Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Hawaii Begins Bioenergy Master Planning Effort


• Today’s Context: Oil price hits $134.42/barrel, up $5.44! (Check out our April 25th post and its prediction of $150 by June, plus a link to a must-read book: Freedom from Mid-East Oil.)  • May 22 Update: $135.09 is the new high. 

Even as this post is being written, scores of stakeholders are gathered in the State Capitol’s Auditorium attending the kickoff meeting to develop Hawaii’s Bioenergy Master Plan. The 2007 legislative session mandated the effort.

Utilities, environmental organizations, wind and solar power developers, biofuel advocates, agricultural interests, state and county government officials and many others are hearing presentations according to the agenda at the link above.

A recurring theme heard so far is that bioenergy crops in Hawaii must not compete with existing food crops. The County of Hawaii (Big Island) representative reported on the population’s preference for “small, locally based businesses” to lead the way in the field.

All the presentations were to be posted later at the state’s Bioenergy website.  (The May 22 Honolulu Star-Bulletin carries a report on the meeting; be sure to read the Comments, too.)

Back to OTEC

Since this is our second consecutive post that doesn’t dwell on ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), you’re invited to read earlier posts that do. We started this blog two months ago when the price of oil hit $111/barrel. We thought it was alarming at the time, but that was $23/barrel ago. Our first post details why we think OTEC deserves much more visibility in this state.

We then suggested an OTEC scenario for the Island of Lanai that isn’t likely to go anywhere unless someone who reads this is a confidant of David Murdock and takes up the possibilities with him. Some posts contained links to websites that do a good job explaining OTEC; try here and here.

Finally, you’re encouraged to visit the Blue Planet Foundation’s website and view the videos that were recorded at the Blue Planet Summit in Hawaii early last month. Founder Henk Rogers and his Board of Directors have staked out an aggressive mission for BPF – “to change our world’s energy culture” using Hawaii as a model for that change. (Read a "Scenes from the Summit" commentary in emagazine.com.)

Got ideas? Share them with us by clicking on Comments, below, to post them at this blog, or contact the Foundation directly. All good ideas, suggestions and criticisms are welcome.

No comments: