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!
Monday, March 19, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
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:
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.
----------
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:
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 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.
----------
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.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Honolulu’s Money Train
Wendell Cox summarizes the reasons why the proposed Honolulu Rail is such a bad idea for the 99% who are not in it for the money in Honolulu’s Money Train.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Hawaii Jobs: Outlook for Jobs in Education, Government, Military and Tourism
There are basically four main industries in Hawaii: Education, Government, Military and Tourism. And a fifth large one serving these four is Services. In round numbers, education (DOE, UH system and private) employed 63,000 people in 2010, civilian federal, state and county government employed 77,000 people, the hospitality industry including entertainment, restaurants and bars employed 90,000 people, the armed forces employed 50,000 people, and professional, business and other services employed 100,000 people. These five types of industries employ 60% of Hawaii's people.
While we have been inundated about a need for "construction jobs," the construction industry typically employs less than 5% of the workforce as the detailed breakdown below indicates.(1)
This article presents a brief analysis of Hawaii’s four main industries and assesses their growth potential.
Education
At roughly $15,000 per pupil, the annual expenditure Hawaii’s state based education system is among the highest in the nation. This level of expenditure all by itself indicates that this is certainly not an area of future growth.
Part of the Education industry but separate from the state DOE is the UH system which has become administratively bloated in the last two decades and its diversity of campuses has added more to its costs as a system. UH-Manoa is one of the top pork-barrel research funding recipient universities in the nation which is unsustainable past the retirement of Senator Daniel Inouye. Several units will continue to excel, but the UH as a whole is not a promising locus for job growth in Hawaii.
Private education will continue to hold its own but escalating tuition costs place a ceiling on the potential for large expansion unless citizens receive the choice of having education vouchers. Given the poor outcomes of Hawaii’s public education system, this opportunity may arrive sooner than it is currently thought to be possible.
Civilian Government
The table above suggests that Government provides 21% of the jobs in Hawaii but the table below suggests that if public education and US DOD are taken aside, then the share of the rest of the government’s shrinks to 10%. (The percentage shown is out of the total civilian employment in 2010.)
Over several decades Government has been a “growth industry.” Hawaii had 125,200 civilian government workers in 2010 of which 57% in state government, 28% in federal government and 15% in local government. This is an area that will experience reductions in the next few decades as city and state budgets come under heavy stress from necessary infrastructure investments, consent decrees, and pension and health fund liabilities vis-à-vis the actuarial reality of long-living baby boomers. Even larger pressure will be on federal employment.
In 1960 the ratio of government employment to the population in Hawaii was 7.8%, that is, there were 8 government workers for every 100 Hawaii residents. This ratio reached a high of 9.5% in 2000 and dropped to 9.2% in 2010. In 1960, the federal civilian employment was large at 4.3% but it reduced to 2.6% in 2010. State employment went the opposite way: From 2.3% in 1960 to 5.3% in 2010. State employment doubled from 1960 to 1970, and it doubled again between 1970 and 1990. County employment was 1.2% in 1960 and 1.4% in 2010.
It is clear that there has been no bloating in county employment and a reduction has occurred in federal employment. So the bulk of anticipated future government employment cuts will be from state ranks and from the education portion of it in particular.
Military
The explosive economic and military growth in Asia is a strong force behind stability and expansion of military in Hawaii. This is one area that the retirement of Senator Inouye may have relatively little negative effect. The geopolitical placement of Hawaii is highly advantageous. However, shifts may occur that may be less desirable for Hawaii resident employment: Military personnel numbers may increase but local civilian jobs may be reduced as Hawaii becomes more of an action-ready base rather than a storage and maintenance base. The existing Navy shipyard may be too costly and too limited to maintain at its current size.
In the past three decades the ratio of armed force personnel to Hawaii’s population has dropped from 5.3% in 1960, to 4.5% in 2000, and all the way down to 2.9% in 2010 in part because of deployments to wars. Defense cuts and vastly improved automation in military operations may result in keeping armed force employment in Hawaii below the 4% mark.
