called the “slurry” left behind will then be pumped into a centrifuge to separate liquid from solid. The solid will be collected for compost and the liquid will either be used for fertilizer or pumped to a water treatment facility there. In fact, the composting and water treatment process are every bit as important to the company as the methane collection.

“It is not economically viable as a commercial operation based on energy alone,” Hughes said. “There had to be other revenue streams that were developed; that brings in the composting and water side of that.”

In addition, carbon dioxide is also produced during the process, and that gas can be sold as well, for use in oil wells to help push oil out of the ground or even to Sapphire Energy, which is producing algae in Las Cruces in hopes of extracting oil from the plant-like organism. In return, Keith Hughes with the company said that algae left over by the process can be composted at the plant.

R-Qubed is not the only group in the area working on the manure-to-energy angle. New Mexico State University researchers Zohrab Samani and Adrian Hanson have developed a digester system as well.

The school reports that it received a $321,000 grant that will enable the researchers to build a full-scale digester system to test their process. The model digester will be built in La Mesa, where a local grower will use this electricity to heat greenhouses and will use a byproduct compost to help grow plants.

Hughes said that the idea, which has been in use in Europe for years, is catching on in the area, although the understanding of the process is still in its infancy. The point was driven home when the company made a presentation to government officials in Santa Fe. “We did a presentation up at the Roundhouse and one of the comments made was, ‘This better not be a scam,’” he said.

If R-Qubed vision comes true, one day when you flip your light switch, you could just have Bessy to thank.