 Good morning, October 5th, 2021. I'm Jay Fiedel. This is ThinkTech and the job we're doing this morning is ThinkTech Tech Talks. We're going to talk about technology or specifically new entrepreneurial inventions, innovations right here in Hawaii with our guests Stephen Businger and Paul Sin. Stephen is the chair of the Media Out and Meteorology Department at UH part of Southwest I guess and Paul is an inventor. We love inventors, all kinds of inventors. We should all be inventors and he's an entrepreneur who tries to commercialize his inventions. What a way to spend your life. I wish I could do that. Good morning Stephen. Good morning Paul. Good morning Jay. So let's we have three things to talk about and I'll tell everybody in advance what we're going to talk about. Let's see. One is we're going to talk about this innovative plan. I guess that's by Paul but also Stephen to clean up the Alawai canal and make Mike like to keep more resilient. Then we're going to talk about the Rainbow Chase smartphone app which it's a weather app that gives you guidance on where to find your rainbow. Wow, that's I've always waited for that you know and you got to get there quick I think. And then also we're talking about Stephen's app. Stephen's modeling page where he models eruptions in Kilauea and then tells you what you can expect for VARG. Oh very interesting. So is this really cooking Stephen don't you think? Absolutely yeah. So it's on fire so to speak. Kilauea is certainly on fire. Okay let's talk about the first one. Paul can you talk about you know the your innovative plan to clean up the Alawai? Yeah when I heard the news about the mayor the Rikunjali state is looking for a new idea from community about the Alawai canal flood control system. I fired up myself and I bring up the new idea. I think my idea is not too bad. What is your idea? Can you can you tell us? Yes number one idea is about not touching a Kapiolani side park outlet. We just put the berm to guide overflowing water to Kapiolani side that's part number one. Number two is we put second outlet to Kapiolani side park and we put the two gates. Kapiolani side will be open when the low tide become high tide and the harbor side is low. So when the tide is coming in all the water goes through canal from Kapiolani side. End of the high tide we close harbor side gate and all the water go out to harbor side which means two times a day we flush the Alawai canal. It may can have blue canal and three man fishing and also we can control the flood and I think it's much much cheaper and environment friendly. We don't even you had something on this. Oh I was just going to say that Alawai made this fantastic model which shows how this all worked. We have a video of it so if it might be possible to stage that video I think that would be the very best way to see how this works. Alawai flood control video. Global warming is reducing the return time of extreme floods in Hawaii therefore now is a critical time to reimagine the Alawai canal as an extreme flood control system. At the same time the Alawai needs to be redesigned to control the pollution that comes with extreme floods. Part one flood control through dry canal. To prevent Waikiki from being inundated by floodwaters the dry canal system provides an outlet for floodwaters during extreme flood events. Capilani parkside of the canal only becomes active as a drain system when floodwaters are about to overflow Waikiki. Part two pollution control by tidal flow in a two outlet system. During rising tides the Capilani gate is open and the harbor gate is closed allowing clean ocean water into the canal. During ebbing tides Capilani gate is closed and harbor gate is open allowing water to flow to the ocean on the harbor side. In summary the dual outlet system controls water flow for flooding and pollution. Right well that's great. So Steven what would you add to that you know from your point of view? Well you know climate change is giving us problems with flooding. Our return time for very very heavy rainfall events is becoming shorter and so what used to be a 10,000 year event is becoming a 1000 year event and the 1000 year event is becoming a 10 year event and we have to prepare for these very large floods. The kind that that hit Hawaii in 2018 and dumped 50 inches of rainfall in 24 hours and absolutely inundated the entire town of Haleiva. No sorry Hanalei. Hanalei was washed away so this is what will happen to Waikiki if we don't use our imagination and that's exactly what Paul Sinai has done here is say okay how can we solve this problem in an economical way and at the same time the advantage is that you clean up the alawai canal because you have this ability during incoming tide you open the gate on the Waikiki side and during outflowing tide you open the harbor gate close the Waikiki side gate and this cleans the alawai canal so it's I think it's a solution that is definitely worth consideration. Well Steve what about what about you know the possible negatives that is that you don't have the same outflow from the mountains in other words is this going to be able to catch and release the water that comes in from the mountains even in a bad rainstorm? Well it's difficult to catch a flood so what you really want to do is provide a path for this heavy big flood to come down and escape to the ocean and by having two exits for the alawai canal it allows you to prevent Waikiki from being inundated by these floodwaters. What about the paddlers who come into the canal from from the ocean or go out from the canal to the ocean they can be able to get through? Absolutely they'll be able to paddle through one way or the other and they'll be very happy because the water will be blue and clean instead of murky and as it is now a bit problematic with pollution. What about the issue that Mufi Heneman with the sewer the sewerage system in Waikiki and the island of Waikiki so to speak where you know the the water level got sort of the point where the sewerage system was not functionally had a dump sewage. Does this affect any of that? Well I think that that's a big problem and I don't think it's been resolved and when you do have floods the problem is that the sewer system gets overtaken because we use the same you know the sewer and the floodwaters kind of come through the same pipes if you will and they can be separated to some extent and you take of course the pollution the sewer through the treatment plant but when there's so much water and it's coming in together then you you have a problem and that results in a release of pollution into the ocean but the but the best thing is that this allows at least the alloy canal system to clean itself out after those events which it currently can't do. Yeah one other thing is so what are these it's a great idea to have it's effectively a valve you know but what's what are the components made of is it concrete steel a combination? I'll let Paul take that one. Hey Paul what are the you know what are the components you know the the valve components so to speak on this system what are they made of? You mean the valve? Well the thing that holds the water back or or allows it to pass? I think they can use all kind of technology to have a gate you know I'm only an idea man they have a technology they can make a better gate system. Okay but the gate has to turn right and there has to be some kind of motor some kind of some kind of energy exerted on opening and closing it right? Yeah of course yeah but it's that's only minor kind you know instead of all kind of pumping system. Well you know why this is so remarkable because when Hawaiian dredging was first established was in 1910 or 11 um its first project was the alloy and the first plan they had for the alloy was to allow a free flow of water not only from the alloy into you know into the Waikiki channel there but also to allow it to flow freely on Kapa Hulu and the original plan was to dredge Kapa Hulu Avenue that wasn't supposed to be Kapa Hulu Avenue supposed to be a second channel they were going to flow around the whole island but they ran out of money and politically there was no political will to finish it so that's why we have a problem there this seems to solve that very problem. A two gate outlet is a I think very important idea because of even there's a decent amount of rainfall Kapa Hulu side beach ain't gonna be brown with the two gate outlet system. You know I was just thinking you guys must know he died a few years ago but Alfred Yee and he he was with the engineering department and with Sowest also and he he was into concrete concrete structures and he and Hans Hans his his co-partner developed a set of these special concrete forms that they wanted to deploy at the an editorial and that was a selection process in the city and the city couldn't make up its mind and it never got started but it seemed to me a really good idea. So before we leave the subject I want to tell you there you tell me is there an engineering possibility of using a concrete form specially designed that would act as a valve without requiring the energy to move it back and forth. Stephen? I think that's definitely an idea worth considering yeah you do want to be able to prevent the flow of water in an incremental basis but I think that as far as the design of the gate is concerned it's open for innovation too. Exactly yeah yeah yeah okay well that's great idea really wonderful idea and it touches Hawaii history it certainly touches the history of Waikiki it touches tourism if you will it'd be very interesting to have this as an additional feature for for Waikiki and therefore the engine of our economy it should be well accepted I hope you can take some dramatic steps and get it approved. Thank you well we're working in that direction and we are in in touch with the Corps of Engineers so we'll see we'll see what they think. Okay let's go to the next one let's go to rainbows this is yours but you're both working on this this is yours Paul but you're both working on this how in the world can you identify a rainbow technologically? Well it's all geometric and the sun is behind you the rainbow is at 42 degrees from the head of your shadow so you have to look at the at your shadow and then look up and that's where the rainbow will be. Now if you have a weather app that has radar data and it has the sun angle it can predict when and where you're going to see a rainbow and if you make that available on a smartphone that knows where you are then it becomes a very powerful but a user-friendly guide to tell you when to look up see rainbows. What is it what is the what sensors are working out of the smartphone to pick this up? Oh it is it's really a complicated app because it takes all of the National Weather Service radar data and there's 160 radars in the