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!
Two years ago, oil hit $100 per barrel and I wrote the blog post The Kahuna Not Going Save Us. I was the only person from Hawai‘i who had attended the Peak Oil conference in Houston a couple months before.
Fast forward: Aloha Airlines is gone. Hilo’s O’Keefe Bakery is gone. The Middle East is in turmoil. Our county, state and national governments are saddled with enormous debt.
Our fundamental problem is that for more than 30 years now, the world has been using twice as much oil as it has found.
In Hawai‘i, though, we have a solution that can take us all the way to prosperity, relative to the rest of the world.
We have the gift of geothermal, and we need to use it. We only need a small amount of the energy being used to create our islands, a process that has been going on for millions of years, almost from the time humans started to walk upright.
We need to determine our desired outcome. It is not just getting off oil. We need to think bigger.
How about we think about moving to a place where the aloha spirit thrives? How about arming our future generations with the tools they’ll need by using our brains now? How about giving people the ability to get off the streets and to a place where they can support their families in their own homes?
The folks on Kino‘ole Street understand this very clearly. They are ready to go.
We need to close our oil-fired electricity generating plants and start making these changes now. We need low-cost, stable electricity relative to the rest of the world. Capital loves stability. If we do this, capital will be clamoring to come here. The folks on Bishop Street understand this clearly.
How about stepping forward now!
In a world filled with instability, we will have the attention of Wall Street.
The kahuna not going save us. Tutu Pele can, though.
It’s a sign of the times.
The current unrest in Egypt is largely due to rising food and fuel costs. More and more of this will occur as oil prices rise.
That link above is to a very interesting pdf from the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas. It analyzes the current situation in Egypt in great detail.
We must maximize our geothermal resource to protect Hawai‘i.
We could use your support.
HB 1257 is going to be heard by Rep. Herkes’ Consumer Protection Committee.
Read the bill here. Here is where I discussed the bill.
Send testimony in support of HB 1257 to CPCtestimony@Capitol.hawaii.gov. It should be less than five pages in length; couple sentences plenty.
This bill’s essential elements are simple. It requires the PUC to consider the following three factors when it issues approvals for electricity generation:
Persons wishing to offer comments should submit testimony at least 24 hours prior to the February 2nd hearing with a transmittal cover indicating:
Please send this to your friends, too. Mahalo.
Michele Galimba of Kuahiwi Farms recently wrote about biofuels to be produced in Ka‘u:
…To be blunt, there are big gaping holes in their business model as far as their agricultural/harvesting expertise. They really don’t know what they are doing, especially in respect to the actual physical costs of growing and re-growing biomass. It’s not something I hold against them very much. Ignorance of biological reality is rampant. On the other hand, ignorance does not inspire confidence. Is it okay for them to blunder into our neighborhood armed with a HECO contract, federal funding, and an amorphous plan? I really don’t know.…. Read the rest
On the mainland, biofuel guys are paying $100 per ton for feedstock (which includes $45/ton of subsidies). But farmers in Hawai‘i are making $75 for a bale of hay now, each of which weighs 500 lbs. So right now, farmers are making $300/ton. The biofuel guys want to pay $100/ton.
Farmers would rather make $300/ton than $100/ton. Duh! Somebody will have to pay the farmers more.
On the other hand, geothermal is very straightforward. It is inexpensive, 7 to 10 cents per kWh, and it is steady. It does not emit greenhouse gases, it is proven technology and requires no subsidies.
We hope that for electricity generation, biofuels do not crowd out geothermal.
For each unit of energy in, biofuels yield 1.2 or less units of net energy out. This puts us in mind of Easter Island.
In comparison, for each unit of energy in, geothermal yields 10 units of energy out, and that will continue for as long as one can imagine.
With that sort of cheap, stable electricity, capital would rush here from all over the world. And everyone would have jobs!
It is estimated that the Big Island will be over the “hot spot” that gives us our geothermal for 500,000 to 1 million years.
The Geothermal Working Group’s interim report to the Hawai‘i State Legislature was the headline article in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald a couple days ago.
The report warns that world oil supplies are declining, and that we are dangerously vulnerable living where we do in the middle of the ocean; and also that we do have a solution very few people in the world have: Geothermal.
Jeff Rubin is former chief economist for CIBC World Bank-Canada. An optimist, he writes:
Posted by Jeff Rubin on January 19th, 2011
With oil prices within spitting distance of triple-digit levels (Brent traded over $99 per barrel last week, while West Texas Intermediate was north of $90 per barrel), it may be time to reconsider just how long this recovery will run….Read more
Tell me, why NOT geothermal? Why wouldn’t we use geothermal? What am I missing?
