Tag Archives: Food Security

Food Security

Industrial Production Returning to U.S.; Will Stabilize Food Prices

Richard Ha writes:

The natural gas boom is starting to bring industrial production back to the U.S. This is going to stabilize food prices.

Products made from cheap natural gas, such as nitrogen fertilizer, plastics and other agricultural inputs, will stabilize. Then, as we start to close down oil-fired plants on the Big Island and replace the present liquid fuel with lower cost alternatives, local farmers' refrigeration chain costs and local food manufacturing costs will start to become more competitive with food imported from the mainland.

Consumers will have more discretionary income to support local farmers. As we all know, food security involves farmers farming, and if farmers make money, the farmers will farm.

From The Washington Post:

The new boom: Shale gas fueling an American industrial revival

Orascom chose Wever, Iowa, over Illinois because part of its investment will be funded by a tax-exempt bond. The Iowa Economic Development Authority approved an incentive package that is expected to provide tax relief “in the order of $100 million,” the company said.

Royal Dutch Shell has unveiled plans for a $2 billion petrochemical plant northwest of Pittsburgh, where it can use natural gas supplies from the state’s enormous Marcellus shale formation. It chose Pennsylvania despite being wooed by Ohio and West Virginia.

The broader effect

The economic growth from natural gas abundance extends to companies providing supplies to the drilling boom.

On Oct. 1, Honeywell announced that it paid $525 million for a 70 percent stake in Thomas Russell, a privately held provider of technology and equipment for natural gas processing and treatment. With the acquisition, Honeywell will offer technologies and products that allow producers of shale and conventional natural gas to remove contaminants from natural gas and recover high-value natural gas liquids used for petrochemicals and fuel….

Read the rest

Articles, Food Security, Games, Renewable Energy Sources

Richard Ha at Civil Beat

Civil Beat asked Richard to write some opinion pieces for them, and his 3-part series on energy and food security in Hawai‘i is running right now. You can click the titles to read the whole article.

Part 1:

Trying to be Safe by Doing Nothing is No Longer Safe 

I am Richard Ha, chairman of the board of Ku‘oko‘a. Ku‘oko‘a is trying to align the needs of Hawai‘i’s people with the needs of the electrical utility.

I want to start by telling you who I am and what my values are. My mom is Okinawan, Higa from Moloka‘i, and my Pop was half Korean and half Hawaiian. His mother was Leihulu Kamahele. Our family land was down the beach at Maku‘u in Puna. We were very poor but didn’t know it….

 Read the rest

Part 2:

Expensive Electricity Threatens Hawaii’s Food Security

At the 2010 Peak Oil conference, held in Washington, D.C., a speaker pointed to a graph showing that oil is used for a very small portion of the U.S. mainland’s production of electricity.

He pointed out that Hawai‘i is responsible for a huge portion of the nation’s oil use. The U.S. mainland uses oil for less than 10 percent of its electrical generation, while Hawai‘i depends on oil for 76 percent of its electrical generation. So when oil prices rise, Hawai‘i’s electricity ratepayers are significantly more affected than mainland electricity ratepayers.

And as oil prices rise, any imported mainland product that has electricity usage imbedded in its production has a cost advantage over the same product produced in Hawai‘i. This is true for ice cream, bakery products and even jams and jellies….

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Part 3:

What Works, Works

Farmers cut straight to the chase. We farmers are concerned about survival, the bottom line, people and the environment.

Although we do support maximizing other technologies available to us in Hawai‘i, here I am talking about “base power” electricity – stable, steady power. Eighty percent of our electricity needs to be stable, steady base power. Base power has the biggest impact on our electricity bills….

Read the rest

Food Security, Renewable Energy Sources

Definitions: Food Security vs. Food Self-Sufficiency

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At our last Board of Agriculture meeting, Matthew Loke, Chief Economist for the Department of Agriculture, differentiated between “food security” and “food self-sufficiency.”

“Food security” means being able to get adequate and sufficient food, regardless of where it comes from. These days, it comes from all over the world. We are able to buy food from all over because money comes into our economy from the outside, with military spending and tourism being primary contributors. That provides us with money to pay for general services to our society and to buy our food.

“Food self-sufficiency” is when we grow all the food we need, right here at home.

