Tomatoes

Iron Chef Morimoto Visits the Farm

1 Comment

It was a busy week. After Governor Lingle dropped by, our friend Tisha Uehara, who is vice president of Armstrong Produce, called and asked if she could bring Iron Chef Morimoto by to visit.

Chef Morimoto is opening a restaurant in Waikiki soon and wanted to introduce himself to the farmers. Of course we told her we would love to see him.

They came in like a whirlwind. Chef Morimoto really focused in on the grape and beef tomatoes.

Photo1

He looked really carefully at the tomatoes and then he just bit into one. And took several more bites.

Photo2

Then he said he wanted it in his restaurant, saying that the flavor was excellent and pointing out that the thickness of the skin was just right.

Photo3

Chef Morimoto autographed some items, gave me an autographed copy of his cookbook and they were gone. All of us were in a good mood.

Photo4

Biofuel

Biofuels: A Reality Check

2 Comments

A couple months ago, I attended a forum at Kaneohe Marine Corp Air Station that was jointly sponsored by the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

We were told that the Department of Defense regards liquid fuel to be a national defense concern. Many dignitaries reiterated that message. The Navy spokesperson said that Hawai‘i is one of the first places where they will kick off their initiative. He said that the U.S. Navy can use many, many millions of gallons of “drop-in” biofuels — fuel that is interchangeable with petroleum fuels. The U.S. Department of Agriculture person talked about loan guarantees of five years, but said they needed to extend that.

Being a practical farmer, I wanted to know how much they will be paying for this “drop-in” bio fuel.  Finally, at the end of the day, they said they will buy it for approximately $1.95 per gallon. Knowing there are 42 gallons in a barrel of oil, this means that they will buy it at $82 per barrel — market price.

I felt the oxygen go out of the room.

Last week, I read a new report on biofuels. The capital cost of the new generation biofuel plants are huge. Whereas the same size ethanol plant might cost around  $100 million, the equivalent next generation biofuel plants could cost from $300 – 600 million. It also says that about a third of the operating cost of the plants producing “drop-in,” next generation biofuels is the cost of the feedstock — i.e., farming.

So farming is key?

A farmer makes these kinds of decisions all the time. What size pickup truck should I buy and how am I going to pay for it? If I have a small farm, I’ll buy a small truck. On the other hand, if I have lots of stuff to deliver, I’ll buy a bigger truck. The main thing is to match up the cost with the income.

From the above information, it seems that we have decided to buy a huge truck before we have figured out how to pay for it. We do know that one-third the cost of operating will be the feedstock. Will the farmers supply it at a price that makes everything else work?

On the mainland, to make everything work, the feedstock must not cost more than $60 per ton (.03 cents per lb.). The problem is, farmers can make hay for $100 per ton (.05 cents per pound). So they fixed this by giving a $45 per ton subsidy.

In Hawai‘i, farmers make hay for $300 per ton (.15 cents per pound). Can they make money at $100 per ton (.05 cents per pound)?  Would anyone depend on farming to produce enough stuff to pay for the huge truck?

A friend of mine bailed California Grass on flatlands, with deep soil at Pepe‘ekeo and natural rainfall — perfect conditions. He was fully mechanized and he knew what he was doing.

He got 22 tons of dry matter per acre, but he had to apply 1800 lbs. per acre of fertilizer to achieve that — a little more than .01 cent per lb. Land rent is $200 per acre; that is ½ cent per pound or more. That leaves 3-½ cents per pound to cover the equipment payment, fuel, labor, profit, etc. This assumes perfect weather all the time.

If we think about it, we realize that the sugar industry went through all of this. The last one standing, HC&S, had the best combination of farming necessities. It had flat land, plenty of sunshine, plenty of water and its production facility sat in the middle of the field. I think it is fair to say that if HC&S can’t make biofuels work, others will have a tougher time.  Actually, if they can’t do it, maybe it can’t be done.

We have to play the position on the chess board that exists. Not the one we hope to have.

Of course, we should pursue studies and trials to see if we can make the very dramatic breakthroughs necessary. And we all hope that algae will eventually work.

But being real, we need to hedge our bets. Geothermal is good. You don’t need to fertilize, irrigate, plow, plant or get stuck in the mud. And if we are subsidizing the production of energy, we should consider the folks who provide the primary source of energy — farmers.

Mauna Kea

Is The Sierra Club Anti-Hawaiian?

9 Comments

This is an email that I sent to Mark Glick, President of the Hawaii Sierra Club.

