Hawaii Solar Technology Choice

Q: Will the consumer gain or lose?
A: Lose big if a proposal gets approval

The technology battle is between Concentrated Solar Panel (CSP) and Photo-voltaic (PV). Here are the facts:

Why should Hawaii pay more for electricity generated from CSP than it does from PV? Hawaii’s leaders have proposed that HECO pay CSP developers up to 60% more than it pays PV developers for the same power. Even a modest size CSP facility will cost Hawaii 10’s of millions of dollars more in tax credits and electricity purchases. CSP (also known as Solar Thermal) is the most expensive of all energy options, as shown in the figure below. Choosing an obvious and unnecessary waste of money.


PV wins the Solar Technology Battle: Government and industry analysts say that CSP (also known as “solar thermal” technology) is losing the solar energy cost battle and is doomed (1,2.) The project developers are cancelling numerous CSP projects or converting them to PV (3.)

Hawaii’s Experience with CSP is even worse. Hawaii’s first CSP facility cost approximately $20 million dollars to build and has a capacity of 100 kW (4,5,6.) The cost to build that CSP facility is approximately $200/watt while PV is less than $7/watt. Actual electrical output from the facility has not been made public.

Outrageous cost! HECO buys renewable energy produced by geothermal, wind, PV, and biomass local suppliers at 12 to 22 cents per KWh. With the proposed CSP rate, HECO will be forced to buy solar energy at 31.6 cents per KWh. Such discriminatory favoritism is unjustified and insulting to electric power customers. For reference, the average price of electricity sold to mainland households is 11 cents per KWh. HECO’s rate is approximately three (3) times higher. Bottom Line: Hawaii should not subsidize an expensive and unproven CSP technology when proven and less expensive PV options readily exist.

Call to Action: The Governor and the PUC are preparing to approve a “highway robbery” deal with Sopogy for a multi-million dollar CSP deployment at Kalaeloa on Oahu. This deployment must not be approved. Call the Governor and the PUC and ask them to step away from this very costly proposal.

Note: Sent to Governor, Lt. Governor, the Public Utilities Commission and all Hawaii Legislators on Sept. 13, 2011.

Internet in China. Not Much is Accessible.

I spent nearly two weeks in five cities in China, Shanghai, Nanjing, Harbin, Chanchung and Beijing in August. It was a great tour of China's developing might and physical beauty which I describe elsewhere. One of the low spots was Internet access. Here is a pictorial testament of my experience.
No access to Blogger, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Vimeo ...

Taxis Are Flexible and High Tech Public Transportation

Cities rely on taxis to serve business people, tourists, the handicapped, the auto-less and people who cannot drive, and all those with urgent and important trips. In Honolulu for example, about one fifth of a taxi's night customers are restaurant, bar and medical facility workers many of whom can't afford high parking fees or do not drive -- given that bus routes shut down by 8 or 9 pm.

Throughout the world, taxis are common carriers, which means that they serve everyone without preference or discrimination. They typically provide 24x7 service, and improve public safety by transporting intoxicated drivers home. Taxis provide essential intermodal connections at airports, harbors, rail and mass transit stations.

The taxi is a privately owned and operated public transportation service.
As an industry, taxis provide thousands of jobs in an urban area for drivers, dispatchers, managers and other vehicle-related jobs. A typical taxi “clocks” approximately 32,500 miles per year in Honolulu and close to 47,000 miles in New York City: A taxi vehicle is used roughly three times more than the average private vehicle in Honolulu and NYC. This in turn generates more business for others: Gas stations, service stations, car repair shops and auto sellers. And lots of fees and taxes paid to government at all levels.

The taxi industry tends to be heavily regulated which may be tolerable during positive economic times but is burdensome during economic downturns and fuel crises. The cyclically revised tariffs per mile and minute do not take into account fluctuations either in the prices of vehicles and fuels or in the value of time. Other disadvantages of the taxi industry are the constant exposure to traffic congestion and traffic accident risk.

Managing a fleet of hundreds of taxis over thousands of miles of a large city network is a daunting task. Done wrong, there can be tremendous waste of driver time and fuel on empty hauls, or long waits at the wrong location. This is where Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) come in with the combination of computerized optimization, automated vehicle location (AVL), global positioning systems (GPS), and fast mobile network based communications between fleet and dispatch center. Fuel savings and more revenue trips per shift pay for the technology and improve the taxi operator’s bottom line.