As long as our economy functions smoothly, we have food security. Just go to your local grocery store and look at the variety of foodstuffs – from fruits to cereal to canned goods.

Food self-sufficiency is desirable as a hedge against when the economic supply lines start being challenged, at which time it’s more desirable to have our food sourced close to home. More and more, it’s looking like that time is coming.

Since we operate mainly as a market economy, we are influenced by the cost of producing that food. The concept “If the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm” is a very important aspect of fresh food self-sufficiency.

We have very good resources and we need to use them in a smart, cost-effective way. The main reason we in Hawai‘i are lucky as we move toward self-sufficiency is the abundant sun energy we have. Sun combined with water availability gives us the primary input to growing stuff. And if we produce it close to where it is consumed, we save on transportation costs.

Hawaiians figured all this out many centuries ago. Here we are trying to solve the same problems all over again today.

What works, works.

Biofuel, Food Security, Geothermal, Iceland, Renewable Energy Sources

Iceland, In Conclusion

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I want to conclude my “Iceland Series” by pointing out something very simple and straightforward that they have learned in Iceland and put into practice, but that we in Hawai‘i have not:

Cheap and proven technology, and clean energy projects, protect an economy from oil crises.

If what the International Energy Association says is true – that we have come to the end of cheap oil – then the bottom line is that by decoupling from expensive oil, we protect ourselves. It is the cost that’s important, not the color or anything else.

In Hawai‘i, we are trying to replace fossil fuel oil with biofuels. But if the replacement is as expensive as oil – which biofuels for electricity generation is – this doesn’t do us any good.

Geothermal, on the other hand, would totally disconnect us from the high cost of energy. It’s the cost that is the most important. And because it’s safer to diversify, we should also maximize our other energy sources, such as wind and solar, without destabilizing the electric grid.

When you go over to Iceland, you see that they have inoculated themselves from rising oil prices. In doing so, they have also made themselves food secure, because their electricity is cheap relative to other sources of energy. For instance, when they export aluminum, which is electricity-intensive, as long as their electricity costs are lower than that of their competitors, they will always have money coming into their economy.

Iceland’s economy depends on cheap energy and fishing as its base. (And Iceland’s tourism increased when the country devalued its currency, so cheap energy had a double benefit.) Hawai‘i’s economy depends on the military and tourism. We need a third leg to give our economy some stability and security.

It was interesting for me to see how a native people, left to their own devices, coped. As of today, Iceland is more energy and food secure than Hawaii! This is why Ku‘oko‘a needs to purchase HEI. The rubbah slippah folks all know this to be true.

Cheap electricity makes an economy competitive in the world. This is where the people’s needs and the utility’s needs should coincide.

Everybody knows that Iceland’s economy crashed in 2008. That happened because they privatized their banking industry, the banks went crazy, and they got caught by the downturn. But because the country has cheap energy, they are pulling out of their recession and the excesses of their banks – while we are struggling to forestall a double dip recession.

This shows us that if you’re in a competitive position relative to energy, and you don’t do anything stupid, you can withstand any oil-induced depression or recession, which is where the world is headed.

Iceland is also concerned about its dependence on fossil fuel for transportation. It has a commercial hydrogen refueling station, and I rode in an SUV powered by methane from municipal waste. They are even looking into making liquid fuels from geothermal electricity and CO2.

Iceland is like a little lab. You go over there and look at the country and say, “Holy smokes! It can be done.”

Now to do it here.

Food Security, Geothermal, Iceland

‘From Across the Sea: Aloha Iceland’

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Jon Letman, a writer on Kaua‘i, wrote an article and put together an audio-slide show looking at similaries between Hawai‘i and Iceland after he visited Iceland five years ago. It’s called “From Across the Sea: Aloha Iceland.”

From the article, which appears in the Iceland Review Online:

It comes as no surprise that Iceland and Hawaii rarely come up in the same conversation, but perhaps its time that changed. After all, Europe’s northernmost island nation and America’s southernmost island state share more in common than one might imagine….  Read the rest

Iceland has really grabbed the bull by the horns and it has solved its problems of food security and energy. It’s incredible that it’s Iceland who did this.

Hawai‘i could – we should – be doing this. 

