HART's Job Estimates Are Wrong

Back in 2009, UHERO provided some rail jobs estimates that said employment will start with 300 jobs, and at the peak of construction, there may be 2,000 jobs, but at that time UHERO did not know that a $1.4 billion contract to build the rail cars would go to Ansaldo Breda in Italy.*

However HART testified at City Council that the rail will create 4,000 to 17,000 jobs. These estimates are flat out wrong if people believe that these are Hawaii-based jobs. Here is why:

• Material costs are not jobs and most materials like steel, concrete and glass will be imported, thus those jobs are not local.
• Finance charges are not jobs.
• Equipment and outside purchases are not jobs in Hawaii. These will be a huge portion from trains, escalators and elevators to ticket machines, tickets, bolts and nails.
• Also many large and "linear" infrastructure projects like the rail are of a "copy-paste" nature, that is, the people who build the first mile will also build the second mile, etc. There are no 10 groups of workers building 10 separate miles.
  

In sum, a very large portion of the $5.3 Billion pie is not labor related. The part that is labor is not very large for Hawaii because (1) a portion of the labor is outside Hawaii or imported expertise, and (2) Linear infrastructure does not need a large number of workers. Therefore UHERO's estimate that the maximum likely number of jobs is around 2,000 is the best answer. This makes Rail smaller in terms of jobs than Hilton Hawaiian Village. Of course the Village is a sustainable job supplier, whereas Rail is not.

It is also a fact that tax-based infrastructure development causes major job losses because the taxes taken from people to build the rail were not spent elsewhere in the economy.

If infrastructure projects can be made with all-local materials and labor, then the projects simply circulate monies in the same market (Oahu in this case) but they do not create real growth. This circulation also has "parasitic losses" due to the bureaucracies involved and, on occasion, lawsuits and other penalties.

Rail, unfortunately, uses so many imported components and expertise that local taxes will be exported in the billions of dollars, so its net effect will be strongly recessionary.

Two years ago based on UHERO's 2009 estimates of rail jobs I wrote the article
Proposed Rail Creates 1,000 Local Jobs and Destroys 4,000 Jobs (the bold part is UHERO assessments):

UHERO estimates that first year rail construction job count will be about 360 jobs and only in peak years the construction job estimate will reach about 2,000 jobs. But most of them will be unsuitable for carpenters that are suffering the brunt of construction sector unemployment now. Also almost all of the rail construction materials and technology comes from off-island sources, so at best 1,000 of these jobs are local. The City estimates for rail jobs are false. They are advocacy estimates.

More on this in Malia Zimmerman's article Honolulu Rail Sold to City Council, Public, on Jobs Boost, But Will the Promise Hold Up? in the Hawaii Reporter.

Public Education Systems. There is Hope, but not in Hawaii. Yet.

"Nevada and New Mexico are among a growing number of states that are looking to Florida and Mr Bush’s time in office for inspiration on school reform. Many of these, such as Indiana, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arizona, have Republican governors, while others, such as Colorado, have Democratic governors but influential Republican education leaders. Many are also known for mediocre schools. That, indeed, was Florida’s situation: its schools were among the nation’s worst in 1999 and are now among the best."

So there is hope in Hawaii, but another set of players will be required.

The quote above is from a great article in The Economist last month: The Floridian school of thought.

HART's Misrepresentations Are Intolerable!

Yesterday HART issued an email blast. My brief response to HART's selective misrepresentations is as follows. (Sent to Gov. Legislature and City Council.)

HART: Rail provides congestion free transportation

1) Rail is station to station transportation. Hardly anybody resides in or near stations, particularly the stations that HART is developing in the middle of nowhere and next to stadia and big box retailers. So future riders will drive or ride buses thus will be exposed to congestion and delays. And searching for the scant park and ride parking will waste a lot of their time.

2) While on the train you do not have traffic congestion, but you do have a very slow ride. See Chapter One of a recent national report for US for urban trips: Commuter rail, the fastest form of rail with far spaced stations, averages 14.1 mph. Car travel averages 33.2 mph.

3) For the next 30 years Kapolei to UH, Waikiki and beyond will be far faster by car than with any combo that includes rail.

4) The less fudged Alternatives Analysis and DEIS clearly showed that rail is not travel time competitive anywhere east of Aiea.

HART: When rail is built, it will eliminate 40,000 vehicle trips from Oahu's roadways each weekday

Firstly, one has to believe the city's ridership numbers. This is not a good idea; like in San Juan Puerto Rico, where Parsons Brinkerhoff predicted 80,000 riders per day, then FTA approved it. But they got only 25,000. By the way, San Juan is over 3,000,000 people. What does PB predict for the opening year in the tiny corridor of maybe 500,000 people in Honolulu? 97,000 !

Secondly, rail will eliminate 40,000 car trips out of 3.9 Million daily trips on Oahu. How would you like to pay $5 Billion for 1% reduction in trips? Would you like to repeat this with our water mains and sewer line improvements?

Did you try to make the division of $5 Billion by 40,000? It yields a cost of $125,000 for each car-trip saved. That's nuts!

What was the cost per student-trip from the DOE budget that state plans to cut as "unaffordable"? Taken for a Ride: Hawaii Lawmakers Still Plan To Cut School Bus Funding, http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2012/03/13/15146-taken-for-a-ride-hawaii-lawmakers-still-plan-to-cut-school-bus-funding/


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Yesteray's email blast from HART

A recent HonoluluTraffic.com commentary contained incorrect information about the Honolulu Rail Transit Project. Here are the facts from HART:

• Rail provides a congestion-free transportation choice. Passengers who choose rail will have zero congestion - and that's a fact. The elevated line will be free from traffic delays and accidents on congested streets and highways. Rail will allow riders to bypass the gridlock and reach their destination reliably and on time.