Aloha Mark:

It saddens me to write this note to you. I am a member of the Sierra Club. But I very much disagree with the stance that the Sierra Club has taken with regard to Mauna Kea.

There are many, many dedicated volunteers in the Moku Loa group and I enjoy participating in conservation committee meetings. But, If the Sierra Club sues, I will regretfully have to terminate my membership.

I am native Hawaiian and the overwhelming number of native Hawaiians are in favor of the Comprehensive Management Plan and the development of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea. We feel that it is appropriate that the best telescope in the world be built on the most sacred mountain in the world, in honor of our proud history of astronomy and navigation. I feel that the Sierra Club has no regard for what the vast majority of  the Hawaiian people feel.

When the Thirty Meter Telescope corporation first announced that they were interested in coming to Hawaii, I volunteered to be on the TMT committee of the Hawaii Economic Development Board. I was disappointed and angry about how astronomy had been done on the mountain.  And I was determined that if it was to be done, I wanted a hand in making sure that it be done right.

Previous to this I had been just a banana farmer. But when one talks about Mauna Kea, one needs to talk about the culture. And then, one gravitates to Keaukaha, the oldest Hawaiian Homes community of the Big Island. There I discovered that although there were hundreds of millions of dollars of telescopes on the mountain, there were no visible benefit to the Hawaiian community. This community has a much lower average income than Hilo proper.
One day, I asked Kumu Lehua Veincent, the principal of Keaukaha Elementary School: Where do the kids go on excursion? He said, We do not have enough money to rent buses, so we organize walking excursions around the neighborhood. How could this be? I thought that all kids went on excursion.

A friend of mine and I decided that we could not just talk, we needed to do something and so we started the adopt-a-class project. We figured that $300 would be enough to rent a bus and $300 would pay for entry fees to Imiloa the Astronomy and Hawaiian culture museum. So, we went around and asked if individuals or groups would be interested in adopting a class so they could go on excursion. In four months all the classes were adopted for both semesters.

Soon after, the Moore Foundation, using the adopt-a-class project as a template, funded all the students on the Big Island for an excursion to Imiloa.

You may know that Hawaiians occupy the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. And that the best predictor of family income is level of education. The TMT committed to fund $1 million annually to a keiki education fund as soon as permits are issued. We have an opportunity of elevating our Hawaiian childrens’ education level and to move them up in our society.

The Sierra Club fighting against this project, when we and so many others fought so hard to make the CMP pono, is so disappointing as to be beyond words. Your stance is anti-Hawaiian.

What is your justification for doing this? What does the national chapter think?  How can you even contemplate it?

Aloha,
Richard Ha

Government

Governor Lingle and Grandma

1 Comment

Governor Linda Lingle came to visit us at the farm a couple of days ago.  The first thing I wanted to be sure of was that Grandma would be there. And I wanted to tell the governor that we could not have done this without June’s help and support.

Grandma & the governorKimo and Tracy Pa on the left; June and I on the right. Three generations of us in front of the camera. Our grndson Kapono Pa, the fourth generation, is behind the camera.

In the picture, I think Grandma and the governor have their arms around each other, and June is holding Grandma’s other hand. That made me smile.

First we went to see the tomato packing house workers, and the varieties of tomatoes we grow. I explained that our view of sustainability involves our workers, our community and the environment; and that food security is about farmers farming. “If farmers make money, farmers will farm.”

Lingle
The Governor loves Hamakua Springs tomatoes

Ted Liu, Director of the Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism, asked me to give the governor an overall view of our farm. I explained that we have approximately 60 workers and that the farm consists of 600 fee simple acres in production. We have an annual rainfall of 140 inches and we have three springs and three streams running through the property. On our farm, we have the equivalent of about one-thirds of the water that flows through the Waiahole ditch to supply the Ewa Plains on O‘ahu. And we are in the process of building a hydro-electric plant, which will provide all the farm’s electricity. It will be able to continuously power fifteen 40-foot Matson reefers.

I explained that we started banana farming by trading banana pulapula for chicken manure and that we have transformed our business many times in our 30 years of business. So transforming ourselves is second nature to us.

When gas prices went up in mid-2008, several of our workers asked to borrow money for gas. That was very worrisome.

So we are transforming ourselves again. Instead of being the only large farmer on 600 acres, we are leasing land to area farmers. In the future, we won’t have many workers that live far away. And we won’t need to worry about workers’ housing.

