2023's Greenest Cities in America

 My commentary in WalletHub's ranking of US green cities.

Honolulu ranked 2nd out of 100. Reno did well at 33.

Should cities invest in going green? What are the benefits?

Environmental and transportation solutions need to be tailored to an area's specific characteristics. Solutions for Tokyo are likely less suitable for Chicago. Cities with acute pollution issues should focus on smart city mitigations targeting pollution, such as electrification of bus fleets and incentives for EVs. Cities with acute traffic congestion should focus on smart city congestion mitigation, such as adaptive traffic signal management and intelligent time-dependent road pricing.

What policies or investments offer the biggest bang for the buck?

Smart traffic management for both arterial streets and freeways is the most common low-hanging fruit with moderate costs and substantial congestion and pollution reduction. Priority lanes and traffic signal preemption for Bus Rapid Transit are cost-effective smart city improvements for public transport.

How can state and local authorities attract renewable energy companies and other green businesses?

By incentivizing the electrification of transportation, substantial new demand is generated which creates a need for power supply, which in turn, makes the establishment of new renewable energy suppliers welcome. A conducive framework for power purchasing agreements needs to be in place.

What are some easy ways individuals can go green without much cost or effort?

Several smart home solutions are affordable and effective in reducing power and fuel consumption. Hybrid light-duty vehicles are presently the most cost-effective choice for commuting and highway travel. Unfortunately, recycling is more of a feel-good initiative than an effective green option given that less than 10% of what is put into recycling collections is actually recycled, reused, or repurposed.

In evaluating the greenest cities, what are the top five indicators?

A generic list may serve as a guideline, but each city needs to focus on its most acute issues and deploy smart solutions that its taxpayers can afford, for mitigations.

Robert Poole: Problems on the Road to All-Electric Transportation

Excellent summary of opportunities, impediments and realistic timelines for surface transportation electrification by Robert W. Poole Jr. of Reason Foundation.

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Over the past few years, I’ve become convinced of the superiority of electric vehicles. Part of this was an exhilarating ride in a friend’s Tesla and more enthusiasm has come via keeping up with technology advances. As electric vehicles (EVs) mature, with next-generation battery systems having much greater range and/or much shorter recharging times, I’ll be happy to trade in my current vehicle for the cleaner, quicker, and less maintenance-intensive EV that is coming.

That said, there are some major problems preventing the emergence of an all-electric personal vehicle fleet. (I’ll discuss all-electric trucks on another occasion). As a starting point, I recommend renowned energy analyst Daniel Yergin’s recent piece in Politico Magazine, “The Major Problems Blocking America’s Electric Car Future.” His article discusses supply chain transformation, modernization and expansion of the electricity grid, and public acceptance of very different vehicles. Another good introduction is former U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) research and technology advisor Steven Polzin’s Q&A session at Arizona State University.

Here is my brief overview of the problems the industry and government must address to get beyond idealistic projections of no more fossil-fuel vehicles sold beyond 2030 and a completely carbon-free electricity sector by 2035.

Enough electric generating capacity

Most attempts to quantify a complete phase-out of fossil fuel electricity generation by 2035 take the objective to be replacing the current 4.13 terawatt-hours generated in 2019. Reason science editor Ron Bailey earlier this year wrote a good summary of the Energy Information Administration’s estimates of what this would take. For example, it would take 290 new nuclear power plants to replace the 62% of current electricity generated by coal and natural gas, at an estimated cost of $3.6 trillion—and in just 15 years. Alternatively, aiming to get 90% there via wind and solar (with some natural gas backup) was estimated by a University of California—Berkeley Center for Environmental Public Policy study to cost $1.7 trillion.

But that is just to replace current electricity uses. If even 60% of all US cars were electric vehicles by 2050, the nation’s electricity capacity would need to double by that date, according to the January 2021 electrification futures study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Reuters’ Nichola Groom and Tina Bellon provided a good summary of this challenge in “EV Rollout Will Require Huge Investments in Strained U.S. Power Grids.” I will venture to say that neither replacement of all existing electricity capacity by 2035 nor doubling its current capacity by 2050 will happen.

Battery problems

News articles regularly appear about the limitations of current electric vehicle batteries. They don’t provide enough range for trips beyond urban travel. They take far longer to charge than refilling a conventional car’s gas tank (which is why nearly all of today’s gas stations lack the room to serve more than a handful of EV charging customers per hour). The current lithium batteries cost way too much (which is why EVs cost far more than a conventional car of the same size), they can catch fire and explode, and they require a number of rare and expensive metals, whose sources are mostly in either China or underdeveloped countries. The good news is there’s a fortune being invested in new kinds of vehicle batteries, but no one can predict how soon and how much better the next generation of EV batteries will be.

