Tag Archives: HECO

Geothermal, Peak Oil

Kuokoa, Geothermal & Standard of Living

In modern Hawaiian history, the economy has taken, taken, taken and the culture has given, given, given.

Right here, right now, we have the ability to change this.

We can change things so the economy will give, give, give, and the culture – the people – will receive.

If we are successful in supplying the biggest proportion of our electrical base power from stable and inexpensive geothermal resources, thereby replacing oil, Hawai‘i will become relatively more competitive to the rest of the world, and, relative to the rest of the world, our standard of living here will rise.

I’ve written here before that I am involved with Ku‘oko‘a. It’s an idea whose time has come.

Lots of people have asked how they can help. Check out the Ku‘oko‘a website, where we will be posting ways you can help free Hawai‘i from fossil fuels, and at the same time help to raise the standard of living for our keiki.

I wrote more about The Geothermal Working Group’ Interim Report here at the blog:

There is an urgency to developing new energy resources because Hawai‘i, like most of the world, is overwhelmingly dependent upon depleting supplies of fossil fuels. The consensus among credible resource scientists and many economists is that petroleum prices will rise to unprecedented levels in a few years. Since Big Island uses oil for 90 percent of its power, this is of the utmost concern to leaders in government and business. Hawai‘i is the most petroleum-dependent state in the nation; the Big Island alone exports $1 billion annually to purchase oil for power. Geothermal is viewed as an important component in a suite of local and available energy resources. Read the rest

This is not about us. It is about future generations.

Geothermal

People, Passion & Perserverance

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Steve Case, the Punahou graduate who went on to found AOL, gave a talk to business students at the East West Center recently, and Shara Enay at Hawaii Business magazine wrote about it.

His words really resonated with me. My dad told me the very same things when I was a young boy, and I never forgot them.

1. People: Motivated people can move mountains.

2. Perseverance: “Stick with it,” Case told students. “Don’t get discouraged and don’t let anything stop you.” “Big ideas take longer and usually involve bigger risks, but they are usually worth it.” It took AOL nine years to reach one million customers, Case said – but nine years later, they had 25 million.

3. Passion: You can’t fake it.

In his closing remarks, Case said he believes people in Hawai‘i are too risk-averse. “There’s too much concern about failing,” he said, “and that’s not going to result in great breakthrough companies. We can’t be afraid to fail.”

His ideas apply to my thinking about this project I was just asked to join.

It is huge, and if successful would change things beyond most folks’ imagination. It would result in lower and stable electricity rates for all of us. If we are successful, we will transform Hawai‘i into the place we all hoped it would be.

Some folks laugh out loud, uncontrollably, at the idea that we can do this. Others are very afraid for us personally. But if we can accomplish it, we will free Hawai‘i from the tyranny of oil.

The plan is to replace most, if not all, of Hawaii Electric Company’s oil-fired plants and instead use geothermal.

Geothermal is the greatest gift we have been given. When electricity is expensive, we all know that it’s the folks on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder who will get their lights turned off first. Too frequently, they will be Hawaiians.

The world has changed, oil is depleting faster than we would like, and out of this adversity comes our greatest opportunity. In modern Hawaiian history, the Hawaiian culture has given, given, given and the economy taken, taken, taken. If we can get our primary electrical power from geothermal, we will become relatively more competitive to the rest of the world and the standard of living of all of us, especially Hawaiians, will rise relative to the rest of the world. Then our aloha spirit can thrive.

And then, as with the example of how Hawaiians were sustainable in times past, we will become a shining example to show the world how people can live and work with each other in harmony with the ‘aina, and with respect for each other, now. In modern times.

This is the Hawai‘i we all want. There are a thousand reasons why “No can.” We are looking for the one reason why “CAN!”

Geothermal

Big Island Geothermal Projects Drawing Much Interest

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More and more people are looking into the possibility of doing geothermal projects. Mililani Trask and the Honolulu-based Innovations Development Group, a Native Hawaiian renewable-energy development firm, are interested in pursuing a geothermal model that benefits the local community, not only the developer. They have been doing just that in New Zealand.

Ku‘ulei Kealoha Cooper-Springer, trustee of the Kealoha Estate, told me that Jimmy and Miulan Kealoha, her grandma and grandpa, told her many, many years ago that she should pursue geothermal. She said the trust has 89 acres in the geothermal subzone, and that now the time seems to be right.

I have spoken with a representative of another group that is very interested, too, as well as another landowner.

If HELCO were ready to purchase geothermal power, many people would step forward right now.

There has been a major change in how geothermal is perceived by the native Hawaiian community, compared to in the 1970s, when it was done in a heavy-handed, “top-down” manner. The old technology that existed in the 1970s has been replaced by much safer production methods. Puna Geothermal has been in operation for many years now as a good neighbor.

