Category Archives: Renewable Energy Sources

Geothermal, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

Charles Hall on Fossil Fuels & Economic Growth

Richard Ha writes:

This Scientific American article talks about fossil fuels, economic growth, and why I'm always talking about the importance of our (much cheaper) geothermal energy here.

It looks at the work of Charles Hall, who talks about how the energy it takes to obtain energy, minus the energy you use to get your food, equals your lifestyle. That formula – energy return on investment, or EROI – lets us compare how we live now with how Hawaiians lived in older times. It allows us to compare apples to apples.

I know Charlie Hall very well. I brought him to Hawai‘i to give talks about this at UH Hilo and Manoa, as well as to visit Puna Geothermal Venture and our farm.

From the Scientific American article Will Fossil Fuels Be Able to Maintain Economic Growth? A Q&A with Charles Hall:

Q. What happens when the EROI gets too low? What’s achievable at different EROIs?

A. If you've got an EROI of 1.1:1, you can pump the oil out of the ground and look at it. If you've got 1.2:1, you can refine it and look at it. At 1.3:1, you can move it to where you want it and look at it. We looked at the minimum EROI you need to drive a truck, and you need at least 3:1 at the wellhead. Now, if you want to put anything in the truck, like grain, you need to have an EROI of 5:1. And that includes the depreciation for the truck. But if you want to include the depreciation for the truck driver and the oil worker and the farmer, then you've got to support the families. And then you need an EROI of 7:1. And if you want education, you need 8:1 or 9:1. And if you want health care, you need 10:1 or 11:1.

Civilization requires a substantial energy return on investment. You can't do it on some kind of crummy fuel like corn-based ethanol [with an EROI of around 1:1].

A big problem we have facing the alternatives is they're all so low EROI. We'd all like to go toward renewable fuels, but it's not going to be easy at all. And it may be impossible. We may not be able to sustain our civilization on these alternative fuels. I hope we can, but we've got to deal with it realistically.

Do you think we're facing limits to growth now?

I think if you correct the U.S. GDP for debt—in other words, the debt is some kind of not-real growth—then I think the GDP hasn't grown at all since 2005. It's just grown through debt. I think clearly growth has declined; it's possible that growth has either stopped or may soon stop.

Read the rest of the article

 

Lowering Electric Rates, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

Learning From Germany & Others’ Energy Plans: No Free Lunch

Richard Ha writes:

Germany attempted to transition to a green electricity generation more than ten years ago. Today, some of its electricity rates are the highest in Europe, and it is using coal for 45 percent of its electricity. The lesson here is that there really isn’t any “free lunch.”

From Bloomberg.com today:

Merkel’s Taste for Coal to Upset $130 Billion Green Drive

By Julia Mengewein – Sep 22, 2014

When Germany kicked off its journey toward a system harnessing energy from wind and sun back in 2000, the goal was to protect the environment and build out climate-friendly power generation.

More than a decade later, Europe’s biggest economy is on course to miss its 2020 climate targets and greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants are virtually unchanged. Germany used coal, the dirtiest fuel, to generate 45 percent of its power last year, its highest level since 2007, as Chancellor Angela Merkel is phasing out nuclear in the wake of the Fukushima atomic accident in Japan three years ago.

The transition, dubbed the Energiewende, has so far added more than 100 billion euros ($134 billion) to the power bills of households, shop owners and small factories as renewable energy met a record 25 percent of demand last year. RWE AG (RWE), the nation’s biggest power producer, last year reported its first loss since 1949 as utility margins are getting squeezed because laws give green power priority to the grids….  Read the rest

How is HECO going to both lower our electricity rates and increase intermittent power into the grid? Seems we are going to bet everything on natural gas. At $4/thousand cubic feet (mcf), it is very cheap. In Asia and Europe, it’s more than $11/mcf.

What happens when its price rises in 10 and 20 years? Where will we be then? Will we have a competitive advantage to the rest of the world? Or will we be struggling, like Germany is today?

Where will we be 10 and 20 years from now? We should be paying attention to what people like Marco Mangelsdorf, president of ProVision Solar, and others are saying about the PUC’s request for an energy action plan for the state of Hawai‘i.

HECO’s Response to the PUC’s Orders: Is the Media Right? With Marco Mangelsdorf

Hydrogen, Renewable Energy Sources, Schools

Natural Gas, Hydrogen, & What Kids Learn in Fourth Grade

Richard Ha writes:

The online site Peak-oil.org has an interesting write-up about natural gas and essentially points out that its high decline rate will make the recent spike in natural gas relatively short-lived.