We are offering area farmers a reasonable rent, and we are intending to provide water and electricity to the farmers at a very reasonable price. We know that if the farmers can make money, the farmers will farm. And if they make money, then we can make money distributing their products and then the retailers will get a steady supply of product to feed Hawai‘i’s people. With cheap electricity from the hydro plant, we can control our, and the farmers’, cooling costs.

Group We grow tomatoes, bananas, herbs and lettuces. Other farmers grow cucumbers, apple bananas, sweet corn, sweet potatoes and ginger. In addition, we market papaya, lemons, limes, longan, lychee, heart of palms and more.

We went over to look at the tilapia we are experimenting with. We think that in a future of rising oil prices, fish food will not be cheap and transporting frozen fish around the world will be expensive. So we are experimenting with growing fish using free running water, so we won’t need to use electricity for aeration or hormones and antibiotics. We are experimenting with using waste from our farm operations for feed. At some point in the future, this will become economical to do. We have all the natural resources and the vegetable waste to use. We plan to use the fish waste for fertilizer for downstream plants. When the time is right, we can scale up to any size that makes sense.

We went back to the main packing house, where June introduced the governor to some of the farmers, who then had a chance to chat with her. I explained that Kimo Pa is the farm manager, and that he and our daughter Tracy represent the next generation of farmers.

Lingle & ida castillo
Governor Lingle with Ida Castillo

I told the governor that we are pushing for geothermal by having community meetings and talking to people, as we did early on for the TMT. She agreed that geothermal makes a lot of sense and said she would support us.

She mentioned to Ted Liu that we were “actually doing it.” I took it to mean that she thought we are doing something about Hawai‘i’s food security, rather than just talking about it. It was a nice, pleasant visit that we all enjoyed.

Peak Oil

‘A Global Economy is An Oily Way to do Business’

1 Comment

Jeff Rubin says oil prices will rise but that we can cope if we do the right things. I too, believe that we can adapt.

Rubin was the chief economist at CIBC World Markets for almost twenty years. He was one of the first economists to accurately predict soaring oil prices back in 2000, and now he is now a sought-after energy expert.

I like what Jeff Rubin has to say:

“If we continue to commute 60 miles each way in SUVs, we’re going to get screwed. All of a sudden, peak oil will equal peak GDP; that’s not just an economic recession for a couple of quarters, that’s a world of no economic growth. The point of my book is that, while we can’t do anything about triple-digit oil prices, there’s a whole lot we can do to make sure that when we encounter triple-digit oil prices, they don’t have to be so devastating as in the past.

“We have to reduce, in effect, oil per unit of GDP, and the way we do that is to go from a global economy back to a local economy because a global economy is an extremely oily way of doing business. And that switch isn’t something that the Federal Reserve Board or US Treasury or the Bank of Canada or the European Central Bank is going to put in place; that is going to be the aggregate result of all the micro decisions that consumers make about what we eat, where we live and how we get around.

“I think triple-digit oil prices will lead us to make the right decisions on those fronts, and the result will be a very different economy than the economy we know.”

Geothermal, Government

What is Plan B? Plan C?

Do you remember that prior to the climate change conference this past December, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared that greenhouse gases endanger human health? I heard it!

This means that, at anytime, the EPA can declare greenhouse gases – including C02 – are harmful to human health, and it could impose penalties.

The U.S. Congress is now getting ready to pass climate change legislation. Whatever they pass, our electric utilities will likely be penalized for emitting C02 – whether they burn fossil or biofuel.

This is why I ask: “What if the EPA designates C02 a dangerous gas? What is Plan B? Plan C?”

I’ve also been noticing that Europe and now the East Coast of the U.S. are slowly coming to the conclusion that biomass is not C02 neutral. In fact, they are finding that it could be as harmful as coal as far as C02 emissions are concerned.

It turns on if it is used for collecting and burning waste branches and rubbish, instead of trees. It also has to do with how long the rotation of new trees takes. Hu Honua is planning to burn eucalyptus trees, which might put it in the EPA’s gun sights. Organizations need to be out in front of these issues.

To be clear, I am in favor of PV, wind, algae and biofuels for transportation. What I am talking about here, though, is “base power” for electricity. “Base power” is the largest part of the electric utilities’ usage.

I also believe that each grid needs to find its own solution. I am mostly talking about the Big Island grid.

Which brings us back to this Lloyd’s of London white paper I just wrote about here. The world has changed and yesterday’s decisions may not be applicable to tomorrow’s reality.

It is no secret that I believe that geothermal moves us out of the line of fire.