Tourism
Tourism is long regarded as the economic engine of Hawaii by capitalizing on the trifecta of natural beauty, warm climate and Hawaiian culture supported by the political and economic might of the US.
Although 2012 is expected to be a “banner year” for Hawaii tourism more dark rather than rosy clouds are in the horizon. The fundamental problems are neither market size nor marketing. It is cost.
Hawaii cannot be moved 200 miles off of the US mainland or 200 miles off of Asia. As a result, 8 million tourists have to fly to it. Fuel is roughly 25% of an airline’s cost when oil is just under $100 per barrel. If oil price grows to $200 per barrel, fuel cost will be roughly 50% of an airline’s cost and airfares will be adjusted upward accordingly. Necessarily, the market will shrink. So here is a summary of positive (+) and negative (-) forces on Hawaii tourism which, in turn will affect its job count in the hospitality industry and its supporters such as the food, culture, entertainment and transportation industries.
(-) While in the next decade there will be large changes in energy innovation and a reduction in electric power production from oil, there are no foreseeable fixes for transportation fuels, particularly when it comes to air and marine transportation, both of which are Hawaii’s only lifelines. Hawaii’s sensitivity to oil prices will only worsen.
(+) Vast improvements in personal wealth in China, Russia and other developing Asian nations combined with possible relaxation of visa requirement bodes well for tourist arrivals from Asia.
(-) There will be a long-term reduction of arrivals from Japan not only because it is a mature market but also because it’s becoming an aging, less populous and heavily indebted country with somewhat slowed ability to innovate and outsourced production of most of its consumer and industrial products.
(+) Korea has almost 40% as many people as Japan and it’s a growth market for Hawaii.
(+) Hawaii has the ability to follow the American tradition of innovation by continuously developing niche tourist markets (adventure, ecotourism, fishing, LGBT, wedding, etc.)
(+) The large national debt is forcing a progressive devaluation of the dollar which makes foreign visitation to Hawaii more attractive. This may also boost arrivals from the mainland because foreign destinations become more expensive for Americans.
(-) Development of the proposed Honolulu rail with its debilitating multi-year construction, and the resultant non-improvement of traffic congestion and eyesore guideway will cause a prolonged tourism loss on Oahu, some of it made up by the other islands.
(-) Unless city and state budgets are re-aligned with emphasis on infrastructure improvement and maintenance, the resultant traffic congestion, potholed roads, sewer spills, water main breaks, poor park condition and homeless camps will cause a prolonged loss of tourism for Oahu. Eventually the disproportionally large budget allocations to outer islands will shrink to avert the collapse of Oahu.
While tourism and related occupations account for one fifth of the jobs in Hawaii, this is actually a fairly fragile industry that is heavily dependent on strong forces beyond its control. This is apparently lost on Hawaii legislators who on every downturn turn up the taxation scale for the tourism industry. Mismanagement in Hawaii and Washington, D.C. can easily affect Hawaii’s tourism and its related job count. So far Washington has no path to managing the national debt and Hawaii has no path to managing its looming infrastructure and energy crisis. So the dark clouds clearly overtake the rosy ones.
Summary
Oahu already had a net 50,000 out-migration from Honolulu County to other US or Hawaii counties. This will expand to all of Hawaii in the next two decades. State and federal government jobs, and DOE and UH jobs will be cut back. If local government improves its priorities there will be thousands of private local jobs for needed infrastructure replacement and maintenance, as well as productive energy projects. In the next couple decades, the job count in Hawaii will remain stable but several sectors in the economy will experience large changes.
(1) Source: State of Hawaii employment data is 2010 State of Hawaii Data Book.
While we have been inundated about a need for "construction jobs," the construction industry typically employs less than 5% of the workforce as the detailed breakdown below indicates.(1)
This article presents a brief analysis of Hawaii’s four main industries and assesses their growth potential.
Education
At roughly $15,000 per pupil, the annual expenditure Hawaii’s state based education system is among the highest in the nation. This level of expenditure all by itself indicates that this is certainly not an area of future growth.