U.S. LNG exports: What Would Randy Udall Say?

There has been considerable talk in the US of late about not only future energy exports but even about using an “energy weapon” against Russia.  While that might be nice, it’s wishful thinking.

An energy commentator who thought in depth about the US’s energy policy back-story and the myth of oil independence was Randy Udall, who passed away suddenly in late June last year.  

On March 21, 2013, during one of his last presentations, Randy delivered some remarks, accompanying a set of power-point slides, which provide the type of cautionary background that Washington insiders—including his brother Senator Mark Udall and cousin Senator Tom Udall—should heed.

His complete remarks, now posted on YouTube, were recently transcribed by Steve Andrews; key points are listed below.  The first remark about natural gas exports is actually a response to a question from the audience; the remainder is from his loosely scripted remarks. 

  • This meme that we’ve got a 100-year supply of natural gas started at the Colorado School of Mines.  They have a volunteer group there called the Potential Gas Committee, but the Potential Gas Committee is not looking at proven reserves; they’re looking at how much carbon might there be in 5000 feet of the Mancos shale.
  • I look around and I start running the numbers.  You know how much we’ve produced in this part of the world, in Weld County and Larimer County and the DJ Basin and the Wattenberg field we’ve been drilling for 80 years?  Now, this field is primarily an oil field.  But in that 80-year period of time we’ve produced enough natural gas to run the US for four months.
  • In the Powder River Basin, with those 25,000 natural gas wells, we’ve produced enough natural gas to run the US for four or five months.  When you look into it, there are only about six natural gas plays that are of any size; they’re dominated by three or four of the big ones—the Marcellus in Pennsylvania…maybe it will end up supplying five years’ of US gas demand over the next 60 or 70 years….

Read the rest

This next video—of Randy Udall speaking at the Colorado Renewable Energy Society meeting in 2013—shows what it looks like down there where we are fracking for oil and gas; it shows how the world looked millions of years ago when the oil and gas was forming. Ingenious human beings. This is a very good video if you are interested in this topic.

It’s also very interesting to see how ingenious the oil and gas industry folks are as they developed the technology that resulted in fracking. It’s incredible. But, as Nate Hagens points out, after shale oil and gas, it’s all gone. There’s no more. (I wrote about the global resource depletion authority Nate Hagens, his visit to our farm earlier this year, and his reactions to what we’re doing there.)

But, for us here in Hawai‘i, we can do what Iceland did. With cheap electricity, they make hydrogen on site and they have a hydrogen refueling station. I went over there and looked at it myself. The cars are rolling out now. They are eighty percent green and they will be ninety percent fossil free. We can do the same here with our curtailed and otherwise unused electricity.

We could also create a mini-ammonia processing plant. We really have a lot of interesting and real possibilities.

Leslie Lang, who helps me with this blog, and I were talking about this, and the importance of respecting the past while planning for the future, and she told me about a field trip her daughter took in fourth grade at Kamehameha Schools.

The theme was “Preservation vs. Progress,” and she went along to chaperone. She shared with me something she wrote about it at the time and I asked her if I could include some of her words here, because it really makes the point well that we must honor the past but lead the way into the future. I’m glad they are teaching that to our kids.

Unlike in the old days, when we followed the teachings of the missionaries,today and tomorrow our kids need to be the ones leading the direction based on a healthy respect for our history.

(Note too that we cannot just blindly follow what the folks in the cold country are doing, either. This is not cold country. Some things apply and some things don’t.)

From Leslie, on the fourth grade “Preservation vs. Progress” field trip she accompanied:

The teachers did a great job of talking about the importance of preserving our past, our wahi pana (sacred places), as well as how progress brings what is sometimes necessary change, and how we have to balance those things. We saw this first at Pu‘ukohola Heiau in Kawaihae.

Kamehameha was told that if he built a heiau at that site, he would be able to unite the very divided islands. The ranger explained that if you traveled from Kea‘au (where the school is) to Kawaihae (where the heiau is) in the old days, you’d travel through several different chiefdoms, many of which would be at war with each other. It would be dangerous and difficult. Those wars lasted for 500 years.