I believe that the changes coming upon us, as the Lloyd’s of London analysis points out, are serious and will take place before any geothermal event.

We will soon find out who our true leaders are.

Geothermal, Schools, Science

Robotics/Micro Mechanisms on the Big Island

The first Hawaii International Micro Robot Conference and Tournament will be held at ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo from July 16 through 19, 2010.

Art Kimura, Education Specialist for the Hawai‘i Space Grant Consortium at UH Manoa, says the conference is primarily to begin a discussion on how Big Island can benefit through micro mechanisms.

“Whether for R&D,” he says, “for actual production, for prototyping, partnerships and relevant applications including medical, agriculture, security, etc. We are hoping this will be a catalyst for further interest in what would be a clean industry (since they are micro devices, the facilities are not large).”

Richard is very interested in this, and says that from a business perspective he can see micro manufacturing taking off on the Big Island where geothermal electricity would be cheap.

“Because it is small by volume,” he says, “freight cost would not a large factor. The higher the input cost of electricity, the more competitive we become.”

“This is a field where we could become world leaders,” he says.

Also, the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo is hosting the 9th Annual ROV Competition on June 24-26, 2010. This video describes the international student underwater robotics competition.

Hilo is the perfect location for the competition because this year’s theme is underwater volcanoes. The event will be held at the Olympic-sized outdoor swimming pool at UH Hilo’s Student Life Center.

About 60 teams from all over the world are participating, including five from Hawaii:
•    Kapiolani Community College, Honolulu
•    Kealakehe Intermediate School, Kailua-Kona
•    Moanalua High School, Honolulu
•    Highlands Intermediate School, Pearl City
•    Hilo High School, Hilo

ROVs are remotely operated vehicles, also known as underwater robots or robot submersibles. They’ve been in the news a lot lately because they’re a critical tool in the attempts to manage the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Skilled ROV engineers and operators are needed in many marine technology industries that have importance in Hawaii, not just the oil and gas industry.

And they also have applications in science and exploration. For example: an ROV was used to explore the Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the ocean, and an ROV was used to discover the location of the sunken Titanic.

The competition helps students develop the technology, piloting and teamwork skills needed to design, build and operate an ROV in a “real-world” setting and exposes them to marine technology careers. And if they decide working on ROVs isn’t right for them, they’ve still developed science, technology, engineering, math and teamwork skills that will be invaluable in any field.

The International Student ROV Competition is organized by the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) center in Monterey, California.

Here is an email from Art Kimura about the 20th annual Future Flight Hawaii program:

From: Art Kimura

Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2010 2:46 PM

Subject: inspiring…the 20th annual Future Flight Hawaii program… misson complete

Aloha; Rene and I want to thank you all for being part of our 20 year journey….conceived and executed by a group of brave, perhaps naive on our part, 18 teachers in 1991, we are in awe of the teachers we have been privileged to work with.  We should remember our first “boss,” George Mead,
DBED Office of Space Industry, who trusted us to initiate this program, and to Patti Cook who introduced us to the opportunity.

Truth be told, the program was to have ended some 15 years ago when the Office of Space Industry was shut down; through being adopted by the Hawaii Space Grant Consortium (mahalo to all at Spaced Grant…Dr. Luke Flynn, Dr. Jeff Taylor, Dr. Peter Mouginis-Mark, Marcia Sistoso, Eric Pilger, Linda Martel, Lorna Ramiscal and others), we have managed to continue the program…significantly changed from the week long and weekend residential
programs, these family engagement programs continue to be among the most requested programs to be sure.  We thank the University of Hawaii at Hilo (Chancellor Rose Tseng, and the UHH Conference Center) which provided the facilities and services in the initial years before the program moved to the Kilauea Military Camp, then expanded to Maui (thanks to Betty Brask), Kauai (thanks to Cheryl Shintani) and Oahu.  NASA specialists including Tom Gates, Greg Vogt, Cheick Diarra, Ota Lutz, Wayne Lee, David Seidel and others, HIGP scientists (Luke, Jeff, Scott Rowland and others), Gemini Telescope specialists (Peter Michaud, Janice Harvey), the UH College of Engineering,
and many other community specialists and resources have contributed to the program.  We thank Creative Arts Hawaii for their long time support in designing the T shirts, bags and other materials that we have provided to the over 8,500 participants.

We have been honored to have worked with over 175 teachers as part of our mission control team, the summer institutes that we offered for credit and volunteers….they are truly educators with the right stuff.

