Category Archives: Renewable Energy Sources

Renewable Energy Sources

The New York Times on a Geothermal Future

I couldn’t agree more with this recent editorial from the New York Times about our new administration making the advancement of geothermal a priority.

Geothermal Future

To most people the word “geothermal” means hot springs and geysers — like parts of Iceland or Yellowstone National Park where water is heated by the presence of magma near the surface of the earth. But the earth’s heat lies below everywhere, and it offers a virtually untapped energy reserve of enormous potential with a very short list of drawbacks….

Read the full editorial here.

Community, Food Security, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Pacific Century Fellows at the Farm

Yesterday, the 10th class of Pacific Century Fellows visited our farm.

Here’s a little about the Pacific Century Fellows:

The objective of the Pacific Century Fellows Program is to develop leaders with a greater awareness and sensitivity to the people and institutions of Hawaii. Based on the White House Fellows Program, the Pacific Century Fellows Program will bring together annually up to 25 of Hawaii’s most promising individuals from all walks of life, fields and professions. They’ll gain a broader view of civic duty through direct contact with senior community, social and government leaders. The program encourages the development of long-term relationships between leaders young and old, united in their commitment to find creative solutions to the challenges facing the state.

The people in this program are our future leaders; our best and brightest. What message did I want to get across? I decided to talk about the most important issue facing our state: that Hawai‘i imports 90 percent of its food. How will we make sure we can feed ourselves?

I told them that this is not rocket science. “If the farmers make money, farmers will farm.”

Modeled after the White House Fellows Program and founded by Mayor Mufi Hannemann, the Fellows are chosen on the basis of a written application and personal interview conducted by a blue-ribbon panel of judges. Individuals who are chosen have shown strong intellectual and leadership abilities in the early and mid-stages of their careers, and who have the potential to make significant contributions to the community in the future.

The Pacific Century Fellows Program will provide participants with direct contact with senior community, social, and government leaders. A goal of the program is to nurture relationships among individuals who are committed to exploring creative and constructive solutions to far-reaching challenges facing the state and nation.

I told them that we at Hamakua Springs Country Farms plan at least five years out for a future that we need to be relevant within. And that the physical layout they were seeing was planned five years ago, and is not really where we are now.

What is that future that we must be relevant within? I told them that this simple formula makes sense for us and applies to everyone in Hawai‘i: Net energy return on energy invested, minus the energy used for food production, gives us our life style.

Say it takes one barrel of oil to extract 15 barrels of oil, and it takes two barrels of oil to produce food for a certain number of people. Then our group would have 13 barrels of oil to do everything else – like run lights, pump water, drive to Kona, go fishing, etc. We would be living better than kings in years past.

But it is getting more and more difficult to extract oil. Say, one barrel now can only extract 10 barrels, and it still takes two barrels to grow our food.  Now we have only eight barrels instead of 13 to do everything else. This is not rocket science either. It is a simple formula to manipulate.

We need to figure out how we can get the best net energy return on energy invested. And we need to figure out how to lessen our dependence on oil to produce our food.

And other things flow from the principles above:

If done correctly, the Thirty Meter Telescope is a good thing. It can help educate our keiki and help future generations cope.

The E Malama ‘Aina sustainability festival is meant to show people they are not alone as oil prices rise and times start getting challenging.

I am very supportive of geothermal energy use. This is the best source of renewable energy we have here in Hawai‘i. It is a great gift.

Plug it into our formula above and we end up with a better lifestyle. In fact we have so many sources of renewable energy, we can have a relatively better lifestyle than the U.S. mainland.

The reason we pushed the alternate energy loan program through the last legislature is because “if the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm.”

It’s why we support an extra incentive for farmers to develop alternative energy projects.

It’s also why we support a discount for produce transported on Young Brothers’ barges.

We must not lose our focus. We need closer communities – we need to make more friends and we need to be closer to our families. We need to help each other as we face tougher times ahead.

Hawaiians knew how to do this.  It is called the Aloha Spirit. And it works best when everyone practices it.

I think President Elect Obama, who grew up here in Hawai‘i, carries the influence of the Aloha Spirit with him, and that is what is making this country hopeful.

Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

Why Geothermal is Better Than Biomass

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

…In 2006, a panel led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology surveyed the prospects for electricity production from enhanced geothermal systems. Its conclusions were conservative but very optimistic. The panel suggested that with modest federal support, geothermal power could play a critical role in America’s energy future, adding substantially to the nation’s store of renewable energy and more than making up for coal-burning power plants that would have to be retired….

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!

Aquaponics, Food Security, Hamakua Coast, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

A New Year: Looking Forward

Years ago, we decided we need to plan for the worse and hope for the best. We have always try to position ourselves for where we will need to be in five or 10 years.

In the early part of 2008, rising oil prices squeezed us and other farmers. Oil prices have dropped, but assuming they start to rise again and will probably be higher than before – where do we need to be five and 10 years from now?

When oil prices spiked earlier this year, we could feel the strain it put on our employees as they struggled to stretch their paychecks. We could not raise their pay, but we were able to supply them with food every Thursday, when we gave them bananas, tomatoes and other things we grew. Utilizing our free water resource, we now plan to also supply our workers with tilapia fish, for protein.

Because of our free fresh water, we can grow tilapia without much input other than food. Roy Tanaka tells us that tilapia are vegetarians and we may be able to feed the fish “off grade” vegetables and fruit. We are not necessarily interested in seeing how fast the fish can grow. We are more interested in using waste products to keep costs down so we can give our people food.

When oil prices rise again, we will see electricity, water and gas prices rise, too. To be prepared for rising oil prices we are installing a hydroelectric generator in the flume that runs through our property. It will generate enough electricity to supply our whole operation and still have 25 percent left over. We plan to let our workers plug in their electric hybrids at the farm as an extra benefit of working for Hamakua Springs.

Operationally, we know that rising oil prices means rising fertilizer prices. So on the portion of land we lease out, we work with area farmers in order that crop rotation and cover cropping benefits each other. Together with hydroelectricity, we will change the cost characteristics of banana, sweet potato and other crops.

I can say that crop rotating bananas and sweet potatoes has never been done before. But why not? The principles are sound.

We also have small growers working the ridgelines and small niches that fit their size. They do crops that we don’t do and so we complement each other. On our 600-acre parcel, we are working toward having many variations of food. Doing this will engage many people. When push comes to shove, it is important that many people have a vested interest in our system of agriculture.

Generating electricity from the river means that our electricity costs will be stable. In contrast, no one can guess how high oil prices will rise. I think they will go much higher than what we saw several months ago. Better safe than sorry.

Looking beyond the farm, if we have cheap electricity then we can serve as a place to consolidate and refrigerate shipments of other farmer’ products, so they can get to O‘ahu in a cost-effective manner. This is important because O‘ahu land prices are so high and the population is so densely arranged that it’s not easy to see how the people there can feed themselves. This means that outer-island farmers need to be positioned to supply food for O‘ahu in a seamless manner.

We found that three ahupua‘a run through our farm and that was very interesting to know. I feel I am in tune with how the Hawaiians would have managed these lands in the old days.  It is about observation, diligence and common sense.

Putting everything together, we have all the pieces to make a sustainable community and maybe even a whole district. It seems to me that with further collaboration, we can supply all the food for people living between Hilo and Honoka‘a, and probably even further.

It will be an interesting year. Best wishes to you and yours for a good 2009.

Renewable Energy Sources

Secretary of Food

A New York Times op-ed by Nicholas Kristof, published Wednesday, starts like this:

As Barack Obama ponders whom to pick as agriculture secretary, he should reframe the question. What he needs is actually a bold reformer in a position renamed “secretary of food.”

A Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat.

Renaming the department would signal that Mr. Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy – all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

Here in Hawai‘i, we need to rethink our own structure so we will be able to effectively deal with tomorrow’s problems. Some of our most pressing problems have to do with agriculture and energy. They are inextricably intertwined.

Fossil fuel energy has allowed agriculture to feed the world’s people. In a world of declining fossil fuel energy, we must reorganize so that our agricultural systems maximize our available resources.