whole country and and we're expanding by the way we've got all the west coast now and we have all of y so basically you have all that radar data we also import satellite data and even model data and all these data are utilized in the app and it's a full-blown weather app but the fun thing about it is that you can see when rainbows are possible and in the app so that's explain the you see the rainbows before they appear I mean does it give you warning the rainbows coming or does it tell you when they are appearing? Oh you know that's an excellent question and and at the moment we don't give warnings but that is in our to-do list at the moment you have to go to the app and look but you know I think that works pretty well too because you know when it is that you have a little time and if you want to go chase a rainbow you have that opportunity using the app. Okay so this would assist you know there's a thing called climate and climate is an app for your cell phone your android what have you your apple and you know climate will tell you I guess it gathers data from the weather service and it'll tell you if there's a storm heading your way what the weather's going to be like whether you should you know be going going to a safe place what have you 30 bucks a month yeah I looked at it and then it was a complete turn off 30 bucks a month you know for a fraction of that it would be interested so the question is can you produce this can you commercialize the rainbow app or cheap because if you can you know I think it can be bundled and tourists will just love it everybody will love it they'll want to know want to catch a rainbow nobody can ever catch a rainbow it's always so elusive the next time you look is gone what about an app on your phone that would be a reasonable price have you thought about how to do that well that that's what this is and I have to say paul is incredibly generous because he is anchoring the development of the app and at the moment we don't don't charge anything for it so it's free free to the public and you just have to go to rainbow chase your app store or the google play store or you can go to rainbowchase.com which is our website and you can download it there both for the apple side and for the android side so it's available on both platforms that's fabulous that's really a contribution again to you know a distinct I call it a marketplace of people who would like to see that like to have that and pre is a tremendous benefit it's a gift to the community the whole community thank you very much you guys for that one okay let's go to the next one the next one sounds like this is yours Steven and this is about Vogue and it's about getting data on Kilauea eruptions and being able to tell anyone who wants on I guess on your phone also you know what the what the Vogue is going to be can you talk about how that how that works sure first of all if you have your pencil handy you can write weather.hawaii.edu that's the website pretty easy to remember weather.hawaii.edu and if you look there you'll see the Vogue map and that's what comes up if you click on it and basically it's it's a complex system where you take the weather data and you introduce it into a model which does which controls how the Vogue moves it's called a dispersion model and then you and then you need to have emissions from the volcano which we get from the hawaii volcano observatory so this is a collaborative effort with the USGS so they gave us gave us how much pollution is coming out of the vent and then we put that into the dispersion model and we forecast what is the probability that the bloom is going to be over you and the concentration is going to exceed a certain threshold and this will allow people to see if if Vogue is going to be an issue for them and there's a lot of people who are allergic to Vogue and they're particularly sensitive to it's why it's a great opportunity for them to be able to get some guidance. Well I think you know we're interested in elderly people who have immune you know immune issues and you know I know that this and Vogue affects them they can't breathe so well and this is going to exacerbate their you know breathing issues so this is really important for them. Query though do we have Vogue all the time Stephen I mean is it is the volcano always emitting some kind of you know Vogue or is it only happened we have or any eruption? Oh that's an excellent question you know it does get into this quiet mode we were in a very quiet mode after the big eruption in 2018 and then it erupted a little bit in January of this year then went quiet again and the emissions got so small there were still some emissions but it got so small that Vogue was really not an issue. Now however in the last couple of weeks there's been a large eruption the first day there was 85 tons per day emitted which is a huge number real problematic number and then it has settled down I think it's around 10 000 tons per day at the moment so that's a little bit better. Over the period from 1983 until now it has been erupting most of the time we've just had a very short break in the last since you know August of 2018 there's been some breaks but it's been continuously erupting most of that time and it started erupting again you know a week ago and who knows how long it'll continue to be active in its active phase but in its active phase then it will be putting out enough Vogue that we