Monday, October 04, 2021

MEMO TO CITIZENS OF MESA: Just Say No More to City Manager Chris Brady

At last Thursday's Mesa City Council Study Session Hizzoner John Giles turned presiding over the public meeting gathered in The Lower Chambers to the city manager after the other six councilmembers appeared dumbfounded or hesitant to if they had any questions to hear or discuss any of the items appearing on the agenda for today's meetings.
When asked if there were any PUBLIC COMMENTS, the City Clerk replied NO UBLIC COMMENTS WERE SENT IN either if any items warranted individual attention. . .
However - per usual patterns and practices - perhaps no single member had any idea of what the right questions to ask are
 
That void was left open for the City Manager to call on long-faithful employees to make the presentations.
WHAT WAS THE RUSH AND THE PRESSURE?
 
WHAT WAS THE CITY MANAGER'S MOTIVATION?
 
Approval to spend millions of public funds for the benefit
of a 320-acre private family-owned 'sport-and-entertainment complex that might attract 3,000,000 to
5,000,000 visitors
 
 
Reasons  Why
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1 CONTRACT 4-e
File #: 21-0980   
Type: Contract Status: Agenda Ready
In control: City Council
On agenda: 10/4/2021
Title:

Warner Road Lift Station Project - Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) (District 6) 

This project includes the construction of new lift station equipment, as well as utility crossings of the Roosevelt Water Conservation District (RWCD) canal and the Flood Control District of Maricopa County (FCD) drainage channel. 

An 8-inch sanitary sewer force main in a 24-inch casing and a 16-inch water main, 4-inch gas line, and an 8-inch-high pressure gas main in a 42-inch casing will cross the RWCD and FCD facilities. Staff recommends awarding a construction services contract to Garney Construction, in the amount of $3,915,925.97 (GMP), and authorizing a change order allowance in the amount of $391,592.59 (10%), for a total amount of $4,307,518.57. 

 This project is funded by the 2014 authorized Water bonds, 2014 Wastewater bonds, and 2014 Gas bonds.

Attachments: 1. Council Report, 2. Project Map
 
2 RESOLUTION 5-b
File #: 21-0955   
Type: Resolution Status: Agenda Ready
In control: City Council
On agenda: 10/4/2021
Title: Approving and authorizing the City Manager to enter into a Project Agreement with Maricopa Association of Governments for an Arterial Life Cycle Program Project on Elliot Road between Sossaman Road and Ellsworth Road that defines the regional reimbursement schedule for the project. (District 6)
Attachments: 1. Council Report, 2. Resolution, 3. Agreement
 
3 RESOLUTION 5-c
 
File #: 21-0956   
Type: Resolution Status: Agenda Ready
In control: City Council
On agenda: 10/4/2021
Title: Approving and authorizing the City Manager to enter into a Project Agreement with Maricopa Association of Governments for an Arterial Life Cycle Program Project on Sossaman Road between Ray Road and Warner Road that defines the regional reimbursement schedule for the project. (District 6)
Attachments: 1. Council Report, 2. Resolution, 3. Agreement
 
4 RESOLUTION 5-d
File #: 21-0994   
Type: Resolution Status: Agenda Ready
In control: City Council
On agenda: 10/4/2021
Title: Approving and authorizing the City Manager to enter into a five-year Intergovernmental Agreement with the Town of Queen Creek to provide dispatch services by the Mesa Police Department, and payment of $1,382,680 to Mesa for equipment and staffing costs associated with providing the services in the year 2022. The amount of the annual payment for the remaining four years of the Agreement will be reviewed and adjusted each year. (Citywide)
Strategic initiatives: Quality of Life
Attachments: 1. Presentation, 2. Council Report, 3. Resolution, 4. Intergovernmental Agreement
 
Study Session GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY
 
5 RESOLUTION 6-a
File #: 21-1007   
Type: Resolution Status: Agenda Ready
In control: City Council
On agenda: 10/4/2021
Title: Approving and authorizing the City Manager to enter into an Intergovernmental Agreement with the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport Authority related to the design, construction, and maintenance of infrastructure in and around the intersection of Ellsworth and Williams Field Roads. (District 6)
Attachments: 1. Presentation, 2. Council Report, 3. Project Location Map, 4. Resolution, 5. Agreement
 