He talked about how the heiau was built, and had the kids try to lift a relatively small rock compared to some of the rocks in the heiau. Some of these kids could, and many couldn’t. 

The heiau was so important to Kamehameha, who believed he would receive the gods’ mana upon building it, that this happened: His younger brother was to be its kahu (priest), and he told the brother not to touch any of the rocks. But the brother did, he pitched in to help, and Kamehameha saw. He was worried about that disturbing the mana that he took the rocks his brother touched out in a wa‘a, a canoe, and went far out into the ocean and dumped them.

The rocks that make up Pu‘ukohola all came from Pololu Valley, about 25 miles away. They were passed hand to hand along a very long human chain of men. We know this because occasionally a rock was dropped, and then it was not used in the heiau so it was left where it lay. There is still a rough path of large pohaku, rocks, lining the route from Pololu to Pu‘ukohola. 

Just off Pu‘ukohola there used to an island called Puaka‘ilima, we learned. It was significant because the ‘ilima flower grew all over that island, and that’s a flower that is cherished for leimaking (and you need hundreds of blossoms to make one lei).

That treasured island was destroyed, blown up, when the state decided it needed to dredge the harbor so big ships could come in with food and supplies. 

Here was the point of that day’s lesson. Progress = change. We have all these people here and are not producing enough food on our own anymore, so we need ships to bring in enough food for us all to eat. That’s why they had to destroy the island. In this case, progress and preservation were at odds. 

Was this the only way to solve that problem? asked the kumu (teacher). I don’t know, she said. Was it the best decision? I don’t know, she said. I don’t know all the details.

“But some day it is going to be you children making these decisions. You are going to have to weigh preservation vs. change.” You have to know about the past and the present to make good decisions about the future, she told them.

Then we went to Kona, to the King Kamehameha Hotel. This is a touristy spot—but just at the back of the hotel is a very important historical place called Kamakahonu. Ahu‘ena Heiau is there, and that’s where Kamehameha died. It was both the end of the story we had been hearing of his life, and another demonstration of preservation vs. progress.

Before we got there, the kumu looked hard at the kids and talked to them for quite a long time about how we are not going there for the hotel, or to look at all the guests, or to talk about the pool. We were not going there to play. 

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said. “I like this hotel. It’s where I stay when I come to Kona. But that’s not what we are here for today.” She told them they were there to respect and learn about the heiau. 

Again she talked to them about focusing, and she told them this was going to be the hardest place of all to focus because of all the stuff, the playing, going on all around us. But she told them they needed to do so, to focus, to chant with their attention in the right place.

When they’d been at the Pololu overlook, they’d had this same reminder. When they were done there with their chants and their song about the place, tourists all around us broke into applause. Of course the tourists didn’t know, but it felt inappropriate because although, yes, these kids sound good, they were not entertaining. They were facing the valley and the ocean, not the people, and were paying their respects. 

And when that applause broke out, not one kid looked around, like they would have if it had been a concert for fun. They kept their focus and their attention. It was very interesting to see and not a little impressive.

So back to the hotel, where the kids walked through the somewhat crowded lobby single file and in silence. It was pretty impressive, because believe me these kids can also be normal fourth graders: loud and boisterous. But apparently they also know when not to be. It was really something—people stopped and watched.

We were expected, and hotel Security knew we were going to go into the heiau area beyond the normal kapu (keep out) signs. The kids chanted, and we heard more about the significance of that heiau, and again, Kumu talked about preservation (the heiau) vs. progress/change (the hotel). She presented it so well. She stressed again that someday they are going to be the ones who have to weigh the one against the other. That they have to know both the past and the present to determine the future.

The kumu kept stressing that they were giving these stories about the past to the kids and it was their kuleana, their responsibility, to remember them and pass them on. You cannot make good decisions about preservation vs. progress if you don’t know the importance of what is there to preserve, they said.

It was such an impressive and important field trip. I am not a fourth grader, and I got a hundred times more out of it than I expected. So well thought out and presented. Our kids are very fortunate to be learning such important lessons.

Food Security, Renewable Energy Sources, Science

How You Can Help Us Face a Food-Secure Future

4 Comments

Richard Ha writes:

I am getting a lot of really positive response when I talk to people about energy and how it relates to our food security for our future generations, as in this speech I just gave.

So many people ask me how they can help, and here’s how: Find me a group of people I can talk to. I’ll come and bring along a couple scientists and we will talk to your group.