need to really pay attention to where it's going if we have some southeast early winds that blow the Vogue from the big island to Oahu you'll see our emergency rooms full of people who are allergic to Vogue. Oh how interesting well what's the chemical you know makeup of it that activates their allergies? Good question. Sulfur dioxide is the gas that is emitted and sulfur dioxide itself is pretty plastic it's not a happy gas to have to be breathing but the gas also converts to aerosols and in cloud it can produce sulfuric acid so you can imagine breathing in sulfuric acid is just not a happy situation for your lungs and these aerosols the sulfate aerosols that result also downwind are very very caustic and cause sore throats and scratchy eyes and give people problems depending on their you know sensitivity and the health of their the respiratory system as well. No emergency rooms would be advised to get this to download it to have it available because they can then predict what kind of traffic they're going to have. The same thing with you know pulmonary doctors who treat diseases of the lungs and breathing they would be well advised to have a copy handy because then they can see whether this is a factor in you know the problem that a patient presents to them but one thing that strikes me Steven is usually I associate Vogue with Kona winds. If the winds are not Kona if you have regular trades how much of an issue what does that change things? Well living on Oahu we're lucky with trade winds we avoid seeing the Vogue. However the big island has a problem because the trades take the Vogue down past south point at which point the sea breeze pulls it back into Kona on the Kona side of the big island. So people from Pahala and ocean makers and around the corner all the way to Kona are affected by Vogue when we have trade wind conditions. So it's a it's a considerable issue for the big island particularly. I think it'd be valuable for people to be able to see they'll be able to see on your app what direction the Vogue is going right. You get that cloud can we look at that cloud for one minute more you get that cloud you get the size of the cloud reflects how much Vogue there is you get the direction of the wind I mean carrying the Vogue so anyone in that map would be able to make a prediction as to when the Vogue is coming for us. Exactly yeah and the model runs out about 60 hours so it gives you two full days of notice of what the Vogue is predicted to do. Very valuable very interesting very very creative I must say and I think there's a market for that one too. Well you guys you guys are great I tell you I'm really impressed with what you're doing I'm impressed with the way you do it. Stephen I want to say that we're probably going to you as a meteorologist can tell me a lot quicker but we're probably going to have extreme weather due to climate change affecting everywhere in the world it's going to affect the weather here in Hawaii and I would like to have you back to discuss how that would unfold how extreme weather in Hawaii may be hard to do but you'd be in a much better spot than anyone else to tell us what it would be like what the winds would be like what the direction of the winds would be like what the rain would be like and so forth. I hope you can come back and give us a handle on that because I think we should all be informed in anticipation of the possibility don't you think? Well I think we should all be concerned about climate change and and we should vote with our you know our convictions and and also use that to make our own personal decision like riding a bicycle or buying an electric car etc but Jay I would I would be delighted to come back on and talk about climate change and in the meantime we can all enjoy rainbows in Hawaii we're coming into the winter season when there's more showers and Paul and I are continuing to improve the app Rainbow Chase check it out it's really fun there's a lot of information at the website rainbowchase.com and and again it's Paul's ingenuity and his generosity that is making Rainbow Chase available or free at no cost and it is a wonderful app it gives satellite data radar data it tells you you know what the weather's going to be over the next couple of days it's a it's a fun and affordable. Affordable indeed, right after the show I'm going to download it and take a look I want to see what's happening in my neighborhood and Paul you know I'd like you to come back to Paul because you're obviously the guy you know who is thinking 24 hours a day and these ideas pop into your brain at two o'clock in the morning I know how that works the magic of creativity and I hope you can you know commercialize at least some of them not Rainbow Chase but some of the others anyway and I hope you can come back and tell us about ideas that you that you will have going forward you know never stop Paul we need you Paul. Jay. Jay. Yes. I miss you. I will be back with a bigger idea pretty soon within few months. I already explained everything already. You will be delighted and love it. I know I will. Paul Sin, entrepreneur and innovator and inventor Steven Businger of SOEST and the meteorology chair there and I really appreciate having you guys together but I also want to say it's great to see you collaborating. Collaboration is the heart of creativity and science. Thank you so much gentlemen. Thank you Jay. Thank you very much.