Category Archives: Geothermal

Mahalo, & a Silver Lining

Mahalo, everyone, for sending in testimony in support of the DLNR’s request to streamline the process of drilling exploratory geothermal wells. There was a flood of testimony in favor of the exemptions, and the non-invasive exploration was approved.

The “slim hole” exploration exemption, however, was not approved.

I thought that former Mayor and long time Civil Defense Director Harry Kim’s appeal – for the process to slow down and not move forward too fast – was very effective. Though we were on opposite sides of the “slim hole” issue, we are both concerned about the community.

It might be that this delay has a silver lining. It will give us time to gather up the data first, so we really understand how our resource looks, and it gives us time to go back to the Puna community and talk more with them, as well.

Gary Hooser, who voted against exemptions in committee, had asked for extra time for the Mayor to testify since he came all the way from the Big Island. I ran into Mayor Kim on the plane back to Hilo, and he told me we are both working for the same result. I agreed with him.

We are now going through the process, just like Patrick Kahawaiola‘a talks about.

From this blogPatrick Kahawaiola‘a, President of the Keaukaha Community Association, told me, “It is about the process” – and so we need to aloha everyone, no matter what side of the issue they are on. 

It’s very important that our geothermal resource be assessed using the most modern techniques available. Hawai‘i is so far behind third-world nations in using modern techniques to assess our geothermal that it’s actually embarrassing.

The good news is that Dr. Don Thomas will start doing this research soon. Once we have the resulting data, we can all have a real, informed conversation as to what the next steps should be.

Where we’re at right now:

In order to accommodate the 72 MW of new planned increase to HELCO’s grid, which consists of 22MW from Hu Honua biomass plant as well as the 50MW of new geothermal, HELCO will need to shut down an equivalent number of oil fired plants.
This will stop the oil cost pass through of 72MW of electricity, and result in lowering and stabilizing of electricity costs to Big Island rate payers.

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What You Can Do To Support Geothermal Right Now

People have been asking what they can do to show their support for geothermal.
Would you consider sending in supporting testimony for DLNR’s request to streamline the process of drilling exploratory geothermal wells? Read the full DLNR exemption request here. This exemption was approved on May 3rd, and is up for final approval tomorrow.
You can see from these photos that the exploratory wells are not big.
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And this would not exempt them from having to do an EIS if they plan to do production wells.
To send in your support, email the Office of Environmental Quality of the Department of Health before their meeting, which is at 2 p.m. tomorrow (5/17/12).
Some good reasons to support this follow. You can click on the email address, say you support the DLNR’s request to streamline the process of drilling exploratory geothermal wells, and then write about the reasons you’d like to include:
  • Oil prices are rising and we are running out of time.
  • If we can find alternate sites, Puna residents would not feel so beleaguered.
  • Geothermal energy will save people money.
  • Businesses will grow and more jobs will be available.
  • Fewer of our young people will leave to find jobs elsewhere.
  • Lower electricity costs will help farmers.
The price of electricity generated from geothermal is half that of oil, and the price will not go up. We are far behind the rest of the world in assessing our geothermal resource.
This would only take a minute of your time, and is something you could do right now if you’re one of the people wanting to show support for geothermal.

My Op-Ed From Yesterday’s Paper: “Oil Price May Lead To Exporting Our Children”

I wrote an Op-Ed piece that appeared in yesterday’s Hawaii Tribune-Herald:

Oil price may lead to exporting our children

By RICHARD HA

Here are some real world facts, which people probably don’t realize yet because nobody’s comfortable talking about this: If we weren’t starting to change how we power our farm, we’d possibly be looking at bankruptcy before too long.

Recently, I talked to Dean Okimoto, of Nalo Farms, and he said the same thing. He’s not sure he’s going to be able to stay in business in the face of rising electricity costs.

I think there are plenty of other farmers in this same boat, too. Electricity prices keep doubling and doubling again — as do fertilizer and other farm input costs — and yet we cannot turn around and double the prices of our products.

Farmers are feeling guilty, like they’re failing in some way because they cannot make ends meet, but it’s not their fault as farmers. Energy prices are rising, and circumstances are out of our control.

…We need to come to grips with our situation, because there are serious consequences.

We will have to continue exporting our children, and Hawaii will change. Already there are more Hawaiians living on the U.S. mainland than here in Hawaii. People who have money will move here and find it a wonderful place to live, and those who can no longer afford it will leave.

It’s already happening. Look around downtown, and go into the nicer restaurants. They aren’t filled with local people. There are more mainland folks I don’t recognize than local people.

I don’t have any problem with people moving here, but I do have a problem with us having to export our children because we cannot afford to live here.

This is a call to action. We cannot sit back. We cannot afford to be quiet and afraid to rock the boat. We cannot afford to NOT take a stand. We have to do something….

There’s more. Read the rest here.

Also, I’m speaking on all this at Lyman Museum soon. It’s on Monday, May 19 at 7 p.m., if you are interested.

What Is Our Energy Goal?

The world has changed fundamentally in the last 10 years. The price of oil, which had been low-cost energy for as long as any of us can remember, doubled and then doubled again.

The cost of oil is out of our control; it’s determined by the demand from China, India and other developing countries. The U.S. is using a million barrels per day less than it used to, but the developing countries are now using 7 million barrels per day more.

What should be our overall goal? Net Energy analysis can help us make sense of things. That is the Energy Return on Investment (EROI). It’s the net energy left over from the energy spent to obtain it. Subtract, from that energy, the energy it takes to get food and that gives you your lifestyle. That is why energy and agriculture are inextricably tied together. EROI analysis can help us understand the basic elements at work.

The ancient Hawaiians, without metal ores, were able to manage a positive energy balance such that their civilization flourished. They did this by maximizing energy – sun, wind and waves. And they were extra observant of the environment. They had to be, because they did not have the tools available that others had.

They were good at what counts. They were survivors.

Now it’s our turn.

There is a limit as to how much solar and wind energy we can put into the grid as it’s presently configured. And we have not been able to demonstrate biofuel on an industrial scale. Biomass is limited by the supply of trees and fossil fuel inputs. Ocean energy and energy storage could be game changers in the future. But we are not there yet.

Our task is to figure out how we will achieve a positive energy balance for Hawaii in a future of rising oil price. Globalization has made the world very complicated. And it’s easy to confuse capital and technology for energy. A long time ago, a friend of mine from the mountains of Tennessee told me about a saying they had back home. He said, “You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip.”

But we can get affordable geothermal energy – a proven technology – out of the ground.

Re: Geothermal: Magnetotelluric Surveys Coming Soon

Dr. Don Thomas says he may be able to start magnetotelluric surveys as soon as June. It is very important to do these surveys, as they will result in the best information about our geothermal resources here on the Big Island and eventually in the whole state.

From Wikipedia:

Resistivity and Magnetotellurics

Magnetotellurics (MT) measurements allow detection of resistivity anomalies associated with productive geothermal structures, including faults and the presence of a cap rock, and allow for estimation of geothermal reservoir temperatures at various depths. MT has successfully contributed to the successful mapping and development of geothermal resources around the world since the early 1980s, including in the U.S.A. and countries located on the Pacific Ring of Fire such as Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, Ecuador, and Peru…

In the Philippines, we visited a geothermal plant obtaining steam from a volcano that last erupted 100,000 years ago. Could this mean that we might find hot rocks in unexpected places, like Mauna Kea, which last erupted 4,500 years ago?

Dr. Thomas estimates that he may be able to survey the whole state in a little over two years.

EROI is our Common Energy Language

We need a common frame of reference, and I think Energy Return on Investment (EROI) might be it.

It’s a simple concept: The energy you use to get energy, minus the energy it takes to get your food, gives you your lifestyle.

A mama cheetah needs to get enough energy from a rabbit to feed the kids, miss catching a few more rabbits and still have enough energy to catch another one, or else the species goes extinct.

All organisms, organizations and civilizations need surplus energy or they go extinct.

