From the Hawaii Tribune-Herald (5/7/10):

Hu Honua Bioenergy LLC wants to take over the 1985 special management area or SMA permit that allowed the former Hilo Coast Processing Co. to operate a coal-burning power plant near the ocean….

…Eucalyptus trees growing along the Hamakua Coast will be harvested for fuel during the plant’s first decade of operation, according to Hu Honua’s application. The company would then look to obtain trees from private landowners clearing their properties, and also is working with the University of Hawaii at Hilo to develop a “sustainable biomass farming plan.”

On Friday, I went to the Windward Planning Commission meeting in support of Hu Honua. From the company’s website:

Hu Honua Bioenergy, LLC is a Hawaii-based company created to meet local electricity needs using renewable resources. The facility is located in Pepeekeo, Hawaii, on a 25.57-acre site on the Big Island of Hawaii.

I am supporting Hu Honua because the company says it will use biomass to generate “base power” in HELCO’s grid.  Base power is a steady, dependable source of electricity. More than 85 percent of HELCO’s electricity usage is base power.

The Hu Honua project has the potential of replacing fossil fuels in HELCO’s grid with biomass.

From my own farming experience, I feel that Hu Honua will face some challenges in sourcing its feedstock. Several years ago, when the land around the Hu Honua power plant was subdivided and put up for sale, we were informed that C. Brewer wanted to sell the land on three sides of our banana packing house. We were growing bananas there on a short term lease and were told we needed to move our bananas to a different location. When we completed that move, instead of our packing house being in the middle of our banana growing operation, it was stuck way out on one side of the farm.

In order to maintain the same amount of production, we needed to acquire more land that was even further to one side of our farm, and this made our operation inefficient. And because our packing house was no longer centered in our fields, our labor and maintenance costs went way up, to the point that we had to downsize and reorganize our entire farming operation.

Similarly, Hu Honua’s generation plant would have benefitted from being sited in the middle of its production supply. This is not possible, though, since it is bordered by the ocean on one side and subdivisions on the other. Consequently, labor and fossil fuel costs will be a larger part of their operation than would have been optimum.

When they try to grow their own sustainable biocrop in 10 years, they’ll have the same problem we did. I’ve tried to guess where the large land parcel supporting five to six trucks of biomass per hour will be located, and I don’t know where that place will be.

For 10 miles in either direction, rainfall averages approximately 120 inches per year. Our farm, just a couple of miles up the road, has an average rainfall of 140 inches per year. High rainfall, deep soil and steep terrain make for a challenging agricultural environment.

I do support Hu Honua, but I worry they may not be successful in developing a “sustainable biomass farming plan.”