Part of the Education industry but separate from the state DOE is the UH system which has become administratively bloated in the last two decades and its diversity of campuses has added more to its costs as a system. UH-Manoa is one of the top pork-barrel research funding recipient universities in the nation which is unsustainable past the retirement of Senator Daniel Inouye. Several units will continue to excel, but the UH as a whole is not a promising locus for job growth in Hawaii.
Private education will continue to hold its own but escalating tuition costs place a ceiling on the potential for large expansion unless citizens receive the choice of having education vouchers. Given the poor outcomes of Hawaii’s public education system, this opportunity may arrive sooner than it is currently thought to be possible.
Civilian Government
The table above suggests that Government provides 21% of the jobs in Hawaii but the table below suggests that if public education and US DOD are taken aside, then the share of the rest of the government’s shrinks to 10%. (The percentage shown is out of the total civilian employment in 2010.)
Over several decades Government has been a “growth industry.” Hawaii had 125,200 civilian government workers in 2010 of which 57% in state government, 28% in federal government and 15% in local government. This is an area that will experience reductions in the next few decades as city and state budgets come under heavy stress from necessary infrastructure investments, consent decrees, and pension and health fund liabilities vis-à-vis the actuarial reality of long-living baby boomers. Even larger pressure will be on federal employment.
In 1960 the ratio of government employment to the population in Hawaii was 7.8%, that is, there were 8 government workers for every 100 Hawaii residents. This ratio reached a high of 9.5% in 2000 and dropped to 9.2% in 2010. In 1960, the federal civilian employment was large at 4.3% but it reduced to 2.6% in 2010. State employment went the opposite way: From 2.3% in 1960 to 5.3% in 2010. State employment doubled from 1960 to 1970, and it doubled again between 1970 and 1990. County employment was 1.2% in 1960 and 1.4% in 2010.
It is clear that there has been no bloating in county employment and a reduction has occurred in federal employment. So the bulk of anticipated future government employment cuts will be from state ranks and from the education portion of it in particular.
Military
The explosive economic and military growth in Asia is a strong force behind stability and expansion of military in Hawaii. This is one area that the retirement of Senator Inouye may have relatively little negative effect. The geopolitical placement of Hawaii is highly advantageous. However, shifts may occur that may be less desirable for Hawaii resident employment: Military personnel numbers may increase but local civilian jobs may be reduced as Hawaii becomes more of an action-ready base rather than a storage and maintenance base. The existing Navy shipyard may be too costly and too limited to maintain at its current size.
In the past three decades the ratio of armed force personnel to Hawaii’s population has dropped from 5.3% in 1960, to 4.5% in 2000, and all the way down to 2.9% in 2010 in part because of deployments to wars. Defense cuts and vastly improved automation in military operations may result in keeping armed force employment in Hawaii below the 4% mark.
Tourism
Tourism is long regarded as the economic engine of Hawaii by capitalizing on the trifecta of natural beauty, warm climate and Hawaiian culture supported by the political and economic might of the US.
Although 2012 is expected to be a “banner year” for Hawaii tourism more dark rather than rosy clouds are in the horizon. The fundamental problems are neither market size nor marketing. It is cost.
Hawaii cannot be moved 200 miles off of the US mainland or 200 miles off of Asia. As a result, 8 million tourists have to fly to it. Fuel is roughly 25% of an airline’s cost when oil is just under $100 per barrel. If oil price grows to $200 per barrel, fuel cost will be roughly 50% of an airline’s cost and airfares will be adjusted upward accordingly. Necessarily, the market will shrink. So here is a summary of positive (+) and negative (-) forces on Hawaii tourism which, in turn will affect its job count in the hospitality industry and its supporters such as the food, culture, entertainment and transportation industries.
(-) While in the next decade there will be large changes in energy innovation and a reduction in electric power production from oil, there are no foreseeable fixes for transportation fuels, particularly when it comes to air and marine transportation, both of which are Hawaii’s only lifelines. Hawaii’s sensitivity to oil prices will only worsen.
(+) Vast improvements in personal wealth in China, Russia and other developing Asian nations combined with possible relaxation of visa requirement bodes well for tourist arrivals from Asia.
