Sopogy's Demise is a Huge Victory for Honest Engineering and the Taxpayer

Along with a trio of highly capable mechanical and systems engineers I spent dozens of hours poring over the specifics of the micro-concentrated solar power touted by Sopogy which shut down several months prior to this April 22, 2014 article.

Sopogy was told by numerous engineers that their Kona projections were absurd and violated the second law of thermodynamics.  Sopogy proceeded anyway with their original plan.

My multi-year effort was particularly painful because this incompetent technology had received the 2009 Blue Planet Foundation Award and my own Dean sat at the board of directors of BPF when this award was made. Keahole Associates, an Oahu venture of Sopogy, was promoted in University of Hawaii, College of Engineering literature.

Here is some of the 2009 hyperbole: "Sopogy is developing the next generation of high efficiency solar panels and energy storage technologies for Hawaii and the World.  Keahole Solar Power developed and constructed a 2 megawatt solar thermal project and is developing an additional 30 megawatts of fossil fuel free power.  Together his companies employ and support hundreds of green collar jobs and kept over $500 million in Hawaii’s local economy through energy savings. In addition his work has off-set over 2 million metric tons of CO2 emissions which is the equivalent of reducing 27,000 tankers of gasoline or eliminating the consumption of 4.6 million barrels of oil."

The most factual evidence suggests that throughout its existence, Sopogy generated 0.1 MW!  This is roughly equal to 50 modest solar installations on residential rooftops.  It took $20 million (yes million) of Hawaii technology tax credits to accomplish so little.

Sopogy is developing the next generation of high efficiency solar panels and energy storage technologies for Hawaii and the World.  Keahole Solar Power developed and constructed a 2 megawatt solar thermal project and is developing an additional 30 megawatts of fossil fuel free power.  Together his companies employ and support hundreds of green collar jobs and kept over $500 million in Hawaii’s local economy through energy savings. In addition his work has off-set over 2 million metric tons of CO2 emissions which is the equivalent of reducing 27,000 tankers of gasoline or eliminating the consumption of 4.6 million barrels of oil. - See more at: http://social.csptoday.com/technology/sopogy-ceo-receives-blue-planet-foundation-award#sthash.1MB5Q8Cs.dpuf

Sopogy is developing the next generation of high efficiency solar panels and energy storage technologies for Hawaii and the World.  Keahole Solar Power developed and constructed a 2 megawatt solar thermal project and is developing an additional 30 megawatts of fossil fuel free power.  Together his companies employ and support hundreds of green collar jobs and kept over $500 million in Hawaii’s local economy through energy savings. In addition his work has off-set over 2 million metric tons of CO2 emissions which is the equivalent of reducing 27,000 tankers of gasoline or eliminating the consumption of 4.6 million barrels of oil. - See more at: http://social.csptoday.com/technology/sopogy-ceo-receives-blue-planet-foundation-award#sthash.1MB5Q8Cs.dpuf

In 2010 is was announced that DHHL was about to enter into a (tragic) agreement with Sopogy. It would have cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars to develop a 30 MW solar power plant.

Then in 2011, Sopogy won the APEC 2011 Hawaii Business Innovation Showcase award for Honolulu.

Throughout this period Sopogy CEO Darren Kimura was the energy darling of Governor Neil Ambercrombie. The Gov would not grant me an appointment to talk about energy issues for Hawaii despite repeated requests. Of course his energy point man, Bryan Schatz is so pro "renewables" that logic and cost are not an issue.

Despite everything being stacked in favor of Sopogy, I summarized the analysis and warned DHHL that they should be cautious about this type of power plant and investment. The local media ignored my article. Only the Hawaii Reporter printed my opinion.

In January of 2013 the Hawaii Venture Capital Association gave Sopogy the 2012 HVCA Deal of the Year Award for a deal that (thankfully) went nowhere!

All these august bodies failed to do even minimal due diligence. For example they simply could have looked at HEI's Securities and Exchange Commission filings which list the power they purchase from power sources other than their own.  Sopogy's Kona power plant appears nowhere.

Before publishing my analysis in 2011, I met with Darren Kimura at the Pacific Club. I informed him that I can find no power sold to HELCO and he said that he'll furnish me data, although most of the power was used "internally."  Darren never got back to me.  It was clear to me that he was selling duds for millions.