This also means that we need to incentive farmers to utilize renewable energy sources. For example, it is not wise these days to subsidize value-added processing plants that depend on fossil fuel energy. When energy prices rise again, as we all know they will, those processing plants will end up as skeletons bleaching in the sun.

We know that to become food secure, farmers need to be able to make a living. It is not rocket science: “If the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm.”

Instead of relying on imported foreign labor to produce our food, we need to think about relocating our farms to where the labor supply is located. This means we need to disburse our food production so that it’s all throughout the state.

Utilizing new, renewable energy sources to generate power can catch the next generations’ imagination and convince them to farm. It’s much more interesting than watching tomato plants grow.

Read the rest of the New York Times article here.

Food Security, Government, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Trouble on Hawai‘i’s Farms

Hawai‘i’s farmers are in trouble. There was an informational meeting of the House Agriculture, Water, Land and Ocean Committees Friday, and several of us testified. A post about it on the House of Representatives blog is titled The Rodney Dangerfield of the Economy and refers to how agriculture “doesn’t get any respect.”

IMG_0155_1House Committees on Agriculture, Land, Water and Ocean. The Farm Bureau requested this informational hearing prior to the regular session.

This informational meeting came about after I gave a short speech at the Farm Bureau convention in October. Everybody’s business was in trouble but nobody wanted to talk. It’s local style to keep quiet, be reticent and not complain. I told the farmers in attendance that I knew they were having a hard time and that they should not have to suffer in silence.

I said, “You shouldn’t feel like you have to make an excuse. In fact, you shouldn’t have to shoulder the whole burden yourself.”

Shortly after that, Mae Nakahata, Vice President of the Farm Bureau, called me and said that some of the farmers she knew were in serious financial trouble. She then started the ball rolling to do something to help farmers. She was the driving force behind Friday’s informational meeting of the legislators.

IMG_0156_1It was standing room only, with three TV cameras and several print journalists present. Clifton Tsuji, chair of the Ag Committee, told me it was very unuusal to see this many people at an informational briefing.

Although we are considered large farmers, I do not think it’s prudent to depend on a few large farms. I am also very concerned about the idea that any of Hawai‘i farmers may be hiring illegal foreign workers. This video clip shows two O‘ahu farm managers being led away in handcuffs.

This is very disappointing because while this was going on, a lot of us were down at the Capitol testifying that farmers were in trouble. In an earlier informal survey, the farm in those news articles was understood to be one of only a few farms that was doing well. But if the stories are true and that farm was doing well because of illegal activity, this is not healthy for our state agricultural industry.

I don’t think we should be relying on foreign labor in this day and age, with what’s happening to our economy (which we know will get worse before it gets better). It’s not sustainable, and more importantly we should have local people working on our farms. We can accomplish this by diversifying geographically – so that our farms are where the people, and the resources, are.

I testified Friday that it’s not rocket science. The world has changed forever, but “if farmers make money, farmers will farm.”  Farmers got in trouble earlier this year when oil prices spiked, which was only a sneak preview of what’s yet to come.

And if we have not prepared before it happens again, as we know it will, it could be disastrous for agriculture and for Hawai‘i’s food security.

We have an opportunity in the recent energy agreement between the state, HEI and the Consumer Advocate.

The legislature should add an extra incentive to farmers when the feed-in-tariff is in place by July. Besides helping farmers make money, using cutting edge technology may get the attention of younger people. No one wants to get into a business just to watch plants grow. We need action to interest the next generation. Alternate energy projects and their possibilities could provide an extra spark, especially if combined with the chance of making money.

This idea has the possibility of diversifying our food production – to farmers large and small, on all islands, at all elevations and both of the dry side and wet side of the islands. (I always say this when talking about the future of Hawai‘i’s agriculture.)

We need small farms expanding. We do not need large farms just getting bigger and bigger and gobbling up smaller farms.

Chef Alan Wong testified, too, as a restaurateur who uses local farm products in part so visitors can “taste Hawai‘i.”

Last year, a legislator tried to convince me that the card check bill – a bill that made it easier for workers to form unions – was necessary because there were abuses that I did not know of. I was not convinced.