How long do we continue is a frequently asked question….the initial goal of 10 years has long passed…then more recently, a personal goal was to have one of our grandchildren attend (oldest will not qualify for another
2 years)…but Morgan Nakamura who attended as a 4th grade student from Mililani in our first year, 1991, and who has been teaching business education at Pearl City High School (and is to be a state CTE resource teacher this fall), asked if we could continue the program for another 10
years…why? Morgan is to be married this October (Morgan brought her fiancee to the program and he passed the FF board of review) and she hopes her child will be able to attend.  So old folks like Rene/I will have to pull out our walking canes or better, pass the torch to a new generation, to continue it into the future. With NASA’s vision of exploration changing under President Obama (no return to the moon), we will have to come up with new contextual themes to be sure.

We are grateful to you all for the engaging and creative lessons; we are always in awe of seeing how the lessons unfold under your imagination…..the paper roller coasters put the parents and children to work until late at night and there were amazing results on Sunday to be sure (thanks to Wendell, Arlene and Clyde)….the children surely enjoyed the special solar cooked snacks made in their own solar ovens (thanks to Glenn, Sylvia and Jan) ….the extensive mineral collection from Roger’s personal treasure provide a college level experience for all (thanks to Roger and Matt)….the worm decomposers modules were so engaging that even the squeamish were holding worms (of course Wendi’s Connor told me that his mother would scream at the worms)…we hope the new annelid family members will be part of Earth’s renewal and recycling (thanks to Colleen for drilling all the holes in the bins, to Cyndi for bringing your own annelid collection, and to Donna and Andrea), the planes were flying in the hall ways after the lessons on flight by Dale and Lani, you could drink contaminated liquids after the filtering of the liquids by Carole, Morgan and Joann, the polymer module added to their knowledge of how useful these materials are (thanks to Arlene, Wendell, Clyde) and students learned about leaves through the leaf identification lessons and fresh and dried leaves (thanks to Sylvia, Jan and Glenn).

We were so excited to see the debut of the newest Princess Teriyaki (how many have we had over the years)….Claire Sakata, daughter of Dennis, who spent two years in Japan in the JET program, and will be student teaching at Kapalama Elementary this fall, introduced her study of Japanese magic in such a dramatic way…Claire, please reserve October 16 to be on stage with Roger and Dale at the Astronaut Lacy Veach Day science magic program. The Space Science Magic brought back many memories of demonstrations from years past and the videos brought by Randal, Dennis and Dennis were amazing as well.  Thanks to everyone for your hard work.

Randal Lau has generously spent extraordinary time to post the 2010 graduation videos and other videos from our Future Flight archive on:

http://picasaweb.google.com/boar59/FutureFlightHawaiiVideos?authkey=Gv1sRgCK
fyoaj4naDWYQ#

We hope it will provide everyone with great memories from this and from past years.

We are appreciative for the certificates of recognition from the State Senate presented by Senator Norman Sakamoto to Dr. Flynn, and from Governor Lingle, presented by Dr. Taylor, honors that reflect the long term commitment of all of the teachers and volunteers to develop creative and engaging lessons for the participants.

Future Flight Hawaii blasts off on our 21st annual program in June 2011 with an International Mission to Mars program.

We hope you will join us at:

July 17, 2010: Imiloa Astronomy Center, 6:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m.; public event for the 1st Hawaii Micro Robot Conference and Tournament: origami presentation by Hidenori Ishihara, robotics Professor, Kagawa University,
Shikoku, Japan, and bipedal robot demonstrations by Risa Sato, student at Shizuoka High School, winner of 2009 Bipedal robot competition at Nagoya University, and Hideaki Matsutani, technical education instructor, Meinan
Technical High School, Nagoya.

1st Children and Youth Day BrushBot tournament, October 3, 2010, State Capitol auditorium (if your child’s school wants to enter a team, please have the teacher contact us for workshop information and registration);
mahalo to Senator Chun-Oakland for the invitation.
*additional brushbot tournament to be hosted on the Big Island

9th annual Astronaut Lacy Veach Day of Discovery, October 16, 2010, Punahou School (http://www.spacegrant.hawaii.edu/Day-of-discovery/)
*keynote speaker: Kalepa Babayan, master navigator; content specialist, 

Imiloa Astronomy Center…and the expanded Future Flight Weird Science team (Dale, Roger…and Claire)

11th annual Astronaut Ellison Onizuka Science Day, January 22, 2011, University of Hawaii at Hilo
(http://www.spacegrant.hawaii.edu/OnizukaDay/)

VEX robotics tournaments: http://www.hawaiiroc.org/ October 2, 2010: Maui County Fair (Baldwin High School gym) November 11, 2010: Iolani School gym November 20, 2010: Imiloa Astronomy Center December 3-4, 2010: Hawaii Convention Center 

*3 other Oahu VEX tournaments to be scheduled

If you would like volunteer at these robotics or the Onizuka or Veach Day programs, please let us know.