 
Study Session GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY
 
6 RESOLUTION 6-b
 
 
7 ORDINANCE 7-b
 
=========================================================================
REMEMBER THIS
20 July 2019
Mesa City Manager Chris Brady's Big-League Schemes: Trick Mesa Taxpayer's To Finance A Ball Park For The Billionaire-Ricketts Family
Sloan Park at Riverview was named after a plumber for some reason after that Chicago chewing-gum original Wrigley Field just wasn't juicy enough here in Mesa.
Here are former mayor Scott Smith and current city manager Chris Brady in 2012 making a sales-pitch to get the Cubbies Spring Training Facility financed on-the-backs of Mesa taxpayers to the tune of over $200,000,000 for the Billionaire-Ricketts Family who bought the sports franchise in 2009.
From what we know now it was a shake-down [Use the search box on  this blog for more]
_________________________________________________________________________
Email dump: More dirt on Cubs purchase, family conflict from Joe ...
Chicago Sun-Times
The Ricketts family at Wrigley Field in October 2009:
 (from left) Joe Ricketts, Pete Ricketts, Todd Ricketts, Laura Ricketts, Marlene Ricketts and Tom ...
On Tuesday, Deadspin broke news that leaked emails revealed Cubs ownership contemplated moving the team out of Chicago due to a difficult relationship with Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2013. As it turns out, the suggestion was made by Todd “Fredo” Ricketts and was likely never taken seriously.
Here’s a list of other Todd Ricketts’ suggestions revealed in additional leaked emails:
– “It’ll be totally fine if our family gets involved in politics. No one will ever find out about it so it won’t be controversial at all.”
– “Now that we own the McDonald’s across the street from Wrigley, I’m going on an all Quarter Pounder diet. Please don’t tear that place down Tom. I’m sure any hotel we put up there won’t do nearly as much business as the McDonald’s. Plus, where will all the rats go?”
____________________________________________________________________________
In some conservative Republican circles it was "a home run." Here in Mesa most city officials and real estate developers went-to-bat to get it built and financed
> Donald Trump's $14 billion Cabinet
 #2 Todd Ricketts @$5.3 Billion
Ricketts is a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs and CEO of Ending Spending, an organization “dedicated to educating and engaging American taxpayers about wasteful and excessive government spending,” according to its site.
[Reference: https://www.cbsnews.com ]
_________________________________________________________________________________
> Report: Cubs Co-Owner Todd Ricketts Has Been Getting Away With Not Paying
His Full Property Taxes
https://deadspin.com/report-cubs-co-owner-todd-ricketts-has-been-getting-aw-183624...
 
> Another report 2 days ago:
Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts faces big property tax hike, even bigger bill for
back taxes after newspaper review spurs new look at his designer Wilmette house
by Hal Dardick The Daily Southtown
"Ricketts is a member of a billionaire family that secured an $8.5 million county historic renovation property tax break for its rehab of Wrigley Field.
That project also is in line to receive more than $100 million in federal tax credits.
Ricketts is one of four siblings on the Cubs board of directors.
His brother, Tom Ricketts, is board chairman
____________________________________________________________________________
". . . The Ricketts tax saga began after Todd Ricketts and wife Sylvie Légère, an anti-tax and free market advocate, bought two houses along a leafy Wilmette street within walking distance of Lake Michigan in 2006 and 2007.
The couple tore down both homes to make way for their new dwelling
Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts' designer Wilmette home is worth more than twice as much as previously thought -- and that could more than double his property tax bill next year and trigger a tab of at least $60,000 in back taxes and interest.
That bottom line emerged Tuesday as the Cook County assessor's office completed its reassessment of Ricketts' property following a Tribune story that revealed the Republican National Committee finance chairman had been paying taxes as if the older, smaller house he'd torn down more than a decade ago was still there.
The error lingered for so long because the assessor's office said it never received notice the new home had been built . . .
Reference: Journal Gazette & Times Courier
____________________________________________________________________________
Cubs co-owner takes over President Donald Trump's re-election fundraising
by Jack Baer
Yahoo Sports Contributor
 