With an integrated system, the right customer is paired with the right available taxi within seconds resulting in superior customer service and minimized down times and wasted fuel. On the aggregate, thousands of taxis (e.g., Honolulu has nearly 2,000) conducting optimal trips can save a lot of congestion and emissions for the whole city.

Mentor Engineering of Canada recently installed its IntelliFleet ITS system for taxis to Honolulu’s oldest taxi company Charley’s Taxi which manages over 200 cabs on Oahu. While Oahu has several ITS components, they tend to operate in bits-and-pieces by city or state departments. The Charley’s Taxi/Mentor Engineering/Sprint/Verizon system is a fully integrated one with additional features for safety and convenience of both the driver and the passengers. A news story by Hawaii News Now can be seen here.



Taxi is arguably the best mode for urban transportation and this is evidenced by its worldwide success. It is car-based so it is fast, convenient, private, clean, and provides door-to-door service. The customer is free to be productive during the trip, and at the end of the trip there is no need to look for and pay for parking.

Indeed, taxi is one of the most basic modes of urban transportation which along with taxis include car, car-pool or van-pool, bus, walk, bicycle, moped or motorcycle, and telecommuting. Some cities have express bus service or bus rapid transit (BRT), light or heavy rail, jitneys, ferries, funiculars and other specialized modes. Taxi service is public transportation and is an essential mode of metropolitan transportation throughout the world.

Could taxis solve the Ewa plains to town congestion problem on Oahu? This is only a half-serious question, but given how government wastes money, it’s worth looking into. Federal and local government wasted $6 Million on TheBoat. It carried roughly 300 people per day for about two (2) years. The same subsidy to 100 taxis would have carried the same people for 6.5 years!

Ten Reasons Why Nuclear Energy Is Necessary For Another 50-Years

Today I attended an interesting presentation on the merits of ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) and fusion with heavy ions (HIF). Fusion is the “miracle” no-radiation, no noxious waste energy concept that for the past 50 years it’s been “20-years in the future.” There are no fusion power plants in existence, in part because of the giant size they require, and the giant budget that comes with it: $50 Billion for one installation which, in turn, would be enough to supply all of California with fuels and electricity. But $50 Billion for the first-of-its-kind installation is a proposition that no private company or politician has put forth.

What we have available today is the much more scalable and affordable fission process of nuclear reactors. So I summarized below ten key reasons why nuclear energy is necessary for areas that anticipate growth in one million people increments. Many cities in Asia and Africa fit this growth profile.

1) Growth: World population was 3 Billion in 1960, 6 Billion in 1999 and expected to be 9 Billion in 2046. Population growth and improving standard of living globally demand increasing amounts of energy. Energy production must roughly double in the next 30 years to accommodate demand.

2) Fossil fuel depletion: Fossil fuels are being depleted, are not renewable and carbon taxes or pollution limits incentivize low carbon power production alternatives, one of which is nuclear.

3) Plant aging: The post WWII rapid growth of 1st world countries was facilitated in large part by electric power plants of various types and sizes. Many of them are past 50 years of age and need replacement.

4) China alone is growing very fast and a major bottleneck of its growth may become the supply of electric power. Mopeds are electric in its large cities and BYD and CODA are selling full-featured electric vehicles.*

5) Uranium as a fuel has advantages: It is relatively abundant, it does not cost much, not a lot of it is needed to fuel nuclear reactors, and supply comes from stable countries such as Australia and Canada. It is only mildly radioactive and its alpha radiation does not penetrate the skin. Uranium metal is commonly handled with gloves as a sufficient precaution.

6) Modern nuclear power plants provide large amount of power, typically over 1 GW which is 1,000 megawatts. One 1.5 GW plant can cover the needs of a 1st world city of about one million population. Its impact on land and other earth resources is very small compared to many other clean energy sources such as photovoltaic and wind.

7) Familiarity: By 2010 there were 440 nuclear power plants in 31 countries supplying about 15% of the world electric power. Also, there are hundreds of naval vessels with compact nuclear reactors.

8) Vinod Koshla told The Economist that Earth is on an unsustainable energy trajectory and the development of affordable new energy is essential for the billions of peoples on the planet and particularly in fast growing China, India, Indonesia and Nigeria.** Until a feasible and affordable breakthrough is achieved in the energy field, nuclear energy is a major option for large populations because of its cost per MW, safety and near zero carbon footprint.

9) Normal safety: Current nuclear plant designs have many more safety features than the 1950s-era power plants that exhibited critical problems in Pennsylvania, Russia and Japan. Here is an example of a late 1980s nuclear reactor that shut down recently because it auto-detected some equipment failure.

