Real Energy, Real Jobs

By looking at the title, for a second I thought that I wrote this article and forgot about it, but the Real Energy, Real Jobs article was written by Robert Bradley Jr., CEO and Founder of the Institute for Energy Research and author, Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy.

Indeed Energy is Big Business and critically important for the US, Hawaii and indeed all civilization. For each location, there is an optimum mix of energy options for abundant, affordable energy, energy jobs and energy profits. There are many sub-optimal mixes that may lead to huge profits, short-term jobs, and unreliably and expensive energy. You can read some of these in Bradley's article.

In addition to the points raised in the article Real Energy, Real Jobs, my own research has revealed that:

• Denmark: 20% of the electricity is from wind, but much of it is exported at no cost to Norway in return for baseload electricity when the wind does not blow!
• Spain: For every 1 green job financed by Spanish taxpayers, 2.2 jobs were lost as an opportunity cost. Since 2000, Spain spent $753,778 per “green job.”
• Germany: Green jobs created by government actions disappear as soon as government subsidies end.
• Texas: After 30 months, countless TV appearances, and $80 million spent on an extravagant PR campaign, T. Boone Pickens has finally admitted the obvious: The wind energy business isn't a very good one. The Dallas-based entrepreneur, who has relentlessly promoted his Pickens Plan since July 4, 2008, announced that he's abandoning the wind business to focus on natural gas. (Wall Street Journal quote.)
  

Nuclear Power Plant ... Oxymorons and Solutions

The Economist has a useful tool for looking up which have nuclear power and how much electricity they produce in a year. The U.S. leads the pack.

One of the oddities of nuclear power is that some countries like Greece are strongly opposed to nuclear power, yet less than 100 miles away their Bulgarian neighbors already have nuclear power plants ... This reminds me of Hawaii with its nuclear power plant constitutional prohibition and the 15 nuclear submarines home ported in Pearl Harbor.

The difficult management of a failing power plant due to major force of nature as witnessed in Japan makes a strong case for locating them on off shore floating platforms (e.g., refurbished decommissioned air carriers.) These platforms, like off shore rigs can be manned as required by helicopter flights but they can be engineered for self power and management by remote control (like the unmanned drones of the air force.)

In the extremely rare care of nuclear reactor failure the floating platform can be de-anchored and de-tethered, and then robotically powered away from populations. This plan offers significant economic, safety and psychological benefits. Perhaps the state of Georgia should look into a floating platform 10-20 miles out in the Atlantic among its alternatives for locating a very large nuclear power plant.

Higher Gas Prices. Go for Trains and Electric Cars?

Fuel prices are trending upward in a hurry due to world events.

Local governments, including Honolulu's also are increasing fuel taxes.

The damage to people's wallets and family budgets will worsen.
So is it more economical to switch to a train or an electric car? This is definitely not a good choice in Honolulu.

Hawaii has by far the highest price per kilowatt-hour of electric power in the nation. The current price on Oahu is about 28 cents per KWh or 230% higher than the U.S. national average. AAA reports today's regular gas price in Honolulu at $4.084 per gallon or 15% higher than the U.S. national average.


Over 75% of the electric power on Oahu is produced by oil.


So it is pain at the pump and pain at the plug. But in relative terms, gasoline is a bargain. Honolulu pays a 15% premium on gas and a 230% premium on electricity.

This has two important implications for transportation in Hawaii:

1. The 100% electric car Nissan Leaf is rated by EPA at 99 MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) assuming the average price of 11 cents per KWh in the US. This reduces to about 40 mpg in Hawaii because power is 230% more dear. As a result, the Nissan competes with similarly fuel efficient Ford, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota hybrids which cost less and have a range of 400 miles instead of 100 miles.
2. The operating cost and pollution impact of the proposed rail will be staggering because it draws several megawatts of electricity, runs almost empty for 16 out of 20 hours of its daily operation, and has a minimal benefit on traffic congestion.

(Of course by now it is clear that rail is the way for billions of taxes to be reallocated to special groups and politicians -- both of them pushing it madly.)

Recession 2011

Many economists were warning that the 2008-2009 will be a "double dip" recession because of the mounting federal, state and local debts in the U.S.

2010 was not a "banner year" and expectations were that 2011 would be a better one. Did you realize what happened in the first quarter of 2011?

• Momentous changes are occurring in the Arab world including change in regimes, bloodbaths and large increases in oil prices. This in turn makes the recovery of the world economy from the long 2008-2009 recession harder. (See trend below.)
  
• Then a few days ago the world's third largest economy was hit with (perhaps) 10,000 deaths and well over one trillion dollar bill in damages.
  
• Japan, a country of about 127 million people accounts for about 16% of the annual tourist revenues of Hawaii and Japan's debt situation is actually worse than USA’s (at least the federal portion of it.)
• Australia is now expending over $6 billion to cover the damages of extensive floods in late 2010.
• New Zealand's second largest city was hit by a strong earthquake on February 22 causing 166 deaths and damages estimated at $11 billion, or 7% of the country's GDP.
• Australia, population 22 million and New Zealand, population 4 million account for 1% of of the annual tourist revenues of Hawaii.

The direct impacts of these to Hawaii will be more expensive energy, more expensive air fares and much fewer visitors from Japan and from economies that are strongly linked to the economy of Japan, and fewer visitors from Down Under

Higher consumer basket prices and lower revenues and taxes from the tourist industry are a given. Expect that the second half of 2011 will be a mild (at best) recession for Hawaii.