"Todd Ricketts has been very active in the world of conservative politics over the last few years.
The Republican National Committee announced Friday that Chicago Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts will oversee the fundraising for President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign in the 2020 presidential election.
> Ricketts’ official title will be finance chairman of the Trump Victory Committee, a joint venture between the RNC and Trump’s campaign.
“I am honored to continue to support President Trump and the Republican Party through the Trump Victory Committee,” Ricketts said in a statement per the Chicago Sun-Times.
“As we head toward 2020, I will work to ensure President Trump and his campaign have the resources they need to fight for the American people.”
> Ricketts is the son of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts and a member of a billionaire family that has wielded much influence in the Midwest, particularly with Ricketts’ brother Pete serving as the current governor of Nebraska.
The family purchased a majority stake in the Cubs in 2009.
> Ricketts has served as the RNC as its finance chair since Jan. 2018, though he has also made his own contributions to political causes, including an ad praising Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s strong moral character.
> He received the RNC position after withdrawing his name from consideration for the position of deputy commerce secretary in the Trump administration due to an inability to divest from his financial holdings.
It’s quite a turnaround that Ricketts is now running Trump’s fundraising given that his family fought Trump’s bid for the Republican nomination in the 2016 primary.
The family, excluding Todd’s sister Laura, initially supported then-Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, they also made smaller donations to Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham.
> They also helped fund an anti-Trump super PAC called "Our Principles."
That activity drew the ire of Trump, who called out the Ricketts by (misspelled) name and threatened to expose some skeletons in the closet
Of course, that hatchet has since been buried. That started with a $1 million contribution to Trump’s campaign once he won the Republican nomination.
========================================================================
 
GROUNDWATER INFORMATION RESOURCES
This is from an earlier post on this blog 18 July 2019
Digging-Deeper: Know Your Water + Water-Rights
Don't really intend to be silly or light-hearted about water rights and water, but it is the most precious commodity here in the Desert Southwest.
Here in Arizona in what we now call The Salt River Valley, ancient indigenous cultures created a vast system of canal networks over the centuries before the arrival of new 'Pioneers'. They expanded the open canals to supply natural water resources, converted to private-ownership or municipal control to build vast fortunes for agricultural lands and ranches. After World War II those same lands were needed to create large tracts of housing for Suburban Sprawl and shopping centers and for new industries. Irrigation districts had to be created. Water usage increased. Groundwater had to be tapped into. Water and Wastewater Treatment Plants had to get built. Planning for the future, the city of Mesa once owned 11,400 acres in Pinal County called the Mesa Water Farm. That acreage - and the water-rights - were sold off to Saints Holding Company.  
___________________________________________________________________________
 
West of the Continental Divide, there's a noted demarcation in the geography where there's less than 20 inches rainfall annually.
Readers of this blog can also note there is a very distinct different pattern of what are defined as water rights in the nation's westward expansion.
Homesteading and Water Settlement Acts were the federal government incentives to lay claim to tracts of lands and territories. More than anything else, that's what led to the colonizing of Mesa and The Salt River Valley by family groups in wagon trains sent by Joseph Smith from Salt Lake City.
Their mission was to expand the Kingdom of Deseret here to create The New Zion.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Know your rights:
ADWR to roll out new “interactive” groundwater-rights web map system 
Published: January 4, 2019
The process of providing property owners with detailed information about their groundwater rights has played out almost unchanged for decades.
It has been slow.
And cumbersome.
And inconvenient to people holding a right to use groundwater.
That is now changing. In mid-January, the Arizona Department of Water Resources’ website will feature a new “interactive” search map that – for the first time – will allow the public to conveniently access geographical and other data about their groundwater rights.
Prepared by the Department’s Active Management Area (AMA) section with the assistance of ADWR’s IT specialists, the new interactive map will assist the holders of groundwater rights – an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 landowners – with information regarding the location and boundaries of their groundwater rights, as well as a wealth of other data, including
  • image information and aerial views
  • the number of acres included in each right
  • the annual allotment of each right
The system provides layers of maps that, for example, allow a viewer to determine how a parcel of land lines up with groundwater rights, or to determine which rights (or how many) are within a given sub-basin.
The system was designed with the intent of providing a way to determine if a parcel of land has a grandfathered right appurtenant to it.
 
Specifically, the Grandfathered Right (GFR) Web Map, as it is known, is an interactive map intended for use by owners and lessees of irrigation grandfathered groundwater rights and of “Type 1” non-irrigation GFRs.
The map also should prove useful to buyers and sellers of land within an AMA, among others. 
The map shows
  • the boundaries of all active GFRs
  • the type of each GFR (for example, whether the GFR is for irrigation
  • Type 1 non-irrigation
  • exempt small rights, or other uses)
  • It also will indicate if a GFR has been extinguished and/or developed.
In addition to providing detailed information to those holding groundwater rights, the map’s developers anticipate it will be of value to water providers and irrigation districts as well – indeed, any entity seeking information about groundwater rights within its service area.
ADWR’s Active Management Area section regularly fields questions about the boundaries of groundwater rights. Until now, someone seeking information would have to wait for the Department’s personnel to create a map tailored to their request to share with them.
The new, online system changes (and simplifies) all that. It can be easily searched and viewed by address, parcel number, owner name or groundwater-right number.
The Grandfathered Right Web Map will be active by mid-January.
 A “work in progress” version of the website can be viewed here: http://gisweb2.azwater.gov/igfr
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
- No comments:

Sunday, October 03, 2021

Sinema's Self-Absorbed Me-Me-Me Media Character Charade: Don't Cry Sexism Comparing Her To Manchin Please!