I have changed my mind about the labor union card check bill. I feel that farms that treat their workers well should have no problems.

Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Farmers & Renewable Energy

1 Comment

I’ve talked about energy and I’ve talked about agriculture, but everybody who makes decisions about agriculture and energy operates in a vacuum. If it’s energy, they only talk about energy. If it’s agriculture, they only talk about agriculture.

To make it work, we need to get the two together.

The recently announced energy agreement is a first step in the right direction – for energy purposes. Now we need to add an agricultural component to it, which they cannot do because they’re all about energy. We need the legislature to marry the two together.

Everybody agrees about renewable energy. What we need to do now is give farmers really strong incentives to put in renewable energy projects, because that will help them be energy secure and then we won’t have to beg people to “Please Buy Local.” Local farmers will be able to set their prices lower, and people will buy local farmers’ goods based on their merits. We won’t have to go through all the gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands to get people to “buy local.”

We need to pay farmers to do small energy projects; encourage them to do renewable energy. Maybe we give them ten percent more than we give others? The benefit is that you get energy plus food. That’s what it will take to be sustainable.

You can’t just be sustainable in energy and not in food.

Giving farmers extra incentives to use renewable energy methods achieves two things – it helps them save/make money and produce more food per person, while also achieving the goal of bringing more renewables on line. We know that “If the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm.”

The world has changed and we need to adapt to a new reality. The challenge for Hawai‘i is figuring out how to become food and fuel secure with the least amount of pain.

This crash course explains what is going on in our changing world in a very simple, commonsense way. Its explanations are among the easiest to understand that I’ve seen.

Because of our abundant natural resources here in Hawai‘i, we have the opportunity to have a relatively better lifestyle than that of the U.S. mainland. Net Energy Return On Energy Invested (NEROEI), minus the energy used to produce food, gives us our lifestyle. Therefore, in order to maximize our lifestyle, we need to focus our attention on both renewable energy as well as food production.

It is prudent for us to prepare for the worse and hope for the best.

If we join agriculture policy to energy policy we will have both food and energy locally produced, and that is the essence of sustainability.

Not “no can,” “CAN!”

Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Hydroelectric Decision

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We have a big decision to make: Should we, or should we not,
continue with our plans to build a hydroelectric plant?

There are changes in the air with the recent energy agreement signed between the State of Hawai‘i, the group of companies under HEI and the consumer advocate.

All activity under Schedule Q, which allows electricity to be sold back to the utility company, has been suspended until the incentive program, or feed-in tariffs, for the power company’s buying back of renewable energy is defined and in place. The PUC has directed that the utilities develop the feed-in tariffs by July.

Under “net energy metering” in the current arrangement, any excess energy we generate would go to the utility for free. That is very risky for us, as our plan calls for us to use that money from selling back electricity to help make our loan payments.

How sure can I be that the agreement will go through? How certain can I be that the July deadline will not be extended?

Can I afford to make loan payments on a million dollar loan without an agreement in hand?

If I wait, the funding may run out.

I just laid off 20 people; can I gamble?

On the other hand, if I go ahead and then everything falls in place, maybe I won’t have to sell off parcels of land. If it becomes necessary to sell our land a parcel at a time, sooner or later it will be our irreversible journey out of agriculture.

What to do?

Renewable Energy Sources

State Moves Toward Locally Produced Renewable Energy

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Richard Ha writes:

There’s been an important announcement in the newspapers about a series of renewable energy commitments by the State of Hawai‘i and the various Hawaiian Electric Companies.

Energy Agreement Among the State of Hawaii, Division of Consumer Advocacy of the Department of Commerce & Consumer Affairs, and Hawaiian Electric Companies

Summary of Key Agreements
Signatories: The Governor of the State of Hawaii; the State of Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism; the State of Hawaii Consumer Advocate; and the Hawaiian Electric companies.

All parties believe that the future of Hawaii requires that we move decisively and irreversibly away from imported fossil fuel for electricity and transportation and towards locally produced renewable energy and an ethic of energy efficiency.