It’s important. We’re not really addressing the future right now; we’re just pointing fingers and hammering each other. We need to stop with what my Pop used to talk about. He always said, “Get thousand reasons why no can. I’m just looking for one reason CAN.” It’s an attitude thing.

If you can find me a group of people to talk with, let me know. You can leave a comment here on the blog or at Facebook. Or email me at richard@hamakuasprings.com.

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

Preparing for Climate Change, The Overview

Richard Ha writes:

I was asked to talk this morning at the Hawai‘i State Association of Counties 2014 Annual Conference, which was held in Waikiki. I spoke on the panel called Preparing for Climate Change. Here’s what I said.

***

Aloha everyone. Thanks for inviting me.

Food security has to do with farmers farming. If the farmers make money, the farmers will farm!

The Hawaiian side of our family is Kamahele, from lower Puna. All the Kamaheles are related. The Okinawa side of our family is Higa. The Korean side of our family is the Ha name. It’s about all of us in Hawaii. Not just a few of us!

I write an ag and energy blog Hahaha.hamakuasprings.com. It stands for three generations of us.

What is the difference between climate and weather? Neil DeGrasse Tyson, on Cosmos, describes it like the guy strolling down the beach with his dog. The dog running back and forth is the weather. The guy walking along the beach is climate.

Background: 35 years farming, more than 100 million pounds of fruits and vegetables. We farm 600 fee-simple acres which the family and 70 workers farm. Not having any money, we started out by trading chicken manure for banana keiki and went on to become the largest banana farm in the U.S. We were green farmers early. In 1992, we were first banana farm in the world certified Eco-OK by the Rainforest Alliance. In 2008, we were one of six national finalists for the Patrick Madden SARE award. We were one of the first farms in Hawai‘i to be food-safety certified.

When we needed to find a solution for a disease problem, we took a class in tissue culture and tried to culture the plants in our back bedroom. But there was too much contamination, from cat hair maybe. So we made our own tissue culture lab. We have our own hydroelectric plant, which provides all our electricity. Our trucks and tractors operate with fuel from Hawai‘i biodiesel.

My pop told me that, “Get a thousand reasons why no can.” I’m only looking for the one reason why CAN.

As we stroll along the climate change beach, there are two things that we notice.

The first is energy. Without energy, work stops. Petroleum products are finite and costs will rise. Farmers’ costs will rise and farmers’ customers’ costs will rise. How can we dodge the bullet?

I attended five Peak Oil conferences. The world has been using twice and three times as much oil as we have been finding. So the price is going to keep on going up. It will increase farmers’ costs and will increase the farmers’ customers’ costs. We need to do something that will help all of us, not just a few of us. Something that can help future generations cope.

That something is hydrogen. The geothermal plant can be curtailed at 70 MW per day. That’s throwing away 70 MW of electricity every night. The new eucalyptus chip plant Hu Honua can be curtailed by 10 MW for ten hours per night. The key to hydrogen is electricity cost. On the mainland it is made from natural gas. Here it can be made from running electricity through water. We are throwing away lots of electricity at night. We know that oil and gas prices will be steadily going up in the future. Hydrogen from our renewable resources will become more and more attractive as oil and gas prices rise. At some point we will have an advantage to the rest of the world. And as a bonus, hydrogen combined with nitrogen in the air will produce nitrogen fertilizer.

You may be interested to know the inside scoop about the lawsuit that Big Island farmers brought against the County.

Why? Clarity: Farmers are law-abiding citizens and we play by the rules. We thought that the Feds and the State had jurisdiction. We want clarity about the rules of the game.

Equal treatment: Only Big Island farmers are prohibited from using biotech solutions that all our competitors can use. How is that equal? It’s discriminatory against local farmers.

When the law was first proposed, they wanted to ban all GMOs. We asked what are papaya farmers supposed to do? They said, we can help them get new jobs, to transition. We were speechless. It was as if they were just another commodity. So farmers and ranchers got together and ran a convoy around the County building in protest. Then they said they would give the Rainbow papaya farmers a break. I was there when the papaya farmers had a vote to accept the grandfather clause for Rainbow papayas. There were a lot of young, second- and third-generation farmers there in the room.

In the end, the papaya farmers said, We are not going to abandon our friends who supported us when we needed help. That is not who we are. Then they voted unanimously to reject the offer. I was there and being a Vietnam vet, where the unspoken rule was we all come back or no one comes back, I could not have been prouder of the papaya farmers. That explains why the Big Island farmers are tight. Old-fashioned values. The rubbah slippah folks absolutely get all of this.