Let's turn sassy NY Times Opinion Writer Maureen Dowd loose as she says, "Somehow, we have gotten ourselves in a perverse situation where Sinema and Joe Manchin rule the world, and it’s confounding that these two people have this much sway. As Hemingway wondered in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” what are those leopards doing at this altitude?. . ."

Sinema Stars in Her Own Film

Sinema and Manchin at the Capitol on Thursday.

 

Here ya go: "WASHINGTON — Just like the original Sphinx, the Phoenix Sphinx is blocking the way until those who would move ahead solve her riddle:

What does Kyrsten Sinema want? And why doesn’t she stick around to explain it?

Somehow, we have gotten ourselves in a perverse situation where Sinema and Joe Manchin rule the world, and it’s confounding that these two people have this much sway. As Hemingway wondered in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” what are those leopards doing at this altitude?

Sinema and Manchin are now directing what Joe Biden gets to do and deciding how his presidency will be defined. Some Democrats even worry that the recalcitrant pair could be helping Donald Trump vault back into the White House.

The duo has created such havoc on the Hill — with the fate of the whole country riding on what mood they’re in — that congressional reporters have come up with Bennifer-style nicknames for them, including Manchinema and Sinemanch.

Democrats were irritated at Sinema — again — on Friday. Even as Biden traipsed up to Capitol Hill to try to rescue his F.D.R. dreams, Sinema flew back to Phoenix in the middle of nail-biting negotiations on the scope of Biden’s social policy bill.

Her spokesman said that she had a doctor’s appointment for a foot injury, but The Times reported that she was also slated to play footsie with donors at her political action committee’s dinner at a fancy resort.

The Times’s Jonathan Weisman got hold of an invitation to another fund-raiser for Sinema this past week with five business lobbying groups, many of which are fighting against the social policy bill.

“People who want to think they can understand her or get to her, let me tell you, you can’t,” one politico in her circle told me. “It doesn’t work that way with her. She doesn’t think in a linear process, like ‘OK, will this impact my re-election?’ She just beats her own drum. When she leaves in the middle of something and says, ‘I got stuff to do,’ it’s because she has plans. Sometimes, she’s just more interested in training for an Ironman. More power to her, man. It’s like watching a movie.”

The Arizona senator’s name is pronounced “cinema,” and it is apt because she sweeps — and sometimes, when the triathlete has a sports injury, limps — through the Senate like a silent film star.

“The Greta Garbo of Congress,” as one top Democrat called her.

Sinema rarely gives interviews and shuns the scrum of reporters at the Capitol. But she is not shy about drawing the spotlight, whether she is swathed in fur stoles, bedecked in pink, purple and mint-colored wigs, bedazzled in glittering stilettos. It is hard to believe that the Senate had a nutty sexist ban on sleeveless outfits on the floor. But the mandarins quit worrying about it for members once their colleague blithely turned the hallowed marble halls into an iconoclastic catwalk.

Sinema’s more conservative — and monochromatic — colleagues were agog at her stylings when she first ascended to the Senate — a moment when she was celebrated as the first openly bisexual senator. And they were appalled this past year when her fashion statements included presiding over the Senate in a pink sweater reading “Dangerous Creature” and when she put a picture on Instagram, following her defiant thumbs down on a $15 minimum wage, sporting a hot pink newsboy cap, matching oversized glasses and a ring that expressed the sentiment “Kiss off,” but in a more vulgar way. (Remember that this is a town so strait-laced, it was a sartorial scandal when President Barack Obama donned a tan suit.)

Sinema enjoys poking the bear, especially the more righteous wing of her party, but her allies cry sexism in the way she is treated by Democrats, compared with Manchin.

“I don’t think that in her mind, when she dyes the front of her hair purple or whatever she does, she’s trying to get press attention,” one told me. “Frankly, it’s just an expression of who she is.”

While progressives may disdain Joe “I’ve Never Been A Liberal” Manchin, they understand that he has a record as a conservative Democrat; Sinema is a puzzle to them.

What has caused the former social worker and Green Party champion who grew up in a gas station, a left-winger who supported Ralph Nader for president, to shift from progressive stances to more conservative ones? Is she unmoored in her politics, simply being opportunistic? What is the principle that is leading her to obstruct the party of her own president, who really needs a win right now?