Biofuel, Geothermal, Renewable Energy Sources

Mopping the Deck of the Titanic

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In October 2008, the Hawai‘i Clean Energy Initiative (HCEI) – which aims for 70 percent of the State’s energy needs to be met by renewable energy by 2030 – was outstanding for its ambitious approach to the challenges facing Hawai‘i’s future. It anticipates a 30 percent reduction in oil dependency through efficiency improvements, plus a 2 percent/year reduction in fossil fuels over 20 years.

Now we are realizing that 40 percent less oil dependency in 20 years is not ambitious enough. And as we move to implementation, we are finding that some of our assumptions may not work out as planned. A key question is whether or not we are flexible enough to react to the rapid changes taking place.

It is clear to me that we are furiously sweeping and mopping the deck of the Titanic.

Picture 7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Hawai‘i Clean Energy Initiative was enacted into law in April 2010. But by then, the world oil supply situation was changing rapidly. Two months later, Lloyd’s of London advised its business clients to be prepared for $200/barrel oil by the year 2013. Economists at the University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization told me that $200/barrel oil would devastate our tourist industry.

I asked, “Is it fair to say that if we used geothermal as our primary base power, Hawai‘i would become relatively more competitive to the rest of the world as the price of oil rises?” The answer was “yes.”

In a report last week, the Economic Research Organization at the University of Hawai‘I (UHERO) pointed out that the State’s current weak recovery is being fueled by the tourism industry—which is dependent on future oil prices.

Hawaii has liquid fuel, transportation and electricity problems. The mainland fixed its liquid fuel electricity problem, after the oil shocks of the 1970s, by switching to natural gas and coal.

This past October, when I attended a Peak Oil conference in Washington D.C., they pointed out that the U.S. mainland is less than 9 percent dependent on petroleum oil. A large part of that 9 percent, they then said, was due to the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) in Hawai‘i. I was shocked!

To think that we have done nothing about this for the last 20 years. And now we hear the excuse that, since nothing has been done, it will take 10 years to ramp up geothermal, so we cannot wait for geothermal.

Here is a comparison of Energy Return on Investment (EROI) for fossil fuels: In the 1930s, to get 100 barrels of oil, it took the energy of just one barrel. In the 1970s, one barrel would get you 30 barrels. Now, the average EROI is that one barrel will get you 10. Clearly, the trend is not good.

The ratio for geothermal is also around 10 to 1. The difference, though, is that this ratio will not decline for a very long time. Jim Kauahikaua, Scientist-in-Charge of the Hawaii Volcano Observatory, told me that the Big Island will be over the hot spot for 500,000 to a million years.

Instead of fossil fuel, HECO wants to use biofuels to generate the electricity for most of its base power. The problem is that the EROI for biofuels is close to 1 to 1. And it should also be a warning that SunFuels, a company that actually knows about green diesel, is closing up shop in Hawai‘i. Not to mention that farmers knew three years ago that they would not grow biofuels, because it was obviously a money loser for them.

I am not against biofuels, but I think if we are to grow liquid fuel it should be used for jet fuel or transportation fuel—not electricity. I support biofuels through Pacific Bioldiesel. These folks use waste oil to support their capital costs. To the extent they can integrate feedstock from farmers, I think that their model has a reasonable chance of success. I also support UH Hilo’s College of Agriculture and Forestry’s initiative to study palm oil cultivation. This, too, is proven technology.

Geothermal is cheap, proven, gives off no carbon emissions and occupies a very small footprint. And through the generation of NH3 from its off peak power, which can fuel internal combustion engines, geothermal can put future generations into a position so they can win.

NH3 can also help with food security. Eighty percent of NH3’s present use is as fertilizer.

Furthermore, electricity generated from geothermal to power electric cars is clean and cheap.

So geothermal both takes care of us today and can take care of future generations. To farmers, this is not rocket science. It’s just common sense.

We can and must use every renewable energy option available to us, and to its maximum potential. By diverting excess electricity production to alternatives such as NH3 (ammonia), geothermal offers a safety valve that can allow more renewable energy in.

Can we imagine prosperity, instead of doom and gloom? Not, no can. CAN!

The Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative:

On October 20, 2008, an Energy Agreement was signed by the State of Hawai’i, the Hawaiian Electric Companies, and the State Consumer Advocate to accelerate the accomplishment of Hawai’i’s energy objectives in the regulated electric utility sector.

In April, 2010, the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative Program was added to State law, in Chapter 196 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes.