On April 23, 2014 greentech referred to my 2011 article and commented as follows: 

"Kimura and the company always seemed to be on hand to receive an award, bond, or tax credit in Hawaii but rarely could the firm be found making competitive energy, despite the CEO's claims.

"We have about 75 megawatts under contract and in the process of being deployed," claimed the CEO in a 2011 interview. In a much earlier interview he spoke of a 50-megawatt solar farm in Spain and $10 million per year in revenue.

"Even before the price of silicon photovoltaics plunged it was difficult to see how Sopogy could ever be competitive."

This is only one sample of international humiliation for Hawaii.

Several lessons were observed but likely were not learned, as follows:

1.  Good, honest engineering can reveal technical and economic duds.
2.  Once a project (or company) is an engineering or economic dud, it will fail.
3.  The demise of Sopogy is fortunate because duds like it can become a tax supported scheme concocted by greedy rent seekers and enterprising politicians who also create legal supports for the schemes. For example Hawaii's PUC considered preferential pricing for concentrated solar power to make sure that the 30 MW Kalaeloa scheme would make money (while the taxpayer would get fleeced.)
4.  Media, politicians and environmentalists know nothing about engineering stars and duds, but they have bestowed upon themselves arbitrary decision wisdom  that determines winners and losers.
5.  Many people go along to get along, or do the wrong thing for money regardless of what the right, ethical or moral thing to do is.
6.  There was abundant "me too" or follower behavior and scarcity of prudent analysis and caution.
7.  The truth rarely comes out, or comes out after precious funds have been lost. In this case millions of tax dollars were lost at the Kona plant and large acreage in the Ewa plane was bulldozed.
8.  HEI, the parent of HELCO and HECO knew the facts about Kona's Sopogy plant but did not make any apparent public disclosures when DHHL was proposing a mega version of the Kona power plant. Worse yet, HECO ran a Sopogy television commercial repeatedly from 2011 to 2013, touting Sopogy technology and HECO’s commitment to ecology.
9.  Hawaii’s blind promotion of a sub-standard technology sets a bad precedent in an area were Hawaii already is weak.
10.  Nobody will likely be held accountable for the wasted tax credits or apologize for rewarding incompetence. Will there be an AD's inquiry of DHHL and HECO?

Many well-known people such as Governors Lingle and Abercrombie, Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw, Blue Planet Foundation's Henk Rogers, and Hawaii's only billionaire Pierre Omidyar have Sopogy egg on their face. But given that this is Hawaii, the Sopogy scandal will likely die off quietly and the charlatans will have the last laugh.

PS. The counsel of attorney and engineer Eric Beal is greatly appreciated. 

Honolulu Traffic Lights: 12 Minutes for One Half Mile in Waikiki!

On Good Friday I had the opportunity to observe the typical gridlock traffic conditions of a busy Friday in Waikiki.  Then I found a perfect object to monitor.  An articulated (bendy) city bus with the number 154 stencilled on its roof. I tracked it as it motored along on Kalia Street, made a left turn onto Saratoga Street and eventually crossed Kalakaua Avenue and disappeared from my view.

The total distance from the Hale Koa hotel to Kalakaua Avenue is 0.55 miles.  An acceptable speed for buses is 7 miles per hour including stops so this distance would have taken 4.7 minutes.

Bus 154 took 6 minutes to reach Saratoga at an average speed of 3 mph, and took another 6.5 minutes to cross Kalakaua Avenue at an average speed of 2.3 mph which is much slower than walking speed for most people (3.1 mph according to Google.)

Fantastically, a day earlier I get a call from KHON2 News. They wanted my opinion on the city's new multimillion dollar proposal to synchronize its traffic lights.  So I marvel at the fact that instantly upon getting elected to City Council, Stanley Chang knew that rail will be Oahu's savior for traffic congestion.  (I met him and he told me that.) Yet it took Stanley three years and a candidacy for U.S. Congress to figure out that Honolulu's traffic signals work poorly and now he wants to fix all of them at once with a five million dollar study!

