Nate Hagens to Speak About the ‘Big Picture’ on Jan. 12

Young people, or anyone concerned about the world we live in and about leaving it better than we found it, should attend Nate Hagens’ talk next month.

Nate Hagens is a well-known speaker on “big picture” issues facing human society.

He’ll be speaking at UH Hilo on Tuesday, January 12th, in UCB 100 at 6:30 p.m.

Nate, who is on the board of the Post Carbon Institute, sent me the following. Have a look to learn a little bit about him and get a sense of where he’s coming from, and what he talks about.

Fifteen years ago I walked away from Wall Street. It was a fun place—I learned a lot, made a good income, and met fascinating people. But as I began to learn that the financial narrative about humans and our planet was a hollow facsimile of the real story, and therefore counterproductive to our real challenges, I quit.

Today I still meet fascinating people—in ecology, neuroscience, paleobiology, atmospheric science, biophysical economics circles, etc. And the collective story they’re telling suggests that we’re in a hell of a pickle. We dominate the planet’s sources and sinks, supported by a virtual army of powerful fossil slaves, who perform about 90% of the labor in our human system. With their help, we have grown our economies (and our impacts) exponentially over the past two centuries.

The largesse that spins off from this subsidy of ancient sunlight provides our wages, profits, jobs, cheap stuff, as well as the ability to do science, strategize about our future, and fund social and environmental initiatives. But, these fossil slaves are tiring (and they poop and breathe, which is of great concern regarding our oceans and biosphere).

The real stock market is our air, our soils, our forests, our oceans, and the biodiversity we share the planet with. This stock market has been in crash mode since I’ve been alive.

Two stock markets—one focused on the agenda of the gene, and one potentially focused by sapient minds. Which one should we focus on?

I currently teach a class called Reality 101 at the University of Minnesota. My students—bright, curious, pro-social 19 year-olds­—are coming to understand this broad ecological backdrop. They are aware of—and incredibly concerned about—the loss of our natural world, the end of the kind of economic growth and opportunities that existed a generation ago, and the social angst percolating in our society. They want to make a difference, and somehow avoid the standard conspicuous consumption trajectory, which is to get a salary, follow the rules, pay the bills, and buy more gadgets. So, I struggle with questions like these daily:

  • How can we learn to navigate the complexities of a contracting economy, while still including the viability of a natural world as a core goal?
  • How can we steer societal values so that young people can hold true to their ideals that manifest the more benign aspects of our species?
  • How can social and environmental groups “fighting the good fight” for a livable biosphere and social cohesion stay afloat in what will be increasingly tough economic times?

I have been on the Board of Post Carbon Institute since 2009. PCI uses a small budget and a big heart to achieve significant impact. Of the environmental NGOs, it is the only one that I know that focuses on the challenges our societies will face as our fossil slaves leave us before we might succeed in firing them.

The staff, Fellows and Board Members who comprise the Post Carbon Institute do not offer prescriptions, Instead, we use a systems approach to provide information, analysis, examples, inspiration, and community that remains ahead of the curve of those promoting singular “answers” to societal challenges.

The monetization of the human experience—and its impacts—has metastasized through modern global culture. Anything of value can and is parsed into dollars. And this sets up an irony: there is no financial profit in working on changing the system to something more sustainable, less finance-centric, and more tethered to biophysical realities. The people doing this work depend on those who have some surplus, and who care enough to support these efforts. A pro-social virtuous cycle.

When I was 19 (and naive), I thought “finance” was the key to the future. But I now see that it is ecology. What do today’s 19 year-olds see as their future paths? How will tomorrow’s 19 year-olds define “success” in life? The answer to that begins with education, synthesis, and new stories that we start to tell, today. PCI is poised to expand its reach, with the specific goal of engaging young people to prepare them for the world they will inherit.

If the 20th century was the Century of Self, then perhaps the 21st can be the Century of a Livable Future, which will require sacrifices and creativity from broad swaths of human populations. Please consider personally engaging in this battle of values and vision in the years (and decades) ahead. Choose an issue you feel passionate about, take a deep breath, and get involved.

Put Nate’s talk on your calendar. January 12th. 6:30 p.m.

