Fact-Checking the "PRT Boondoggle" Blog
A project of the PRT NewsCenter

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Reading is fundamental

And it still hasn't been mastered by Ken Avidor, the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist.

"Masdar Postponed" screams the headline of his post of earlier today. In his article, he writes that the launch of the Masdar PRT has been delayed. And yet what is in the article he quotes?

Masdar Postponed

The National:
Masdar, the Abu Dhabi Government’s clean energy firm, has discarded a 2016 final completion date for its signature US$22 billion (Dh80.8bn) development as the challenge of building a carbon neutral, zero-waste city has proved greater than first expected.

Masdar officials emphasise that the first phase of Masdar City will be finished by the original 2013 deadline. The rest of the development at the edge of the capital will emerge gradually over the ensuing decade as the company experiments with new technology, officials said.
Masdar PRT launch delayed, Heathrow PRT launch delayed (twice).

Why would elected officials want to waste taxpayers' dollars on these guys?
He doesn't read what he snips! Masdar (City) hasn't been postponed -- only the original completion date has been! Doesn't the on-time finish for Phase One count for anything?

And the PRT system isn't mentioned at all. I know Avidor lurks on the Transport-Innovators Google forum, so I know he knows that completion of the PRT is awaiting construction of the Masdar Institute of Science & Technology campus. Or does Ken think that the transit system should be up and running first, even if there is nothing to serve? Maybe in Sim City or Second Life, but not in real life.

Ken Avidor has an exacting standard: if a project -- even Masdar, a multibillion dollar test bed for a variety of new green energy technologies -- misses ONE deadline, it's a failure! Hey Ken, don't you know you flunk your own standard???

And ULTra? Tick-tock, Ken!


ALSO yesterday in The National:
The challenge that will keep changing
Abu Dhabi's Masdar initiative, one of the boldest attempts yet to revolutionise how we use energy, will confront a host of unforeseen challenges. And as we report today, Masdar has pushed back deadlines for when its zero-carbon city will be completed...
It is far better that Masdar confront these realities than push forward with the same plans in spite of them. Masdar, after all, is a venture into the unknown. The project will undoubtedly face a changing set of challenges. There can be no doubt, however, that Masdar must deliver. Its cause is critical for both Abu Dhabi and the world.



Masdar Institute under construction, late 2009
+


gPRT Er- Mork?

No comments: