Category Archives: Geothermal

Food Security, Geothermal, Lowering Electric Rates

Big Island Cuts Off Nose, Spites Face

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Richard Ha writes:

According to Hawai‘i Rural Development Council surveys, food security is Hawai‘i’s number one priority. “Difficulties faced by local farmers” is number 3, and “GMO agriculture” is number 5.

Banning GMOs (a much lower priority issue) threatens our food security (our most important concern).

I say this all the time because it’s so important to remember: If the farmers make money, the farmers will farm. We need our farmers farming in order to have food security here in Hawai‘i. We need to work toward that end.

One way to do that is to remember that agriculture and energy are inextricably tied together. Working toward having low-cost energy here on the Big Island will strongly benefit both our farmers and the rest of our people—it lowers food cooling costs for both farmers and their customers. It will help the farmers to farm, which will increase our food security.

We are lucky to have the option here of generating electricity with geothermal. Geothermal-generated electricity is similar to oil in its characteristics. It is steady. And very importantly, it costs only half as much as oil and will not run out anytime soon.

It’s all related. Geothermal energy means lower electric bills, for both farmers and consumers. Lower electric bills means farmers keep farming, and consumers have more food security out here in the Pacific where we important 80 percent of our food or more. Lower electric costs also mean consumers have more discretionary income, and that helps our local economy.

Banning GMOs (a.k.a., biotech solutions to farming problems, which all our competitors will be able to use) moves us in exactly the wrong direction.

Geothermal, Government

Subsidizing Electricity Bills

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Richard Ha writes:
 
The Big Island Community Coalition is going to advocate that Hawai‘i County pay the electricity bills of people who choose to live in close proximity to any of the island's geothermal projects. 
 
It makes perfect sense that if we are going to use our geothermal resources to provide electricity for our island population, we also use some of it to benefit those who live nearby and have to deal with the inconvenience and noise.
 
Our proposal is that the County Council tap into funds that come from geothermal to cover the first 600kw of electricity for families, perhaps for those that live within the one-mail radius previously identified by the County (this is the area where they have offered to buy back homes). Six hundred kilowatts is the figure HELCO cites as an average monthly home usage. 
 
It would be a win for the people, and also for the County. Instead of buying homes, which would mean putting out $250,000 up front to buy back a home, the County would pay approximately $250/month or $3000/year. That original $250,000 would last about 80 years.
 
Everybody benefits.
Big Island, Education, Geothermal, Hydrogen, Lowering Electric Rates, Mauna Kea, Peak Oil, Science, Sustainability, Where We Live

A Big Picture Look

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Richard Ha writes:

Yesterday I sat in Judge Nakamura’s courtroom full of people both for and against the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) being built on Mauna Kea. I looked over at Kealoha Pisciotta, who has led the opposition all these years, and thought about how much I admire her.

As I sat there, I thought back to 2008, when rising oil prices started being such a big concern. At the top of my mind then was finding an economic alternative to tourism and opportunities for keiki education, both of which the TMT will provide. Locating the TMT here is a great opportunity, and I put a lot of effort into supporting it.

As I sat there yesterday, I thought, too, about how the TMT will help the Big Island cope with our rising energy costs and changing economy; because of it, money will flow into our economy instead of out. It will bring 10 years of construction jobs, and $1 million/year toward Big Island student education for each of more than 55 years. More importantly, it will bring to the Big Island an attitude of “Not, No Can. CAN!”

In 2007, I’d met Gail Tverberg at my first Peak Oil conference in Houston. A former insurance actuary whose job was to price insurance risk, she is someone who approaches the world oil supply problem from a risk management perspective. I helped bring her to the Big Island to give presentations, and she observed that our dependence on tourism makes Hawai‘i very vulnerable.