So who are these farmers? I am one. I don’t grow GMOs. It isn’t about me. I’ll make 70 this year and, like almost all the farmers, have never sued anyone. But there comes a time when you have to stand up for what is right.

The group we formed, Hawaii Farmers and Ranchers United, grows more than 90 percent of the farm value on the Big Island.

This is about food security. The GMO portion of food security is small. This is not about large corporations. It is about local farmers. It is not about organics; we need everybody. But organics only supply 4 percent of the national food supply and maybe 1 percent of Hawai‘i’s. Our organic farmers are not threatened by modern farming. Hawaii organic farmers are threatened by mainland, industrial-scale organic farms. That is why there are hardly any locally grown organics in the retail stores. It’s about cost of production. Also, on the mainland winter kills off the bad bugs and weeds and the organic farmers can outrun the bugs through the early part of summer. Hawai‘i farmers don’t have winter to help us.

Most importantly, this is about pro-science and anti-science. That is why farmers are stepping up. We know that science is self-correcting. It gives us a solid frame of reference. You don’t end up fooling yourself. In all of Hawai‘i’s history, now is no time to be fooling ourselves.

My pop told me that there were a thousand reasons why No Can. He said, look for the one reason why Can! He said to look for two solutions to every problem and one more, just in case.

He would pound the dinner table and dishes would bounce in the air and he would point in the air and say, “Not no can. CAN!”

We can have a better world for future generations. It’s all common sense and attitude.

***

Current Affairs, Geothermal, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

What Monterey Shale Oil?

Richard Ha writes:

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) made a dramatic announcement recently: it is revising its estimate of the Monterey Shale Oil supply downward by 96 percent.

Ninety-six percent is a lot.

Especially when you consider that the Monterey Shale Oil supply presented two-thirds of the United States’s oil reserves. It was estimated that we had 100 years of oil reserves left in this country altogether, but now that we know 66 percent of it doesn’t exist, there must be only 34 percent, or 34 years, of oil reserves remaining in the U.S.

However, the cost we would have to pay for oil companies to retrieve it would exceed what it would cost them to do so. In other words, if we consumers were willing to pay $1 million/barrel, all of those 34 years’ worth of oil could probably be recovered. But if we the people can only pay $150/barrel, we might only see ten years’ worth drilled. Hmm.

Those of us who attend Association for the Study of Peak Oil conferences (I’ve attended five now, the only person from the Big Island to do so) have known that the claim that the U.S. has a 100-year supply of oil was way overestimated. We are never going to be Saudi America.

Kurt Cobb writes about this at Resource Insights:

The great imaginary California oil boom: Over before it started

Sunday, May 25, 2014

It turns out that the oil industry has been pulling our collective leg. 

The pending 96 percent reduction in estimated deep shale oil resources in California revealed last week in the Los Angeles Times calls into question the oil industry's premise of a decades-long revival in U.S. oil production and the already implausible predictions of American energy independence. The reduction also appears to bolster the view of long-time skeptics that the U.S. shale oil boom–now centered in North Dakota and Texas–will likely be short-lived, petering out by the end of this decade. (I've been expressing my skepticism in writing about resource claims made for both shale gas and oil since 2008.)

California has been abuzz for the past couple of years about the prospect of vast new oil wealth supposedly ready for the taking in the Monterey Shale thousands of feet below the state. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) had previously estimated that 15.4 billion barrels were technically recoverable, basing the number on a report from a contractor who relied heavily on oil industry presentations rather than independent data.

The California economy was supposed to benefit from 2.8 million new jobs by 2020. The state was also supposed to gain $220 billion in additional income and $24 billion in additional tax revenues in that year alone, according to a study from the University of Southern California that relied heavily on industry funding.

But that was before the revelation by the Times that the EIA will reduce its estimate of technically recoverable oil in California's Monterey Shale by 96 percent–almost a complete wipeout–after taking a close look at actual data for wells drilled there already. The agency now believes that only about 600 million barrels are recoverable using existing technology. The 600 million barrels still sound like a lot, but those barrels would last the United States all of 40 days at the current rate of consumption….

Read the rest

We need to take a step back and reevaluate where we are and what we need to do. As I’ve been saying for years now, we need to get on with geothermal. For the Big Island, the path we need to take is clear.

