Solar Roadways

A remarkable company Solar Roadways that is researching ways to allow roadways to be built with the ability to produce solar power. Take a moment to visit their website.

Arizona Winning the Wrong Race

Authors: Dr. Rufus Glasper is chancellor of the Maricopa County Community Colleges District, Fred DuVal is vice chair of the Arizona Board of Regents. They are co-chairs of “Getting AHEAD – Access to Higher Education And Degrees,” a comprehensive initiative to reshape Arizona’s post-secondary education system and encourage more residents to complete college degrees.

According to a new study, Arizona is winning a race, not to the top but to the bottom — we are about to lead the nation in jobs for high school dropouts. To help reverse this dangerous trend, the state must reshape its higher education system to attract, serve and graduate more college students.

The study by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce tells us that Arizonans are at-risk of being locked out of the middle class. It predicts that Arizona will have enough jobs for high school dropouts, but soon we will be woefully deficient in the number of college graduates needed to fill the high-wage, modern jobs that businesses demand.

What may be most concerning about this report is that it speaks to a persistent mediocrity in our state. Already, 45 percent of Arizona’s high school students do not pursue any form of higher education after high school - the lowest rate among 50 states. Only 25 percent of Arizonans hold bachelor’s degrees.

While it may be easy to find a job in Arizona with just a high school diploma, the new middle class is being defined by college degree holders who are in a better position to sustain a family and grow their income.

Arizona’s residents can aspire to a higher quality of life and the state’s public higher education system is improving how it helps students achieve that dream.

Underway right now is a collaborative effort called “Getting AHEAD - Access to Higher Education And Degrees,” which will improve access to higher education for students across the state. We are developing new and progressive partnerships between the state’s community colleges and the three public universities to allow more residents to complete a bachelor’s degree at a lower cost without ever leaving their home county.

We’re enhancing a student-centered, online advising portal - AZTransfer.com - to help plan academic careers from high school to community college to university. We’re also improving the credit transfer process so students can reliably carry their community college credits and/or an associate’s degree program into a bachelor’s degree program.

Finally, we’re exploring new ways to manage funding and governance among Arizona’s public community colleges and universities so that college is more accessible and affordable no matter what your age or circumstance.

As leaders of Arizona’s higher education system, we believe education is the agent that delivers a better quality of life. The mix and quality of workforce skills of our state residents are directly linked to our ability to move out of this economic recession.

While our economy requires all types of workers and skill sets, more Arizonans must complete college degrees in order for business and our economy to grow. Only then can Arizona can move ahead.

'Raytheon finds just what it needs in Huntsville'

HUNTSVILLE, ALA -

When he was in Congress, Bud Cramer did a lot to help bring high-tech companies and defense and aerospace contractors to this area and keep them here.

So, it was kind of fitting that the latest defense-related job announcement had its origin in a building named for him - Cramer Hall, the National Space Science and Technology Center at the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH).

About a year ago, Raytheon executives met with UAH President Dave Williams; Mike Griffin, the former NASA administrator and current eminent scholar at UAH; and Bruce Anderson of the Alabama Development Office to discuss bringing a state-of-the-art weapons facility here.

Our area was competing with Tucson and Camden, Ark., for the plant; Raytheon already had missile factories in those two cities.

As the assistant director for civil and military aerospace, Anderson has a Huntsville office, which focuses on, naturally, recruiting aerospace, aviation and defense-related jobs to the state.

When he announced Anderson's appointment to the post last year, Gov. Bob Riley said the person in this job must understand the government contract process and be someone who "lives it and breathes it."

In fact, Cramer said Anderson - a former NASA and Marshall Space Flight Center official - was "a natural fit."

And Anderson knew who to reach when the Raytheon opportunity arose.

"Bruce called and asked us to join him" at the meeting, Williams said. "Mike is an icon in the missile defense (industry)."

Griffin, who was in Farnborough, England, for the annual international air show, was unavailable for comment for this story. But he replied in an e-mail.

"Last summer, when I began speaking about the issue with Bruce Anderson, I was in a couple of meetings with Raytheon in an effort to convey to them the advantages of having a technical facility in a town with a research university," he wrote. "This includes a university's role in the cultural life of a technical town that I sought to advance."

Williams said UAH was "just a player" in the talks with Raytheon, which eventually included government, military and business leaders, but the school's role in economic development is well known.

UAH's reputation as a top-notch research university helps company executives feel comfortable when they are considering locating here. They know they are going to have highly trained and highly educated scientists and engineers.

"We brought value to the table," Williams said. "We help provide the next generation of intellectual capital for them."