“She doesn’t do interviews, she doesn’t answer questions, she speaks in vagaries, she doesn’t explain the core reason she’s opposed,” one member of the progressive crew on the Hill told me. “It’s hard to look at her actions and not conclude that the donations are part of the story. If she’s here to fight for corporate power and lower taxes for the wealthy and get more money for pharma executives, be on the level and say it.”

And why would a congresswoman go off in the summer of 2020 to take a paid internship at a donor’s Sonoma County winery?

One thing is clear, though. When Americans are hurting and everything is on the line, behaving like a sphinx is riddlesome — and disquieting."

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

 

- No comments:

Politico: WUERKER CARTOONS

Political cartoon
- No comments:

Graphene: The Wonder Material. . . Whatever Happened to Urbix After The Re-Location Back To Falcon Field

Your MesaZona blogger was wondering - obviously to himself - whatever happened to all the helluva hullabaloo about the prospects over Graphene here in Mesa that first was featured on the blog site back in 2017 and 2018? Let's attempt to update that later with references taken the archives using this site's Searchbox, noting  this element's history:
> Graphene was first isolated in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, two University of Manchester academics who used Scotch tape to peel off layers of carbon a single atom thick – making the world’s first “two-dimensional” material. The carbon atoms’ strong hexagonal arrangement leaves electrons free to move easily across the layers, carrying electrical charge or heat very effectively.
> Geim and Novoselov won the 2010 Nobel prize in physics for their efforts.
> Potential uses cited by researchers range from condoms to concrete and electronics to aeroplanes.
The UK was early in sensing an opportunity, with government investment in graphene that has launched clusters of companies focused on the material, particularly around Manchester.
> Other countries cottoned on.
   In 2014, the European Union launched a 10-year, billion-euro research project, and it is also looking at defence applications.
   However, by 2017 China had more graphene companies than any other country, outstripping the US, according to research by Fullerex, a consultancy.
 
> Graphene is now relatively widely available, but quality and cost varies considerably between producers. They generally either grow graphene crystals from the bottom up, or strip away layers of pencil-lead graphite. Yet both methods have disadvantages, and producers are yet to crack the challenge of using graphene at an industrial level.
--- Reference:

How ‘wonder material’ graphene became a national security concern

UK and China are racing to develop forms of the super-strength technology that has potential aerospace and weaponry uses

By Jasper Jolly

@jjpjolly

Last modified on Tue 28 Sep 2021 06.08 EDT

===================================================

OK HERE ARE A SERIES OF INSERTS FROM EARLIER POSTS ON THIS BLOG
 
May 17 2017 A New Era For Transnational Arizona-Mexico Tech Development
 
Chairman of Mesa-based Urbix, Nico Cuevas Ushers in a New Graphene Era
 by Maciej Heyman
military-technologies.nNet


Phoenix, Arizona – May 15, 2017 – At a TEDx event in Hermosillo, Mexico early in May, Phoenix-based Urbix Resources co-founder and chairman, Nico Cuevas, heralded in the Graphene Age.
“We are entering a new era,” Cuevas told a full and enthusiastic audience at the Auditorio del COBACH. What is coming, Cuevas says, is a “wave of innovation that will allow a social and economic development only comparable to the Industrial Revolution.”
As Cuevas points out, graphene makes possible the next level of technological development, including conductive inks for the production of ultra thin and ultralight circuitry, radically thin mobile phones, super-light bulletproof vests, water purification membranes, light and highly efficient batteries and other innovations.
The challenge, Cuevas stresses, is that, while the demand for this super-material is growing at a phenomenal rate as ever more high tech uses are found, at present, “the graphene market has a huge bottleneck: industrial scale production.”
By popular estimate, in 2016, only a few hundred kilograms of graphene were produced world-wide. And much of that, Cuevas maintains, was not even pristine graphene, but a different substance called graphene oxide.
“In reality,” says Cuevas, “it is very difficult to compare graphene oxide directly with graphene due to the fact that the production processes and applications can be very different.”

That said, Cuevas is clear on what is better. “Imagine you go to the most prestigious vineyard in the world and order a bottle of their best vintage. You buy the bottle, take it home, open it, and then realize that what they sold to you was a purple juice with mashed grapes, something that is not wine yet. That in my opinion is graphene oxide.”
Blogger Note:
A rash of recent market estimates towards the end of last year put the international market for a graphene in the range of a few hundred million dollars.
Urbix Resources, the company Cuevas co-founded in 2014, currently “has the monthly capacity to produce eight kilograms of pristine graphene” in the company’s state-of-the-art lab in Mesa, Arizona.
According to international graphene production estimates, Cuevas says, that could be half of what was produced worldwide last year. More, says Cuevas, their methods are green and the company uses “a graphite purification method that doesn’t use hydrofluoric acid, a graphene exfoliation with poly-ionic liquids that are 95-percent recyclable, and has an efficiency of 97-percent.” And that production capability is growing.