Professor Charlie Hall is the father of the EROI concept, and he has influenced me a lot. This is the Charles Hall paper that got my attention.

Professor Hall and his colleagues have been calculating the EROI of many energy sources. They’ve found that in the 1930s, you could use the energy in one barrel of oil to get you 100 more barrels of oil. By the 1970s it became 30-1. Now it is around 10-15 to 1. It is taking more energy to get energy.

The tar sands in Canada have an EROI of around 6-8 to 1. Shale oil, an incompletely cooked oil, is around 2.5 to 1. Biofuel is less than 2-1.

The EROI for geothermal is about 10-1, and because the Big Island will be over the geothermal “hot spot” for 500,000 to a million years, geothermal costs will remain stable.

Professor Hall estimates that it will take an EROI of 3-1 to maintain our present infrastructure – and that’s not counting the food we eat.

The significance of EROI analysis is that it applies to all of us, from ancient times to now. It’s the common thread that runs through the gift economy – such as the type the ancient Hawaiians had – as well as today’s market economy. It is about surplus energy. This is the common language we all can speak.

Some who are off the grid already have surplus energy, and others are on the grid and need time to transition. What energy source, under what conditions, can we use to help ourselves – and future generations of us?

This is the common language we need to be speaking, combined with Patrick Kahawaiola‘a wisdom: “It’s about the process.” He’s saying that if we follow the process, then everyone who contributes to the process makes for a better end result. Therefore, we must aloha everyone, no matter on what side of the issue they are on.

We must also incorporate Kumu Lehua Veincent’s wisdom: “What about the rest?” This is about all of us, not just a few.

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This is why I am so encouraged by the meetings that have been taking place. We are moving toward common ground.

Health & Safety re: Geothermal in Puna

I was very encouraged at the County Council meeting on geothermal that was held in Pahoa this last Tuesday evening. The community had a chance to be heard.

The Puna community met several times prior to that meeting, and Steve Hirakami, acting as facilitator, identified the community’s main concerns. About 100 votes indicated that the Pele cultural issue was a top concern. Non-Hawaiians taking this position vastly outnumber Hawaiians. Seventy to 80 folks listed health and safety as their top issues.

From the testimony at Tuesday’s meeting, it is clear that the Puna community feels uneasy about geothermal. I understand that the Environmental Committee, chaired by Councilwoman Brittany Smart, will be holding hearings regarding environmental issues – specifically health and safety. The hearings will bring clarity to the issues.

What we do know right now is the State Department of Health does not allow open venting, and requires they be alerted when emissions exceed 25 parts per billion. Note that personal H2S monitors sold on the Internet measure in “parts per million.” A billion is a thousand million. The Department of Health’s requirement is a very conservative one.

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Hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide coming out of the ground at the Sulfur Banks at Volcano, Hawai‘i

I commend Mayor Kenoi for initiating the Sister City relations with Ormoc City and for supporting the Geothermal Working Group, which was operating under an unfunded mandate. He has taken on the goal of making Hawaii County 100 percent reliant on non-fossil fuels by 2015.

That’s a high bar, but he has the guts to aim high. What’s at stake requires us to have a clear goal, for the benefit of all of us. Mayor Kenoi knows that geothermal will result in a better future for us all.

Patrick Kahawaiola‘a, President of the Keaukaha Community Association, told me, “It is about the process” – and so we need to aloha everyone, no matter what side of the issue they are on. And Kumu Lehua Veincent told me: “What about the rest?” He meant that this is about all of us, not just a few.

We all know that oil prices have doubled every 5.5 years recently. If it continues to follow that pattern, we do not have much time to act. We must all work together to find the best solution for all of us.

I visited both Iceland and the Philippines, and in both places open venting is allowed at their geothermal plants in certain circumstances. I learned that Hawai‘i’s air quality standards are very high compared to in those countries.

In August 2000, the EPA issued a report regarding the geothermal well blowout that occurred at Puna Geothermal Venture in June 1991. Read “Report on the Review of Hawaii County Emergency Operations Plan and Puna Geothermal Venture Emergency Response Plan” here. The Environmental Committee can use these findings and recommendations as a starting point.

