Posts Tagged ‘New Mexico’

Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin

By Marvin Tessneer

Sapphire Energy is constructing an integrated algal bio-refinery (IABR) to produce green crude oil on a site near Columbus, N.M., in Luna County, the first commercial facility in the country, according to a company newsletter. Sapphire, which is headquartered in San Diego, also operates a 22-acre test and development facility in Las Cruces’ West Mesa Industrial Park.

 Sapphire has scheduled a multi-year project to produce green crude. The first production phase will start this summer. By 2014, the company expects the Columbus IABR facility to produce 100 barrels, or 1 million gallons of fuel a year, according to Sapphire.

The Columbus IABR facility is expected to provide 700 jobs during construction and 30 permanent jobs for continued operations. Sapphire has designed raceway ponds at Columbus to grow algae that will cover 100 to 300 acres. In the energy business, the operation is termed “farming under water.”

Government agencies believe Sapphire is on the right track to grow and harvest algae and produce green crude. The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded the company a $50million grant and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has guaranteed a $54.5million loan, according to Sapphire.

Most people consider green mass seen on ponds “green gunk.” But Sapphire is developing that green gunk, or algae, into a renewable and sustainable transportation fuel that will help reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign petroleum.

“All of us on the research and development side are rooting for Sapphire to have tremendous success at its commercial demonstration facility at Columbus,” said Pete Lammers, New Mexico State University biochemistry professor.

Algae are a micro-organism that combines sunlight and carbon dioxide from the air as sources of energy to produce green crude oil. Scientists report algae can produce 10 times or more energy per acre than other bio-fuels crops. Algae don’t compete with food crops. Land at the Columbus site is marginal for crops, and the water is brackish and not suitable for irrigation.

The algal green crude is termed “drop-in” fuel in the industry. The Sapphire newsletter reported, “Sapphire Energy has cultivated algae that create renewable crude oil that can be processed in existing refineries into jet fuel, diesel and gasoline. These drop-in replacement fuels are molecularly identical to petroleum-based fuels and are compatible with existing infrastructure and engines.”

Release courtesy of the NMSU News Center

Top national and state economists will unveil their economic forecasts for 2012 at the inaugural Economic Outlook Conference sponsored by the College of Business at New Mexico State University and Wells Fargo Bank. The free conference takes place from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Jan. 12 at the Corbett Center Student Union on the NMSU campus.

“Wells Fargo’s decision to co-host its economic forecast conference in Las Cruces reflects the growing importance this region has on the overall state economy,” said Garrey Carruthers, dean of the NMSU College of Business and vice president for economic development.

“Wells Fargo is proud to partner with NMSU to present this inaugural economic outlook event,” said Lisa Riley, regional president for Wells Fargo New Mexico. “The purpose of this event is to deliver the very latest information concerning the United States and New Mexico economies. Recent history, current state and future paths of each of these economies will provide the business owner or executive with the best information available to plan for the coming year.”

Delivering the national economic forecast for Wells Fargo will be Eugenio Alemán, a senior economist and vice president for the company. Alemán will discuss the country’s strengthening economy as job creation rises and the housing market stabilizes. He also will discuss the challenges still facing the nation’s economy, particularly the risk posed by a potential collapse of the euro.

At Wells Fargo, Alemán forecasts national, regional and international economic trends. His primary focus is the United States, including interest rates and the economies of Texas and Arizona. He also is an expert on the economies of Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. Within that area, his specialties include the economies of border towns that trade with Mexico and the maquiladora-manufacturing sector along the U.S.-Mexico border. He is based in Charlotte, N.C.

After Alemán’s presentation, NMSU economist Jim Peach will provide the state’s economic forecast. Peach will explain how the national economy affects New Mexico and also will focus on economic growth prospects for the state.  “Three sectors of the state economy – government, energy and construction – will be key factors in both the short- and long-run recovery in New Mexico,” Peach said.

To register for the event, contact Judy Wetzel at 575-521-6849 or at judith.a.wetzel@wellsfargo.com.

Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin

By Todd G. Dickson

State Higher Education Secretary Jose Garcia and Public Education Secretary-designate Hanna Skandera say they intend to make the public schools and higher education work together to provide a better trained work force.

Speaking before the Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance (MVEDA) Tuesday, Jan. 3, Garcia and Skandera said they also will make the educational system more accountable. Their appearance in Las Cruces was followed up by Gov. Susana Martinez meeting with a large group of regents, governing board members and post-secondary institution presidents in Socorro to discuss the state’s new higher education funding formula.

The new formula will reward New Mexico’s higher learning institutions based on outcome measures that reflect student achievement and preparedness for New Mexico’s work force, as opposed to basing the allocation of funding on measurements like the size (square footage) of each institution. Also, the current formula funds colleges and universities based on courses and degree programs started. The new formula would be based on courses and degree programs completed.

Garcia said this is about more than making better use of the state’s support of higher education. The idea is to put the money into where there are gaps, especially in skill sets needed in high-tech professions.