In addition to the Mesa-based lab, Urbix has a milling facility in Hermosillo, Mexico where the company is mining the source material for what Cuevas feels are some of the highest grade graphite products currently available.
The company recently completed their second round of financing and is moving into position to take their place as one of the top graphene-producing organizations in the world.

Visit: www.UrbixResources.com
Media Contact
Company Name: Urbix Resources
Contact Person: Adam Small
Email: asmall@grupourbix.com
Phone: (480) 269-4662
Country: United States
Website: www.UrbixResources.com
Contact Us
245 W. 2nd Street Mesa, AZ 85201
Phone: (480) 269 - 4662
========================================================================
August 22 2018
Flash-Back > Fast-Forward: Here In Mesa Urbix Taking Top Position In World Graphene Production
Now here's a Lo-Fi downtown Mesa success story if ever there was one: the transformation of an under-used existing 53,000 sq.ft building that didn't deliver the results when city officials wanted to make Mesa "a college town" by locating Wilkes University and the so-called Center for Higher Education in the former Police Building on 2nd Street.
What is working well now at LaunchPoint is a company named Urbix, as noted on this blog site last year in a post an excerpt is inserted here.
There's an update today about advanced testing programs and more investments
Urbix Resources, LLC is an advanced natural graphite processor with expertise ranging across low-cost environmentally friendly graphite purification, nuclear graphite, graphene, and other advanced carbon derivatives. Urbix is also an expert in li-ion battery cell design and boasts next generation high voltage electrolyte and fast charging electrode nanoarchitecture.

Mining News - Published on Wed, 22 Aug 2018

Image Source: southstarmining.com
South Star Mining Corp. announced that it has entered into an agreement with Urbix Resources, LLC for advanced testing, optimization development and commercialization of its Santa Cruz project graphite concentrates. The Company would also like to announce that it has been listed for trading on the OTCQB(R) Market exchange in the United States under the symbol "STSBF". South Star has also applied for Depository Trust Company ("DTC") eligibility.
The testing program will include detailed characterization, purification, expandability and market suitability on four different flake-size concentrates previously produced during the Company's pilot plant program. The evaluation will take place at Urbix's cutting edge R&D facility in Mesa, Arizona and incorporate its advanced purification and exfoliation technologies. The program will begin within 30 days and require approximately twelve weeks to complete. Upon completion of this round of test work, the companies have agreed to work toward formalizing potential commercial relationships including offtakes, processing, technology sharing and product distribution. Total estimated value of the test program is approximately C$400,000 which will be partially paid in cash and grants with the balance payable to Urbix as 384,000 shares in the Company valued at C$0.45 per share. The share issuance is subject to TSX approval and a four month hold period.
Company CEO Mr Eric Allison stated "We are very excited about moving forward on one of our key strategic objectives in association with a leading graphite technology company like Urbix. The information provided will greatly assist South Star in its marketing efforts as well as in the ultimate design of our processing facilities in Brazil. We are firm believers in the future of graphite, not only in its traditional markets, but in many new advanced applications and Urbix is at the forefront of this technological development."
 
========================================================================
11 October 2018
Urbix Here In Mesa: An Industry Breakthrough > The First Economically Viable Graphene-Enhanced Concrete
INVENTION
Arizona company creates economically viable graphene concrete
An achievement that represents an industry breakthrough.
By Amit Malewar  
                                                       

