Richard Ha writes:

I talked to my friend Robert Rapier yesterday. He had just returned from seeing the tar sands in Canada.  

Robert Rapier is a chemical engineer with 20 years of international engineering experience in the energy business. He holds several patents related to his work. Robert is the author of Power Plays: Energy Options in the Age of Peak Oil. He is also the author of the R-Squared Energy Column and is Chief Investment Strategist for Investing Daily’s Energy Strategist service. Robert has appeared on The History Channel and PBS, and his articles have appeared in numerous media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, The Economist, and Forbes.

Here’s a blog post he wrote just before he went.

He told me some interesting stuff about the energy return on energy invested, which was better than I had thought, and about the break-even point of tar sands, which were lower than I expected. He had some interesting ecological observations, too, and will be writing about this soon. He’s also going to appear on national television, soon.

One of the reasons I like Robert is because, in local Hawai‘i terms, he’s a "scrappah.” He’s like our mayor, Billy Kenoi – he is both smart and tough.

I asked him what he thought of the Big Island’s energy prospects, and he said that geothermal appears to be one of the lowest-hanging fruit. I agree!

In a previous blog post, he pointed out that leveraging the sun has promise, nationwide, and observed that solar panel prices are steadily declining.

I agree about leveraging sunshine. As a farmer, I think of plant leaves as solar collectors. We have a year-round growing season here, and we have been using petroleum-based pesticides to help farmers control the year-round pests. If we can use biotechnology in a smart and safe way to help us control pests, it will lower food production costs and help our whole economy.

Instead of losing ground as oil prices rise, we can position ourselves so that all farmers have a competitive advantage to those on the mainland.

Right now, our state goal is to reach 10 percent self-sufficiency. We have to do better than that.