• When rail is built, it will eliminate 40,000 vehicle trips from Oahu's roadways each weekday - that's tangible traffic relief.

Hawaii's 2nd Energy Update... or Waste Update?

DBEDT has just issued the 2nd edition of Hawaii's Energy Update. See it here:
http://energy.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/DBEDT-Energy-Update-Edition-2-March-2012.pdf

When a government glossy brochure is 99% about benefits and 1% about costs, and when the (suspect) jobs created, may of them part-time, cost the taxpayer $92,000 per year each, then it's easy to realize what kind of green they are really talking about...

Spending taxpayer money to apply expensive, inferior solutions for "creating jobs" is ineffective and unsustainable. The ARRA taught us this lesson recently. Fewer than expected jobs were created, the nation now co-owns car manufacturers and collectively we owe $6 Trillion of added debt.

Take a look at this "Hawaii Energy" brochure. It's all about jobs and expenditures. How much of the electricity used daily in Hawaii did we get for all this? About 1% if there's stiff wind and no clouds. How does this agree with the opening sentence of the brochure? Clean energy is a matter of energy security... Not!

Germany's Solar Failure is a Big Lesson for Hawaii

Bjørn Lomborg recently exposed Germany’s Sunshine Daydream. It's the same daydream that Governor Abercrombie, PUC Chair Mina Morita and the local pseudo-greens have put in motion for Hawaii.

Like Germany, our results will be pathetic and the costs will be very high. Here are some highlights of Germany's failed solar initiative:

• Despite the massive investment of $130 Billion, solar power accounts for only about 0.3% of Germany’s total energy.
• Germany is paying about $1,000 per ton of CO2 reduced. The current CO2 price in Europe is $8.
• Defenders of Germany’s solar subsidies also claim that they have helped to create “green jobs”. In China where the panels are made.
• German citizens now pay the second-highest price for electricity in the developed world.
• Denmark citizens now pay the highest price for electricity because they are the “world wind-energy champion.”

Hawaii's energy plan is focused on solar and wind, so we clearly know what the energy supply and cost future will be for Hawaii.

Hawaii citizens pay the same rate as Germany now, three (3) times the US average and if the current plan continues, Hawaii's price for electricity will be five (5) times higher that mainland US.

However, this may be the least of Hawaii's problem. Since wind and solar are intermittent, we will need to maintain archaic, oil burning generators for ever. In contrast, Denmark import electricity from the hydroelectric plants of Scandinavia when wind dies down and Germany imports electricity from France's nuclear power plants. Hawaii has no such options so the outcome will be brown outs and explosive KWh cost. A true lose-lose plan is now in the works.

If you doubt me, just read this: Keahole Solar Power, HECO sign power-purchase agreement and compare it with this (same company): Solar Power Plant on Oahu Does not Pass Muster.

If you thought that Hawaii has perfectly sunny conditions for solar, you'd be wrong. It has good conditions but far from perfect due to frequent cloudiness. Compare the Nevada desert clean solar pattern with Keahole Point on Oahu cloudy profile.

Let's not forget that at best we get 8 to 10 hours of solar power per day, so with solar we need oil 60% to 70% of the time on a clear sunny day. For this reason, solar energy has a capacity factor of 25%. This means that a 100 MW solar photovoltaic plant is equivalent to a 25 MW oil or hydroelectric plant. A similar "capacity factor" applies to wind.

Solar thermal like the Keahole Solar Power that HECO agreed to buy energy from (and PUC is likely to rubber stamp) is defunct technology abandoned in Spain and by Google. (There is also a HECO-Sopogy link: HECO's past CEO is now a Sopogy board member.)

Google cans solar energy project

Even when you have all the money of Google, you should spend it wisely. The search giant, which invests heavily in renewable energy initiatives, backed off of at least one of them yesterday.

Google said it is dropping development of “solar thermal” electricity because solar thermal cannot keep pace with the rapid price decline of another solar technology – photovoltaics.

On November 29, 2011, I sent the article about Google's decision to PUC chair Mina Morita, Governor and State Legislature. Apparently, unlike Google, they did not care to spend money wisely.

HECO is in a position of technological and cost-effectiveness indifference caused by mandates. It agreed to a power purchase at 33.5 cents per KWh from hyper-expensive and under-performing Sopogy technology. Note that's 33.5 cents at the production site. It will reach residences at over 50 cents per KWh, or five times US mainland average. So the exorbitant pricing future I was talking about before... is here already!

PUC chair Mina Morita, Governor and State Legislature received this article on March 16, 2012.
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March 19 Addendum. Hawaii's current renewables plan relies heavily on wind power, which I oppose when applied in large numbers as expensive, unreliable and intrusive. The following passage's from Washington Post's United Technologies to sell wind businesses article are relevant:

• Chief Financial Officer Greg Hayes that selling Clipper was not a difficult decision because the alternative energy business has stalled. “We’ve gone into this business with the thought that there was going be a renewable energy mandate in this country and there has not been one.”
• Alternative energy has stagnated with booming natural gas exploration. The nation’s supplies are bulging and natural gas is cheap. By comparison wind power is less economical than many thought it would be two years ago, he said.