(-) There will be a long-term reduction of arrivals from Japan not only because it is a mature market but also because it’s becoming an aging, less populous and heavily indebted country with somewhat slowed ability to innovate and outsourced production of most of its consumer and industrial products.
(+) Korea has almost 40% as many people as Japan and it’s a growth market for Hawaii.
(+) Hawaii has the ability to follow the American tradition of innovation by continuously developing niche tourist markets (adventure, ecotourism, fishing, LGBT, wedding, etc.)
(+) The large national debt is forcing a progressive devaluation of the dollar which makes foreign visitation to Hawaii more attractive. This may also boost arrivals from the mainland because foreign destinations become more expensive for Americans.
(-) Development of the proposed Honolulu rail with its debilitating multi-year construction, and the resultant non-improvement of traffic congestion and eyesore guideway will cause a prolonged tourism loss on Oahu, some of it made up by the other islands.
(-) Unless city and state budgets are re-aligned with emphasis on infrastructure improvement and maintenance, the resultant traffic congestion, potholed roads, sewer spills, water main breaks, poor park condition and homeless camps will cause a prolonged loss of tourism for Oahu. Eventually the disproportionally large budget allocations to outer islands will shrink to avert the collapse of Oahu.
While tourism and related occupations account for one fifth of the jobs in Hawaii, this is actually a fairly fragile industry that is heavily dependent on strong forces beyond its control. This is apparently lost on Hawaii legislators who on every downturn turn up the taxation scale for the tourism industry. Mismanagement in Hawaii and Washington, D.C. can easily affect Hawaii’s tourism and its related job count. So far Washington has no path to managing the national debt and Hawaii has no path to managing its looming infrastructure and energy crisis. So the dark clouds clearly overtake the rosy ones.
Summary
Oahu already had a net 50,000 out-migration from Honolulu County to other US or Hawaii counties. This will expand to all of Hawaii in the next two decades. State and federal government jobs, and DOE and UH jobs will be cut back. If local government improves its priorities there will be thousands of private local jobs for needed infrastructure replacement and maintenance, as well as productive energy projects. In the next couple decades, the job count in Hawaii will remain stable but several sectors in the economy will experience large changes.
(1) Source: State of Hawaii employment data is 2010 State of Hawaii Data Book.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Automated and Driverless Cars: Great for Safety, Not So Much for Congestion.
Can automated cars "cure" crashes and congestion? Renown (ex) Stanford University professor Sebastian Thrun who's team won ARPA's $2,000,000 driveless car challenge a few years ago thinks so as he presents the Google driverless Toyota Prius in this TED video.
This is an area where I believe that lawyers and politicians have more impact than engineers and technologists. The US had a fully developed and tested AHS or Automated Highway System in the mid-1990s as the sample article Whatever Happened to Automated Highway Systems? reminds us.
For those of us involved with intelligent transportation systems (ITS) the image below of eight large Buicks developed by California's Partners for Advanced Traffic and Highways (PATH) remains etched in memory. Observe the 0.2 second clearance between the AHS Buicks at 60 mph and the typical 2.0 second clearance in regular traffic.
When success was fully demonstrated, the government cut AHS funding because the issue became liability not technology. However, many of the technologies trickled down to piecemeal applications, some of which I summarize below.
Greyhound buses in the mainland have vibrating steering wheel (modeled after the aviation stick shaker to warn of impending stall) activated by radars if the bus tries to change onto a lane that is occupied by a vehicle. This also serves as an alarm if the drivers becomes drowsy. Daimler has introduced this to Mercedes cars but the system is not available in the US (due to liability.)
Since 2005 one can purchase many luxury vehicles with intelligent cruise control that can follow the car ahead. Some of them will bring a car to a complete stop automatically if the leader car comes to a stop. Some companies brand it as Adaptive Cruise Control and here is a demonstration dating to back 2008 at about 90 mph by a motorist on an autobahn.
In Europe higher priced BMWs will soon be offered with a system that if its driver becomes incapacitated, the car will maneuver itself, at German autobahn speeds, all the way from the fast lane to the right side shoulder, stop and send an SOS.