And the world around us has changed since then. The evidence is everywhere – it’s indisputable – that oil will soon start to decline, and that we must find alternatives to fossil fuel oil. The cost of electricity made with fossil fuel oil will rise with increasing oil prices. And it will be the poor folks whose lights will be turned off first. Too often, those folks will be native Hawaiian.

Geothermal is the cheapest form of “base power.” Base power is approximately 85 percent of the electric utility’s needs – it’s the dependable power that prevents our lights from flickering. Geothermal gives off no greenhouse gases, and it has a small footprint compared to solar and biofuels.

And off-peak geothermal power, which would otherwise be wasted, can be used to make H2 and NH3 for use in internal combustion engines. All that takes is electricity, water and air. We have everything we need right here in Hawai‘i to help future generations.

The tide is turning.

Biofuel, Geothermal

HECO Says: ‘Let Them Eat Cake!’

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I remember that in the 7th grade we read about a French royal, who – when told that the peasants didn’t have bread and were hungry – is said to have stated, “Let them eat cake.”

I have come to the stark realization that the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) has a duty to keep the stock price of its parent company, Hawaiian Electric Industries (HEI), healthy.  It’s not HECO’s mission to take care of Hawai‘i’s people.

But its strategy of raising the cost of electricity to its white-haired stockholders, in order to keep up HEI’s stock price, is as “brilliant” as its strategy of raising electricity rates of farmers so it can pay the farmers the high price they will need to raise biofuel crops.

Cynics have described it as putting money into one pocket
while taking it out of the other.

I just attended the 2010 Hawaii Ag Conference at the Ihilani
Resort and spa at Ko Olina on O‘ahu, which was very well attended.

Although the conference covered many topics, I was most interested in the Hawai‘i Biomass and Bioenergy workshop, which was held all day on Friday. It asked: “What’s the buzz, and what’s in it for agriculture?”

I was encouraged because Diane Ley, the State Executive
Director of the USDA Farm Service Agency, explained that at the end of the day, there would be a facilitated discussion with farmers and Sarah Bittleman, USDA Office of the Secretary.

There were 21 speakers, starting from 8:45 in the morning until 3:15 p.m., when the facilitated discussions began. It was very good and valuable information, covering topics from the USDA Biofuel roadmap supporting President Obama’s plan to transition America’s energy economy, by Sarah Bittleman, to the explanation of Fuel Purchasing – who is doing the “pulling” in the military.

Chris Tindall, Director for Operational Energy, Deputy
Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy Office, told us that the Navy is interested in buying very large amounts of advanced fuels that can be used directly to power its Great White Fleet. I can absolutely understand the national security concerns. I found him very clear and persuasive.

Early on in the morning presentations, during the Q&A, I
made the statement that Food Security is about farmers farming, and if the farmers make money, farmers will farm. I pointed out that simple math shows that farmers can not expect to get more than 7 cents per pound to grow feedstock for biodiesel, and that no farmer will farm biofuel feedstock for 7 cents per pound.

Farmers all agree with me, though we would be happy to be proven wrong about this price. I have been saying this for several years, and have not had a single rebuttal to date.

Many folks gave presentations in their area of expertise and
it was all very useful and informative. But the question left unanswered was “How much will farmers get paid for growing biofuels?” All the farmers in the room knew that the answer was: “Not enough.”

The facilitated discussions were very useful. Sarah Bittleman told everyone that it is not for the federal government to decide energy policy for Hawai‘i; that we need to decide that for ourselves.

I thought this was a very important statement, because it
has been my distinct impression that the movement toward biodiesels in Hawai‘i is running because of inertia, and is not going to be overcome by simple common sense.

Ms. Bittleman authorized folks to use common sense.

Several speakers said that we could do both food and fuel. But I wonder about that. It seems to me that if biofuel prices were subsidized enough, then farmers would quit growing food to instead grow fuel. Why shouldn’t farmers strive for a better life for their kids?

It is no longer just me asking why geothermal is not
mentioned. Many, many folks are asking that same question and it can no longer be ignored, because there is just too much at stake. Saying that “People were against it 20 years ago” is just a lame excuse.

Geothermal solves so many of the crucial issues Hawai‘i
faces that we must be looking for ways to maximize its usage. Every single farmer I talk to agrees, and is incredulous that we aren’t doing just that.

I notice that Indonesian palm oil prices are very high compared to fossil fuel oil. If local farmers don’t produce biofuels, then HECO will probably buy expensive palm oil from Malaysia. But HECO will say that it’s okay because it is green.

Biofuel

HECO: The Most Ingenious Production/Marketing Model I’ve Ever Seen!

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HECO has come up with a rather ingenious model to solicit biofuels for running its electrical generation equipment for the Big Island. It works like this:

If the farmer growing the product for biofuel needs a higher price than the current market price – which is way too low – HECO will raise the return to the farmer by raising the cost of electricity it sells to the farmer.