Designed in collaboration with one of the world’s largest producers of lightweight concrete, Urbix’s solution delivers material performance improvements, but at a cost that is lower than current lightweight concrete alternatives. A graphene industry first.
Others have tested graphene as an additive in cement and concrete in the past, seeking to improve a variety of concrete’s performance characteristics. Urbix’s research and development team solved the challenge by creating what they call a Graphenesque™ additive that provides a 33 percent increase in compressive strength, a 32 percent reduction in CO2 emissions, and at a cost that is 16.6 percent lower than the next best lightweight concrete alternative on the market.
“It is ultimately the cost of the additive versus benefits of performance that have to be compared with any incumbent technology, especially graphene products,” explains Urbix Chairman Nicolas Cuevas. “That cost versus benefit is the real barrier that’s been keeping graphene out of commercial products until now.”
Urbix is known primarily for its low cost and environmentally friendly flake graphite purification for Li-ion batteries but is quickly establishing itself as one of the premier vertically integrated providers of graphene and Graphenesque™ products.
“The material performance of our solution for lightweight concrete is great,” says Urbix Chief Marketing Officer Adam Small. “But the low costs and large-scale capabilities are what makes this achievement so profound. By leveraging our existing global graphite mining relationships, we offer near vertical integration, an aspect that is almost mandatory for any company entering the graphene space.”
The additive is made in a way that is similar in infrastructure to Urbix’s proprietary purification process, for which a full-scale plant is currently being developed in the Phoenix area. At pilot scale production, it is expected the plant will be capable of producing in excess of 100 metric tons of the concrete additive monthly by the end of 2019. For reference, that amount will be enough material to produce between 10,000 and 40,000 metric tons of the new Urbix-enhanced lightweight concrete.
This production figure will be scaled significantly higher beyond 2020.
At present, testing and certification continue.
Urbix and their associates anticipate that they will bring the technology to market in 2020.
 
=========================================================================
22 October 2018
Amazing 3D-Printed Graphene Supercapacitor Electrode
Kinda nerdy > exciting
Published on Oct 21, 2018
****EDIT: meant to say Graphene is made out of Carbon, not Silicon.
Hello. Welcome to NeoScribe
.
We’ve all seen the headlines.
Graphene Batteries that charge five times faster!
Solid-State Batteries with 10 times the capacity!
There’re so many news stories about energy storage research these days that after a while you’re like, bring it to market already!
Because we get so excited from these headlines that we want them in our devices now!
The great Joe Scott said it best when he said… ///Joe Scott Vid///
And while these promising breakthroughs may not lead to actual products as fast as we would like, eventually one or many WILL get there. Right?
So, while we wait, let’s talk about yet ANOTHER breakthrough in energy storage research, the record-breaking 3D Printed Graphene Supercapacitor from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory!
I get a kick out of that description, it’s like all of the Nerd Buzzwords packed together, 3D Printed Graphene Supercapacitor.

Anyway, before we talk about that let’s BRIEFLY talk about what supercapacitors are.
A Supercapacitor or Supercap is an energy storage device similar to batteries. While batteries release electrical energy from chemical reactions, Supercaps GENERALLY store energy from static electricity.
Supercaps have a lot of advantages over batteries and may one day replace batteries as the dominant portable energy storage technology.
They charge ridiculously fast, have a virtually unlimited cycle life, they work better than batteries in extreme temperatures and they can also have a higher power density than batteries.
In other words, they can transfer energy much faster than batteries.
But Supercaps have one major disadvantage, they have much lower energy density and that is why batteries have wider applications.
And this takes us to Pseudocapacitors.
Think of pseudocapacitor as a bridge between batteries and supercapacitors as they maintain a lot of the same advantages as supercaps but have higher energy densities.
But the challenge with improving energy density in pseudocapacitors is as you increase the thickness of the electrode usually made out of manganese oxide, the performance of the device drops rapidly because the ions have to move through more material.
And this is where Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory comes in.
On October 18th the lab reported that they developed an electrode out of 3D-Printed Graphene Aerogel that has the highest ratio of energy stored per unit of surface area ever recorded for a supercap.
And by small chance you don’t know what graphene is, there are tons of videos out there about it but it’s simply a sheet of silicon one atom thick that scientist slap on anything and makes it 5 or 10 times better.
Anyway, Lawrence Livermore has been fabricating electrodes this way for a while but the difference this time is Lawrence Livermore has greatly improved the graphene aerogel leading to this record-breaking performance.
The way it works is the aerogel is printed as a scaffold composed of a tiny porous rod meaning it has a bunch of tiny holes and spaces.
Then manganese oxide I loaded into the scaffold allowing for much more of it in the electrode without slowing down the ions.
This is called mass-loading, and that is the record that the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The electrode they built has 100 milligrams of manganese oxide per square cm, compared to typical commercial supercaps that have only 10 milligrams per square cm!
Another benefit from this breakthrough is that it will allow supercaps to cheaper to produce.
You see, manufactures have to stack thin layers of current collectors, made out of metal sheets coated with electrode material in order to increase energy densities without sacrificing performance and this increases material costs.
It would take ten layers of current collectors to equal the energy density of the 3D printed Electrode.
With this breakthrough, it appears that scientists are getting closer and closer to filling the gaps between batteries and supercaps.
So, when can we expect to see supercaps in our devices?
Not soon enough!
All kidding aside, this is an exciting and promising breakthrough in portable energy storage technology to add to the long list of other exciting and promising breakthroughs and hopefully, in the next 10 years, we can see either battery replacing supercaps or solid state batteries actually come to market.
Until then, we can dream of an incredible future….