Raytheon, which employs about 700 people here, knows firsthand about the area's skilled work force. The company knows we have a great standard of living, too.

But it also is familiar with Tucson, its home base. And Camden, where a factory has been building missiles for several years.

And, once again, there is the "Griffin factor."

The school's Center for System Studies - which Griffin established - apparently caught the eye of Raytheon execs. The center looks at the way systems interact in major research, commercial and government projects.

"The Center for System Studies is poised to tackle the complex challenges which present themselves as organizations develop smart power grids, space launch vehicles, robotics and missile defense, to name a few such important sophisticated systems," Griffin said earlier this year.

"Small-system failures might create inefficiencies and frustration for us in our daily lives," he said. Large-system failures can have far greater consequences such as the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979, the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, the Minnesota Interstate 35 bridge collapse in 2008, the major power blackouts of 1965 and 2003 and the Gulf oil spill.

Along with the influence of Griffin, the quality of education here and the skilled work force, the choice to build the $75 million rocket facility here also came down to the old real estate axiom: Location. Location. Location.

Raytheon said a reason it eliminated Tucson was due to time, schedule and costs.

The missile-production schedule would be impaired because of the time involved to buy the land, develop the infrastructure at the site and do the road work on undeveloped land.

The Huntsville Redstone Arsenal site was the most "financially viable" and "operationally feasible" site, Raytheon said.

"It helps that ... Redstone Arsenal is right across the road," Williams said.

And having a couple of aces up our sleeve.

Budd McLaughlin can be reached at budd.mclaughlin@htimes.com

Solar Power Could Provide Almost Quarter of World's Electricity by 2050 (Matthew Knight for CNN, May 12, 2010)

London, England (CNN) -- Solar power is expected to provide almost a quarter of the world's electricity supplies by 2050, according to a new report published by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Eleven percent of total supplies are predicted to come from solar panels on homes and offices while a further 11 percent will be provided by central solar power stations feeding clean electricity to populous areas.

Solar power currently accounts for 0.5 percent of total electricity supplies, but this will need to rise if cuts in carbon emissions are to be achieved, according to the IEA.

Executive director of the IEA, Nobuo Tanaka said in a statement: "The combination of solar photovoltaics and concentrating solar power offers considerable prospects for enhancing energy security while reducing energy-related CO2 emissions by almost six billion tonnes per year by 2050."

The future success of solar power stations (known as Concentrating Solar Power or CSP) will depend on the development of "dedicated transport lines," but the IEA predict that it could become competitive with coal and nuclear power plants by 2030.

The IEA expects North America to be the largest producer of CSP electricity, followed by India and North Africa -- which will likely export half of its output to Europe.

With the right policies in place, the IEA says that solar panels on residential and commercial buildings could compete with traditional electricity supplies by 2020 in many regions. By 2030 the IEA anticipate solar panels will provide five percent of global electricity.

Tanaka, who announced the initiatives at the Mediterranean Solar Plan Conference in Valencia, Spain, called for "long-term oriented, predictable solar-specific incentives" in order to "bring both technologies to competitiveness."

Professor Philip Eames, director of the Center for Renewable Energy Systems Technology at the UK's Loughborough University believes that solar power is a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

"Realistically, I think solar power has quite a bright future. I've seen predictions before and they are becoming more and more bullish as the technology develops," Eames told CNN.

"If you look at the resources that are available and the way technology has developed in the last few years, there will be quite a large increase in solar panels and CSP if it keeps developing."

Eames says costs of solar panels have come down a "huge amount" over the past 12 months and will continue to fall as the technology develops and CSP's maintenance costs are relatively small.

"Solar power's time is starting to come," Eames said.

SCIENCE FOUNDATION ARIZONA Generating Wealth (July 1, 2010, Arizona Daily Star)

In its first three years of operation, Science Foundation Arizona used $50 million in research grants to attract $152.8 million from industry and government sources, according to a report compiled by an independent evaluator.

That led to direct creation of 1,151 jobs in a three-year period that ended June 30, 2009, said Ryan Helwig, an economist with Battelle Technology Partnership Practice.

In the year ending June 30, 2009, the foundation's grants created 394 jobs and its grantees created five new companies, the report says.

Science Foundation Arizona was critical to the continued existence of Tucson's Critical Path Institute, said Dr. Ray Woosley, president and CEO. "They made us real," Woosley said.

When local government money for the institute - formed by the University of Arizona and the FDA to speed drug development - dried up, Science Foundation Arizona stepped in with a $10 million commitment.