Get thousand reasons why no can. I’m only looking for one reason why CAN!
I hear there’s somebody out there investigating me; making phone calls and asking questions about me and such.
To that person: Please feel free to call me directly. There’s nothing to hide and I’d be happy to answer any of your questions. Anybody with questions, in fact, I invite you to call me. My cell number is 808 960-1057.
Maybe what we should be investigating is what’s going on over at Hawaiian Electric Industries (HEI).
Since it was announced that Ku‘oko‘a is attempting to buy HEI in order to retire its old, oil-fired plants, the electric utility has issued a flurry of announcements:
1. The Star Advertiser reported an HEI deal with a large, wind farm operation. But it will not result in any oil-fired plants being shut down.
2. It was announced that there will be a large biofuel operation in Ka‘u on the Big Island. Its purpose will be to provide liquid fuel for HECO’s oil-fired plants.
But the EPA just announced that it was revising its 2011 estimate of cellulosic biofuels from 250 million gallons down to only to 6.5 million gallons. All the millions and millions of dollars that have been spent? They have not resulted in a single industrial-scaled production plant.
Maybe those folks in Ka‘u will be the first in the entire U.S. to be successful. We are rooting for them. But they are not farmers; they say they may grow sorghum or guinea grass. Farmers just shake their heads at that.
The real question is, How much will it cost Big Island citizens to subsidize this crop? And for how long would we be subsidizing it?
3. Maybe HEI will soon announce that the 8 MW geothermal contract is done. I thought it would have been done a year ago.
HEI should be putting more geothermal on line faster, rather than slower. They should be aggressively bringing more geothermal on line. They’re wasting valuable time. How come we’ve got this geothermal resource but are not using more of it? We know that if we use more of that cheap geothermal resource, it will really benefit us here in Hawai‘i.
HEI says they are for geothermal, but we know they truly are not, because they cannot shut down their oil-fired plant. They’re trying to make us believe they can and will, but they cannot, because they have to keep their stock value high for shareholders.
It’s why we’re looking for a new model.
Geothermal is the least expensive of all the base power alternatives for electricity, and its costs will be stable for as far to the future as we can see – unlike oil and biofuels, the costs of which will continue to go up.
This video talks about why we, as Kuokoa, are buying HEI: It is to retool HEI, so the utility can help us all cope in the future. I filmed it for Eco TV a few days ago. It’s in four parts, each 4 or 5 minutes long.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
This video will be going out on the social media circuit and on mainstream TV.
Although some folks are attacking “the messenger,” the average person we talk to says, “It’s about time something is done.”
We are serious! Our data shows that this will work, and the higher oil prices climb, the better it will work.
This is about taking care of everyone. The result will be to lower electricity costs across the state, keep some money in our pockets as prices skyrocket everywhere else, and to strengthen the aloha spirit. For that is what we will need to help us cope with an uncertain future.
From Green Car Congress (blog subtitle: Energy, Technologies, Issues and Policies for Sustainable Mobility):
Seoul Metropolitan Government has set a goal of putting a total of 120,000 electric vehicles in use in the city by 2020, which will account for 50% of all public transport vehicles, 10% of sedans and 1% of trucks and vans. Read the rest
Governments and individuals around the world are planning for a post-Peak Oil economy.
Here in Hawai‘i, geothermal – Hawai‘i’s indigenous resource – is a gift to the Hawaiian people. It is proven technology, and it can lower and stabilize electric rates for the folks on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
As I write this, the first Election Day printouts are in and it looks like Neil Abercrombie and Brian Shatz have an insurmountable lead for the Governorship and Lieutenant Governorship of Hawai‘i.
We are truly at a crossroads in human history, and it is going to take real leadership to lead all of us to greener pastures. I have all the confidence in the world in Neil Abercrombie’s leadership abilities. He will take us there!
In terms of renewable energy, we must utilize our natural resources to their maximum potential. What we have here on the Big Island is truly extraordinary. While the rest of the world is fearful of a decline in available energy, we here in Hawai‘i have the most powerful energy source available to us. It is geothermal.
What if we could connect all the islands to this energy? What if we all shared, so everybody on every island pays the same low amount? What if this cost would hardly rise?
And what if this source of energy would last 500,000 to a million years? Wouldn’t we fix whatever it is that’s holding us back?
I feel good about Abercrombie and Shatz being elected, and confident that we will take the right path to the future.
For the sake of future generations: Not, no can. CAN!