Thank you again for being a part of our 20th annual program…we hope the rest of the summer provides time for relaxation and for family and friends to gather.  It truly was a joy to work with you …. Art and Rene

Art and Rene Kimura
Future Flight Hawaii
Hawaii Space Grant Consortium

Home


phone (808) 934-7261

Aquaponics, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

Lloyds of London says ‘Expect $200/Barrel Oil by 2013’

Lloyds of London just issued a  White Paper on Sustainable Energy Security. It is a paper addressed to businesses and it says everything I’ve been saying for the last couple of years.When I attended those two Peak Oil conferences, it was because I wanted to learn how to position my business for the future. And I did.

Here is a formal road map that other businesses can follow. Modify the information to allow for Hawaiian conditions.  

Strategic risks and opportunities for business
Executive summary
 
1. BUSINESSES WHICH PREPARE FOR AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE NEW ENERGY REALITY WILL PROSPER – FAILURE TO DO SO COULD BE CATASTROPHIC
Energy security and climate change concerns are unleashing a wave of policy initiatives and investments around the world that will fundamentally alter the way that we manage and use energy. Companies which are able to plan for and take advantage of this new energy reality will increase both their resilience and competitiveness. Failure to do so could lead to expensive and potentially catastrophic consequences.

What if the EPA declares CO2 a dangerous gas? What is plan B? C?

 2. MARKET DYNAMICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS MEAN BUSINESS CAN NO LONGER RELY ON LOW COST TRADITIONAL ENERGY SOURCES
Modern society has been built on the back of access to relatively cheap, combustible, carbon-based energy sources. Three factors render that model outdated: surging energy consumption in emerging economies, multiple constraints on conventional fuel production and international recognition that continuing to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will cause climate chaos.

This means that people will need to bite the bullet and accept the high cost of renewable fuels. But what if we have the opportunity for cheap renewable electricity? And what if this means that we can elevate the living standards of the host Hawaiian culture? Should we turn it down, or should we fight for it?

Geothermal is cheap and renewable and, compared to fossil fuels, bio fuels and bio mass alternatives, it is environmentally friendly. Of course we should fight for it!

3. CHINA AND GROWING ASIAN ECONOMIES WILL PLAY AN INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT ROLE IN GLOBAL ENERGY SECURITYChina and emerging Asian economies have already demonstrated their weight in the energy markets. Their importance in global energy security will grow. First, their economic development is the engine of demand growth for energy. Second, their production of coal and strategic supplies of oil and gas will be increasingly powerful factors affecting the international market. Third, their energy security policies are driving investment in clean energy technologies on an unprecedented scale.
 
China in particular is also a source country for some of the critical components in these technologies. Fourth, as ‘factories of the world’, the energy situation in Asian countries will impact on supply chains around the world.
 
4. WE ARE HEADING TOWARDS A GLOBAL OIL SUPPLY CRUNCH AND PRICE SPIKE
Energy markets will continue to be volatile as traditional mechanisms for balancing supply and price lose their power. International oil prices are likely to rise in the short to mid-term due to the costs of producing additional barrels from difficult environments, such as deep offshore fields and tar sands. An oil supply crunch in the medium term is likely to be due to a combination of insufficient investment in upstream oil and efficiency over the last two decades and rebounding demand following the global recession. This would create a price spike prompting drastic national measures to cut oil dependency.

With every year that goes by, the world’s oil fields are aging at the rate of 4 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia produces only 10 million barrels per day. This means that every 2½ years we need to have found the equivalent of a Saudi Arabia. Are we doing this? NO! We have not found giant oil fields like Saudi Arabia since the 1970s. We have not found enough to make up the natural aging of oil fields.
 
It is estimated that we will only be able to produce half of the 4 million barrel decline. This means that in less than two years, once our extra capacity runs out, we will be short two million barrels per day.

Supply constraints will drive up the price of oil.

“A supply crunch appears likely around 2013…given recent price experience, a spike in excess of $200 per barrel is not infeasible.” Professor Paul Stevens, Chatham House.

5. ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE WILL BECOME INCREASINGLY VULNERABLE AS A RESULT OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND OPERATIONS IN HARSHER ENVIRONMENTS

Much of the world’s energy infrastructure lies in areas that will be increasingly subject to severe weather events caused by climate change. On top of this, extraction is increasingly taking place in more severe environments such as the Arctic and ultra-deep water. For energy investors this means long-term planning based on a changing – rather than a stable climate. For energy users, it means greater likelihood of loss of power for industry and fuel supply disruptions.
 
6. LACK OF GLOBAL REGULATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE IS CREATING AN ENVIRONMENT OF UNCERTAINTY FOR BUSINESS, WHICH IS DAMAGING INVESTMENT PLANS
Without an international agreement on the way forward on climate change mitigation, energy transitions will take place at different rates in different regions. Those who succeed in implementing the most efficient, low-carbon, cost-effective energy systems are likely to influence others and export their skills and technology. However, the lack of binding policy commitments inhibits investor confidence. Governments will play a crucial role in setting policy and incentives that will create the right investment conditions, and businesses can encourage and work with governments to do this.
 
7. TO MANAGE INCREASING ENERGY COSTS AND CARBON EXPOSURE BUSINESSES MUST REDUCE FOSSIL FUEL CONSUMPTION
The introduction of carbon pricing and cap and trade schemes will make the unit costs of energy more expensive. The most cost-effective mitigation strategy is to reduce fossil fuel energy consumption. The carbon portfolio and exposure of companies and governments will also come under increasing scrutiny. Higher emissions standards are anticipated across many sectors with the potential for widespread carbon labelling. In many cases, an early capacity to calculate and reduce embedded carbon and life-cycle emissions in operations and products will increase competitiveness.
 
8. BUSINESS MUST ADDRESS ENERGY-RELATED RISKS TO SUPPLY CHAINS AND THE INCREASING VULNERABILITY OF ‘JUST-IN-TIME’ MODELS
Businesses must address the impact of energy and carbon constraints holistically, and throughout their supply chains. Tight profit margins on food products, for example, will make some current sources unprofitable as the price of fuel rises and local suppliers become more competitive. Retail industries will need to either re-evaluate the ‘just-in-time’ business model which assumes a ready supply of energy throughout the supply chain or increase the resilience of their logistics against supply disruptions and higher prices. Failure to do so will increase a business’s vulnerability to reputational damage and potential profit losses resulting from the inability to deliver products and services in the event of an energy crisis. 

We have changed our business model to give our customers the opportunity to shorten their supply chain. And we have included many small farmers in order to make ourselves more resilient, which benefits our customers (the retailers).
 
With our hydroelectric plant, we will immunize ourselves from the increasingly risky and unstable fossil fuel infrastructure.
 
HECO should go to geothermal faster, rather than slower, in order to accomplish the same thing.

9. INVESTMENT IN RENEWABLE ENERGY AND ‘INTELLIGENT’
INFRASTRUCTURE IS BOOMING. THIS REVOLUTION PRESENTS HUGE OPPORTUNITIES FOR NEW business PARTNERSHIPS
The last few years have witnessed unprecedented investment in renewable energy and many countries are planning or piloting ‘smart grids’. This revolution presents huge opportunities for new partnerships between energy suppliers, manufacturers and users. New risks will also have to be managed. These include the scarcity of several essential components of clean energy technologies, incompatible infrastructures and the vulnerability of a system that is increasingly dependent on IT.

Many opportunities will come up. Will we recognize them? If we expect this to happen, we can.

“Peak oil presents the world with a risk management problem of tremendous complexity.” US Department of Energy 2007.  A vast array of studies have attempted to predict the time at which global oil production will reach a maximum level, from which point it will go into irrevocable decline. Some suggest that this ‘peak’ has already occurred, while others maintain it is either impossible to predict or shows no sign of appearing. Looking further than a decade into the future presents many uncertainties, including: the availability and cost of extraction technologies; substitute technologies; pricing systems in major economies; and carbon legislation. A comprehensive two-year study by the UK Energy Research Centre completed in August 2009 found that a peak in conventional oil production before 2030 appears likely, and there is a significant risk of a peak before 2020. With average rates of decline from current fields, the report says that just to maintain current production levels would require the equivalent of a new Saudi Arabia coming on-stream every three years. What’s more, giant fields pass peak production levels and there is a shift to smaller, more difficult to produce fields that have faster depletion rates meaning the rate of decline will accelerate.