The Challenge

Hawai’i relies on imported petroleum for nearly 90% of its primary energy

Up to $7 billion flows out of the state annually to meet Hawai’i’s energy needs

Hawai’i’s economy is extremely vulnerable to fluctuations in global oil prices

Hawai’i residents pay among the nation’s highest prices for electricity and fuel

The Solution

The Hawai’i Clean Energy Initiative is helping transform Hawai’i from the most fossil-fuel dependent state in the nation to one run on Hawai’i Powered clean energy within a generation

Its goals and objectives:

Hawaii is the most fossil fuel dependent state in the nation.

This can be explained in large part because of our dependence on tourism and the military – together, they make up roughly 50% of our total economy. That’s a dangerous scenario for the future because of the finite nature of fossil fuel and the fact that our state is more and more vulnerable to fluctuations in oil prices and availability.

Food Security

Chefs, Farmers & Food Security

Food security awareness is starting to gain traction, and I am very encouraged by this get-together at Leeward Community College on Friday, April 15. I believe it will make a difference for Hawaii’s food security.

Food Security is about farmers farming. And if the farmers make money, farmers will farm.

The objective of this exercise is to enable incremental change to help farmers make money. All the pieces will add up to something significant!

Picture 3

Eating Locally, Family of Farms, Food Security

Food Security & Feed the Hunger Foundation

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After I spoke in Honolulu on a panel about foodsecurity and eating local recently, someone came up to talk with me. It was Denise Albano, President of Feed The Hunger Foundation:

MISSION

Feed The Hunger Foundation strives to alleviate hunger and poverty by promoting microfinance as a platform for personal, familial, communal, and spiritual transformation.

The non-profit foundation is based in California, but Denise Albano and CEO Patti Chang are wanting to give back to Hawai‘i, where they are both from.

They’re pretty impressive people; both very well-educated, well-connected to government in California, and have been doing projects all over the world.

What they do is provide micro loans to people who don’t qualify through banks but who want to farm.

This fits in really well with what we’re trying to do. Maybe with college students – they qualify for a loan, and if they want to try farming, we’d give them a good deal for a year and then see if they want to continue. And if they do, we give them a good start. We’d lease some land, or growing houses, to them at pretty nominal rates, and the water and electricity would be free. And Denise and them would help them with the financing.

Some farmers already have eight of our houses under cultivation. If they had to go out and buy them, that would be $80,000. If they rent them from us, they’re in business immediately, and for nominal rent.

If they make money, we make money.

The next step is working with the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. They’re going to arrange to gather students and other interested people and we’ll give a presentation. “My name is, we have this farm, here are the possibilities, this is the situation. We’ll let you come in for a year, and here’s how much it will cost. You pay for the fertilizer and for growing the stuff, and we’ll do the distribution and the marketing.”

For us, it’s strengthening our Families of Farms concept.

You know what’s really interesting about what we do? We see things happening with energy and all, at two levels. At the farm level, and at the state level. This one is at the farm level. It’s just a missing link kind of thing.

Our whole thing about food security has to do with farmers making money. If the farmers make money, the farmers will farm. It’s all incremental; it’s the experience of a lot of little things.

This is just another piece of the puzzle that will help with food security.

Feed the Hunger Foundation Values:

  • We network with businesses and organizations to ensure the health and success of our borrowers;
  • We invest in strong women leaders who are building and reinventing their communities;
  • We provide loans in areas where microfinance is less available;
  • We create a space where donors and borrowers may come together to form change; and
  •  We strive to ensure food security for all.
Biofuel, Food Security, Renewable Energy Sources, Zero Waste

Biofuels and Feedstock

One of the main stumbling blocks to making biofuels is the cost of the feedstock. And feedstock frequently involves farmers farming.

For example, it is said that making an industrial-scale biofuel operation work requires feedstock that costs between $45 and $60/ton. Since farmers were making $100/ton for making hay, a $45/ton subsidy was put into place. This makes growing feedstock for cellulosic biofuels competitive with making hay—on the mainland.

But here in Hawai‘i, making hay costs $300 per ton, instead of the $100 per ton on the mainland. Farmers won’t do it for $100 per ton.

Who will pay the difference? If the biofuel is being used to make electricity, it will obviously be the rate payer.