Far more (and much faster) EV charging

The “more” problem is one focus of the Biden administration’s environmental agenda, focusing mostly on subsidies for electric vehicle charging stations. If successful, this risks putting lots of new capacity in place before there is enough demand for it, but leave that aside. The administration and the Senate have shown no interest in changing federal law to allow EV charging facilities on rural Interstate highway rest areas, unlike the House, whose Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act reauthorization bill includes such a provision. An informal business/environmental coalition is trying to build support for including this provision in one of the pending infrastructure bills, but the White House and DOT have remained silent on this.

Faster EV charging is being developed by researchers and battery companies (established and startups), but even cutting it from 45 minutes to 15 still means much longer waits for customers and far more acreage needed due to durations several times longer than at gas pumps. This will be a much bigger problem for long-distance car and truck trips than for urban travel, where much EV charging can take place overnight at home, or at workplaces.

Environmental opposition

Experts know that the kind of electrical transformation desired by the Biden administration and (in theory) by nearly all environmental groups will require a huge investment in new long-distance electricity transmission lines, huge areas to locate a vast expansion of solar panels and windmills, and a very large expansion of mining rare-earth minerals, such as lithium and others. Yet as these efforts are starting to get underway, we see various environmental groups, often allied with local NIMBYs, seeking to block new transmission lines, large-scale solar arrays even in deserts, a major expansion of wind power installations, and domestic attempts to start mining lithium and other rare earths. Since this is a surface transportation newsletter, let me just say that there are numerous examples and they are taking place with increasing frequency. The major environmental groups need to start speaking out against this kind of opposition if we are to take their commitment to widespread electrification seriously. And the Biden administration needs to reform the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to reduce endless opportunities for litigation that seeks to block just about every kind of new infrastructure project.

For all these reasons, I have to be skeptical about grandiose electrification goals for 2030, 2035, or even 2050. And if achieving those goals will actually take a lot longer, we need to think through what is actually possible, let alone cost-effective. A completely EV America will require a much larger electricity sector.

Red Light Cameras Could Soon Be a Reality in Hawaii, but Major Concerns Remain

On April 7, KHON's Alexander Zannes reported on the proposed red light camera law to be enacted in Hawaii. I'm quoted as follows in his report.

Panos Prevedouros, Chair of the Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UH says a typical yellow light is three seconds, followed by a full second of red. “But some places they allow you to take the three seconds but then once the extra second of all red comes up they give you a ticket, which is by engineering standard illegal so the possibility of cheating is very much there.”

According to AAA most red light camera studies do show reductions in traffic crashes, cutting down on t-bone type crashes.

But to go with that reduction, comes a rise in rear end collisions, and Prevodouros says the cameras don’t affect accidents caused by distracted driving, or people that are intoxicated. “So no matter how many threats you put with red light camera etc. that’s not going to solve it because at that time you’re not paying attention.”

Vehicle Taxation by Mileage -- California Simulation

At a recent ASCE* web discussion board the subject was VMT taxation which is scheme where the usage of roads (mileage or Vehicle Miles of Travel or VMT) is used as a base to collect highway taxes in addition to or instead of the fuel taxes.

I'll discuss the pros and cons at another time. There are many and quite complicated pros and cons because of the means and technologies involved, the rates involved and of course the "big brother" syndrome, all which open a Pandora's box of social, political and taxation implications.

Meanwhile a user on the board posted a number of interesting pictures of his simulated VMT highway tax collection along with a sample bill, as shown below.

Clearly, the system knows the driver's exact route, his speed compliance and provides ratings for his braking and cornering performance. Too much info in the hands of the government, right?

In California they still exempt electric vehicles from taxes, but part of the the VMT tax justification is to address the disparity of EVs using highways but paying no fuel tax. This is another controversy.

An overarching question is this: Is a complex system for VMT tax collection and the necessary big government behind its oversight and administration worth it? How much of the extra taxes will actually wind up spent of highway maintenance and improvement?


(*) American Society of Civil Engineers 

The Autobahn: Where "Speed Kills" Dies

The German autobahn is a traffic safety paradox. Countries like Australia, the US and the UK have made freeway speed control a major objective of their traffic safety code. Many high class roads in the US are limited to 55 mph and sometimes lower speeds. The top BBC television program Top Gear has scored big laughs with US speed limits.

Speed kills they say.  That can be true. In a case of loss of control or other accident conditions, a modest impact accident can become a severe or fatal accident if the speeds are high.  But speed itself does not kill. In a recent (June 2016) presentation at the German federal department of transportation that I witnessed in Berlin, the statistics clearly showed that the Autobahn is the safest German road.  Germany in general has better traffic safety that the US.  But the speeds on the Autobahn are insane.