Ineffective hyperbola rules the day in Honolulu. A day before the traffic project announcement, the president of HART promised to deliver 10 miles of elevated rail with ten stations and operating trains 36 months from April 2014.  I'll bet him $36,000 that this is NOT possible!

What can I say?  We certainly need more lawyers like Kirk Caldwell (Mayor), Stanley Chang (City Council), Ivan Lui-Kwan (HART president) and Mike Formby (City Transportation Director) in charge of Oahu traffic and mobility. All blah-blah and promises while traffic and buses crawl at 3 miles per hour.

U.S. Infrastructure Projects Cost Way More Than They Should, Explained

The Atlantic Cities magazine published a condensed analysis of seven main reasons that explain why U.S infrastructure project cost more than elsewhere. They are:

 1. Davis-Bacon Laws: Passed in 1931, the Davis-Bacon Act mandates that laborers for federal public works projects receive local prevailing wages. (+22%)

2. Project Labor Agreements: In 2009, President Obama signed an executive order mandating that contractors for federal projects exceeding $25 million sign Project Labor Agreements, which guarantee the hiring of union workers. (+13~15%)

3. 'Buy America' Provision: For decades, this provision has discouraged projects from being built with manufactured goods made outside the U.S. Obama strengthened it in the 2009 stimulus package to include projects besides just highways. (+10~500%)*

4. Lengthy Environmental Reviews. (+10~25%)*

5. Transportation Alternatives Program: Everyone can agree that walking trails, complete streets, historic renovations, landscaping, and bike lanes are public goods, but should they be paid for with highway fund money? This is the current policy of the FHWA. (+5~20%)*

6. Administrative Costs: Currently, U.S. transportation revenue is like a boomerang, going from the states to Washington and back. Naturally, this process adds bureaucratic costs. (+10%)*

7. Toll Bans: Although tolls exist along some stretches of interstate, they are generally not permitted by the federal government. This has stripped the government of a key revenue source that could be used for repairs, and for cheaper borrowing. (+10~50%)*

Note: (*) Author's estimates.
SOURCE: 7 Reasons U.S. Infrastructure Projects Cost Way More Than They Should

2010-2013 U.S. Metropolitan Area Changes

This domestic migration three year snapshot indicates that Americans are moving out of Democrat, cold and mismanaged cities with expensive transit systems to Republican, warm and business-friendly cities with small or medium transit systems.  Smart!

See more in New Geography: Special Report: 2013 Metropolitan Area Population Estimates

Preserving the American Dream: Lessons in Beating Boondoggles

A summary by Gini David.

In late October, I attended the Preserving the American Dream conference in Washington DC, sponsored by the American Dream Coalition (ADC, http://americandreamcoalition.org), a  coalition that promotes freedom, affordable home ownership, property rights, and mobility. To combat big government boondoggles, the ADC provides strategic and tactical counsel from planning experts like Randall O’Toole (Cato Institute), demographer Wendell Cox, ADC’s executive director Eileen Bruskewitz, transit expert Tom Rubin, ethics analyst and writer Stanley Kurtz, and others.

...

What’s more, Panos Prevedouros, a professor of transportation engineering at the University of Hawaii, told the ADC audience that rail projects are rife with corruption and fraud, quoting   Bent Flyvbjerg, the renowned Chair of Large Program Management at Oxford University:  “Rail projects are the projects most fraught with delusion and deception.” As Prevedouros explained, “Deception because proponents lie to constituents and overstate ridership and understate costs.  And delusion because proponents believe that their projects are better and different than other failures from the past.”

AIKEA FOR HONOLULU No. 33 – American History 2000-2016: Early Summary of the Barack Bush* Era in 200 Keywords

• 9/11, Al-Qaeda, Taliban and IEDs.  Patriot Act, TSA, Homeland Security, drones. WikiLeaks and the Snownden-NSA leaks.
  
• Appointed Czars: Bush 33, Obama 38.  Executive orders: Bush 146, Obama 147. (First term only.)
• TEA Party and Occupy Wall Street. Universal Health Care (Obamacare) and Sequester. Debt ceiling.
• Bailouts and cash-for-clunkers.  Retro cars: Mini, VW Beetle, PT Cruiser, Chevy SSR, Toyota GT86.
• Big Presidential lies: “Saddam has WMDs” and “You can keep your plan.”
• So long Ronald Reagan, Steve Jobs and space shuttle.
• Gates Foundation. Gay marriage. GMO labeling.
• Kyoto protocol, and (less) global warming.
• “Smart Growth” and “Livability” = Pack people in condos and trains. U.N. Agenda 21.
  
• I-35W bridge collapse. D grade for Infrastructure. Hurricane Katrina, BP Deepwater Horizon.
• Green energy black holes: Electric car/Fisker, solar/Solyndra, corn ethanol and wind farm subsidies.
• Oil at $147/barrel in mid-2008. Frack it! Natural gas to the rescue. Keystone XL pipeline.
• Infrastructure finance, PPP, open road tolling, road concession, EZPASS, HOT lanes.
• Google car and Google glass. Toyota Prius, Twitter, and tablets. Nanotechnology, carbon fiber, and composites. 
• Boom: Android, Bitcoin, e-cigarettes, iMac, iBook, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Made in China, Marijuana,  Facebook, Lipitor, Smart Phones, Tesla car, Viagra.
• Bust: AOL, AltaVista, Pontiac, Plymouth, Lehman Brothers, BlackBerry, HealthCare.gov (?)

Around 2016: The Baby Boom social security and other social net overloading, the large pension underfunding of several states, and ObamaCare direct and indirect costs come to full bloom (and gloom.)

Notable International: The economies of BRICs and PIIGS *** No “Arab Spring,” Egypt, Syria and Benghazi *** ~270,000 dead by 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami *** 2004 Athens Olympics *** 3/11 Tsunami and Fukushima disaster in Japan *** Castro, Chavez, Gaddafi, Kim Jong-Il and Bin Laden gone *** So long Margaret Thatcher, Nelson Mandela and supersonic passenger flight (Concorde) *** Full double-decker 550-850 passenger A380.

Notes (*): The Economist, Barack Hussein Bush, Dec 17th 2008 *** The Wall Street Journal, Barack Hussein Bush, June 5, 2009

PPP = public-private partnership (or P3)

BRIC = Brazil, Russia, India and China

PIIGS = Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain

This summary does not include Entertainment and Sports highlights.

Senator Schatz is Wrong about Wind Energy -- Part 2: Sample Responses

Most people dislike irresponsible calls for "improvement at any cost" although some accept cost-ineffective renewables. The quotes below are a sample of the responses I received to my AIKEA FOR HONOLULU No. 31.


Alexa: Thank you for the informative email. But I still do not know what we the poor residents can do to help ourselves and Hawaii from the increasing expense.

Patty: They surely are an eye sore.  Did not appreciate seeing them as I toured visiting friends around the island.

Teri H.: “No” to liquefied gas. At some point, someone has to have the courage to advocate and implement renewable energy.

Robert: 3 cents per kw, does that include the cost of Columbia river dams and lost salmon runs?
No such thing as a free lunch but you are right about distributed pv.

Greg W.: Tell them to come to South Point on the Big Island. Are they trying to finish off the Nene and the Io?

John D.: wind energy, in my opinion is better than solar, or at least compliments it. just note all of us who have blue water sailboats- sun by day, and wind by nite- at nite, the sun is gone, but the wind blows, continuing to give energy. i like that. i don't like the idea of huge turbines in my immediate neighborhood, but small individual ones like i mentioned, are fantastic... keeps the beer cold.

Thomas S.: What is wrong with a Babcock and Wilcox 300 MW nuclear plant?  The most ecologically sensitive plant and with power storage that will keep Hawaii lit a for a long time.
        Liquefied Natural Gas is replacing the Kewaunee, Wis. Nuclear Plant that my father helped build in 1960......my mom, still gets 10 cent per KWH retail power out of that plant as of this moment.  (I checked her electric bill).

Bruce: I also agree with you that rooftop solar can make it on its own, without any state or federal tax credits, which are expected to expire in a couple of years.  We were fortunate to take advantage of the credits and our $50K system cost us just $17.5K.  It should pay for itself in 4 years.  Without tax credits, it would still pay for itself in 12 years and, because we purchased well-designed panels, I expect the lifetime to exceed 30 years.  We installed PV panels on our cabin in Colorado 20+ years ago, and they are still working fine...even being exposed to snow.