From that report:

Blowout of well KS-8 June 12, 1991

Cause and Duration

“The blowout caused an unabated release of steam for a period of 31 hours before PGV succeeded in closing in the well. The report finds that the blowout occurred because of inadequacies in PGV’s drilling plan and procedures and not as a result of unusual or unmanageable subsurface geologic or hydrologic conditions.”

“Not only did PGV fail to modify its drilling program following the KS-7 blowout, but they also failed to heed numerous “red flags” (warning signals) in the five days preceding the KS-8 blowout, which included a continuous 1-inch flow of drilling mud out of the wellbore, gains in mud volume while pulling stands, and gas entries while circulating mud bottom up, in addition to lost circulation, that had occurred earlier below the shoe of the 13-3/8-inch casing.”

“PGV personnel took appropriate steps to control the well following the kick. However, there were certain inadequacies in PGV’s drilling operations and blowout prevention equipment. The mud cooler being used was inefficient. Monitoring equipment was not strategically placed. A sufficient supply of cold water was not available to pump into the wellbore to properly kill the well in the event of a blowout. The choke line was not of sufficient diameter to handle the volume of fluid that had to be vented, and there was no silencer on the end of the choke manifold line to reduce noise.”

It’s good that the County Council will be addressing all those issues. We all need to have a common frame of reference regarding safety. Everyone wants to do the right thing.

County Council Geothermal Meeting in Pahoa

Last night the County Council held a meeting in Pahoa regarding geothermal, and hundreds of people attended.

The Pele Defense Fund was scheduled to speak for an hour, but they had at least an hour and a half’s worth of material.

Read about it at the Big Island Chronicle: Puna News – Dispatch of a County Council Geothermal Meeting in Pahoa.

While island-wide these days there is a great deal of support for geothermal, most of the testimony from these people in Pahoa, near the Puna Geothermal Venture plant, was against geothermal for religious and safety reasons.

Clearly, these issues need to be addressed.

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I gave a short testimony in my role as a farmer. I talked about how I am the only person from Hawai‘i to have attended four Peak Oil conferences – because my farm costs were going up, due to the rising price of oil, and I wanted to learn as much as I could to help my farm adapt.

What I’ve learned has been very disturbing. I knew that I needed to transform my farm. But the burden of knowing that the world has been using twice as much oil as it had been finding for the last 20-30 years, and that this was going to continue, became my kuleana. I needed to inform people and also do something about it.

People might not have noticed, but in 2000 the oil price was $25 per barrel, and then it doubled to $50, and by the end of 2011 it was at $100/barrel. This means that the price of oil has doubled every 5.5 years.

If that continues, a family whose electric bill is $300 today can expect that in 5.5 years it will be close to $600/month. And when 11 years has gone by, it might approach $1,200/month.

Our families are struggling today; they will not be able to handle that added burden. They need relief now. We don’t have much time.

I pointed out that geothermal is estimated to cost 10 cents/kWh (according to a 2005 GeotherEx report), compared to electricity generated from oil, which costs more than 20 cents/kWh.

I said that I asked Jim Kauahikaua, Scientist-in-Charge at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, “How long will the Big Island be over the hot spot?” He replied, “500,000 to a million years.”

I said that we can expect electricity generated from oil, now at 20 cents/kWh, to double to 40 cents in 5.5 years and then to 80 cents/ kWh in 11 years – while geothermal would stay at 10 cents/kWh.

I told them what I asked Carl Bonham, head of the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization. As oil prices rise, I asked, and if we were to use geothermal as our primary base power, would Hawaii then become more competitive with the rest of the world? He said yes.

My next question to him is close to my heart, because of the effect on the “rubbah slippah folks.”

“Is it fair to say that our standard of living would rise, relative to the rest of the world?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

Gail Tverberg on 2011 World Oil Production Data

A few years ago, Gail Tverberg gave a presentation here on the Big Island to the Kanaka Council. Her view of the world energy situation caused a split in its membership – some of them are now pro-geothermal, and some are still against.