Recently I drove about 1,000 km on several German autobahns connecting Berlin and Frankfurt.  When the road was not wet, I was typically using the middle lane and cruised at 150-160 km/hr for long stretches where no limits were in effect. That's 93-100 mph in a loaded car with a family of four!

But on occasion like the one below I'd move up to 176 km/hr or 109 mph and get passed quickly by a Hyundai SUV as in the instance below. The speeding of Hollywood car chases is common place with common cars on the German autobahn.

Note in the picture that the dashboard indicates to me the speed limit in the sign with the red circle and three dashes.  The dashes mean that no speed limit is in effect on that segment of the road. The dashes are replaced with applicable limits, most commonly 120 or 90 km/hr in sections with curves or other difficulties.  The Germans were very cognizant of these limits and adhered to them. On occasion I'd drive a little faster on those restricted stretches to pass the Porsches so I can enjoy the whoosh of being passed by them minutes later... Even when did 194 km/hr (120 mph) they zipped by me at , I'd guess, 155 mph which is a common governed speed limit (based on the tire type fitted).

And nobody died; not even close.  It was fun to see that the next city was 50 miles away and arrive there in about half an hour!

A Public Intellectual of Hawaii: Panos Prevedouros

A conversation with Dr. Keli'i Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute, about traffic congestion, Honolulu rail and Hawaii's renewable energy plans.

Taped for an hourly show for Think Tech on channel OC16.

Also in the past two weeks, quoted in:

• Ige tax hike plan would fill budget holes, not potholes
• City’s traffic ranking improves
• Contraflow to last another week as crews shore up second stretch of crumbling highway

250 Miles with a Made in the USA Supercar, the Tesla P85D

The surprising acceleration of the Tesla S prompted Jay Leno to race his 700 HP Cobra two-seater against a grandmother driving a Tesla P85D in the opening segment of a recent episode of Jay Leno’s Garage shown on NBC-SN.  With minimal effort, the grandma handed Jay’s Cobra a clear defeat. Jay retorted: “Horsepower wins sales, torque wins races.” This is where electric motors reign supreme with their instant, large and constant torque. Torque is the actual force that turns the wheels and propels a vehicle forward.

Through a school fundraiser I got a weekend drive of a Tesla S. I asked if they had the 2015 top-of-the-line model available for the drive, the P85D, and they did!  I kept the car for almost three days; offered rides to over a dozen wowed passengers, then loaded the family and completed a tour around the island… Honolulu, Mililani, Haleiwa, Kaneohe, Waimanalo, Hawaii Kai, and back to Honolulu.



A fair comparison would pit the Tesla against the $150,000 Maserati Quatroporte for size and luxury or a $300,000 Ferrari FF for performance and luxury, but hardly anyone is familiar with those Italian exotics. Instead, I’d compare the Tesla S by with two popular cars that I and a lot of other people are familiar with, that also have elective drive: The BMW 335i in hybrid version, which is sold as the Active Hybrid 3, and the top selling sedan in the US, the Toyota Camry, in Hybrid and XLE trim.

F U L L   R E V I E W

People who can deduct expensive car leases or who can buy cars in the range of $60,000 and above owe it to themselves to test drive a Tesla S and its more powerful variants.  I will wait for the 75% scale version of the P85D or its 2016 sister the P90D. I’d love a Tesla M, M for motor sport; 25% smaller, 25% lighter and 25% cheaper than the P85D.  Hopefully one of these days Elon Musk will read this and oblige me …

AIKEA FOR HONOLULU No. 36 – Offshore Nuclear Power Plants Can Be Effective. Well, I Said So Four Years Ago!

The Economist: Researchers find advantages in floating nuclear power stations. You may recall that I proposed this as mayor candidate in 2010: Nuclear Power in Oahu's Future?  I know that my proposal went nowhere, but it feels great to be four years ahead of MIT. Furthermore, my idea is more economical than theirs. There is no need to construct floating platforms.  The Navy has many large decommissioned ships that float just fine and can be refurbished at a lower cost.

Before Honolulu hits the energy wall and desperation sets in, problems with potable water may arise due to drought, sea level rise or other reasons. So another billion dollar project may be needed for Desalination, as I explain in this article based on a large desalination plant currently under construction in San Diego.

The impact of executive priorities is clear if one compares the economic trajectories of a few countries say since 1990: Greece vs. Israel, Russia vs. China, Argentina vs. Brazil, and France vs. Germany to name a few. All of them faced a number of local and regional adversities but each pair has a clear economic winner now. Priorities and selection of wise transportation, infrastructure, energy and investment options made most of the difference.

Here are two examples of infrastructure where Hawaii made major wrong choices and placed itself in the loser column.

Renewables. They are expensive and their intermittency is highly problematic.  They depend on heavy subsidies.  To deal with intermittency HECO plans to invest heavily on … batteries. (Our politicians needed wind mills with giant labels: Batteries Not Included.) See Hawaii Wants 200MW of Energy Storage for Solar, Wind Grid Challenges. This is purely throwing good money after bad.

Rail. Simply put, rail is way too much buck for the bang. For the five billion dollars of Honolulu heavy rail we could have spent:

• One billion dollars on LNG conversion and a modest floating nuclear power plant to reduce Oahu’s dependence on oil from over 75% to 25% or less, instead of blowing tens of millions in the wind.
• Two billion dollars on HOT lanes and other mitigations to truly reduce traffic congestion.
• One billion dollars to redevelop ex-Navy lands and buildings at Kalaeloa to preserve the rich history of the site and relieve Oahu’s pressing homeless and low income housing problems.
• And one billion on desalination to anticipate water shortage problems.

Join me at the 38th Annual SBH Business Conference, Tuesday, May 13, 2014, 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM, Hibiscus Ballroom, Ala Moana Hotel. Luncheon keynote speaker is entrepreneur, author, coach and motivator, Patrick Snow, who will speak on “Proven Principles for Prosperity.”

The business  program features Mike McCartney (Hawaii Tourism Authority), Tom Yamachika (Tax Foundation), Bob Sigall (Author and Educator), Mark Storfer (Hilo Hattie), Naomi Hazelton-Giambrone (Element Media), Dale Evans (Charley's Taxi), and Peter Kay (Your Computer Minute). Contact: Sam Slom (349-5438) or SBH (396-1724). Don’t miss it!

Aloha!

Panos


Panos D. Prevedouros, PhD
Professor of Civil Engineering
Member, SBH Board of Directors

Useful Uses of Light Duty Drones

Small, light duty remotely controlled (RC) drones(1) that fly at a height between 20 and 200 ft. may perform a large number of useful tasks quickly and relatively cheaply. Here's a partial list of the things that can be done by a $5,000 multi-rotor drone that can lift 2 to 4 kg (4 to 10 lb):

Infrastructure Services (2)

• Assess road and bridge surface condition with 3D mapping that is far easier than deploying expensive custom profilometers on specialized vehicles.
• Inventory and condition of road and highway signs, signals, lane markings and barriers.
• Remote assessment of tree growth, land slide slopes and condition, rock outcrops along highways.
• Detailed external inspection of newly delivered projects such as roads, bridges, buildings, etc.
• External inspection of pipelines.
• Inspection of utility lines.
• Harbor patrol and inspections for leaks, etc.
• Area monitoring of air quality: traffic, chemical, other leaks.
• Traffic management at the site of an incident with no or poor CCTV coverage.
• Rapid regional land surveys and photogrammetry (i.e., centimeter accuracy GoogleEarth).

Commercial Services

• Extra live capture of events such as surfing, racing, skiing and other sports where camera placement is challenging. (Example of 2013 RallyX near Honolulu.)
• Real estate, architectural, promotional and educational videos.
• Spraying of crops and fertilizers -- used in Japan for over 20 years; see picture above.
• Wildlife monitoring and rounding of livestock.
• Remote sensing for archaeology, minerals, other resources.

Security and Rescue Services

• Police, security and similar quick-deployment surveillance that deploys from the trunk of a police vehicle, and supplements helicopter surveillance.
• Remote sensing and discovery of lost hikers, avalanche victims, etc.
• Quick emergency supply drop before "big help" can be mobilized, if necessary.

Small, private drone use may need to be regulated appropriately such as this example: Drones banned from Yosemite, other parks.


Notes (1): Some call them Personal UAVs -- (2): See additional discussion: Researchers Have High Hopes for Drone Use in Transportation

Technology and Technological Innovations

Technology and technological innovations are presented in this installment of my O'lelo show PANOS 2050: Solutions for a Sustainable Hawaii.

The Economist:  Before 1750, the standard of living improved at a glacial pace, if at all. Farming in the early 18th century was not that different from farming in Biblical times. The Romans had invented plumbing before the very concept was forgotten for millennia. Then, something happened. Within two centuries the biggest material problems of pre-industrial life had been solved: ...

The first wave of major modern technology and innovation consisted of the steam engine, the locomotive and the telegraph.

Second and final big wave of major modern technology and innovation consisted of electrical generators, indoor plumbing and broadcast radio.  Followed by autos, oil extraction and highways.