10) Catastrophe scenario: The Fukushima, Japan Daiischi nuclear power plant failure is a great example of resilience. Whereas nature’s force and infrastructure failures in the 9 R earthquake on March 11, 2011 (Tōhoku earthquake) claimed over 30,000 lives, this major nuclear power plant accident had no fatalities. The plant designed with 1950s technology and built for an 8 R earthquake actually withstood an earthquake that was 10 times stronger. Flood water from the powerful tsunami jumped over the 25 ft. protective sea-walls and drowned the external diesel generators used to circulate water and cool the reactors. Because of the surrounding catastrophe, nobody was able to fix this external power system. After the 8-hour backup batteries ran out, cooling stopped and partial meltdown commenced. The September 1, 2011 press release of TEPCO Power Company reads in part: “By bringing the reactors and spent fuel pools to a stable cooling condition and mitigating the release of radioactive materials, we will make every effort to enable evacuees to return to their homes and for all citizens to be able to secure a sound life.”

Power is the key ingredient for prosperity. Without adequate and affordable power, our life-style, health and well-being cannot be maintained. Power fundamentally affects our basic needs such as water distribution, sanitation, food production and transportation for covering essential needs. Once it is understood that every 750,000 population requires approximately 1,000 MW per day, the production of affordable energy by existing solar and wind technologies appears only on the lists of severely math (and reality) incompetent individuals.

Unfortunately “environmentalists” and self-appointed “public protectors” are most effective in blocking nuclear power plants for communities with the best engineering, strict safety standards and political stability (e.g., Germany, Japan and U.S. locales.) At the same time, gigawatts of nuclear power are shifting to less secure environs, such as developing ex-soviet and ex-communist countries. This may be an unwelcome transfer of risk for the planet as a whole.

Notes
(*) China is one of a few nations with no apparent hesitation for the deployment of nuclear energy. I show a sample collage below. The approximately 10 million population city of Harbin in northern China has two large nuclear reactors as part of the cityscape. They were within a 30 minute walk from my hotel where I took the picture shown below in late August 2011. A week earlier I was sitting on the left side of the bus from Nanjing to Shanghai, a 160 mile trip. I saw and photographed three large nuclear power plants shown at the bottom of the picture; one every 50 miles!

(**) Add the U.S. (~500 million) and the Philippines (~200 million) to those four and their combined population projection for 2100 reaches 4 Billion!

Another Prediction for What's in Store with Honolulu's Rail

I am optimistic about the outcome of the lawsuit against Honolulu Rail in federal court. There was no such suit against the Silver Line addition to the Washington DC Metro. So the line is now under construction. These two excerpts from a recent article in New Geography are important:

• While rail might seem like the most obvious solution, it is also by far the most expensive and slowest option. The price tag is staggering, and the rail extension will take years to construct. The better option would have been to make use of the existing roadways, and implement an expansive bus rapid transit system (BRT).
• The 23 mile extension of the Washington Metro rapid transit system is forecast to cost $6.8 billion dollars; roughly $296 million per mile. The constant scramble to finance the over-budget project has resulted in more than one construction setback.
  

What's important is that this system is about the same length as Honolulu's, and it is heavy rail like Honolulu's. So despite the fact that its construction is relatively easy (in the middle of an existing toll road) compared to the nightmare of shoehorning elevated stations and guideways in densely populated Honolulu the cost is staggering and it will likely surpass $7 Billion.

Remember that the financial analysis report conducted for Governor Lingle said that the likely cost of Honolulu Rail will be $7.2 Billion.

So when mayor candidate Carlisle promised that he will "get Honolulu's financial house in order" what did he mean? The answer is clear: "Adding several Billions of new debt onto Honolulu's financial house."

I strongly suggest that you read the rest of the article linked above as it presents a most suitable solution for the Dulles connection and for Honolulu: Bus Rapid Transit on HOT lanes. Much better results are a much lower cost.

A $6 Billion Plan for Hawaii's Long-term Prosperity

Dr. Martin Wachs recently wrote an important article on public investment for transportation and jobs. (See blog post below.) He observed that Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, rural and urban elected officials—all seek funding for roads and transit projects in their districts, asserting repeatedly that these expenditures will create jobs. He correctly asserts that construction jobs do not inherently have higher economic impact than other new jobs. Construction may generate construction jobs but it also is a huge cost item in and of itself and puts a lot of stress on city and state budgets. (All states except North Dacota have deficits.) Finally Wachs says that a shovel-ready project in no way assures that it will have long-term net economic benefits.