At the MVEDA luncheon, Garcia noted that Intel decided to expand its Arizona operations, but not its plant in Rio Rancho. Yet, New Mexico spends more per graduate than Arizona, he said. Garcia said he took it as signal that New Mexico is not producing the kind of work force that is needed for the United States to be competitive globally.

“The central goal of New Mexico’s higher education institutions should be to graduate the students New Mexico’s economy will depend on for decades,” Martinez said. “In an increasingly competitive global economy, this formula will help us deliver the graduates we need for the jobs of tomorrow, and it serves to intently focus our attention on the achievement of our students.”

Under the formula, institutions would receive funding for graduating students in “STEHM” (Science, Technology, Engineering, Health Care and Mathematics) fields. A recent study disclosed that New Mexico’s economy will require nearly 50,000 employees with STEHM degrees by 2018 and nearly 95 percent of those jobs will require post-secondary education. “For the first time in the history of New Mexico, the younger generation is less educated than the generations before,” Garcia said. “This new formula is our opportunity to make sure today’s students are tomorrow’s successful employees.”

Meanwhile, Skandera said the schools will be changing, too, with a focus on making graduates better prepared for the work force or higher education once they complete school. Skandera said the schools will be more realistically assessed than the guaranteed failure rates offered by No Child Left Behind standards, which she said has only resulted in schools putting resources into helping borderline students rather than helping struggling students.

“Education is about setting up our kids for success,” Skandera said. “Let’s honor the successes we see and work on the areas we need to.”

At the MVEDA luncheon, a local success story was also highlighted. The Arrowhead Park Early College High School (APECHS) on the New Mexico State University campus will get a boost from a $345,090 W.K. Kellogg Foundation grant for the public-private workforce development advocate. The school, created by a school-business partnership called the Bridge of Southern New Mexico gives students the chance to learn in a higher education environment and earn college credits.

APECHS can tout that none of its students have dropped out, said Tracey Bryan, president and CEO of The Bridge. She said the cooperative efforts between the public schools, higher education and the business community is what spurred Kellogg to give the significant grant.

Distribution of the grant money includes $45,000 to NMSU’s Enlace Program that helps minority students succeed in higher education, $45,000 to NMSU and the University of New Mexico education research centers, $37,090 to the Arrowhead Center where the school is housed and $10,000 to the Service Learning Program at the NMSU College of Education. But the bulk of the Kellogg grant will be used to increase the student capacity at APECHS and to begin work on setting up four more early college high schools in Doña Ana County, according to the grant announcement.

Bryan said the Kellogg grant is a significant award, but The Bridge also has been getting grants from other private foundations and local businesses to help the APECHS effort. Through APECHS and other efforts, Las Cruces Public Schools is seeing good progress on reducing its dropout rate overall, Bryan said, “and the sky’s the limit” for future progress.

Skandera touted APECHS as an example of how to improve schools. “We didn’t point fingers in Las Cruces,” she said. “We sat down and said how do we get there, and we partnered.”

Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin

By Samantha Roberts

As 2011 comes to a close, businesses are rushing to make end-of-the-year deadlines, including renewable energy certificates (REC) for solar that will change in 2012.

F&A Dairy Products will be expanding its solar systems, adding four 100kilowatt units to the existing unit the dairy installed in May. “The four additional units will fuel different parts of the complex and will be located next to the existing unit,” said Bob Snyder, vice president of New Mexico operations for F&A Dairy. Snyder said the dairy decided to add the additional solar now, so it could take advantage of incentives that will expire in 2011.

“RECs are at a peak right now,” said Mellow Honek, a managing member of Sunspot Solar Energy Systems, which installed the panels at the dairy. “They are great right now, but they will still be good next year. The incentives are not going away, but will be changing. “I would definitely recommend other people (add solar). It’s a step in the right direction toward energy independence. And we have an abundance of sunshine here.”

“We thought if we were going to do it, it better be this year,” Snyder said. “The panels significantly offset the energy we use. “Solar does create enough energy to make a difference.”

Though the dairy uses too much energy to be entirely generated by solar, Snyder said the panels will help “take out some of the peaks.” “This is just to offset costs,” he said. “A dairy is a big place, and we use a lot of utilities to process the milk into cheese.”

Honek said the amount of solar the dairy will have after construction on the additional panels is completed in March 2012 will be equivalent to 100 solar systems on mid-sizes houses. “To my knowledge, the one 100-kilowatt unit the dairy has now is the largest commercial system on a privately owned building in New Mexico,” Honek said. “The system after everything is completed will be five times that size.”

Honek said installing all of the panels will take about 1,300 man hours. “The dairy has been a great customer, and they are a perfect example of a company that is making an investment in a major resource we have here,” Honek said. “Powering a portion of their plant using solar shows what is possible for businesses to do to reduce long-term energy costs.”

The dairy doubled in size a little more than one year ago and now employs about 140 people. “We are constantly making changes,” Snyder said. “Our goal is to get both plants running to full capacity.”