TV, personal computers and the Internet had modest but not "wholesale" effects on our quality of life and productivity.

The Driverless Car

The driverless car is explained in this installment of my O'lelo show PANOS 2050: Solutions for a Sustainable Hawaii.

No need for a driver's license!
Will the blind drive?
No more taxi drivers?
The end of insurance payments?

Driverless cars are a Pandora's box of opportunities and challenges. This 30 minute show sheds some light on them.

The Next 100 MW Power Plant for Oahu

Gabriel El-Swaify, recent Masters graduate from the Department of Civil Engineering at UH-Manoa, describes his analysis leading to the best choice for "The Next 100 MW Power Plant on Oahu" that he conducted as part of his graduate study. I was the supervisor of this analysis.

Gabriel analyzed both renewable (e.g., wind) and traditional feedstock (e.g., coal) for power plants. He also accounted for land use (land acreage needed for the plant and its accessories) and long term maintenance as well as stand-by power requirements when renewable sources are not available.

Waste-to-energy and Geothermal power plants are among the best choices as explained in this installment of my O'lelo show PANOS 2050: Solutions for a Sustainable Hawaii.

New 3-Cylinder Ford Engine Delivers 47 mpg!

Alan Mulally is the venerable engineer and project manager of the Boeing 777 and for several years now CEO of Ford Motor Company. Why is he kissing this new engine?

Because this super-efficient, well-balanced and light weight engine can deliver 47 mpg in a Ford Focus compact car without the complexity and price penalty of hybrid technology. Many manufacturers are now turning to 3-cylinder engines for their smaller cars but also prepare editions that match the output of common V6 engines for larger vehicles.

These smaller engines would have huge benefits for the world market, and China in particular, where Volkswagen announced plans to build its 7th plant, just a few days after Ford had said it would build its 5th.

This is good news for mobility and the planet. Smart policies* and smart engineers get the job done: Mini engines with normal performance and mini consumption and air pollution. And fewer resources used to make those engines enhances long term sustainability.

Note (*): America's new emission standards require car manufacturers to achieve a fleet average of 34.1 mpg by 2016 and 54.6 mpg by 2025.

Less Traffic Thanks to Telecommuting and Young Adults

"In 1888 Bertha Benz, wife of the carmaker Karl, drove 66 miles from one German city to another to prove to the world that the “horseless carriage” was suited to everyday use. Mrs. Benz succeeded beyond her wildest dreams."

This is The Economists' introduction of an article on urban transportation and the evolving trend of less car travel: "The road less travelled: Car use is peaking in the rich world. Governments should take advantage of that." Less travel? Can this be right? See Figure 1 below.



A few more quotes from the full article "The future of driving -- Seeing the back of the car -- In the rich world, people seem to be driving less than they used to" are as follows:

• Modern life is unimaginable without the car. The automobile has powered the growth of cities and steered their sprawl. Its manufacture has created millions of jobs and eased the development of many millions more.
• Cars are integral to modern life. They account for 70% of all trips not made on foot in the OECD, which includes most developed countries. 
• In the European Union more than 12 million people work in manufacturing and services related to cars and other vehicles, around 6% of the total employed population.
• The equivalent figure for America is 4.5% of private-sector employment, or 8 million jobs.

An interesting revelation of the research reported in The Economist is that current and future young people tend to travel less. There are several reasons for this:

1. Young people tend to socialize more via digital media and meet less often.
2. Car use has become more expensive for young people's parents to afford a car for them or for the young people to afford the sky-high insurance fees.
3. At least some of young people's college or professional education can be via distance learning.
4. Job opportunities for young people are less and lower rewarded in the stagnant economy of the EU and of several debt-laden states in the US.
5. Young people are getting their licenses later than they used to (see Figure 2 above.)

In addition the full democratization of the automobile (meaning that women own and use cars at rates similar to men) concluded at the end of the last century. So this "catch up" trend leading to traffic growth has ended.

More and safer bikeways, subsidized vanpooling, supported telecommuting and, in some cases, clean and reliable mass transit chip away at the dominance of the car. See for example below the gains in vanpooling and telecommuting in Washington State.



Recall that Honolulu rail will increase transit share roughly from 6% of TheBus today to 7% for combined bus and rail. It would be much easier to obtain this 1% with more vanpools and telework!  There is a real world example  for this: Portland, the poster child for light rail. From 1980 to 2011, working at home (mostly telecommuting) increased by 55,000. This is more than three times the growth in rail transit commuting (17,500). During the last decade, working at home passed transit as a work access mode in Portland, and with virtually no public expenditures as opposed to the billions spent on rail lines.

