Tag Archives: Peak Oil

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, Government

HB 1257: ‘A Bill For An Act Relating to Public Utilities’

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I introduced legislation relating to energy to the legislature, HB 1257, and I did it as an individual. Although I polled the Geothermal Working Group members for their thoughts, this legislation was not endorsed or submitted by the group. The Geothermal Working Group was not formed to do legislation.

It is true that I am involved in Ku‘oko‘a, the group that is buying HEI. But they do not even know of this legislation. This idea is something that I have been working on for years.

We all know that for the past 20 to 30 years, the world has been using twice as much oil as it has been finding. Reputable agencies such as Lloyds of London, the International Energy Association, the German military and our own Department of Defense are warning that the oil supply is not endless and the era of cheap oil is over. It will have serious economic consequences to us living on islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We do not have time to waste.

We must transition our electrical base power in a smart way. On the Big Island, we do have proven technology that is friendly to the climate as well as inexpensive.

The essential elements of the legislation are very simple and straightforward. HB 1257 directs the PUC to consider the following criteria when considering an application to supply the utility with electricity:

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Geothermal, Peak Oil

Why Wouldn’t We Use Geothermal?

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.

Big role for geothermal energy

by Peter Sur
Tribune-Herald Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 9:29 AM HST

Huge rise in oil costs may spell trouble for isle unless switch made

Geothermal energy has “significant potential” to be the Big Island’s primary energy resource and replace shrinking oil supplies, a new report says…. Read the full story here

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:

How Sustainable Is Growth with Triple-Digit Oil Prices?

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!

Biofuel, Geothermal, Peak Oil

HEI’s Flurry of Announcements

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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.

Electric Cars, Geothermal, Peak Oil

Planning For The 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.

Geothermal

Geothermal Can Take Us All To A Better Tomorrow

Regarding Peak Oil, the question is: “What do we do now?”

What makes the most sense is to develop energy resources that need no subsidies.

And geothermal is proven technology that needs no subsidies.

Which energy resource will support the most defenseless among us? Geothermal. It is the least costly and it can get energy to all of us, especially the folks on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.

Higher electric rates encourages the “shiny shoe” folks to leave the grid. This leaves the “rubbah slippah” folks paying more, in order to support the grid. This is not good.

Geothermal can take all of us together to a better tomorrow, and this will cause the aloha spirit to thrive. It is the aloha spirit that will help us through an uncertain future.

Gail Tverberg wrote this. Have a look:

Peak Oil: What do we do now?

Our problem now is that we have built a complex economy that depends on oil and other fuels. We can see that we will have less oil in the future. The question is, “What we should do, in planning for a change in the world?”

Our natural reaction is to try to build add-ons to our current system that we hope might make the system work longer. I am afraid these will be mostly ill-advised, because the system is more complex than we understand, and well-meant changes may have adverse impacts.

What we really need is a new system that will work for the long-term. But such a system is so far away from us now, it is hard to even think about how it would work, and how we would get from our current system to the new system. Read more

Geothermal, Peak Oil

Peak Oil Is Here; See This Video Overview

The International Energy Association, in their World Energy Outlook for 2010, says Peak Oil has already happened.

If you don’t have a good grasp on what Peak Oil is – or even if you do – here’s a great video for you to watch. It’s one that puts Peak Oil into context very nicely.

This video is just one chapter of a series of videos making up The Crash Course by Chris Martenson, and I highly recommend the whole series. They are available to watch on YouTube.

Watch this video, and then know that here on the Big Island we have the possibility of using geothermal as our source of “base power.” It is cheap, proven technology and easy on the environment. And we have it in abundance here.

Chris Martenson is no fan of hydrogen because he assumes hydrogen will come from depleting sources of input – but cheap electricity from geothermal is an exception. We can make hydrogen using cheap “off peak” electricity and run the electricity through water to get the hydrogen. We can use the hydrogen as is.

Or we can combine it with nitrogen from air to make NH3, which is more efficient an energy carrier than H2 by 30 percent.

Air, water and geothermal are all here on the Big Island in abundance. The less we depend on importing energy, the better we will make it for future generations.

Peak Oil

Smithsonian magazine on Peak Oil

We came across this short article at Smithsonian magazine’s science blog about Peak Oil, and realized it is a very good example of how mainstream these issues are.

Richard agreed that Smithsonian takes a very clear, well-balanced look at just what Peak Oil means.

…Geologist M. King Hubbert developed the concept of peak oil back in the 1950s, and he later predicted that it would occur around 1995 to 2000 (he wasn’t expecting the energy crisis in the 1970s, when production dipped). Peak oil forecasts have varied wildly, with some experts arguing that it won’t be a problem anytime soon and others predicting the peak within a decade. This is the trouble with predicting the future. You won’t see peak oil until it has passed.

Well, last week, the International Energy Agency, which only two years ago was predicting a slow and steady increase in oil production, said that the peak has passed, and that oil production topped out in 2006 (Hubbert got it pretty close, apparently). The decline will be gradual, at least, they say, with production plateauing for a decade or two, but there are complicating factors, like increased demand from China….

Read the whole article here

Peak Oil

Chris Martenson Interview: Prepare While There Is Time

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Chris Martenson was one of the more influential speakers I heard at the Peak Oil conference last month in Washington, D.C. Take a look at this interview with him from the Energy Bulletin.

Interview with Chris Martenson: “Prepare for peak oil while there is time.”

 by Alexander Ac

ASPO peak oil conference held in Washington was an unique opportunity to meet Dr. Chris Martenson. Chris is devoted to finances, economics, energy and environment and connects together these separate fields. He says that the next 20 years will be very different from the last 20 years. Peak oil “will change everything” and there is never too soon for preparations. The key is resilience, self-dependency and versatility. He is an optimist and believes that many people will survive peak oil happily – if they prepare themselves. As all people researching peak oil and its impacts, he advises people to get out of debt.

Read the full interview here