Better to be safe than sorry. Plan on oil spikes in two years.

Rare earth metals (REMs) are a group of 17 elements whose unique properties make them indispensable in a wide variety of advanced technologies. They are an important example of material scarcity in the ‘third energy revolution’, because they are indispensable for so many of the advanced technologies that will allow us to achieve critical national objectives. As such, disruption to their global supply is a new energy security concern. Their production, alongside the metals and magnets that derive from them, is dominated by one country, China. At present, China produces 97% of the world’s rare earth metals supply, almost 100% of the associated metal production, and 80% of the rare earth magnets. REMs such as neodymium are the world’s strongest magnets and are key components for more efficient wind turbines, each of which requires about two tonnes. They are also important in enabling the miniaturising of electronic equipment; consequently demand grew between 15% to 25% per year from 2003 to 2008. 

We need to know where they occur so we can avoid bottlenecks. In many cases in the future, simplicity will be a virtue.

Biofuel, Geothermal

Geothermal Vs. Biomass

6 Comments

How Geothermal would work:

  • Drill
  • Bring up steam
  • Turn turbine
  • Make electricity
  • Put in electric wires

A 35-acre footprint makes 25 megawatts/hour.

No emissions, and no fossil fuels are used to produce electricity.

Geothermal costs approximately 11 cents per kilowatt hour.

How Biomass would work:

  • 50 to 60 big dump trucks all day long, seven days per week, hauling firewood
  • Four hundred dump trucks per week bringing firewood from 20 miles away
  • Burn the firewood
  • Boil the water
  • Spin a turbine
  • Make electricity

A 20-acre footprint generation plant, with a 10- to 20,000-acre footprint firewood forest, produces 25 megawatts/hour.

CO2 comes out of the stack. All the trucks, harvest machinery, chippers, the planting and fertilizer use fossil fuels.

Biomass costs approximately 18 cents per kilowatt hour.

Farmer-grown bio-diesel:

Farmers are not interested in growing biofuels. They went to HECO’s meetings three years ago, and HECO would not say how much they would pay farmers.

Likely they did not know themselves. All they knew was that the farmers would do it cheaply.

NOT!

Farmers are practical – they figured it out and so they never attended another meeting. Here is how they did it:

Farmers know that one barrel of oil weighs approximately 286 pounds. And if oil is $80 per barrel, each pound of oil is worth 28 cents/pound.

Obviously, farmers knew they would get less. How much less?

If it takes four pounds of stuff to squeeze out one pound of liquid, the farmer cannot make more than 7 cents/lb. for the stuff they grow. It does not matter what the stuff is.

Farmers figured this out after the first meeting. It did not take a task force or field trials to figure this out, but nobody bothered to ask the farmers what they thought until just recently.

The conclusion: Forget about small farmers growing biofuels. It is not going to happen for 7 cents/lb.

Out of curiosity, how much would oil have to be for farmers to farm biofuels? Let’s say the farmer would do it for 28 cents/lb. or four times the 7 cents/lb. rate. That means the price signal would have to be four times the $80/barrel price of oil, or $320/barrel. Farmers might grow a biofuel crop if the price of oil was $320 per barrel.

Maybe HECO is intending that the rate payer – you – would subsidize that cost. I am absolutely against that when we have the option of cheap geothermal.

Government

Department of Agriculture to the Rescue

Here are two very significant examples of biological control in action here in Hawai‘i:

Several years ago, the stinging nettle caterpillar was found a couple of miles from where we live in Panaewa.

Its stinging, spiny hairs have a physical effect on human skin similar to that of fiberglass. The spines also release an irritant (a mixture of histamines) produced by a poison gland, which causes the skin to burn and itch. Fruit growers were afraid that, left uncontrolled, this insect could put their workers in danger.

“The detection of nettle caterpillar in Hawai`i quickly set HDOA on a mission to find a natural enemy that would be specific to that particular pest,” said Sandra Lee Kunimoto, Chairperson of the Hawai`i Board of Agriculture.  “Although this pest was not well known in the world, our entomologists were able to find and test a tiny wasp that preys on the stinging caterpillar and nothing else found in Hawai`i.”

Another example was the highly successful biocontrol program for the Erythrina gall wasp, which resulted in the rebounding of the native wiliwili trees.

Both of these accomplishments took a lot of hard work and went largely unnoticed by the general public, but they were very significant and have been very important to Hawai‘i.

Sandy Kunimoto should be proud of the Department of Agriculture’s accomplishments in this area. I am.