F&A Dairy distributes its products to Toucan Market and other distributors. Locally, Dion’s Pizza is a purchaser of F&A Dairy products.

The Future of Dairy in New Mexico

F&A Dairy is one example of growth the dairy industry in New Mexico has seen over the past few years. “Southern New Mexico is a major player in the dairy market,” said Jeff Witte, director/ secretary for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture (NMDA).

“Southern New Mexico dairies have an abundant milk supply,” Snyder said. “Farmers are leaving California and coming to New Mexico and the Texas panhandle.”

Milk production in New Mexico averages more than 600 million pounds per month, according to the NMDA. New Mexico currently has 173 dairy farms, with a large number of them in eastern New Mexico. There are 20 processing plants in the state.

“Dairy in New Mexico saw growth in the eastern portion of the state from 2008 to ’09,” said Robert Hagevoort, extension dairy specialist with New Mexico State University. Hagevoort said cheese plants in Clovis, N.M., and Dalhart, Texas, spurred this growth. “There are benefits in New Mexico for the dairy industry,” Hagevoort said. “There is a lot of agriculture in New Mexico, so farms can grow the feed that dairies need, and they, in turn, can supply the farms with fertilizer. “There is a natural free flow from each one.”

Hagevoort said dairies also use marginal farmland so they don’t compete with other crops. However, dairies are struggling with drought conditions, high feed costs and corn prices that are increased from ethanol demands. “Depending on world economy, the future of dairy in New Mexico is still great,” he said. “It all depends on larger economic factors beyond our control. Linking energy to food policies doesn’t make any sense.”

Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin

By Todd G. Dickson

Technology is increasingly more common in the battlefield while the future of government funding is becoming more unknown, said White Sands Missile Range’s new Commander Col. John Ferrari.

Speaking at the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce annual military update luncheon Thursday, Dec. 15, Ferrari said the range’s people are working to keep the range a key player in conducting tests of the new technology while becoming a more efficient military installation.

Ferrari, who became the range’s commander Aug. 18, said it’s all the skilled and creative people who will be making the range successful in meeting the new objectives and roles. He also acknowledged the strong support the range gets from the local population. “In the end, it’s all about people,” Ferrari said. “It’s the people of New Mexico and the people of this community that allow us to complete our national security mission.”

Along with WSMR, neighboring Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo and Fort Bliss in El Paso are seeing their missions change and expand. “We’re going to change, because we have to change, because the world around us is changing, too,” he said. High-tech testing will continue to be WSMR’s main mission, he said, and so the base as an organization is looking for ways it can continue to offer value and find new funding. At its current level of operations, he said, WSMR’s contribution to the local economy is estimated to be worth about $1.8 million a day.

NewTec, a company that provides technical support to the range, alone employs about 520 people, said Charles Garcia, company president and CEO. Personnel at WSMR also provide important analysis for the government, especially in the area of countering attacks and protecting systems and weapons from the effects of attacks, he said. That work includes testing building construction and materials to be able to withstand an explosion or finding new methods to detect bombs, he said.

The base has a strong medical community for the more than 900 employees, Ferrari said, who are not only there for the soldiers and the families stationed at the base, but they play a key role in occupational safety along with caring for those who may get injured in testing activities. He said the medical personnel also provide services to local veterans. The range is home to the Navy’s only commissioned naval vessel on land for testing systems before they actually go to sea, he said.

One of the most recent and significant changes for the base has been the addition of the 2nd Engineers Battalion, most of whom have just come back from Afghanistan. Members of the battalion have the dangerous job in war to find and disable or contain improvised explosive devices. Ferrari remarked that most of the battalion is made up of young soldiers who volunteered for the service knowing they would certainly go to war and perform a hazardous job. They do that dangerous work because they trust the technology and engineering, he said.

“We’re creating those systems that they’re entrusting their lives with,” Ferrari said The main base covers 3,200 square miles of land, but “that’s not even enough to do what we do” he said, so a few times a year, the range must ask surrounding ranchers for their help when the testing requires 5,000 square miles. “We’re even doing tests up in Cloudcroft,” Ferrari said. “That’s why we appreciate the graciousness of the people of New Mexico.”

Where much of the past testing has been on missile systems, much of the future testing will be on the reliability of electronic technology in the field and protecting them from being jammed or disabled, Ferrari said. That also includes communications, which is critical to systems such as GPS, he said.

WSMR has a tradition of excellence it must maintain as it adjusts to the changing “fiscal environment,” he said. “We have to protect that brand image,” Ferrari said “We do things here that can’t be done anyplace else, anywhere.”

Besides improving general efficiency, WSMR is training existing employees to be less specialized, he said. The challenge, he said, is to break the military paradigm of caring too much about organizational structure and focusing on accomplishing the mission with the workforce on-hand. That makes the quality of local education even more critical, he said. “We’ll get through this difficult financial environment together, because we will not get through this separate from each other,” Ferrari said.