In 2008, shale and gas production hadn’t yet started in earnest. Natural gas prices were very high at $12/thousand cubic feet. According to a USDA analysis, there was an 80 percent correlation of natural gas price to ammonia fertilizer cost, and that had a frightening effect on local farmers. The price of natural gas dropped to $2/mcf, and now it’s around $4.50/mcf. This, coupled with a subsequent increase in natural gas supply, has given us some breathing room. But it’s only temporary.

We have another fairly unique opportunity to protect ourselves against seriously rising energy costs, which are already impacting our lives negatively and will continue to go up if we don’t make changes:

Geothermal energy.

After having attended five Association for the Study conferences (the only person from our state to do so) I’ve found that it’s all a matter of 1) cost, 2) what works and 3) comparative risk.

Geothermal addresses all three of those points. It’s inexpensive compared to using oil to produce our energy; we already know that it works; and after decades of experience with it here, the comparative risk is low.

It also allows the possibility of making hydrogen, which we can use to fuel our ground transportation, and also ammonia fertilizer for farmers. There are a lot of wins there.

Geothermal, Hydrogen, Iceland, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Science, Sustainability

Iceland & Hydrogen Fuel

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Richard Ha writes:

This is a video about Iceland's hydrogen project.

 

Now that fleets of fuel cell vehicles are being readied for roll out, Iceland is prepared and ready to get off petroleum for its land and sea transportation.

We can do the same with our curtailed – thrown away! – wind, geothermal and solar power.

I took these photos, posted on their hydrogen refueling station wall, in Iceland in 2011. They give a good, easy-to-read overview.

1. Iceland hydrogen refueling station

Bamboo hydro 006

Bamboo hydro 006

Bamboo hydro 006

Bamboo hydro 006

Big Island, Current Affairs, Food Security, Geothermal, Government, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Science, Sustainability

‘La La La La La’

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Richard Ha writes:

Farmers and other Ag and business people on the Big Island are in disbelief – to put it mildly – that Mayor Kenoi signed Bill 113, the anti-GMO bill, last week, without first putting together a group to research the science and investigate the serious, unintended consequences we know will result.

But farmers are very practical and play the position that exists on the chessboard, not the position they wish they had. Most of us are moving into strategic contraction mode now.

For example, we had an application in to the USDA to dedicate 264 acres of our farm into agricultural land for perpetuity. We had been going through the vetting process over the last two years and had already been told we were among the top three state projects, as determined by a Department of Land and Natural Resources subcommittee.

I just received a letter Friday asking for more information about our application, with a comment from the Western Region director stating that our project had the highest priority.

I wrote back saying we are withdrawing our application. Nothing personal; just playing the position that now exists. Instead, we will subdivide the property so we have options as we go forward into a future that has some new uncertainties.

If there’s an upside to the mayor signing the bill, it’s that maybe now we will finally take a real look at the current Peak Oil crisis and how it affects the Big Island’s food self-sufficiency situation, and come to grips with finding long-term solutions.

Being open to safe scientific advances when needed (a.k.a. biotech or “GMO”) would have been a way to decrease our dependence on petroleum products, such as pesticides and fertilizers, and increase our island’s food self-sufficiency.

Geothermal energy is another no-brainer that will protect us from rising energy costs. Utilizing geothermal energy – which according to geophysicists will be available to us for at least 500,000 years – we can have stable electricity at an affordable price. As another benefit of geothermal, we can take the currently “curtailed” (collected but unused) electricity and make hydrogen for ground transportation; and by combining it with nitrogen in the air, we can make fertilizer that doesn’t depend on petroleum products and continue to get more and more expensive.

But Senator Ruderman doesn’t see this and wants to kill geothermal energy.

Why? Where is he steering our ship? It feels rudderless.

These are turbulent times. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was on CNN yesterday saying that despite dumping money into the economy, businesses are sitting on a lot of cash and not investing, and banks are not lending because it’s too risky. 

He said that the level of uncertainty is like it was during the Great Depression. The next Fed chair will have to manage the interest rate, and too high an interest rate will roil the stock market. He said, “It’s hard to manage psychology.”