Woosley said the institute used that money to secure matches from industry and the Food and Drug Administration. "We estimate for every dollar given by Arizona, we brought in six external dollars," he said. "It helped us create four new companies, and we expect to do a lot more of that," Woosley said.

UA astronomer Roger Angel said Science Foundation Arizona helped him create a company to explore ways to make solar power competitive with fossil fuels with more than $1 million in funding. That money was then matched by the Department of Energy and some small private funding, Angel said.

Margaret Mullen, chief operating officer of Science Foundation Arizona, said the portion of state money invested in science education is an equally important part of the foundation's work.

"We've proven this model not only creates jobs and companies but creates a work-force program so employers know they have a well-educated work force," Mullen said.

In three years, the foundation spent $27.6 million on education programs in science, technology, engineering and math for 160,000 students and 2,900 teachers, according to the report.

The report on the foundation's results is required by the Legislature, which funds its grants and educational programs. The foundation's operating expenses are covered by members of the business groups that helped found it - the Southern Arizona Leadership Council, the Flagstaff Forty and Greater Phoenix Leadership Inc.

Last year, the Legislature "swept" the foundation's state money during the budget crisis. The foundation sued and the state ultimately restored $17.8 million.

Mullen said the foundation did not seek money in the current fiscal year from the Legislature and is hoping the governor will dedicate research money from available federal stimulus funds.

Ultimately, though, it needs an assurance of continued funding, Mullen said.

"This is not a giveaway," said Woosley. "This is seed money that creates relationships between businesses and nonprofits for the universities. I don't know of any state in the nation that has as sharp an arrow in its quiver," he said.

BY THE NUMBERS: Science Foundation Arizona results for FY 2007-2009:

$77.6 million: State funding

$152.8 million: Industry and non-state funding

16: Technology companies created

84: Patents filed or issued

11: Technology licenses granted

SOURCE: Battelle Technology Partnership Practice

Water resources report shows we aren't on track for 'safe yield' yet

Opinion by Val Little (July 3, 2010, Arizona Daily Star)

The Arizona Department of Water Resources has issued its Demand & Supply Assessment and, as reported in this newspaper, we are not on track as a region to achieve the 2025 goal of "safe yield" - using no more groundwater than is naturally and artificially recharged - which is the objective of the 1980 Groundwater Management Code.

While we have made great progress toward the goal over the past 30 years, the assessment is an important tool, telling us where we are in 2010, and giving us likely scenarios for how far short of the goal we are likely to be over the next 15 years. But it is just a starting point. This region, meaning each of us individually and collectively, will need to decide if, and how, we want to reach and (maybe more importantly) sustain the safe-yield goal.

Let's assume there is community-wide consensus that we want to achieve the goal of safe yield, since I have not heard anyone willing to say publicly, 'heck no, who cares.'

So, how do we get there and stay there? I would encourage everyone interested in our sustainable water future, to consider how we can most equitably and economically make full use of the supplies we have at hand. Three areas are of great interest to me: full use of our effluent, additional conservation and natural recharge.

First, as is discussed in the assessment, is the importance of full utilization of our effluent. This is a constant and increasing water source that we must make full use of as a path to safe yield. How do we get this water source to places and use it in ways that mitigate the pumping of groundwater? The majority of this water supply is controlled by the City of Tucson and the Bureau of Reclamation so influencing their policy decisions seems a fitting effort.

Second, there is still a huge amount of saving to be had through demand management efforts in all sectors (municipal, agricultural and industrial). In most cases it is still cheaper to save water than to use it. I encourage the scrutiny of additional conservation efforts to triple bottom line analysis and feel they will hold their own compared to many more costly, complicated solutions. Not using as much water saves us money three ways: on our water bill, our sewer bill and our energy bill. Hard to beat that trifecta!

Third, we have largely ignored a key item on the water balance sheet. That item is natural recharge. We have yet to make the connection between the passion this community has for rainwater harvesting and the ability to affect natural storm water recharge in this basin. Every single gesture to slow storm runoff, to allow for increased infiltration, has the potential to increase the static number used in the water models for natural recharge. Let's scale up our active and passive water harvesting efforts. We look to the environmental community to take this up as a winning strategy.

What change, effort or compromise are we willing to make to guarantee the economic, environmental, and social viability of our community? We've got a short 15 years to sink or swim. No life raft is likely to come from our regulatory agencies, or our state government or our elected officials. It will come from us - each of us - all of us.

Failure is not an economic, social or environmental option.

Val Little is the director of the Water Conservation Alliance of Southern Arizona.