Will oil prices rise so high that eventually the biofuel will be cost competitive? Farming inputs and logistic costs are fossil fuel related and rise as oil prices rise. This effect is called “the receding horizon.”

But when waste products are used as the feedstock, the economics change. A good example is Pacific Biodiesel, which uses waste cooking oil. If they asked farmers to grow extra virgin olive oil to make biofuel, obviously it wouldn’t work.

There is a limit as to what can be produced. That limit is the amount of used oil available.

The same is true of the oils potentially developed from the USDA’s Zero Waste project. Its biofuel production is limited to the waste that can be converted to making oil.

The advantage of using the waste stream is that the cost of the feedstock is very low. And in the case of the Zero Waste project, it supports food security for Hawai‘i.

Biofuel, Food Security, Zero Waste

Drop-In Biofuels; A Model That Could Work For Farmers

Mahalo to Senator Inouye for having the foresight to fund Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center (PBARC). This might be the game changer for food and energy security for Hawai‘i.

Sign

I wrote before that PBARC has been working on a “zero waste” program for the Hamakua Coast.

It’s an impactful and multifaceted program that ultimately ends up supporting both food security and energy security for Hawai‘i. Food security involves farmers farming, and if farmers make money, farmers will farm.

I support this program because utilizing waste products helps farmers make money.

Here I’m writing here about the biofuel (energy) component, which has support from the Department of Defense. One of the fundamentals of making biofuel involves acquiring appropriately priced feedstock. In this model, the feedstock comes from farm waste that is now thrown away. Or it comes from a process such as crop rotation, which enhances primary farming operations.

In the Hamakua Zero Waste Program’s demonstration model, the farm waste will be papaya. Papaya farmers sell 65 percent of what they deliver to the processer, and 35 percent is thrown away. The other product is sweet sorghum, which is used in rotation with a primary crop such as sweet potato.

A very significant part of this program is the use of oil-producing microbes. BioTork LLC specializes in breeding microorganisms that make oil.

Kate1Evolved algae, from BioTork LLC, having just arrived at PBARC in the mail. This is Kate Nishijima, a PBARC researcher.

Eudes de Crecy, the CEO of BioTork, states:

A variety of different microorganisms—such as heterotrophic, fungi and bacteria—are capable of converting sugars and other organic compounds into triglycerides oils suitable for conversion to advanced drop-in fuels like green diesel, gasoline and jet fuel. Since these oil-producing microorganisms are heterotrophic, they can be grown inside large fermentors or bioreactors in any climate 24/7 and do not require significant amounts of water for growth. Moreover, oil-producing heterotrophs can produce significantly more triglycerides than phototrophic microorganisms—up to 70% of the dry weight. To date, few enterprises use oil-producing microorganisms like to produce biofuel because the carbon sources necessary for robust growth are more expensive (e.g., glucose, fructose) than the resulting biofuel.

However, BioTork has used experimental evolution to produce proprietary oil-producing microorganisms that are capable of growing on low cost streams of organic material. Indeed, we have already adapted oil-producing microorganisms to grow on low value by-products and even noxious wastes that are derived from agricultural or industrial processes.

Kate2Transferring algae to growing media

Hawai‘i-grown papaya was sent to BioTork prior to Christmas 2010, and first generation, oil-producing strains that grow on papaya puree and sweet sorghum juice have already been developed and sent for testing in PBARC’s labs. In addition, preliminary results for the development of an oil-producing microbe that can grow on the less accessible carbon sources in sweet sorghum bagasse looks promising.

DennisDennis Gonsalves, PBARC Director, examining a vial of specialized, oil-producing algae

The demonstration project is designed to show whether this will or won’t work within 12 months in a cost effective manner in real world conditions. As a farmer, I believe that if this works cost effectively, it can work on a sustainable basis because it will help farmers make money. And as we all know, if the farmers make money, the farmers will farm.

Rivertop Solutions, LLC, whose CEO is David Rus and whose president and chief media officer is Amy Fernandez, is an important partner of the Hamakua Zero Waste project. Rivertop Solutions works alongside communities and organizations to assist with the planning, systems design, and implementation of economically and socially viable development programs based on maximizing the potential of indigenous resources. The company is moving its headquarters from Reston Virginia to Hilo in the summer of 2011.

Together with PBARC’s other programs that support and enhance farming operations, we can build a resilient food security system for Hawai‘i.