Many inexpensive cars in Europe in the $20,000 bracket have optical sensors on the bottom side of their exterior mirrors that follow the lane markings. They issue a "lane departure" warning to their driver. A handful of cars brought in the US in 2012 have this option too.
The US federal government has a major research initiative called http://www.its.dot.gov/press/2010/vii2intellidrive.htmIntelliDrive to further boost these efforts.
And now for the conclusion and why AHS was terminated as a capacity enhancement: On a busy highway most drivers follow each other at a headway of about 1.5 seconds. As a result, the maximum sustained capacity of a freeway lane is 3600 seconds in one hour divided by 1.5 second headway equals 2400 vehicles per hour.
If car technology takes over, this headway can be reduced to 0.5 seconds which triples the capacity of the same freeway lane. So one lane could carry as many cars as an entire 3-lane section of the H-1 Freeway! This is clearly a bargain for our highway infrastructure.
However, if this was ever launched, it would require the presence of a largely empty lane next to the AHS lane (such as a bus-only lane with large gaps between the buses) so that vehicles can be merged in and out the tight AHS platoon; see the empty lane next to the platoon of fast moving Buicks in the picture above.) Only professional race drivers can routinely cope with 0.5 second headways (and they fail almost at every NASCAR race.)
With the press of the AHS button, merging into the tight lane, traveling at 60 mph and exiting the AHS lane will be done entirely by the computer, sensors and servos of the car in dense traffic. Now visuallize such a car with mommy, daddy and two kids in the back on a dusty, rainy or dark environment which may affect sensor performance and image recognition. There is clear risk and because of the tightness of the platoon, one mishap will likely cause large losses. Who is liable? The feds wanted none of this on the federal interstate system.
AHS has a tremendous promise for safety bust much less promise for direct congestion reduction. However, crash reduction does help traffic congestion because by most accounts 30% to 60% of the annual traffic congestion in a metro area is caused by accidents that block traffic lanes. Intelligent systems minimize driver error and accidents, so lanes become closed less often.
Mid-March 2012 update: The Economist publishes Self-driving cars. Safer at any speed? "Another headache will be lawsuits from motorists blaming their car for crashes. Honda is already being sued in America over the collision-avoidance system on its top-end Acura models. Pim van der Jagt, a research chief at Ford, says new laws will be needed to deal with such issues—and cars may need black boxes to record what went wrong in accidents."
This is an area where I believe that lawyers and politicians have more impact than engineers and technologists. The US had a fully developed and tested AHS or Automated Highway System in the mid-1990s as the sample article Whatever Happened to Automated Highway Systems? reminds us.
For those of us involved with intelligent transportation systems (ITS) the image below of eight large Buicks developed by California's Partners for Advanced Traffic and Highways (PATH) remains etched in memory. Observe the 0.2 second clearance between the AHS Buicks at 60 mph and the typical 2.0 second clearance in regular traffic.
When success was fully demonstrated, the government cut AHS funding because the issue became liability not technology. However, many of the technologies trickled down to piecemeal applications, some of which I summarize below.Greyhound buses in the mainland have vibrating steering wheel (modeled after the aviation stick shaker to warn of impending stall) activated by radars if the bus tries to change onto a lane that is occupied by a vehicle. This also serves as an alarm if the drivers becomes drowsy. Daimler has introduced this to Mercedes cars but the system is not available in the US (due to liability.)
Since 2005 one can purchase many luxury vehicles with intelligent cruise control that can follow the car ahead. Some of them will bring a car to a complete stop automatically if the leader car comes to a stop. Some companies brand it as Adaptive Cruise Control and here is a demonstration dating to back 2008 at about 90 mph by a motorist on an autobahn.
In Europe higher priced BMWs will soon be offered with a system that if its driver becomes incapacitated, the car will maneuver itself, at German autobahn speeds, all the way from the fast lane to the right side shoulder, stop and send an SOS.
Many inexpensive cars in Europe in the $20,000 bracket have optical sensors on the bottom side of their exterior mirrors that follow the lane markings. They issue a "lane departure" warning to their driver. A handful of cars brought in the US in 2012 have this option too.
The US federal government has a major research initiative called http://www.its.dot.gov/press/
And now for the conclusion and why AHS was terminated as a capacity enhancement: On a busy highway most drivers follow each other at a headway of about 1.5 seconds. As a result, the maximum sustained capacity of a freeway lane is 3600 seconds in one hour divided by 1.5 second headway equals 2400 vehicles per hour.
If car technology takes over, this headway can be reduced to 0.5 seconds which triples the capacity of the same freeway lane. So one lane could carry as many cars as an entire 3-lane section of the H-1 Freeway! This is clearly a bargain for our highway infrastructure.
However, if this was ever launched, it would require the presence of a largely empty lane next to the AHS lane (such as a bus-only lane with large gaps between the buses) so that vehicles can be merged in and out the tight AHS platoon; see the empty lane next to the platoon of fast moving Buicks in the picture above.) Only professional race drivers can routinely cope with 0.5 second headways (and they fail almost at every NASCAR race.)
With the press of the AHS button, merging into the tight lane, traveling at 60 mph and exiting the AHS lane will be done entirely by the computer, sensors and servos of the car in dense traffic. Now visuallize such a car with mommy, daddy and two kids in the back on a dusty, rainy or dark environment which may affect sensor performance and image recognition. There is clear risk and because of the tightness of the platoon, one mishap will likely cause large losses. Who is liable? The feds wanted none of this on the federal interstate system.
AHS has a tremendous promise for safety bust much less promise for direct congestion reduction. However, crash reduction does help traffic congestion because by most accounts 30% to 60% of the annual traffic congestion in a metro area is caused by accidents that block traffic lanes. Intelligent systems minimize driver error and accidents, so lanes become closed less often.
Mid-March 2012 update: The Economist publishes Self-driving cars. Safer at any speed? "Another headache will be lawsuits from motorists blaming their car for crashes. Honda is already being sued in America over the collision-avoidance system on its top-end Acura models. Pim van der Jagt, a research chief at Ford, says new laws will be needed to deal with such issues—and cars may need black boxes to record what went wrong in accidents."
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Honolulu Rail: Designed to Fail
Randal O'Toole, economist and author of several books on transportation and urban planning was in Honolulu last week where he spoke on two distinguished panels in Kapolei and in Honolulu (see notes 1,2.)
He summarized his opinion about Honolulu's rail in this eye-opening Designed to Fail article.
A few highlights:
With 64 seats, the two-car trains supposedly have room for 254 standing passengers. But that’s at “crush capacity,” which is far more crowded than Americans are willing to accept. Assuming the city increases the seating to 76 seats, actual loads are likely to be limited to a total of about 150 to 200 people per train. At a maximum of 20 trains an hour in each direction, the line will be able to move about 3,000 to 4,000 people per hour inbound in the morning and a similar number outbound in the afternoon. By comparison, a highway lane can easily move 600 buses per hour, and at 40 seats per bus that represents 24,000 people per hour, none of them having to stand.
Overall O'Toole observes that in order to pay for this and other rail contracts, Honolulu’s city manager quietly “suspended” the city’s debt limit without consulting the city council or, apparently, the mayor. As Wendell Cox points out, the city faces billions of dollars in expenses fixing its sewer, water, and other infrastructure, and spending $5.3 billion on rail, which at best is a luxury (and at worst a curse) will make it harder to do anything else.
Notes: (1) West Oahu Development: Meat and Potatoes or Gravy Train? (2) Sustainable Growth for Hawaii
He summarized his opinion about Honolulu's rail in this eye-opening Designed to Fail article.
A few highlights:
- Honolulu rail ... will have the high costs of heavy rail and the capacity limits of light rail.
- Honolulu rail ... has too few seats so bus riders question whether people will be willing to stand for 20-minute trips.
- Honolulu rail ... was planned to go to Kapolei, which has about 35,000 people, but the city decided it didn’t have enough money to go that far. Between East Kapolei and Honolulu the rail line will pass through Waipahu (33,000 people), Pearl City (48,000 people), and by Pearl Harbor Naval Base (its 20,000 people work right on the base). The rest of the rail line goes through light industrial and commercial areas. So the rail line will serve, at most, about 15% of the residents of Oahu and probably no more than 20% of the jobs. That means no more than about 3% of workers will both live and work on the rail line.