I do not see people paying attention to this, so let me extrapolate from what he’s saying: As a result, regular folk are not earning as much money. As a consequence of that, the government will not be able to tax people at a level needed to keep services going, such as maintaining roads (which, of course, requires products made from petroleum).

How far will this go on before we can no long maintain our infrastructure the way we are accustomed to, or take care of our poor people who need help?

What Alan Greenspan is talking about is serious business, and he’s certainly not the only person saying it.

This all boils down to the cost of energy, and how we utilize our resources in a smart and efficient manner.

I’ve gone to five Peak Oil conferences now, and have learned that experts there are all, consistently, saying that the net energy available to society is decreasing as it gets more difficult to get the energy. The consequence of this is less growth, which means less money for the government to perform the services we need to continue living the way we live. Where will the money come from?

Another expert who is highly respected is actury Gail Tverberg. She is as credible as anyone I’ve heard, and she too says it all boils down to the cost of energy. Not availability, nor how much oil still exists, but how much it costs to obtain it – and we all know those costs are only going higher. She writes: 

Oil and other fossil fuels are unusual materials. Historically, their value to society has been far higher than their cost of extraction. It is the difference between the value to society and their cost of extraction that has helped economies around the world grow. Now, as the cost of oil extraction rises, we see this difference shrinking. As this difference shrinks, the ability of economies to grow is eroding, especially for those countries that depend most heavily on oil–Japan, Europe, and the United States. It should not be surprising if the growth of these countries slows as oil prices rise…. Read the rest

Using GMOs to help leverage our year-round growing season was a workaround, and in my opinion, it was much less risky than what Alan Greenspan, Gail Tverberg and other experts say is coming.

We need to take action and prepare for these changing conditions. If it turns out they were wrong, no harm/no foul. If they are right, using GMO's to avoid petroleum costs in fertilizer and pesticides would have helped us immensely; and using geothermal energy will improve our lifestyle measurably.

Note that I’m not just talking about this – the whole situation scared me enough that we went and put in a hydroelectric system for the farm.

This is not about the sky falling. It’s about common sense. It’s all a matter of how much risk we are willing to take.

We need to decrease our dependence on petroleum, and our energy costs. Rising electricity costs affect the price of our food, and they take away discretionary income from the rubbah slippah folks. Consumer spending makes up two-thirds of our economy.

It’s foolish for us to put our thumbs in our ears and our fingers over our eyes and sing, “La la la la la,” but that’s what seems to be going on around here. 

We’d better have a clear-headed discussion about our future.

Geothermal, Lowering Electric Rates, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Robert Rapier & Tar Sands

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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.

Big Island, Eating Locally, Food Security, Geothermal, Government, Lowering Electric Rates, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Science, Sustainability

Let’s Adapt To Change, And Survive/Thrive

Richard Ha writes:

What we’re doing on the Big Island with Bill 113 is trying to make a law that prohibits us from helping ourselves. It is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.

The biggest problem we face today is at the intersection of energy and agriculture. In a nutshell: As petroleum prices rise, there’s a direct consequence on agriculture and everything that goes into it (fertilizer, chemicals, packing materials, etc.).

We rely on oil here far more than does the U.S. mainland. We generate 78 percent of our electricity from oil, whereas on the mainland, it’s only two percent. As oil prices rise, everything that has electric costs associated with it gets more expensive. We already see this happening.

Our farmers and food producers on this agricultural-based island are becoming less competitive, and our food prices are skyrocketing.

We need to find a way to be more competitive, which will not only keep our farmers and food producers working, and make us more “food secure,” but will also make our food costs go down instead of continuing to increase.

It’s energy and technology that determine agricultural costs, and fortunately we have two ways to solve this big problem:

Energy

We are extremely fortunate here on the Big Island to have a resource that most places don’t have: We have the gift of geothermal energy. Geothermal costs only half as much as oil, and the resource will be stable (we will be over the “hot spot” that makes it possible) for 500,000 years.

If we increase our use of geothermal over the years as the price of oil rises, we will be more competitive with the rest of the world. This will be good for our island’s ag industry and also for our people, who will see prices go down, instead of up.

Agriculture

Biotech solutions generally lower costs. They can help increase production, whether it’s with university-developed solutions that help plants resist diseases and pests, or biotech solutions that allow plants to manufacture their own nitrogen so we don’t have to import fertilizer (which requires electricity to produce and oil to get to Hawai‘i).

Then we will be able to rely on natural sunlight for our primary energy, which gives us a tremendous, and not common, advantage – we can grow crops here all year around. Insects, pests and weeds grow all year around too, though, and biotech can safely help us with those problems so we will become even more sustainable and competitive.

Using geothermal plus appropriate biotech solutions can give us a huge advantage over the rest of the world, and make life better for us here at home, but we don’t have much time. We have to let science and technology prevail so we can move forward, not stagnate nor fall behind, and we have to get on this now.

There is some unwarranted fear about using biotechnology, but know that all the major scientific organizations in the world say foods created with biotechnology are as safe as those created otherwise.

Oil is a finite resource, and its cost will rise. There is no question about this. It’s a predictable consequence of what’s happening now, and this is not just my take on it.

Gail Tverberg, who is an actuary and an expert on Peak Oil, says it’s not the physical oil that’s a problem, but it’s whether or not we can afford it – because, of course, the harder it is to find the oil, the more expensive it becomes. This is what’s happening right now. She predicts that in two years we’ll be in really serious trouble.

Citibank recently put out a report predicting that Saudi Arabia will no longer export oil by year 2030 – only 17 years from now – because they will be using all their oil within their own country. The consequence of this would be rising oil prices, and the effects would be felt much sooner than 2030.

Many, many other reports agree that the price of oil will continue to rise. The whole prospect is pretty scary.

Michael Kumhof of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says the IMF can’t even model what will happen if oil hits $200/barrel, because that would be entirely uncharted territory.

I have been to five Peak Oil conferences now, which I started attending in order to figure out how to position our farm for the future. In the course of learning about the oil situation, I realized I was the only person from Hawai‘i attending, and realized I needed to share what I was learning here at home.

What I learned is that the world has been using two to three times as much oil as we’ve been finding, and that this trend continues. Over the five years I attended the conferences, we started to hear predictions of when unparalleled high oil prices, the kind the IMF cannot even model, could occur.

It might be two years from now, or it might be 20 years, but it will happen, and it might happen soon. We need to start preparing now.

Charles Darwin said it’s not the strongest nor the smartest who survive, but the ones that can adapt to change. Let’s survive, and more.

Big Island, Geothermal, Peak Oil

Do You Know The Rule of 70?

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Richard Ha writes:

One of the most important things I have learned from going to Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) conferences is “The Rule of 70.”

The Rule of 70 tells you the doubling time of anything that is growing at a compound rate. For example, China’s economy is growing at seven percent a year. How many years will it take for its economy to double?

Seventy divided by seven percent per year tells you that in 10 years, China’s economy will double.

Once you know that, you can start to ask the questions: Will they have enough oil? Where will it come from? How about water? Etc.

Professor Albert Bartlett, an advisor to ASPO until he passed away this month, said that the biggest shortcoming of the human race is its inability to understand this exponential function.

From the blog Resource Insights:

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

Albert Bartlett: On message about exponential growth to the end

Albert Bartlett might have been another obscure physics professor had he not put together a now famous lecture entitled “Arithmetic, Population and Energy” in 1969. The lecture, available broadly on the internet, begins with the line: “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”

The logic is surprisingly simple and irrefutable. Exponential growth, which is simply consistent growth at some percentage rate each year (or other time period), cannot proceed indefinitely within a finite system, for example, planet Earth. The fact that human populations continue to grow or that the extraction of energy and other natural resources continues to climb does not in any way refute this statement. It simply means that the absolute limits have not yet been reached….