Keaukaha Gets Double-Hulled Voyaging Canoe

The greatest thing is happening down in Keaukaha.

It started because a lonely, double-hulled voyaging canoe – the type that could travel across the ocean from Hawai‘i to, say, Tahiti – had been bobbing in Hilo Bay, untended, for ten long years.

Keahi Warfield, who teaches kids to paddle canoes at an afterschool program he runs on the beach there, and Patrick Kahawaiola‘a, president of the Keaukaha Community Association, had been watching it for years.

“The tide would change and it would turn this way, that way,” says Patrick. “It’s like it was waving, ‘Hey, what about me?!’”

The canoe, called the Hokualaka‘i, was owned by the Hawaiian immersion preschool program Aha Punana Leo. Keahi says their plan had been to take students traveling between the islands, visiting different communities and promoting the Hawaiian language. That program never got off the ground, though, and the canoe stayed in the ocean for a decade.

“I think they wanted to donate it to an organization that could use and take care of it,” says Keahi, a former Hawaiian immersion school teacher now working on his Ph.D.

And that finally happened: He and Patrick have just signed an agreement with Aha Punana Leo to take ownership of the voyaging canoe.

It all fits. Keahi says he started his afterschool program after working in the school system and seeing students so caught up in testing and missing out on other things he thought they really needed. Keahi, who trained on the Kawaihae-based Makali‘i when he was in high school, sees the canoe as an incredible learning tool.

Patrick talks about how Keaukaha School was in “corrective action” for 25 years. “We lost four generations,” he says, until Kumu Lehua Veincent became principal and turned it all around. Changes since then have been amazing, everyone agrees, but there’s still ground to make up.

They both talk about how the Keaukaha community acts as surrogate parents for its kids. And that’s where the voyaging canoe, the Hokualaka‘i, comes in.

They are helping lead the effort for the Keaukaha community to restore and use the Hokualaka‘i for its kids and families to regain a relationship with the wa‘a (canoe), the island, the ocean, and the culture.

Keahi and Patrick have also just signed an agreement with the Department of Transportation for a more formal arrangement regarding the land at Palekai where Keahi’s afterschool program meets – and where the canoe is now firmly on land, awaiting repairs after all those years in the water, waiting to become seaworthy again.

Now there’s a lot of work to be done. It’s the earliest stages now, but it’s such a great project.

Hawaii Island Energy Co-op ‘Better, Faster & Cheaper’

Big Island electric customers are estimated to save much more money with the Hawaii Island Energy Cooperative (HIEC) than they are promised with the proposed sale of the Hawaiian Electric companies to NextEra Energy.

Read more below, as well as in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald, Pacific Business News, and in the Hawaii Star-Advertiser (behind their paywall).

The difference in the business model of a co-op model, such as HIEC, is that it’s non-profit. At a for-profit utility, such as NextEra, revenue goes to shareholders. That’s not the case with a non-profit co-op, and that’s one reason for the significant savings.

Also, co-ops, by definition, cooperate. HIEC can call up the electrical co-op on Kaua‘i, and they will share information. Hawai‘i Island’s co-op can call up the national headquarters and they will share information. Avoiding mistakes saves money.

It’s all very practical. The co-op model is a better model to help ratepayers prepare for the future.

Hawaii Island Energy Cooperative’s Press Release:

Hawaii Island Energy Cooperative would deliver transformation better, faster and cheaper

(HILO, HAWAII, DECEMBER 9, 2015)—Conversion of the electric utility on Hawaii Island to a nonprofit cooperative is expected to deliver greater savings than those promised with the proposed sale of the Hawaiian Electric companies to NextEra Energy of Juno Beach, Florida.

Hawaii Island Energy Cooperative (HIEC) analyzed financial information filed by the Hawaiian Electric companies (HE) and NextEra Energy (NEE) with the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission (HPUC).

By lowering the cost of capital, eliminating federal income taxes and the profit margin built into Hawaii Electric Light Company’s rates, the financial analysis found that Big Island customers could save as much as $113 million on the existing HELCO rate base and up to $234 million including investments to modernize the grid over a four-year period. This compares to $60 million in savings estimated by NEE for customers on all five islands served by HE over a four-year period.

