The New York Times just ran an editorial in support of geothermal development for the production of electricity.

Over the last few weeks, we have seen at least five companies offering plans to turn biomass produced on the Hamakua Coast into energy.

Many Hamakua Coast residents are very skeptical because of the large amounts of land that would have to be dedicated to making this energy. Many are very much against trading off ag lands for energy crops.

The Peak Oil conference I attended in Houston a year ago October, where I was the only person from Hawai‘i, was the most depressing – and yet most important – conference I have ever attended. We learned that the world’s oil supply is decreasing faster than our ability to produce more oil and that we need to find alternative ways, and fast.

I did not have the heart to tell people there how so very lucky we are in Hawai‘i to have an abundance of natural resources. I attended the conference dressed in shorts and would continue to wear shorts back in Hawai‘i all winter long. While most of the 500 people attending would go through a cold winter when crops would not grow, we in Hawai‘i would continue to grow crops all through our warm winter.

I know that many of those 500 people were worrying about just what limited renewable sources of energy they had at their disposal. In contrast, I didn’t have the heart to tell anybody that we have such an abundance of richness in Hawai‘i that some people here feel that we can discard geothermal as a renewable energy alternative.

That was a couple years ago, but since then the world has changed. We must use our resources wisely.

Geothermal has a very small footprint. While biomass plants would require thousands of acres, a geothermal plant would need less than 100 acres for an equivalent production of energy.

Let’s take a new look at geothermal!