TECHNOLOGY and INNOVATION Survey -- The Economist and Hawaii Results

I like people, global and local issues, and numbers ... so I present a mini-series of surveys on major issues which have been debated at The Economist. Obviously the results only represent people with at least a basic level of computer and Internet savvy. However, the results may be sufficiently indicative because most questions along with the careful wording of questions lead to a straightforward answer: Agree, Disagree or Do Not Know. The Economist has received a few thousand responses to each of their questions. I post results only when Hawaii surveys exceed 100 responses.

TECHNOLOGY Results (click to take the survey, part 1, and technology survey part 2.)

The results are summarized in the Table and discussed below.


The original debate questions in The Economist address various issues relating to technology. Ten questions were selected and International and Hawaii responses are compared.

For the first four issues, both The Economist and Hawaii respondents agree. For the next two issues either International or Hawaii responses are neutral, and for the last four issues the opinions are clearly opposite.

Both Hawaii (80%) and international response (62%) disagrees with the position that genetically modified crops and sustainable agriculture are complementary. Both agree that the Internet is making journalism better and that we are now in a new tech bubble. More international respondents (61%) than Hawaii respondents (56%) agreed that social networking technologies will bring positive changes to education.

Economist respondents want NASA to send astronauts to the moon but Hawaii is clearly ambivalent on this. Hawaii respondents believe that innovation works best when government does least but The Economist habitual government subsidy readers overwhelmingly place government at the center of innovation (84%). It does not take a genius to know who's right. Just think about the last time that a PC, smartphone or search engine was invented in Europe...

Hawaii respondents clearly agree (81%) that if the promise of technology is to simplify our lives it is failing, but The Economist respondents mildly (53%) believe that technology has simplified our lives. Technology has simplified my life. As an engineer and researcher, the Internet and digital scholar tools have cut down by annual time spent at the university library from 1 to 2 weeks a year in the late 1980s to less than two hours per year after 2000.

Exact opposite responses to the argument that the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media adds little to the quality of education: 56% of international respondents disagree and 57% of Hawaii respondents agree. In other words, Hawaii respondents believe that technology doesn't do much for education. Maybe that's a generic response because public education in Hawaii produces poor outcomes. Or, perhaps in Hawaii we buy a lot of technology for schools but don't use it in an effective and exciting manner. (However, that's not the case at Liholiho Elementary that my 5th grader attends since kindergarten.)

Underutilized technology is certainly the case with intelligent transportation systems (ITS) on our highways. Hawaii has spent upwards of $500 million on ITS and signal infrastructure since 2000. Yet traffic signals still operate mostly like Christmas lights and, like Chicago in the 1970s, we get our traffic conditions from ... Jason Josuda on FM radio. In 1994 I bought a Saab 900 with a Radio Data System. The car could show on the dash messages about road conditions. It was disabled for the US and if I still had it, it could be useless in Hawaii in 2012.

Hawaii respondents got the next one right: 65% agree that we're on a post-PC era, and that smartphones and tablets will soon dominate. No question that this will be so by 2020 in most of the US. Only 28% of international respondents agreed to this. Much lower disposable income (due to lower incomes and higher taxes) do not allow Europeans to change technology items frequently.

Finally from President Obama, to Linda Lingle and many luminaries in the between, math and science education is the best way to stimulate future innovation. Correctly, 74% of international respondents agreed but only 33% of Hawaii respondents agree. Sun, surf and R&R does not jibe with STEM (science, technology, engineering and math!)

Innovations We Can't Live Without: US and Hawaii

Earlier this year Consumer Reports published a small survey in a sidebar answering this question: Which of these innovations of the past few decades would be hardest to live without?

I used my AIKEA FOR HONOLULU newsletter and Facebook page to invite people to respond to an identical survey and make two choices among these innovations: Bank ATM – Broadband (fast) Internet service – Cable or satellite TV – Cell phone – Digital camera – GPS – Home computer – Microwave oven – Smart phone. The survey is still live; feel free to take it if you haven't done so.

The results are summarized below. They are listed from high to low according to their Hawaii share. For six out of nine innovations, the USA and Hawaii results are very similar, i.e., within two percentage points (green cells.) However, the other three reveal a different pattern:

• USA folks are more focused on food and ready-to-eat meals. They chose the microwave oven as their top innovation!
• Hawaii folks are more focused on technology with personal computers and fast Internet connections being their top two choices.

We have to be cautious with this outcome because Hawaii respondents were contacted by email and Internet social media, thus my survey touched only a computer savvy Hawaii population sample. However, both surveys agree that four innovations based on Intelligent Technology (IT), namely PC, digital TV, Internet and cell phones get the lion's share of the responses: 58% in the Consumer Reports USA survey, and 74% in my limited, computer-based Hawaii survey.

Can We Solve Honolulu’s Pervasive Traffic Congestion Problem?

Yes we can!

There are several specific projects that mitigate congestion that if one could magically install half of them overnight, Honolulu’s congestion level would be so low that traffic congestion would be removed from people’s list of worries. That would be a great thing for quality of life on Oahu and a booster to our tourism and the overall local economy.

Part 1 gives some background on congestion (did you know that some congestion is a good thing?) and presents low cost and shorter term traffic congestion solutions. Part 2 presents longer term, high cost traffic congestion solutions.

Honolulu Traffic Congestion – Part 1: From Bumper-to-bumper to Zoom-zoom by Removing One Third of Honolulu's Traffic Congestion for Less Than $500 Million

Honolulu Traffic Congestion – Part 2: Up-shift to Overdrive by Removing another One Third of Honolulu's Traffic Congestion for Less Than $5 Billion

These two white papers illustrate the dozens of doable, affordable, all-local-labor and effective projects for mitigating one of our largest problems on Oahu, traffic congestion.

Traffic congestion mitigation in Honolulu is in the hands of government and politicians. They may actually be the main causes of our traffic congestion.

Keep a 9 y.o. Car or Replace it with a Hybrid?

I own a sporty 4 door sedan with almost 70,000 miles on it. It's a good car that will likely serve me well for another 6 to 10 years with proper maintenance. It does require premium gas and its average real world 20 miles-per-gallon (mpg) is decent. Could a high efficiency hybrid car be a less expensive choice in the long term?

The general question is: What is the total cost of a new and a used car and how can one estimate it? Each person's choice will vary so I use my case to illustrate the approach.

The only high-mpg alternatives to my car are the 2012 Toyota Camry LE Hybrid and the 2012 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid. The remainder of the hybrids are too "sleepy", too large or too expensive for me.

I chose to make comparisons with the Camry. It is less sporty that my current car but various magazine tests praise it for its good acceleration and good fuel efficiency. It is rated at 43 mpg city so I assumed a 40 mpg for my estimations. Having used a rented Prius for a few days I confirmed that its city mpg is as good as advertised at 51 mpg. I excluded the Sonata despite the fact that it is $4,000 less expensive than the Camry because tests have shown that its real world mpg is worse than its EPA rating of 35 mpg city. [1] According to Edmunds.com both have a similar 5 year total cost to own. [2]

Real world mpg is important and EPA has revised the rules because of large deviations. For example, I did complain to Honda in 2000 because my 1999 Accord LX rated at 24 mpg city never did any better than 20 mpg even with a bit of freeway use thrown in the mix. In 2011 Honda had bigger problems with its Civic Hybrid (lawsuits about the claimed mpg) which stresses the importance of the real world mpg rating in different areas by different users.

There are many variables in this long term calculation, some more important than others:

• Length of analysis: 6 years and 10 years.
• Out the door cost of the new car: $29,160.
• Current value of the 9 y.o. car: $9,500.
• Insurance and registration: I called my insurer to find out today's premium for the 2012 Camry Hybrid: 5% higher than my current car. Registration is the same at $300 per year.
• Usage: this is hugely important in comparing a high mpg to a low mpg car because high use makes the high mpg car cheaper in the long term. My scenario was for 6,000 miles per year which is what I averaged in the past three years. I also run the numbers for 10,000 miles per year.
• Tires: New set of tires costing $800 every 30,000 miles.
• Maintenance: annual average cost of $900 for the 9 y.o. car and $300 for the new car based on past experience. In other words, in the next 10 years it’ll take $9,000 to keep the 9 y.o. car in very good shape and $3,000 to do the same with the new car.
• Cost of fuel: this is another critical variable because fossil fuel pricing will be quite uncertain in the future. There is no doubt that the price of fuel will fluctuate a lot between 2012 and 2022. Some argue that new large deposits will be found, Libya’s production will come up to normal soon and China’s thirst for oil will be leveling off. Others point to the diminishing reserves (they are good for up to 100 years more) and the large unrest likely in the Arab peninsula, like Syria or worse. So I run three scenarios of average annual price change of -4%, +2%, and +5%. I explain each scenario below.
  

Today's oil price is about $105 per barrel. When President Obama took office the price was $35 per barrel. Many analysts expect that in the next decade the price of oil will average $50 to $80 per barrel, so gas may be cheaper than it is today. This is represented by the -4% scenario. In this scenario, today’s unleaded gas is $4.35 per gallon and the average price in the next 10 years will be $3.65/gln. (All prices mentioned are in today’s dollars.)

