A while back we found out that we could generate 75 kilowatt-hours of electricity from a flume on our property. That’s enough electricity to power 15 refrigerated 40-foot Matson containers continuously.

Ever since then, we’ve been asking ourselves, “What does free electricity mean?” “What could we do with all that free electricity?” (Keeping in mind that we also have 6 million gallons of water per day that the sugar company had in its water system.)

We’re thinking wildly right now, and not worrying about the practicality of our ideas at this point. We just want to have fun with it. So here are some thoughts. Feel free to send us your ideas as well; we’d love to hear them.

We could have countless types and numbers of water fountains. After all, we are located just a few miles outside of Hilo, where we measure rain in feet, not inches, per year. There is approximately 10 feet of rain annually.

What about bug lights to control moths?

Could we simulate the seasons and fool plants into producing off-season? My friend Ralph, who lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, wonders if we couldn’t grow peonies. What are peonies? What about grapes? Or berries? ‘Ohelo?

And then there is the idea of aquaculture. Could we add salt and minerals to the water and simulate an ocean? Circulate the water through a filter? Or what if we grew freshwater prawns and fed them lettuce leaves or tomato leaves or bananas? The best bait is coconut. Maybe we run water from the prawn tanks through watercress beds and pump it back around?

What about taro lo‘i, where we use the same water by pumping the water back uphill and spraying it back in, oxygenating it at the same time?

Kevin Hopkins, director of the aquaculture center in Keaukaha, mentioned growing sturgeon. He asked how much free-flowing water we have. Could we install aerators?

Someone told me a funny sturgeon story recently. Sturgeons are associated with caviar. You know, the ultra, high-end caviar from the Caspian Sea. Well, a person who was growing sturgeons lost them in a flood. So when he found a few of them he knew he had to try to salvage the eggs.

He went to a high-end restaurant at one of the Kohala Coast resorts and asked the Executive Chef if he was interested in buying some caviar. The chef, assuming the man was a food purveyor, asked him where the caviar came from. He was thinking Caspian Sea.

The fish farmer replied, “Hilo.”

Comment here, or email me, with your ideas of what we should do with our free electricity!