Patrick P: how about wind turbines, pv, and rain turbines on all erected light fixtures across the state?

Kaniu, Big Island: Mahalo nui Panos for the truth

Linda P.: Panos, we appreciate you!  Thank you for fighting the good fight and for keeping us informed.  Wish the good senator (and many others) had your intelligence, logic and values!

Valere: Thank you for always telling it like it is and for doing such credible research. I do disagree, however, about the PV systems because most of the panels are constructed in China and the mining of materials used in the panels is extremely toxic. Firefighters in California can refuse to fight a fire on building that has solar panels. And these projects survive on subsidies. It is fallacious to say that the tax benefits received by individuals and corporations are not subsidies. It's just a different name for the same thing.

S.V, Pukalani: I speak from looking hard at rooftop solar installations on Maui.  It is a wonderful and economic problem.  The only sticking point here is that Maui Electric has limited the number of penetration circuits allowed for home solar.  Reason - it impinges on their base load generation.

Tim D.: How about something simpler:  Cut demand by tax credits (and building code) for simple, non capital-intensive technologies like insulation, attic fans, and best-practices lighting (Say Energy Star Gold rating).  Mandate homes (single family & up to 4-plexes) convert to solar power hot water over the next decade.

Gordon K., Retired HECO: In November 2012 I attended the Hawaii Health Dept. hearing on Greenhouse Gas regulations.  Everybody was there--Health Dept., engineers, regulators, utilities and refineries, and environmentalists.
     I asked a question.  We live in a highrise apartment, and electricity costs us $200 per month.  I asked how much our electric bill would be after all of the solar and wind farms, rooftop solar, and undersea cables are built.  There was total silence.  A few people pointed up at the ceiling.  Afterward an engineer told me, "That was a novel question you asked.  No one ever asked that question before."
     In other words we all accepted the renewable energy without question or regard for cost.  Now that we're retired and living on pensions, cost matters a lot.  I intend to ask that question a lot more in the future.

AIKEA FOR HONOLULU No. 31 – Senator Schatz is Wrong about Wind Energy

A TV ad started last week shows U.S. Senator Brian Schatz promoting “energy that’s moving Hawaii forward. Senator Brian Schatz is leading the effort to harness our incredible wind energy potential with tax credits to grow wind energy production that would create thousands of new jobs and clean energy.”

Hawaii residents from Waianae to Kahuku, from Molokai to Lanai, and everywhere in the between dislike wind turbines. Senator Schatz promotes more taxpayer monies for special interests who are peddling a technology that cannot make it on its own. He is wrong for the following reasons.

Independently from any politics, a Punahou and UH-Manoa graduate student and I conducted detailed research on cost effective energy solutions for Hawaii, by examining all major energy sources available to Hawaii.  A summary of our work was accepted by Pacific Business News last month, and was published this week: Making the Case for Liquefied Natural Gas.

Our research concluded that wind and solar power plants are ineffective; they require multimillion dollar subsidies. The solar energy in our research was the power plant type that consumes land in order to produce some daytime electricity, similar to the 36 acres wasted by the Pohoiki plant at Kalaeloa to produce only 5 MW!

On the other hand, solar photovoltaic panels have been locally accepted by thousands of homeowners and businesses. Rooftop PV is an incremental, distributed power source with near zero visual or other negative impacts for Hawaii, as I explained here: Big Rooftop Solar Panels Make Sense in Hawaii - without Any Subsidies! Rooftop PV supports dozens of local small businesses.

Recently BMW decided to locate its electric vehicle chassis assembly in a region of Washington State because the local electricity rate is 3 cents (!) per kilowatt-hour.  HECO’s rate on Oahu is over 33 cents and thanks to Senator Schatz’s flawed advocacy, our electricity costs will increase, and Hawaii will become increasingly uncompetitive.

I urge Senator Schatz to review the three page summary of our research titled The Next 100 MW Power Plant for Oahu and modify his views about renewable energy. America’s future cannot be supported by intermittent, unreliable and expensive energy.