Also, to create demand-pull in the market place, HECO will promote “green” fuels. The message will be:

“There’s more to life than just money. Support expensive green biofuel – it’s a quality-of-life issue.”

It’s brilliant! By far the most ingenious agricultural production/marketing model I’ve seen yet!

Some farmers are old enough to remember The Great Liliko‘i Glut of the 1950s. Farmers were told to grow liliko‘i and “they” would buy it all. Practically every house had a liliko‘i trellis or two. When the promoters could not buy the liliko‘i, everybody made liliko‘i juice. People who are my age and live around Hilo know a lot about liliko‘i.

In the early 1980s, it was The Great Cacao Rush. A company came into town saying they would buy the entire local production of cacao, which would be used to make extra special chocolate for the ultra-high-end market. All the farmers had to do was buy certain “special” seedlings, which only the company happened to have.

Although the HECO idea for biofuel production is brilliant, I think that farmers would prefer that HECO grew the biofuels crop themselves, and that farmers get the exclusive right to provide the really, really special rare seedlings from a farmers’ co-op (made up of all the farmers in the state) at a pre-determined, kind-of-high price – with an escalator that moves up with the electricity bill. Payments, by bank draft, would go straight into the co-op’s bank account, six months prior to planting.

This way, the farmers would make money. And as we all know: “If the farmer makes money, the farmer going farm.”

Big Island, Biofuel, Geothermal, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

‘Aloha, Aloha, Call When You Find Land!’

I stayed at the Ala Moana Hotel last week while attending the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit, which had 1400 participants and was huge and exciting.

One evening, as I sat on the lanai of my hotel room looking toward Waikiki and all the lit-up hotel rooms and bright lights and the headlights and tail lights of cars, it came to me: Everything visible was dependent on oil.

The only thing I could see that was good was that the Macy’s sign is cheaper to power than the Liberty House sign it replaced. Shorter sign.

Sitting out there on the lanai, it became clear to me that if we follow HECO’s plan for using biofuels to generate electricity for the Big Island, we will soon have limited food resources and will be making plans to send people out to discover new lands.

Back in 2007, I spoke at the Hawaii Island Food Summit:

I told them I had a nightmare that there would be a big meeting down by the pier one day, where they announce that food supplies were short because the oil supply was short and so we
would have to send thousands of people out to discover new land.

I was afraid that they would send all the people with white hair out on the boats to find new land—all the Grandmas and Grandpas and me, though maybe not June.

Grandmas and Grandpas hobbled onto the boats with their canes and their wheelchairs, clutching all their medicines, and everybody gave all of us flower leis, and everyone was saying,
“Aloha, Aloha, call us when you find land! Aloha!”

If, instead, we on the Big Island follow our own plan of maximizing
our geothermal resource, and start to add others such as wind, solar and ocean resources as they scale up; and if we emphasize lots of small- to medium-sized diversified farms, we will not need to send out the canoes to look for new land.

The Big Island could help solve O‘ahu’s food and fuel issues, too, so it wouldn’t be necessary for them to send their white-haired folks off, either.

The Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit was exciting and I’ve spent all week trying to put all the goings-on into perspective. O‘ahu has a real serious electricity problem. It has no proven-technology base power alternative to fossil fuels. And it has limited opportunity to integrate solar and wind.

I can absolutely see why HECO was anxious to institute Smart Grid. It was an attempt to wring every bit of efficiency out of intermittent sources of power.

I can also see why HECO made the decision that biofuels would have to be a solution for O‘ahu. The biorefinery is located on O‘ahu. I can even understand why they changed their minds and decided to bring on more PV solar. THEY do need everything!

What I just cannot understand is why HECO tried to force the Big Island to go that route.

We on the Big Island need a different strategy – one that focuses on the Big Island’s resources and environment.

Biofuel, Geothermal, Renewable Energy Sources

I Have Lost Confidence In HECO

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I am becoming more and more critical of the Hawaiian Electric Company’s (HECO’s) top-level decision makers, and of their policies. I am sad to say that I have lost confidence in their ability to lead us safely into the future.

A Wall Street Journal article last September noted that Spain – the world leader in solar technology – stopped its generous subsidy to support the solar industry. Basically, ratepayers could not bear the cost of the subsidy.

So I was not surprised recently to hear HECO say it could not accept any more solar. What I was surprised about was that they reversed their direction immediately. Did things change? No. It was a missed opportunity to educate the public about what is truly going on. They chose not to.

Recently, HECO was turned down regarding its attempt to initiate Smart Grid on O‘ahu, Maui and the Big Island. Smart Grid is a developing system, and there was no need to be the first in the world to implement this. At Hawai‘i’s size, it is much smarter to be best in the world at copying the most successful systems. You get a tested system that does not cost the ratepayers as much.