“…exponential growth in the consumption of finite resources is unsustainable. At some point growth in the rate of extraction will cease. And, given the dependence of the economy on continuous growth of resource inputs including energy, this leads to instability and finally decline.”

Read the rest

The message: Compound growth of a finite resource is, clearly, not sustainable.

This is why the Big Island should be using our geothermal resource for energy, and technology instead of oil in farming.

Since the Big Island will be over our geothermal “hot spot” for 500,000 to a million years, we can view geothermal energy as sustainable.

Let’s say the State’s Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) needs an annual return of 7 percent. That means its money will need to double in 10 years. How?

How about Hawai‘i’s economy doubling in 24 years? That would result from a compound growth of just 3 percent. Would we need double the number of hotel rooms? But if the price of oil keeps rising, can we do that?

These are important considerations.

Food Security, Geothermal, Lowering Electric Rates

One Cost of Paradise: Food Insecurity

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Richard Ha writes:

The high cost of Paradise is making us less and less food secure.

From the Economic Research Organization at the University of Hawaii:

An Insight on the Cost of Paradise

Posted July 3, 2013 | 

Whether visitors or residents in Hawai‘i, we are all aware of the high cost of living in paradise. One major contributing factor is the cost of energy. Households in Hawai‘i pay 4 times more than the average US household and nearly 7 times the households in Utah, where the residential energy cost is the cheapest in the nation.* While the US average for April 2013 hovered at 12 cents/kwh, Hawai‘i paid 37 cents/kwh for electricity in the residential sector.** … Read the rest here

Hawai‘i uses oil for more than 70 percent of its electricity, while the U.S. mainland uses oil for only 2 percent of its electricity. Any
food product from the mainland that uses lots of electricity in its processing has an increasing advantage over Hawai‘i food producers and manufacturers.

The U.S. mainland is both our supplier and our competitor. The mainland’s use of cheap natural gas versus our usage of expensive feedstock for electricity production makes all the difference. It’s all about cost. There is no free lunch. Subsidies are not free.

Agriculture and energy are inextricably tied together. Energy helps us do work. Since no one in the world has found a solution for liquid transportation fuel, we need to look to electricity.

On the Big Island, we do have a solution. Geothermal is the cheapest way to generate electricity. And with the throwaway electricity at night, we can generate ammonia, which is a nitrogen fertilizer as well as a hydrogen source. And when we generate cheap electricity, we can run electric vehicles as an alternative to using liquid fuel.

Stable cost for fertilizer for farmers, low-cost electricity for the rubbah slippah folks, clean transportation and a low walk around cost for tourists. We can have the best of all worlds.

Not no can! CAN!

Aquaponics, Bananas, Big Island, Eating Locally, Family of Farms, Food Security, Geothermal, Hamakua Coast, How It All Started, Hydroelectric, Hydroponics, Lowering Electric Rates, Our Employees, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability, Taro/Poi, Tomatoes, Water, Where We Live

The Wheres & Whyfors of Hamakua Springs

By Leslie Lang

The other day Richard gave some of us a tour of Hamakua Springs Country Farms in Pepe‘ekeo, and its new hydroelectric plant, and wow. I hadn’t been out to the farm for awhile, and it was so interesting to ride around the 600 acres with Richard and see all that’s going on there these days.

Most of what I realized (again) that afternoon fell into two
broad categories: That Richard really is a master of seeing the big picture, and that everything he does is related to that big picture.

Hamakua Springs, which started out growing bananas and then expanded into growing the deliciously sweet hydroponic tomatoes we all know the farm for, has other crops as well.

tomatoes.jpgThese days there are farmers leasing small plots where they are growing taro, corn, ginger and sweet potato. These farmers’ products go to the Hamakua Springs packing house and Hamakua Springs distributes them, which speaks to Richard’s goal of providing a place for local farmers to farm, wherethere is water and packing and distribution already in place.