A byproduct of the oil operations is natural gas, and it would be helpful if natural gas prices rose to help with the costs of development.

It’s kind of like curtailed electricity. If it could be sold at any price, it would help lower the bid price of geothermal and wind operations and would result in lower electricity costs for the rubbah slippah folks.

If curtailed electricity could be bought at a cheap enough price, it could also enable a hydrogen storage option. Then we could get a hydrogen fuel cell option for various motors. And we could look at converting hydrogen to ammonia, so we would have nitrogen fertilizer to help with our food security. 

Big Island, Geothermal, Hydrogen, Renewable Energy Sources, Science, Sustainability

Toyota Shifts Focus to Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles

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Richard Ha writes:

Toyota made a major announcement today: It will stop focusing on pure electric vehicles, and begin focusing its attention on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. This is huge.

Do you know that here on the Big Island we throw away (“curtail”) tons of electricity from geothermal and wind every night? We can turn this energy into hydrogen fuel cells, for transportation, and this can help us solve our transportation fuel problem. It can also be used for nitrogen fertilizer.

Solar energy projects do not provide curtailed electricity. We need to think about the big picture and be careful about running like lemmings after solar.

Hydrogen fuel cell for transportation is a very good opportunity for the Big Island to use its curtailed electricity. It’s a free resource that already exists; currently, we are just throwing it away.

From Audioguide.com:

“Toyota will forgo further development in pure electric vehicles in search of what it sees as more promising alternative fuel vehicles.

The automaker will focus on the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles according to Toyota North America CEO Jim Lentz….”

 Read the rest

Geothermal, Iceland, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

HECO Needs to Match Output to Customer Needs

Richard Ha writes:

Our electric utility needs to match up its output with customer needs. Renewable sources of electricity such as wind and solar have short- and long-term problems with fluctuation. That’s why the utility needs to have electricity generation units on standby.

We are so fortunate here to have geothermal electricity, which is not only stable but is also cheaper than wind and solar, all things considered.

And we know that geothermal works in Iceland. In spite of that country’s recent economic crash caused by irresponsible bankers, Iceland is one of the highest-rated countries in the world in terms of quality of life issues.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Hawaii confronts ‘green’ energy’s bugaboo: batteries

Hawaii and California utilities are moving to add storage on their grids to accommodate ‘green’ energy and better match production energy production and consumption. But storage is still expensive. 

By Ken Silverstein, Contributor / May 11, 2014

Hawaii Electric Co. – no stranger to solar power – has a problem with the sun.

When it shines, so much energy from utility and home-based solar panels comes surging in that it can overload some circuits in the grid and, potentially, cause a power surge that damages home and office equipment. When the sun goes into hiding, the utility has to generate power from somewhere else. That’s why the utility is casting a net to find vendors that could supply it with the technology to store electricity….

Read the rest

Bike, Lowering Electric Rates, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Bad: Change Just for the Sake of Change

Richard Ha writes:

Things are moving fast in terms of energy, and nobody knows, right now, where we are heading. Where we end up will not only shape our own futures, but it will also determine how easy or hard our children’s and grandchildren’s lives are.

The PUC just told HECO that the utility had better change what it’s doing, and HECO responded that it will. But there are lots of moving parts to this situation, and none of us know where things are going. 

Change merely for the sake of change is not wise, and it’s worrisome. We need to conscientiously adapt to conditions with careful consideration and purpose. We must have a smart vision, and work toward that vision.

Henry Curtis wrote that Energy Futurists Need Open Minds:

“…stakeholders and regulators need open dialogue on a variety of future scenarios.

And yet, although there are at least four different ways the future can unfold, many are gambling their careers by assuming that the Smart Grid scenario is the future and therefore all other scenarios can be ignored.

Later this month the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) would hold public meetings to discuss their Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement.

The feds want to use the 1300-page document to develop guidance on how the DOE can fund the Smart Grid future.  They too have ignored the alternatives at their own peril….”

Being “first in the world” at something is a risky proposition. It’s far better to copy the first in the world. Folks who attempt to be first in the world frequently fail, and the question here is, who is going to pay if we try something and we fail?

From my perspective, it seems clear that we want a future that leaves no one behind and makes us competitive with the rest of the world.

Take mountain bikes, for example. Nowadays they have shock absorbers, multiple gears, lightweight material and instrumentation that aids the rider. The tool kit is very light and efficient. But the heart of the system, the wheels, are still round.