Alright, that’s all I have for now.
I hope you enjoyed your journey, if you did, please leave a like and subscribe.
I am NeoScribe and I’ll see you on the next journey
 
=========================================================================
15 November 2019
 
Urbix Returns To Where It Started After Getting 'Incubated" @ Launch Point
Looks like 'a day of glory' for District 5 Councilmember David Luna with ribbon-cutting scissors in-hand in the photo opp that got featured in a press release from City of Mesa Newsroom yesterday:
Mesa celebrates expansion of Urbix Resources
into Falcon District
(Launch Point got re-located into empty space at The Mesa Center for Higher Education, the former police station, before city officials cooked-up plans for an ASU satellite campus.)
 
"Urbix was founded in 2014 and was the first client at the downtown Mesa location of LaunchPoint, the Mesa Technology Accelerator whose mission is to stimulate the establishment and growth of small technology-based companies and other businesses in the east valley. . . "
 
YOU CAN READ ALL OF WHAT THE POLITICIANS SAID in the press release, but here's the better read-out:
"This is a fantastic moment in our young history. To see how this relatively small facility of just 31,000 square feet will have such positive impact in the U.S.'s Energy Storage Critical Mineral Strategy, and also in the world, is super motivating and exciting,"
Urbix Resources Chairman and Co-Founder Nico Cuevas said.
 
"This is a huge milestone for us and we have plenty more work to do. We have an incredible team at Urbix and amazing support from the City of Mesa, the region and the state of Arizona."
> In support of its eco-friendly approach, Urbix Resources was named Cleantech Open's Best Business Model in 2017.
Cleantech runs the world's largest clean technology accelerator program, with the mission to find, fund, and foster entrepreneurs with ideas to solve our greatest environmental and energy challenges.
For more information about Urbix, visit www.urbixresources.com.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Your MesaZona blogger had this to say on more than three earlier posts:
 
1 Most recent
30 September 2019
Mesa Start-Up Urbix Expands World-Wide Downstream Processing of High-Grade Graphene Products
BRIEF-Bass Metals Signs MoU With Urbix Resources LLC
Stock Markets7 hours ago (Sep 30, 2019 12:30)
Sept 30 (Reuters) - Bass Metals Ltd BSM.AX :* SIGNED A STRATEGIC MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING WIT URBIX RESOURCES LLC
* MOU TO WORK OVER NEXT 180 DAYS TO ESTABLISH JV FOR PROCESSING OF BASS HIGH GRADE GRAPHITE INTO VALUE ADDED DOWNSTREAM PRODUCTS
_________________________________________________________________________________
Bass Metals plans Madagascar graphite downstream JV
30th September 2019 
By Simone Liedtke
Writer
ASX-listed Bass Metals and downstream graphite processor Urbix Resources have signed a strategic memorandum of understanding (MoU) to identify the optimum joint venture (JV) structure and product mix with a view of establishing a production facility in Madagascar.
 
Bass’ large flake dominated deposit is suitable for a broad range of downstream applications, the mining company release said on Monday.
 
Bass and Urbix would delineate terms for establishing a JV facility in Madagascar capable of producing a purified high-value graphite product, which would use Urbix’s propriety technology and Bass’ graphmada large flake graphite.
 
 

Urbix’s proprietary advanced technology includes environment- and cost-conscious purification methods that were not reliant on environmentally unsustainable hydrofluoric acid treatments, Bass noted.
 
> Urbix is currently engaged in building what will be one of the largest natural graphite purification facilities in North America.
> Upon completion, the 9 450 km2 facility at Falcon Airfield in Mesa, Arizona will have the capability of purifying up to 24 000 t/y.

> The parties would aim to establish the JV in the next 180 days. 
Source: https://m.miningweekly.com

https://twitter.com/urbixresources

Valley graphene startup to open larger Mesa production facility 
Startup also unloaded assets in Mexico for undisclosed price
 
=========================================================================
- No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Trump to Ask US Companies to Make Missiles in Europe and Ukraine. . .Wall Street Wants to Cryptofy Your Stocks, . . .U.S. Hails Deal That Defers War Goals and Gives Iran Relief

   Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images U.S. Hails Deal That Defers War Goals and Gives Iran Relief Trump batted aside criticism, saying the deal wo...