- Honolulu rail ... ridership projections are questionable and average at 110 passengers on board the two-car trains at any given time. US light-rail cars carry an average of 24 people, and the most crowded in San Diego carry just 37 people, 110 is highly optimistic.
- Honolulu rail ... proponents argue that the project will relieve congestion, but even the final environmental impact statement says that, at every place evaluated, congestion will be worse in 2030 with the project than without it (see page 3-51).
- Honolulu rail ... will not save energy: at 2,020 BTUs per passenger mile, Honolulu’s bus system already uses less energy than almost every other light-rail and heavy-rail line outside of New York City. By 2030, under the Obama fuel economy standards, the average car on the road will also use only about 2,000 BTUs per passenger mile, and cars in Hawaii (where gas prices are higher than the rest of the U.S.) will probably use even less.
With 64 seats, the two-car trains supposedly have room for 254 standing passengers. But that’s at “crush capacity,” which is far more crowded than Americans are willing to accept. Assuming the city increases the seating to 76 seats, actual loads are likely to be limited to a total of about 150 to 200 people per train. At a maximum of 20 trains an hour in each direction, the line will be able to move about 3,000 to 4,000 people per hour inbound in the morning and a similar number outbound in the afternoon. By comparison, a highway lane can easily move 600 buses per hour, and at 40 seats per bus that represents 24,000 people per hour, none of them having to stand.
Overall O'Toole observes that in order to pay for this and other rail contracts, Honolulu’s city manager quietly “suspended” the city’s debt limit without consulting the city council or, apparently, the mayor. As Wendell Cox points out, the city faces billions of dollars in expenses fixing its sewer, water, and other infrastructure, and spending $5.3 billion on rail, which at best is a luxury (and at worst a curse) will make it harder to do anything else.
Notes: (1) West Oahu Development: Meat and Potatoes or Gravy Train? (2) Sustainable Growth for Hawaii
Monday, March 5, 2012
Opposition to Honolulu Rail Grows to 55%
February 12, 2012 poll by HawaiiNewsNow and Honolulu Advertiser: 53% oppose rail
March 5, 2012 poll by Civil Beat: 55% oppose rail
March 5, 2012 poll by Civil Beat: 55% oppose rail
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.
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.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Fiscal Prudence of a City Budget: Carlisle Edition
This list would make a great joke if it was not so costly for Honolulu residents and their descendants:
(1) Carlisle put the $5 billion sewer consent decree on the back burner (have you seen any major construction?) and made the $5 billion rail the only budget priority.
(2) Carlisle’s delaying tactics for the lawsuit filed by Cayetano et al. postponed the final hearing from November 2011 to August 2012 at a much higher cost to taxpayers. His delaying tactics will incur construction and repair costs of over $200 million.
(3) Carlisle decides to spend hundreds of millions on construction that will have to be torn down when the city loses in court. If that's not a waste of money, what is it?
(4) Carlisle claims ignorance to the fact that his city manager appointee recklessly and unilaterally suspended the city's debt ceiling of 20% even before rail had any cost overruns.
(5) Carlisle's procurement process selected Ansaldo instead of Bombardier or Sumitomo although Ansaldo offered a $241 million more costly bid. Worse yet, spare parts and know-how won't be coming from neighboring Canada or Japan (who also are good tourist customers,) but from bankrupt Italy which is literally as far away on the northern hemisphere one can get from Hawaii.
(6) Carlisle insists on starting heavy construction although the Feds have not approved a dime of construction monies and the funding agreement with the Federal Transit Administration cannot be done before October or November this year.
And to conclude Carlisle's baker's half dozen of irresponsibility:
(7) Who can forget his remark in the 2010 elections that HART "will cost us nothing?" HART's new executive director alone costs us $1 million over three years!
============
EDIT: A couple hours after I logged this post John Pritchett published his Friday Cartoon (note, Chin is the City Manager.)
(1) Carlisle put the $5 billion sewer consent decree on the back burner (have you seen any major construction?) and made the $5 billion rail the only budget priority.