Say we want to improve a bicycle to win a race. Do we make a unicycle? A bicycle with every innovation but only one wheel? 

We need to be clear about what we want. It’s better to carefully consider the heart of the bike, which is its rider and energy source. Do we want the leanest, meanest bicycle rider – i.e., the best and cheapest energy source? Or a one-wheeled bicycle? Do we want a bicycle with fenders, flaps, mirrors, titanium saddlebags and just an average or slow rider?

Mina Morita, Chair of the PUC, likened the electric grid to an ‘auwai. It’s the irrigation system that keeps a lo‘i alive.

Certainly what we are looking for as we reshape our energy future is a combination of things. We need to make careful choices that make good sense in the long run. We can’t change merely for change’s sake. It’s going to be a long race, and we want to come out ahead.

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

‘Behind the Plug & Beyond the Barrel’

Richard Ha writes:

I spoke on behalf of the Big Island Community Coalition (BICC) at the Hawai‘i Island Renewable Energy Solutions Summit 2014 on April 30th, which was titled “Behind the Plug and Beyond the Barrel," and here's what I said: 

BICC mission

Good morning. Thanks for the introduction. I will use just this one slide, and you can read our mission statement on it, which is to lower the cost of electricity. “To make Big Island electricity rates the lowest in the state by emphasizing the use of local resources.”

I would like to spend some time talking about who makes up the BICC.

Dave DeLuz, Jr. – President of Big Island Toyota.

John Dill – Contractors Association, and Chair of the Ethics Commission

Rockne Freitas – Former Chancellor Hawai‘i Community College

Michelle Galimba – Rancher, Board of Agriculture

Richard Ha – Farmer

Wallace Ishibashi – Royal Order of Kamehameha, DHHL Commissioner

Kuulei Kealoha Cooper- Trustee, Jimmy Kealoha and Miulan Kealoha Trust.

Noe Kalipi – Former staffer for Sen Akaka, helped write the Akaka Bill, energy consultant

Kai'u Kimura- Executive Director of ‘Imiloa.

Bobby Lindsey – OHA Trustee

Monty Richards – Kahua Ranch

Marcia Sakai – Vice Chancellor for Administrative Affairs, former Dean of UH Hilo, College of Business

Bill Walter- President of Shipman, Ltd., which is the largest landowner in Puna.

These folks are all operating in their private capacities. I'm chair of the BICC, and the only person from Hawai‘i to have attended five Peak Oil conferences. I've visited Iceland and the Philippines with Mayor Kenoi's exploratory group.

As you can imagine, the BICC has strong support all across political parties and socioeconomic strata. People get it in five minutes.

Oil and gas are finite resources, and prices will rise.  One note about natural gas: the decline rate of the average gas well is very high. Ninety percent of the production comes out in five years. This is worrisome.

Hawai‘i Island relies on oil for sixty percent of its electricity generation; the U.S. mainland only two percent.

As the price of oil rises, our food manufacturers and producers become less competitive, as we all know. Food security involves farmers farming. And if the farmers make money, the farmers will farm.

What can we do?  By driving the cost of electricity down, the Big Island can have a competitive edge to the rest of the world.

Since rising electricity rates act like a giant regressive tax, lowering electricity rates would do just the opposite. And since two-thirds of the economy is made up of consumer spending, this would be like "trickle up" economics. If the rubbah slippah folks had extra money, they would spend and everyone would benefit.

 The lowest-hanging fruit:

1. Geothermal. Allows us to dodge the finite resource bullet. It is the lowest-cost base power. The Big Island will be over the hot spot for 500,000 to a million years.

2. We throw away many lots of MW of electricity every night. Hu Honua will probably throw away 10 MW for ten hours every night. PGV, maybe 7 MW for ten hours.

3. Wind, too.

Maybe HELCO will allow us to move the excess electricity free. They don't make any money on the throwaway power now, anyway. What if we used it for something that won't compete with them? Then people could bid for the excess, throwaway power for hydrogen fueling stations, to make ammonia fertilizer, and to attract data centers. Hawaii could become the renewable energy capital of the world. People would love to come here and look at that. As airline ticket costs rise, the walk around cost in Hawai‘i would not.

The BICC call for lowering electricity costs could leave future generations a better Hawai‘i.  And that is what we all want.