Hawaii does not need unsightly turbines and cannot afford their cost and flaky reliability. And please stop bragging about the jobs. Hawaii has fewer than 50 turbines and fewer than 50 people are located here to manage them … that is, when the turbines are not down due to fires or other self-inflicted damage.

Honolulu Rail: 2005-2013 Slideshow

The slide show presentation titled Fighting ● Boondoggles ● Honolulu ● Rail ● Transit was presented at the 2013 American Dream conference in Washington, D.C. in mid-October 2013.  It provides a brief summary of:

• Honolulu's history of billion dollar transit plans
• Why is Honolulu Rail a boondoggle?
• What was done to stop this train?

Honolulu's $5.2 Billion rail project  is a testament of the power of government and special interests to get their way.  As the Honolulu Civil Beat's multiple polls over the years have revealed, this project never enjoyed a public approval of over 35%.

Plan Bay Area: Urban Planning as a Form of 21st Century Illogical Dictatorship. Part 2

Part 2 is lawsuit galore. Barely two weeks after its acceptance by Bay area planning and transit agencies, Plan Bay Area was Sued From the Right and the Left!  Of course the myopic view of Sierra Club forces them to sue the Plan for daring support some highway transportation.  As I have demonstrated in my critique of the Plan, its emphasis on transit is totally wrong. Sierra Club wants more emphasis on top of emphasis on transit. It is quite clear to me that the title Lunatic Left is becoming a fundamental characterization.

Plan Bay Area: Urban Planning as a Form of 21st Century Illogical Dictatorship. Part 1

Part 1 by Wendell Cox explains why the well intentioned Plan Bay Area makes the wrong assumptions and picks the wrong solutions. As a result it barely makes the pollution targets they are after!  Sample estimates by Cox are shown the picture below.  Telling people what to do is not the way to do it.

Light-Rail to Nowhere: Honolulu, Hawaii's Train Boondoggle

The Reason Foundation provides succinct coverage of Honolulu rail. It is, of course, about politics, development and money. Lots of money. Only the gullible and the railigious believe that heavy rail from the middle of ag land to a shopping center will have any traffic relief.

Panos Prevedouros, one of the state's leading transportation experts, says the rail plan that the feds approved will siphon off state funding for the area's bus system. The project's own report, which Prevedouros says is filled with overly optimistic estimates of rail ridership, still shows that Honolulu's congestion will be worse in the future with rail. “The point of doing any cost effectiveness type of analysis is out of the window,” says Panos, “the benefits are not there.”

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered an expedited hearing for the federal rail lawsuit on August 15th.

Watch the well-made 8 minute video by Sharif Matar.

A Terrible Week for Rail

Paris, France
French Wreck Reveals Hidden Danger in Its Vaunted Train System

Washington, DC, USA
Obama Administration Puts Brakes on XpressWest High-Speed Rail Project
This is the California-Nevada High Speed Rail proposal.

Honolulu, HI, USA

Federal Judge slaps HART hard by revealing profound contradictions and stupidity. Excerpts from Judge Mollway's letter to HART below.

"On behalf of the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii, I submit that the Draft Supplemental EIS fails to give adequate consideration to the Beretania Street Tunnel Alternative.

Remarkably, the Project's proposed rail route fails to run along "the highly
congested east-west transportation corridor between Kapolei and UH Manoa," the very
corridor expressly identified as the route the Project is intended to serve.

The EIS unrealistically posits that a UH student, after riding the rail to Ala Moana, can transfer to a bus to get to the UH campus and, even including the time spent getting to the bus boarding area and waiting for the bus, arrive within 9 minutes.

• Waianae to UH Manoa via Beretania Street Tunnel: 84 minutes
• Current Route of the Project: 93 minutes"

Obviously judge Mollaway can do better math than HART's hired un-professionals. Even today during a normal school day I would have to dart in traffic in my sporty Miata in the rush hour to go from Ala Moana Center to the UH-Manoa were I work, in nine minutes. The city bus is no Miata and the likely time of the bus is well over 15 minutes. So the judge's comparison needs to be updated as follows:

• Waianae to UH Manoa via Beretania Street Tunnel: 84 minutes
• Current Route of the Project: 100 minutes

Clearly the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii has a point.