(2) Carlisle’s delaying tactics for the lawsuit filed by Cayetano et al. postponed the final hearing from November 2011 to August 2012 at a much higher cost to taxpayers. His delaying tactics will incur construction and repair costs of over $200 million.
(3) Carlisle decides to spend hundreds of millions on construction that will have to be torn down when the city loses in court. If that's not a waste of money, what is it?
(4) Carlisle claims ignorance to the fact that his city manager appointee recklessly and unilaterally suspended the city's debt ceiling of 20% even before rail had any cost overruns.
(5) Carlisle's procurement process selected Ansaldo instead of Bombardier or Sumitomo although Ansaldo offered a $241 million more costly bid. Worse yet, spare parts and know-how won't be coming from neighboring Canada or Japan (who also are good tourist customers,) but from bankrupt Italy which is literally as far away on the northern hemisphere one can get from Hawaii.
(6) Carlisle insists on starting heavy construction although the Feds have not approved a dime of construction monies and the funding agreement with the Federal Transit Administration cannot be done before October or November this year.
And to conclude Carlisle's baker's half dozen of irresponsibility:
(7) Who can forget his remark in the 2010 elections that HART "will cost us nothing?" HART's new executive director alone costs us $1 million over three years!
============
EDIT: A couple hours after I logged this post John Pritchett published his Friday Cartoon (note, Chin is the City Manager.)
Monday, February 27, 2012
US Financial Crisis and Globalization
In the coming years US may suffer greatly by the very pattern that it advocated: Globalization. The US is substantially dependent on outside sources to supply industrial products, consumer products, food and energy. So far this has worked well, but the table is about to turn around.
First let's summarize the fiscal crisis in a few bullets:
First let's summarize the fiscal crisis in a few bullets:
- This is the fourth straight year that the US borrowed more than $1 trillion to support its federal government. US budget deficit will top $1.3 trillion, 8.7% of GDP. Only two European countries, Greece and Ireland, have larger budget deficits as a percent of GDP.
- US national debt now exceeds $15.3 trillion, or 102% of GDP. Only four European countries have larger national debts than US: Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Italy.
- If one adds the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare to the US official national debt, the US debt is $72 trillion, by Obama administration projections. This is more than 480% of GDP. France, the second most insolvent nation in Europe, owes 549% of GDP.
- Under more realistic projections, the US official national debt is $137 trillion or 911% of GDP. Counting both official debt and unfunded pension and health care liabilities, the most indebted nation in Europe is Greece, which owes 875% of GDP.
- 48 of 50 states have annual deficits and large long term debt. Several states have insolvent employee pension and health care trusts. Of course Hawaii is one of them.
- Many US cities are in deficit, some are at or near bankruptcy and all face major infrastructure backlogs as well as their own employee retirement shortfalls.
- Unlike the huge debt of Japan or France that is owed mostly by their own citizens, US is more like Greece. Most of its debt owned by foreign countries and external lenders.
Why is the US not at the same position as Greece? The reasons are many and they include US' vastly larger economy, vast ability to innovate, vast natural resources compared to most EU countries, vast dependency of many countries on the US consumer to buy the things they make, vast military capability, and having the US dollar as the world's main reserve currency.
This reserve currency is also US' main tool for controlling a quick financial collapse. The devaluation of the dollar would slash the debt owned to foreign interests. At the same time globalization will come back and bite the US consumer since all imports will become 30% more expensive if the greenback is devalued by 30%, resulting in internal hyperinflation and market instability. Messy!
At the same time, this devaluation will cause substantial losses to US' global partners. For example, BMWs will be 30% more expensive in the US and Chryslers will be 30% less expensive in Italy, causing compounded losses in the demand of consumer products in the EU. Messy!
What caused all this mess? Policies and actions focused on the negative side of Capitalism and the negative side of Socialism. Capitalism focused on price and profit, not on sustainable production. Socialism focused on ever increasing and unsupportable entitlements instead of basic and sustainable security.
The path to the abyss is clear.
Greece is there but the US is near.
Do politicians hear?
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