In proceedings now being held on the proposed sale by the HPUC, NEE has asserted that the primary question the Commission should ask itself is whether the customers of HE and the State of Hawaii are better off with or without the sale going through.

HIEC has argued that the Commission should also consider the merits of the cooperative ownership model for Hawaii Island.

In addition, HIEC makes the case that a cooperative has the ability to accelerate the island’s clean energy transformation faster and with more focus than a mainland-based investor-owned utility.

“For Hawaii Island, the reality is that the 190,000+ residents of the island would be better served by a cooperative. Beyond the lower cost of capital and the lower electric bills that follow, the benefits of a coop include local, democratic ownership and control of one of the most important infrastructures on the island,” said Marco Mangelsdorf, HIEC director and spokesperson.

Other advantages of the cooperative business model

■ HIEC would be able to access low-cost debt capital.

• Traditional cooperative lenders include the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rural Utilities Service, National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC), and Co Bank.

• The combined borrowings of electric cooperatives from these sources is over $85 billion.

■ The cooperative network of 900 utilities has equivalent, and perhaps better, buying power and economies of scale for technology, administration, pensions and insurance. Many companies that support the cooperative program, including CFC and CoBank, are owned by their electric cooperative customers.

• National Rural Electric Cooperative Association provides a multi-employer pension plan on behalf of electric cooperative employees that is fully funded.

• Through national programs the electric cooperative network has led the utility industry in the deployment of smart grid technologies.

■ Cooperatives can be more nimble and quick in integrating more and cost-effective renewable energies. Emulating the example of Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC), HIEC should be able to move faster to provide the advantages of renewable energies to Hawaii Island consumers.

• KIUC has gone from approximately 10 percent renewable in 2011 to almost 90 percent during prime sun hours today through a portfolio of utility-scale solar, biomass generation, distributed solar and legacy hydropower.

• KIUC’s smart grid initiative, which enables customer choice and is a key to the efficient integration of renewable energy, was completed nearly two years ago.

•Over the past two years, KIUC has built the two largest solar arrays in Hawaii, generating electricity cheaper than similar arrays proposed on Oahu. As well, KIUC is in the approval process for the nation’s first utility-scale solar array with dispatchable energy storage, moving solar energy to the nighttime hours and displacing millions of gallons of oil.

Noted HIEC president Richard Ha, “HIEC is able to focus on only our Hawaii Island and its unique needs, desires and resources. The single island focus and urgency created by a customer-elected board of directors to set the strategy is KIUC’s greatest strength and the reason they have been so successful in the transformation of their island’s utility system.”

About Hawaii Island Energy Cooperative:

HIEC is a non-profit cooperative association that seeks to establish a member-owned electric utility and encourage non-petroleum-based transportation for Hawaii Island. HIEC presents a unique opportunity for all electricity consumers to “Own the Power.” For more information, visit www.hiec.coop. HIEC is on Facebook and Twitter @HiEnergyCoop

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Whiteboard Animation: The Electric Cooperative Story

This short whiteboard animation explains really well just what an electric cooperative is and how it works. The 3-and-a-half-minute video is well-worth watching.

You’ll see how electric co-ops started in this country, back during the Roosevelt era when farmers and ranchers put in $5 each for membership and equity in a cooperative to bring electricity to their rural areas.

And you’ll see how the not-for-profit electric co-ops operate in ways that really align with how we think and live here in Hawai‘i. Members elect local directors to represent them. Co-ops work with other co-ops (they cooperate) for financing and research, to help after storms, and other times when needed. Profits are returned to members.

A co-op model is also better positioned to accomodate zero or negative economic growth than an investor-owned model.

Forty-two million people in the U.S. currently get their electricity through an electric co-op.

With a co-op model as our electric utility, we would not be all by ourselves. There’s no need to worry that it would just be us out here against the world.  Watch this short video and you’ll see there is a robust association of more than 900 co-ops in the U. S., all helping each other. No one is left behind.

Honoring Their Memories

Richard.serviceWe were so young. I was 25 and I was actually one of the older soldiers, because I went to Officer Candidate School.

That year changed me forever. The unspoken rule was that we all came back or nobody came back. Everybody came back from Vietnam, but some didn’t come back alive. This is where I learned that it’s about all of us, not just a few of us.

It is in honor of their memories that I believe in the rule of law of the U.S. Government.

Look What the Kauai Island Utility Co-op Did

We went to Kaua‘i on Saturday to attend the blessing of the Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) Anahola Solar Array.  The mood was one of exhiliration and great pride. Here’s a short video clip.

Richard Ha Hamakua Springs
The 60-acre photovoltaic system, coupled with a six-megawatt lithium-ion battery system, was a collaboration between KIUC and Anahola Hawaiian Homes. It will generate clean energy on the island as well as decrease fossil fuel imports from the mainland. The system will generate 20 percent of the island’s annual energy needs during the daylight hours, and will save nearly $250,000 a month on operating costs alone.

Richard Ha Hamakua Springs

I met many of the directors and key people involved in KIUC over the years. Key members of the Hawaiian community were in attendance, as well.

Richard Ha Hamakua SpringsIt is amazing what KIUC has been able to accomplish in a short time. Its costs have risen the least of all the electricity producers in the state despite its having the least number of available options. It does not have geothermal, for instance, and cannot use wind power due to bird kills.

Richard Ha Hamakua SpringsIt goes to show what a lean and mean utility co-op can accomplish.

Comparing Electricity Rates for HECO & Kauai’s KIUC Customers

It’s interesting to look at this chart and compare what electric rates have looked like for Hawaii Electric Company (HECO) customers compared with prices for Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) customers over the same period.

KIUC’s electric rates have been all but flat from 2008 to 2014, while rates for the HECO companies have gone up from 4.4 percent to a whopping 28.3 percent.

ELECTRIC RATES 2008-2014 Jun-08 Jun-14 % Chg
   KIUC  $                       439.39  $                          440.00 0.1%
   HECO-Oahu  $                       280.53  $                          359.90 28.3%
   HELCO-Hawaii  $                       395.09  $                          425.80 7.8%
   MECO-Maui  $                       374.35  $                          391.00 4.4%
   MECO-Lanai  $                       426.87  $                          470.00 10.1%
   MECO-Molokai  $                       416.32  $                          480.00 15.3%

Diagnosing Our Electricity Situation

This blog post by Gail Tverberg, Our Electricity Problem: Getting the Diagnosis Right, clearly explains what is going on in the world today and makes it easy to understand some things that seem counterintuitive at first glance.

She write about the oil price drop, and, recently, the economic slowdown. That’s the counterintuitive bit – you’d think with the drop in the price of oil, the economy would be picking up.

I have followed Gail’s analyses for a long time now. What she explains in this blog post is something she’s been predicting, and talking about, for quite awhile.

And here’s the thing – she’s been right on the mark for as long as I’ve known her. She is more doom and gloom about it than I am, but then I have never been able to prove her wrong. So it’s best to be prudent and try to protect ourselves as much as we can.

It’s why I’m pushing the utility co-op. An investor-owned electricity utility would just take us farther down the same old path in the wrong direction.

With a co-op, we are in control of our direction and our destiny. We would manage it ourselves; it would not be managed by people whose end goal was trying to make a dollar for investors. This is what I see as the basic difference between the NextEra plan and ours, and it’s a huge one.

We need to control our direction in order to take care of ourselves, and even more importantly so our kids and grandkids and their grandkids will be able to adapt to changing conditions and take care of themselves. The future is not going to look like, or work like, the past.

Go read Gail’s blog post, where she makes that easy to see. Things are already different, on many levels, and we need to be doing our long-term planning now. It’s like my Pop taught me – we plan for the future by taking small steps now so that later we don’t have to take drastic, catastrophic steps just to survive.

We have to take care of all of us, not just a few of us.

Those survival lessons I learned from my Pop were simple, and it’s time to put them into play.

If Gail’s wrong about how bad it will get, that’s okay. No harm, no foul. But if she’s right, we’ll have done the right thing. Either way, we will have protected ourselves.

GMOs Are Safe & We Need National Labeling Standard, Says Senate Committee

At a public hearing held Wednesday in Washington, D.C., Senators from both parties spoke about the “overwhelming scientific consensus regarding GMO safety,” and about the urgent need for Congress to pass a nationwide solution that prevents a “state-by-state patchwork of labeling laws” that has poor consequences for farmers, businesses, and consumers.

From the Coalition for Safe Affordable Food:

In a major step towards passage of a uniform, national labeling standard for foods made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the Senate Agriculture Committee held a hearing today that showcased the overwhelming scientific consensus regarding GMO safety, as well as the urgent need for Congressional action to pass a reasonable, common-sense solution that prevents a state-by-state patchwork of labeling laws.

“Today’s hearing confirmed that GMOs are safe; a state-by-state patchwork of labeling laws will have dire consequences for farmers, businesses and consumers; and the urgency for Congress to prevent these problems by passing a uniform national law,” said CFSAF spokesperson Claire Parker.

Senators from both parties spoke to the importance and safety of biotechnology and the need for a single national food labeling standard. Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) began the hearing by stating that “agriculture biotechnology has become a valuable tool in ensuring the success of the American farmer in meeting the challenge of increasing yield in a more efficient, safe, and responsible manner.”

Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) declared “I share the concern of doing business if 50 different states have 50 different standards and quite frankly, it wont work.” Senator Stabenow also said she hopes the Senate can “work together to develop a bipartisan bill that can pass the Senate by the end of this year.”

Wednesday’s hearing began with a panel of experts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration offering testimony that reaffirmed the safety of GMOs.

Dr. Susan Mayne, director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, stated that “over the last 20 years, FDA has reviewed and evaluated data and information on more than 150 GE plant-derived foods…based on our evaluations, we are confident that foods from genetically engineered sources in the U.S. marketplace today are as safe as their conventional counterparts.”

Michael Gregoire, the associate administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, added, “we have great confidence in the safety of GE crops that have been approved under the current U.S. regulatory system.”

Following three hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives, this is the fourth time in the past 12 months where expert witnesses have confirmed the science and safety of biotechnology.

The Senate hearing comes less than ten months from the July 1 effective date of Vermont’s labeling mandate, which will be the first state to implement its own unique food labeling standard. Though Vermont’s law is currently being challenged in federal court, there is little chance of a judicial resolution in time to prevent the negative impacts of the misguided statute.

Joanna Lidback, a dairy farmer from Barton, Vermont, provided a first-hand account of the severe consequences that will ensue should Vermont’s law take effect next year. “The use of biotechnology on our farm is also important to the economic sustainability of our small business by keeping the price we pay for feed affordable,” said Lidback. “To compare prices, a non-GMO basic 20 percent protein complete feed would cost $555 per ton; the same conventional feed that we purchase is currently $305 per ton…a difference of $4,000 a month or $48,000 per year. I do not see how we could profitably farm in the long term with those increased costs, thus effectively pushing my small farm out of business.”

Daryl Thomas, executive vice president of Herr’s Snacks, testified that a patchwork of state labeling laws will cost his company more, likely leading to higher prices for consumers. “Absent a federal solution by July 2016 when Vermont’s law takes effect, manufacturers will have three options to comply: 1) redesign packaging, 2) reformulate products so that no label is required, or 3) halt sales to that state,” said Thomas. “While we have not made a final decision, we are considering several factors that will make it difficult to continue sales in Vermont. One factor is the ability of our distributor chain to segregate product for Vermont since it is the food manufacturer who is liable if mislabeled products make it onto store shelves. We recently received a note from the largest grocery wholesaler in the nation. The letter informed us that they ‘will not take additional steps to segregate or otherwise specifically direct the shipment of Vermont only products into Vermont.’”

“Discussions about mandatory GMO labeling laws reducing consumer choice are becoming much less theoretical and much more real,” Thomas continued. “If the number of products on store shelves decreases, not only will consumers lose choices, but the lack of choice and competition could drive up costs. For some households that cost might be easily absorbed. For others it could be significantly more difficult.”

It it increasingly clear that a bipartisan solution is attainable. In July, the House of Representatives passed its own bill that creates a single, national labeling standard, as well as a GMO-free certification program that assures consumers who prefer to purchase non-GMO foods have a consistent, transparent means of identifying those products. That legislation passed by a 275-150 vote with support of 45 Democrats. Today’s hearing provided plenty of evidence that similar bipartisan compromise is within reach in the Senate.