As we move from central-station, oil-based power to a much more renewable, distributed and intermittent-powered system, we recognize the need to assure that Hawaii preserves a stable electric grid and minimizes disruption to service quality and reliability. In addition, we recognize the need for a financially sound electric utility.

Finally, we commit to a system of regulation that will transform our major utility from a traditional sales-based company to an energy-services provider that retains its obligation to serve the public with reliable energy, strives to source and integrate greener and lower-cost generation, and moves us to a more independent future.

These are some fundamental changes in direction. Hawaiian Electric agrees that the move to biofuels is not meant to preclude renewables. The utilities will move away from the least efficient oil-firing plants to renewables. Up until that statement, many felt the utilities were only concerned about their investment in oil-fired plants.

There is an understanding about the utilities changing their focus from sales to service and a forward-looking direction.

Hawaiian Electric will finance solar water heater installations.

There will be a rate cap for those least able to afford electricity. This is an effort to protect the most defenseless among us.

Regarding transportation, the parties agreed to aggressively pursue alternate fuel vehicles. Fossil fuel transportation is clearly not the answer.

Re: Net Energy Metering, there will be no cap on the number; it just cannot exceed 15 percent of the peak circuit demand. Also, excess energy will be sold back to the grid at retail rates. This is a strong incentive for people to pursue alternate energy systems.

On the strength of the above statement, I am committing to go ahead with a hydro-electric project. Net Metering with these conditions will help with food security, because it will help farmers make/save money. And, if the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm.

There are other provisions, as well, but these are the ones that stand out in my mind. The overall effect will be to encourage small energy production. I think having a lot of small producers gives a certain security in case “the boat does not come.”

Also, the money circulates in our own economy; not to mention that jobs will be created as these projects get going.

It’s a major shift in the right direction – away from fossil fuels.

Community, Food Security, Renewable Energy Sources

The Hawai’i Energy Challenge 2008

Many service stations, from Aniston, Alabama to Asheville, North Carolina, ran out of gasoline due to Hurricanes Ike and Gustav. In Asheville, one gas station owner had to call police after at least three fistfights broke out. In Nashville, drivers waited for hours to get fuel, only to see gas pumps covered in bags. In Atlanta, motorists ran out of gas while waiting in line and had to push their cars to the pumps. An Alabama paper said the regional mood was “as jumpy as a frog farm.” These stories have been overshadowed by the recent Wall Street meltdown.

Matthew Simmons, chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company International, a prominent oil-industry insider and one of the world’s leading experts on the topic of peak oil, points out that a similar meltdown could happen – without warning – to our national food supply system.

He points out that if there were an oil supply disruption due to an oil tanker blocking the Strait of Malacca, for example, there would likely be panic buying and people topping off their vehicles. This would drain all the transportation fuel in the pipelines – and that would freeze up our food distribution system. He estimates that it would take five to seven days for all available food to be bought up. (My note: Try two days.) After that, food deliveries would stop, because refineries would need a fair amount of time to bring their supplies back up. Here is a video of Matt Simmons talking at the Peak Oil conference last month.

Could that happen? And what would happen here in Hawai‘i, where 80 percent of our food is imported?

For many reasons, this just being the most recent, we need to get serious about food security, which includes moving away from our current dependence on oil. I’ve said before that this is not rocket science. If the (Hawai‘i) farmer makes money, the farmer will farm.

“The economic security and stability of the State of Hawaii continue to remain extremely vulnerable to threats due to Hawaii’s overdependence on imported oil.…” – State of Hawaii Energy Resources Coordinator Annual Report (January, 2008)

The Hawai‘i Leeward Planning Conference is putting on a Hawai‘i Energy Challenge 2008:

The Hawai’i Energy Challenge 2008 will assemble keen minds to realistically assess the rising cost of imported oil, its import for key sectors of Hawai’i’s economy and impact on island lifestyles as well as a range of forward-thinking, dynamic opportunities to develop sustainable energy and liquid fuels.

November 20 – 21, 2008
The Fairmont Orchid
Kohala Coast, Hawai‘i Island
Featured speaker: Matt Simmons