Several years ago, HECO chose the biofuel path, but it did not have a serious conversation about it with farmers. Farmers know that they will not grow anything for 7 cents per pound. They might switch from growing food to growing fuel for 35 cents per pound, but oil prices would have to be $400 per barrel before it would send that price signal.

And small farmers would not be able to grow biofuels on the kind of scale that HECO needs, anyway. More likely, it would be on the scale of redemption of cans and bottles.

When HECO brought the biofuel meeting to Maui, there was
discussion about ultimately importing palm oil from Indonesia. Many of the folks in the audience were distressed at what would happen to animal habitat, especially the orangutan. HECO replied that it would source “green” biofuel. 

We know that biofuels will be more expensive than fossil fuels. Will the rubbah slippah folks be able to afford it?  Can small businesses afford to pay the resultant higher electricity rates?

Is this the solution that will give a continuous, competitive advantage to the islands, relative to the rest of the world?

We should look at the resources available on each individual island before we decide what is best for that particular island. It is the cost of the fuel, not whether it is brown or “green,” that is important.

On the Big Island, we know it must be done right. Geothermal
for base power is: proven technology, a low-cost alternative, has the smallest footprint and gives off no greenhouse gases.

The Oil Age is only 150 years old, and already we are worrying about depletion. According to Jim Kauahikaua, Scientist-in-Charge at the Volcano National Park Observatory, though, the “hot spot” under the Big Island will last for half a million to a million more years.

What about HECO’s general renewable energy strategy? They
say they are for everything – wind, solar, geothermal, ocean thermal, biofuels, biomass, etc. But being “for everything” seems to be a way of not talking about any one thing. HECO does not put any effort into enabling geothermal, so we can only assume that they do not really want it.

On the other hand, they do really want biofuels. “Shameless”
comes to mind. I am not for geothermal exclusively. But I do think there should be a prioritization of the various resources based on many factors, such as: proven technology, relative competitiveness, scalability, net energy, social consequence, geographic appropriateness, etc. 

In other words, what will give us the best chance of surviving since we are living out here in the middle of the Pacific? “We are for everything” falls way short.

I think that the rubbah slippah folks intuitively have it figured out when they say: “One day, the boat not going come.” That is their shorthand way of saying: “One day, things will be too expensive, and the boat might as well not come.” In that scenario, we will be going back to the basics. The most important question one asks all day might be, “I wonder what color malo I going wear tomorrow?”

Two weeks ago, former Chancellor of UH Hilo Rose Tseng invited Bill Steiner, the Dean of the UH Hilo College of Tropical Agriculture and Forestry and myself to attend an REIS retreat put on by the UH Manoa College of Engineering.

I immediately noticed that the Big Island was not a focus and that geothermal was not on the radar. But we were able to express the Big Island’s concerns, and we were welcomed to participate fully. This is very encouraging.

HECO sent many of its people to the retreat because many of
those people work as engineers, and many graduated from the UH College of Engineering. I found HECO’s new Director of Renewable Energy Planning, Dora Nakafuji, impressive because she is willing to discuss alternatives in an inclusive way.

The most recent issue of Hawaii Business magazine describes the restructuring of HECO. I hope the new folks will change HECO’s
corporate culture, and take the time to understand the needs of the rubbah slippah folks. We can take the right path to survival and accommodate everyone’s needs at the same time.

In an ideal reorganization, HECO gains the trust of the community, and because its plan is mutually beneficial we go down to support it at the PUC. Not, no can. CAN!

Biofuel

Farmers & Biofuels

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This article appeared in Pacific Business News on August 13, 2010:

Biofuels have supporters, but
scale remains an obstacle

Pacific Business News (Honolulu)
– by Sophie Cocke

Three years ago, representatives of Hawaiian Electric Co. met with farmers on the Big Island to discuss growing feedstock that could be converted to biofuel and used in the company’s generators. But discussions grew quiet when local farmers calculated how much they would be earning.

There are 42 gallons in a barrel of oil, each container of which weighs 286 pounds. So oil, at $80 a barrel, would yield the farmers about 28 cents per pound.

“There’s hardly anything a farmer will grow for 28 cents per pound,” said Richard Ha, one of the local farmers who attended the meeting.

Profits decline even more given that the feedstock must be drained to obtain the oil. Four pounds of a crop can result in only one pound of oil, meaning farmers would be getting paid only 7 cents per pound for their crops.

“The farmers never went back to another meeting,” said Ha.

This story looks at biofuels, and their role in Hawaii’s push for energy independence…. (Read more)

It is no secret that I am very concerned about betting too much of our future on biofuels just because we feel that we need them desperately. The critical chokepoint is feedstock.

We need to take a deep breath and we need to talk to farmers. Read about when I asked HECO not to let us get flattened by the wild bull.