ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory, assisted 286 small businesses in 2008 with projects ranging from helping a door restoration company to assisting Nambe Pueblo create a water model.
This was Sandia’s eighth year and Los Alamos’ second year of helping small businesses through the New Mexico Small Business Assistance Program, thanks to a tax credit act passed by the New Mexico Legislature. The program allows each lab to receive a gross receipts tax credit each year in exchange for providing technical advice and assistance to New Mexico small businesses. During 2008, the two labs submitted more than $3.3 million in tax credits.
There are few requirements for small-business participation — to be eligible, companies must be for-profit New Mexico small businesses, and help must not be otherwise available be for a reasonable cost through private sources.
Eight success stories from the 2008 NMSBA program year will be highlighted at an April 2 event at the Albuquerque Aquarium. Detailed summaries are available on request.
Giggling Springs
Giggling Springs, a business with a natural, hot springs pool located along the Jemez River, approached the NMSBA program to investigate a heating system for its buildings by using geothermal energy from its hot spring. Rich Jepsen, a specialist in fluid and thermodynamics at Sandia, proposed a heating exchange system that transferred heat without transferring spring water. Jepsen measured flow rates and temperatures from the hot spring and created a balance between heating the therapeutic pool and providing heat to the cabins. The system allowed Giggling Springs to use 130 degree water to heat both the pool and the buildings.
La Puerta Originals, Inc.
La Puerta Originals, Inc. located in Santa Fe County, salvages one-of-a-kind doors and woodwork from countries not practicing historic preservation. The company’s sustainability focus is to preserve wood that would usually be destroyed. La Puerta owners wanted to expand their business and increase productivity without hampering the company’s foundation of originality and creativity by mass production processes. The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) team provided training in lean manufacturing principles to La Puerta’s production, sales and design staff. MEP brought lean methods to La Puerta’s Spanish-speaking employees and specialized training for managers. These changes resulted in faster production times and improved capacity for La Puerta.
Four Corners Leverage Project
Biosphere Environmental Science and Technologies with McDonald Enterprises, Inc., Hands on Safety Service, Intermountain Painting
Biosphere Environmental Science and Technologies (B.E.S.T.) operates several projects related to water supply and water use systems. While designing a reverse osmosis system to desalinate water produced from oil and gas production operations, B.E.S.T. found that chemicals and minerals from the produced water from a natural gas well could reduce the effectiveness of the filtration membranes within the reverse osmosis system. The company needed a pretreatment system to increase the life of these membranes. Sandia employees Allan Sattler and Malynda Cappelle teamed with B.E.S.T and other companies to test the performance of a new pretreatment and reverse osmosis system for untreated produced water.
Rio Nambe Leverage Project
Mirabal Farms with Povi Ovei Farms, Rose Trujillo, Gloria Trujillo
As the Governor of Nambe Pueblo and a farmer, Ed Mirabal understands the water management challenges that farmers face including controlling costs and using their water share without wasting or under-using natural resources. Pueblo farmers approached NMSBA seeking a method that would calculate the amount of water farms divert from surface sources to support crops. Jim Brainard from Sandia worked with the pueblo to calculate water usage rates and develop a model for a system-wide water management. The new model includes all agricultural, residential and commercial uses and calculates the amount of water used and amount returned to the ground.
Creative Consultants
Creative Consultants of Albuquerque, an information technology firm, offers high-efficiency computing equipment. Creative Consultants is developing hybrid computing systems that utilize both computer and graphic processing units. Creative Consultants needed to identify and target a specific customer base that would be receptive to a new technology and energy efficient computers. Heba Almasri, a student of professor Sul Kassicieh at University of New Mexico Anderson Schools of Management, worked with Creative Consultants to identify early adopters and to propose effective methods to communicate with them. Almasri helped Creative Consultants use market identification to improve the company’s commercialization efforts.
Energy Matter Conversion Corporation (E=MC2)
Energy Matter Conversion Corporation (E=MC2), of Santa Fe, develops innovative plasma processes to generate fusion power in cost-effective and radiation-free systems. E=MC2 is studying an electrostatic, well fusion, confinement concept called a polywell.” E=MC2 had reached an impasse in its design caused by a device failure in which the plasma arced and produced heat. The company needed specialized equipment and expertise to identify the issue and maintain the timeliness of their development. Glen Wurden from Los Alamos National Laboratory, used cameras to record what was occurring at much higher frame rates than cameras available to E=MC2. He also applied light monitors and a spectrometer to identify impurities in the plasma and gauge their prevalence in the system.
Cinnafilm, Inc.
Cinnafilm, a software company in Albuquerque, focuses on unlimited format conversions and synthesized film simulation for the professional video and film post-production industry. Cinnafilm specializes in advanced methods and techniques for leveraging graphics cards to perform highly complex video processing. Cinnafilm’s methods require a variety of complex analyses be performed accurately — especially in the realm of color. The color variations needed to be convertible among different digital formats while keeping the color accuracy of the finished product. Richard Strelitz, a mathematician at Los Alamos National Laboratory, used his knowledge of data transfer to enable the development of a method to convert normal red-green-blue (RGB) color rendering systems into hue saturation and intensity schemes.
Ffhoenix Cuivre
Ffhoenix Cuivre, a copper fabrication and insulating business located in Santa Teresa, N.M., supplies bare and tin-plated conductors to the automotive, consumer appliance, telecommunications, industrial, and medical industries. Frequent power interruptions and high power costs prevented Ffhoenix Cuivre from meeting production deadlines and maintaining competitive pricing. Loren Toole and his team from Energy and Infrastructure Analysis at Los Alamos National Laboratory performed an analysis of the major equipment within the plant, the plant’s power demand and daily power use patterns. The team used advanced modeling techniques to identify modifications in manufacturing processes that would lower peak demand and raise average demand, allowing Ffhoenix Cuivre to qualify for lower electricity rates.