The 2% scenario assumes that the current level of oil price per barrel is high, that it will drop some time after the 2012 elections and then begin to grow again resulting in a mild average increase. In this scenario, today’s unleaded gas is $4.35 per gallon and the average price in the next 10 years will be $4.76/gln.

The 5% scenario assumes major unrest in Saudi Arabia or another calamitous event that affects oil prices. In this scenario, today’s unleaded gas is $4.35 per gallon and the average price in the next 10 years will be $5.47/gln.

The estimation of total costs takes quite a bit of analysis. The figure below shows the calculation for one car, one mileage scenario and one gas price scenario. The final results require 12 estimations like this.


The results are summarized in the table below. The obvious result is that regardless of gasoline pricing scenario, the car with 40 mpg city is a good choice for high annual mileage users. In my case, staying with what I've got is the smart choice.



[1] http://www.edmunds.com/hyundai/sonata-hybrid/2012/

[2] Hyundai: True Cost to Own®: $42,406 -- Toyota: True Cost to Own®: $42,915 (both are 5 year estimates) from [1]

Energy, Power, Storage, Distribution, Management

These five words, Energy, Power, Storage, Distribution, Management encapsulate almost all of what's involved with powering up our daily life, production and industry.

First, we need to make an important distinction between Energy and Power. We’ve got lots of Energy. We are getting short on Power.

Roughly speaking, if we could capture 100% of one day of sunlight energy, store it and distribute it as electric power, this would cover the entire needs of today’s world for a full year.

On the other hand, Bill Gates on GatesNotes on Energy states that "All the batteries on Earth can store 10 minutes of the world's electric needs." We are very short on storage.

We’ve got enough geothermal energy in Hawaii to make us self sufficient for centuries including the production of fuels for transportation.

Two big problems are: (1) We do not have sufficient infrastructure to take Energy and make Power, and (2) once we make power, we have no means to store it for later use. The second problem makes wind, solar and other intermittent power generation methods tertiary in terms of power production.

Smart grid distribution with connected electric car batteries, capacitors and intelligent management make the incorporation of renewable intermittent power more possible, but the existing capability in terms of storage and management is limited.

Unfortunately modern high capacity batteries in hybrid and plug-in vehicles require "exotic" materials in their composition. These make them very expensive and the potential for large price reductions and very high production numbers is limited.

A fairly recent development is large liquid batteries: "MIT team makes progress toward goal of inexpensive grid-scale batteries that could help make intermittent renewable energy sources viable." The resultant spinoff company, Liquid Metal Battery Corp. has benefited from funding from the Gates Foundation.

These batteries depend on molten metal at temperatures higher than 500 C (930 F), so I was a little sceptical that large amounts of energy would be wasted in keeping the metals molten. However the authors have accounted for this in their journal publication*: "At some larger scale, the action of electric current flowing through the electrolyte could generate enough Joule heat to keep the components molten, thereby obviating the need for external heaters, as is the case with electrolytic cells producing aluminum on a commercial scale"

(*) Magnesium−Antimony Liquid Metal Battery for Stationary, Energy Storage, David J. Bradwell, Hojong Kim, Aislinn H. C. Sirk, and Donald R. Sadoway, J.Am.Chem.Soc. 2012, 134, 1895−1897.

US: Gas v. Wind -- Hawaii: Geothermal v. Wind

Matt Ridley concludes his article Gas Against Wind as follows:

To persist with a policy of pursuing subsidized renewable energy in the midst of a terrible recession, at a time when vast reserves of cheap low-carbon gas have suddenly become available is so perverse it borders on the insane. Nothing but bureaucratic inertia and vested interest can explain it.

Like the U.S. mainland has abundant gas Hawaii has abundant geothermal energy. Tapping into geothermal power can be more expensive than hydraulic fracturing or fracking for natural gas but geothermal power in Hawaii is less exhaustible than natural gas on the mainland, and once developed its use does not produce greenhouse gasses.

Like in the U.S. natural gas is in shale hundreds of miles away from big metropolitan areas, but a national grid makes electric power transmission feasible, although billions need to be spent to the existing grid if gigawatts are to be transmitted efficiently and reliably.

In Hawaii a cable to connect Oahu, Maui and the Big island may be too expensive, but there are alternatives: Hydrogen, and Ammonia (as a carrier of Hydrogen.) Hawaii can utilize abundant geothermal energy to transform into a hydrogen/electric economy for long term sustainability, instead of blowing Billions in the wind.

In addition to blowing Billions on unreliable power production, I quote from Ridley's article: The wind farm requires eight tonnes of an element called neodymium, which is produced only in Inner Mongolia, by boiling ores in acid leaving lakes of radioactive tailings so toxic no creature goes near them.