Given Wachs’ sound, detailed and impartial assessment, you now can make your own decision between Plan A and Plan B for Honolulu, Hawaii.

For about six billion dollars you can choose either A or B defined as follows.

Plan A

• Mufi Hannemann's 20 mile, 21 station elevated heavy rail with 3 park-and-ride facilities and no power plant. All of it is a taxpayer subsidized project.

Plan B

• 11 miles of reversible HOT lanes that will improve the Central Oahu-to-town tidal traffic problem by over 30%.
• 3 Superferry vessels to connect our islands and provide a resiliency backbone when an island is hit by a disaster.
• A small Hawaii-based international airline with round-trips to Beijing, Shanghai, Osaka, Moscow, Dubai, Singapore, Sao Paolo and Frankfurt, e.g., Aloha Worldwide.
• A coal power-plant that will reduce Oahu's oil dependency by 15%. All these can be done as incentivized private projects, or public-private partnerships.
  

Which plan is best for Hawaii's long term economic prosperity and which one is best for short term political pork?

You know that the correct answer is Plan B. Why are about 75% of Hawaii's politicians choosing Plan A? Because they care about themselves, because doing the same thing again and again is less work, and because they are told what to do by special interests (their party, big money supporters, and unions.)

UCLA/RAND Expert on Transportation, Jobs and Economic Growth

Dr. Martin Wachs [1] recently wrote important article on public investment in transportation, and jobs. It dispels the sweet sounding myths promoted by politicians, contractors and unions. The full article can be found here [2]. Key excerpts are given below.

Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, rural and urban elected officials—all seek funding for roads and transit projects in their districts, asserting repeatedly that these expenditures will create jobs. President Obama vigorously sought to create jobs through transportation spending in the recent economic stimulus package. This seemed familiar: in 1991, when signing the historic Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), President George H.W. Bush stated that the value of the bill “is summed up by three words: jobs, jobs, jobs.”

Transportation projects are not all equally effective at creating jobs or stimulating economic growth. Sound transportation investments lower the costs of moving people and goods. Short-term job creation, while vitally important to economic recovery, should not cause us to ignore the longer-term view.

Transportation dollars should be spent on programs that most enhance long-term economic productivity. ... For example, building an ill-advised rail line might give a local economy a short-term boost in employment, only to saddle taxpayers with large operating deficits in the future.

Building the Interstate Highway System created many construction jobs, but it would be a huge mistake to interpret that employment as the system’s contribution to the economy. Workers who drew salaries from the construction program benefitted, but far less than the travelers and shippers of goods who have used those facilities every day for six decades.

By building an effective transportation network, government transportation spending draws jobs to those industries that benefit from the investment. At the same time, this moves jobs away from activities that would have been financed in the absence of the transportation investment. So while transportation investment can “create jobs,” it can also destroy them.

Public officials often mention that each billion dollars of transportation infrastructure investment will create over 30,000 new jobs. This estimate relies on what is called the “multiplier effect.” Construction workers spend their income to buy hamburgers, television sets, and automobile insurance, so a given dollar of construction expenditure ends up having more than a dollar’s worth of impact, thus “multiplying” the effect of the expenditure. Unfortunately, asserting that any expenditure will create a specific number of jobs is not well supported by evidence. Actually, in the short term, construction jobs and expenditures on steel and concrete are economic costs [that weigh heavily on the budget.]

To create or preserve jobs in the short term, it might be more effective to use federal dollars to subsidize the operations and maintenance of transportation systems. Dollars spent on operating bus lines, for example, are spent largely on labor and thus quickly recirculate in the local economy. By contrast, dollars spent on capital or construction projects may include costly expenditures on concrete and steel imported from outside the US. Construction jobs do not inherently have higher multipliers than jobs driving buses.

Identifying a project as shovel-ready in no way assures that it will produce long-term net economic benefits. Simply equating any transportation investment with jobs and gains for the economy cannot remain a sound basis for public policy. America needs to do a better job of systematically evaluating alternative investments.

One way to judge a public investment is to determine whether or not it generates a rate of return to society that exceeds the return earned on other investments in the private or public sectors.

NOTES

[1] Martin Wachs is Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering and City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, and former Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies and of the University of California Transportation Center. He is also former Chair of the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA. He is currently a Senior Research Associate at the RAND Corporation (wachs@rand.org).

[2] TRANSPORTATION, JOBS, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, Access, No. 38, University of California, 2011