Inside Tucson Business
Published on Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Bell Independant Power Corp., of Rochester, New York, is coming to build and operate a 5mw solar plant with a thermal storage system that will be the first of its kind in the world.

The company was announced today (Jan. 19) as the first tenant of the University of Arizona Science and Tech Park’s Solar Zone announced last week.

This solar generation plant will take up 45 acres and will be built at a cost of $32 million. It will be able to power 1,500 typical tucson homes.It will create 75 jobs to build the facility and 7 full time jobs to run it. It will begin supplying power to Tucson homes in 2011.

This is a concentrator plant, meaning it will use mirrors to concentrate the sun’s rays to heat a tower with oil in it. The new technology allows for incresed production after the sun goes down. Tucson Electric Power has asked the arizona corporation commission to approve its plan to purchase power from the plant over a 20-year period.

By Stephanie Innes

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.17.2010

advertisement

A University of Arizona program that targets a serious obesity problem among people living along the Arizona/Mexico border has received $3.9 million from the federal government.

Many factors are contributing to high rates of obesity in Arizona border communities, including poverty, a lack of nutrition education and issues such as the location of fast-food outlets and grocery stores, said Lisa Staten, who directs the Canyon Ranch Center for Community Health Promotion at the UA’s Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

The center has received funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since 1998. The $3.9 million from the CDC will allow the center to continue its work in promoting healthy habits among obese populations in border communities for the next five years, Staten said this week.

Arizona Daily Star

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.14.2010

The U.S. Air Force and Raytheon Missile Systems recently completed the first free-flight test of the Miniature Air Launched Decoy-Jammer (MALD-J), the Tucson-based company said Wednesday.

The test sets the stage for a critical design review in 2010 and a possible decision on production in early 2011, Raytheon said in a news release.

The MALD-J adds radar-jamming capability to the basic MALD, a relatively low-cost, air-launched and programmable craft that mimics the flight profiles and radar signatures of U.S. and allied aircraft.

By David Wichner

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.13.2010

Arizona’s biosciences sector made notable gains in 2008 and 2009 despite the recession and its lingering effects, according to a report issued Tuesday.

But the state saw its federal medical research grants fall 10 percent, and venture capital remained scarce, says an annual update on the state’s 10-year biosciences development plan.

Jobs in Arizona’s bioscience industry, including hospitals, grew by about 4,900, or 5.8 percent, to 89,674 in 2008, said the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice.

In the same year, Arizona’s private sector lost 3.2 percent of its jobs as the recession took grip, noted Battelle, which was commissioned by the Phoenix-based Flinn Foundation to formulate the Arizona Bioscience Roadmap in late 2002.

Arizona Daily Star

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.13.2010

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords introduced legislation Tuesday to boost the construction and expansion of science parks with grants and loan guarantees.

The bill would authorize the Commerce Department to set up a $7.5 million competitive grant program to study the feasibility of developing new science parks and expanding existing ones. It also would provide construction loan guarantees of up to 80 percent, with a maximum loan of $50 million per project.

The bill could benefit the University of Arizona Science and Technology Park, as well as the Arizona Bioscience Park under development, Giffords said.

The measure is co-sponsored by Rep. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico.

The federal agency announced on Wednesday that nearly $80 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be awarded to the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium and the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts. UA is a founding member of the latter.

Up to $33.8 million will go to the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium, which said grants to both groups will be matched by the private sector and cost-share funds.

“This is really exciting, and it’s a great project because of all the expertise being brought together – from the private sectors, universities and national labs,” said Michael A. Cusanovich, a UA Regents’ professor emeritus and one of the investigators with NAABB.

By Tom Beal

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.11.2010

The return of sunshine to Mars’ north pole brings with it a long-shot hope for resurrection of the Phoenix Mars Lander, which is presumed to have fatally frozen after being encased in dry ice during the long Martian winter.

Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have scheduled a series of overflights this month by NASA’s Odyssey orbiter, which will listen for telltale transmissions from an awakening Phoenix.

Phoenix already is a success story, NASA’s Chad Edwards said. University of Arizona scientists used a suite of scientific instruments to reach out, touch and analyze “water ice” and other elements collected from the Martian surface during a five-month mission that ended in November 2008.