As we drove, we saw a lot of the water that passes through his farm. There are three streams and three springs. It’s an enormous amount of water, and it’s because of all this water that he was able to develop his brand new hydroelectric system, where they are getting ready to throw the switch.

The water wasn’t running through there the day we were there because they’d had to temporarily “turn it off” – divert the water – in order to fix something, but we could see how the water from an old plantation flume now runs through the headworks and through a pipe and into the turbine, which is housed in a blue shipping container.

hydro.jpg

This is where the electricity is generated, and I was interested to see a lone electric pole standing there next to the system. End of the line! Or start of the line, really, as that’s where the electricity from the turbine is carried to. And from there, it works its way across the electric lines stretched between new poles reaching across the land.

Screen Shot 2013-06-06 at 11.17.00 PM

He asked the children who were along with us for their ideas
about how to landscape around the hydroelectric area, and also where the water leaves the turbine to run out and rejoin the stream.

Screen Shot 2013-06-06 at 11.17.00 PM

“We could do anything here,” he said, asking for thoughts, and
we all came up with numerous ideas, some fanciful. Trees and grass? A taro lo‘i? Maybe a picnic area, or a water flume ride or a demonstration garden or fishponds?

There are interesting plans for once the hydro system is operating, including a certified kitchen where local area producers can bring their products and create value-added goods.

Other plans include having some sort of demo of sustainable
farming, and perhaps ag-tourism ativities like walking trails going through the farm, and maybe even a B&B. “The basis of all tourism,” he said, “is sustainability.”

Hamakua Springs is also experimenting with growing mushrooms
now, and looking into several other possibilities for using its free
electricity.

As we stopped and looked at the streams we kept coming
across, which ran under the old plantation roads we drove upon, Richard made an observation that I found interesting. In the Hawaiian way, the land is thought of as following the streams down from mountain to sea. In traditional ways, paths generally ran up-and-down the hill, following the shape of the ahupua‘a.

“But look at the plantation roads,” he said, and he pointed
out how they run across the land, from stream to stream. The plantation way was the opposite. Not “wrong” – just different.

Richard has plans to plant bamboo on the south sides of the
streams, which will keep the water cool and keep out invasive species.

At the farm, they continue to experiment with raising
tilapia, which are in four blue pools next to the reservoir.

June & Tilapia.jpgJune with a full net

The pools are at different heights because they are using gravity to flow the water from one pool to the next, rather than a pump. Besides it being free, this oxygenates the water as it falls into the next pool. They are not raising the fish commercially at present, but give them to their workers.

Everything that Richard does is geared toward achieving the same goal, and that is to keep his farm economically viable and sustainable.

If farmers make money, farmers will farm.

Continuing to farm means continuing to provide food for the local community, employing people locally and making it possible for local people to stay in Hawai‘i: This as opposed to people having to leave the islands, or their children having to leave the islands, in order to make a decent life for themselves.

The hydroelectric system means saving thousands per month in
electric bills, and being able to expand into other products and activities. It means the farm stays in business and provides for the surrounding community. It means people have jobs.

This is the same reason why, on a bigger scale, Richard is working to bring more geothermal into the mix on the Big Island: to decrease the stranglehold that high electricity costs have over us, so the rubbah slippah folk have breathing room, so that we all have more disposable income – which will, in turn, drive our local economy and make our islands more competitive with the rest of the world, and our standard of living higher, comparably.

When he says “rubbah slippah folk,” Richard told me, he’s always thinking first about the farm’s workers.

This, by the way, is really a great overview of how Richard describes the “big picture.” It’s a TEDx talk he did awhile back (17 minutes). Really worth a look.

It was so interesting to see firsthand what is going on at the farm right now, and hear about the plans and the wheres and whyfors. Thank you, Richard, for a really interesting and insightful afternoon.