The pro-geothermal group agrees with Gail that one day “the boat not going come.” Meaning that one day, all things that have oil embedded will be too expensive for the common people to afford. To people with this view, geothermal is a gift from our volcano goddess Pele.

Gail is a mathematician and former insurance actuary. She quit her job pricing risk for the insurance industry to take on a higher calling – to inform people about the implications of the world’s oil supply not keeping up with demand.

There is a parable illustrating the need for empirical evidence. It concerns scholars vigorously debating the number of teeth in a horse’s mouth. A naive young man suggests that they might resolve the question by looking in the horse’s mouth and counting them. The scholars are horrified at this outrageous suggestion. 

The common folk – the rubbah slippah folks, as I call them – have counted the teeth in the horse’s mouth, and they know that the era of cheap oil is over. In their view, a hot water heater provides a luxury sponge bath, and a clothes dryer is a luxury clothesline. The electric grid is essential for the hospital, for childbirth support, life support, analysis, computers. It doesn’t take them 10 minutes to understand that cheap, proven and no greenhouse gas emissions is good. And that geothermal is cheap and proven technology.

The price of oil was $25 per barrel in 2000, then doubled to $50 per barrel and in 2011 doubled yet again to $100 per barrel. If the price of oil, electricity and water follow the same doubling pattern, we can expect today’s $300 monthly electricity bill to rise toward $600 by 2016 and $1,200 by 2022.

But there is a great upside. If we stabilize our electricity rates by using geothermal as our primary base power, then as the price of oil continues to rise we will become more competitive to the rest of the world. And our standard of living will rise.

We need compassionate, decisive leaders who will take all of us to a safer place. Not, no can. CAN!

From Gail Tverberg’s blog Our Finite World:

What the new 2011 EIA oil supply data shows

Posted on April 9, 2012

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently released full-year 2011 world oil production data. In this post, I would like show some graphs of recent data, and provide some views as to where this leads with respect to future production…. Read the rest

Icelandics Treat Hydrogen Sulfide Gas With Respect

When I went to Iceland, I sat in the Blue Lagoon for several hours.

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The Blue Lagoon (Icelandic: “Bláa lónið”) geothermal spa is one of the most visited attractions in Iceland. The steamy waters are part of a lava formation….

The warm waters are rich in minerals like silica and sulphur and bathing in the Blue Lagoon is reputed to help some people suffering from skin diseases such as psoriasis. The water temperature in the bathing and swimming area of the lagoon averages 37–39 °C (98–102 °F). The Blue Lagoon also operates a Research and Development facility to help find cures for other skin ailments using the mineral-rich water.

The lagoon is fed by the water output of the nearby geothermal power plant Svartsengi and is renewed every 2 days. Superheated water is vented from the ground near a lava flow and used to run turbines that generate electricity. After going through the turbines, the steam and hot water passes through a heat exchanger to provide heat for a municipal hot water heating system. Then the water is fed into the lagoon for recreational and medicinal users to bathe in. (from Wikipedia)

The geothermal plant was close by with steam (H2S?) plumes going into the air. Iceland and the Phillipines allows some direct venting into the atmosphere Hawaii does not.

To understand the distance, here’s a comparison. If the Blue Lagoon was KTA Pu‘ainako, the geothermal plant was approximately as far away as the Prince Kuhio Shopping Center, maybe a quarter of a mile.

Iceland has one of the highest voting rates in the world – in the high 80 percent. They are also some of the most educated people in the world.

The water was from the geothermal plant and tasted a little salty. It flowed through continuously and I could open my eyes underwater. It smelled slightly of sulfur.

Farmers understand that “the dose makes the poison.” For instance, the instructions for disposing of any chemical container, even the most toxic, is to “triple rinse” before disposal. The idea is that if some unsuspecting person grabs the container and uses it for drinking water, it won’t hurt them.

It seemed to me that the emissions were being diluted with the air much like triple rinsing.