North American urban transit security (July 11 headlines)

NY: Subway Study Eyes Dispersal of Chemical Weapons Subway riders can expect to see in stations Tuesday the installation of special equipment scientists will use as part of an experiment to see how... More » ON: Toronto Storm Causes Chaos Throughout City and on Train MO: Woman Upset Over a Seat Splashes Gasoline on Metro Bus Passengers MA: Man Struck, Killed by Train IL: Man Dies After Falling on Third Rail Don't Text and Walk: Pedestrians Step in Front of Trains PA: Nude Man Shot During Berserk Rampage

ON: All GO Transit Riders Rescued From Flooded Train: Toronto Police Hundreds of passengers that were stranded on a flooded GO Transit rush-hour train following heavy rain have been rescued, Toronto police said early Tuesday morning.

WI: Agitated Drunken Man Assaults 3 on County Bus: Police BC: Transit Police Warn of e-device Thefts in City MA: Transit Police Search for Man Accused of Spitting on Driver

The Lack of New Warming Is a Surprise -- Recall Al Gore!

These two graphs from a major article in The Economist (see source below) clearly indicate that:

1.  Global Warming occurred between 1985 and 1998, but Earth's temp has remained fairly steady for 15 years now!
2. The predictions of Global Warming models are incorrect.
3. The yellow lines indicate the year when Al Gore and IPCC received the Nobel Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" (the bold is mine.)

Global Warming alarmism has caused the inappropriate issuance of two Nobel Prizes (Gore and Obama) and the unnecessary brainwashing of millions of young children at their schools.  Global Warming alarmism gave more support to "environmentalists" whose most prominent successes are to pick the wrong winners (e.g., cost ineffective renewables and rail systems) and make life more expensive in first world populations, and more difficult to rise out of poverty for third world populations.

Now The Economist from Europe, where the core support of Global Warming alarmism is located, has provided some reasonable perspective which shows that:

• There is no denying that some Global Warming (GW) has taken place.
• GW has remained stable for at least a decade.
• Models used by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) predict the wrong trend.
• GW did not increase despite the billions of tons of anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 emissions
• Arctic ice does melt to unusual levels in the summer months but no appreciable sea level rise has been recorded.
• Nobody knows what the real effects of an increasingly less possible GW are.

The main article of The Economist is titled Climate science: A sensitive matter -- Here are a few interesting quotes from this comprehensive article:

• "Temperatures fluctuate over short periods, but this lack of new warming is a surprise."
• "The mismatch between rising greenhouse-gas emissions and not-rising temperatures is among the biggest puzzles in climate science just now."
• Despite all the work on [the planet's] sensitivity [to carbon dioxide emissions,] no one really knows how the climate would react if temperatures rose by as much as 4°C.

Three days later The Economist added a short article to calm down Europe's socialists and Obama-like pro carbon taxation politicians (see last bullet below). These politicians need to keep people focused on secondary problems like the GW, because primary problems such as huge budget deficits and problematic pension and health care systems cannot be addressed in the socialist realm of thought. The short article is titled Global warming: Apocalypse perhaps a little later. Exact quotes below. The bold section is mine.

• The science that points towards a sensitivity lower than models have previously predicted is still tentative. The error bars are still there. The risk of severe warming—an increase of 3°C, say—though diminished, remains real.
• Bad climate policies, such as backing renewable energy with no thought for the cost, or insisting on biofuels despite the damage they do, are bad whatever the climate’s sensitivity to greenhouse gases. (Thank you for this. I am sorry to inform you that California, Hawaii, The Blue Planet Foundation and several "environmentalists" do not subscribe to reason, cost-effectiveness analysis or The Economist.)
• Good policies—strategies for adapting to higher sea levels and changing weather patterns, investment in agricultural resilience, research into fossil-fuel-free ways of generating and storing energy—are wise precautions even in a world where sensitivity is low.
• Put a price on carbon and ensure that, slowly but surely, it gets ratcheted up for decades to come. 

I enjoy The Economist for its variety of subjects, reasonable depth of analysis and humor.  I'm sorry, humour. I was disappointed that nowhere did they ask for a recall of Al Gore's and IPCC's Nobel. The two shared a Nobel Prize in 2007.