Hawaii Energy Options

Blame It on the Holidays; We Get Back to Business as Legislature Opens Session with Energy a Big Concern

2012-01-18T16:28:00.000-10:00

This break has lasted way too long, and we’ve let too many headline-making renewable energy issues go by without comment since our most recent post in early December. Today’s opening of the Hawaii State Legislature’s 2012 session is reason enough to get back at it. (See our Yes2Rail blog to know what we’ve been up to.)

Still big on the state's energy agenda is the Big Wind project slated for Molokai and Lanai. If anything, the opposition has strengthened its hand in the past couple months, continuing to build on its public and media relations campaign with frequent emails and postings to their websites.

The IAlohaMolokai group has its own channel on YouTube now and has posted videos of its PSAs, energy festival, legislators’ visits and other occasions.

Geothermal energy continues to attract interest and spark enthusiasm. Hawaii Electric Light Company said earlier this month it will begin soliciting bids for and additional 50 megawatts of this baseload power.

Just today, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription) reported on the deep cut in the cost to install installation photovoltaic systems in the islands. The decline was attributed to a worldwide overproduction of panels and the increase in local competition among installers and is good news for consumers who’ve been tempted to take the plunge.

As usual, what little enthusiasm we see for ocean thermal energy conversion is self-generated, although a piece in The Economist early this month wrapped up recent developments that include a modest starter plant in the Caribbean. This blog began nearly four years ago in a fit of pique over OTEC’s usual absence from the renewable energy discussion in the islands, but at least it’s no longer virtually out of sight and mind.

Some continue to believe at least a portion of the state’s push on the not-likely Big Wind project should be diverted toward OTEC, and we're one of them. Maybe this will be the year for a breakthrough on OTEC’s presence in the islands – but we’ve said that before.

Why Doesn’t Columnist Just Come Out and Say It? ‘Molokai Is Subservient to Oahu Residents’ Needs’

2011-12-08T11:57:00.001-10:00

The headline in Tuesday’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser – “Molokai cannot be allowed to isolate itself from Oahu” – was another way of saying Molokai residents’ preferences don’t count.

Read it yourself if you can; the newspaper’s login portal often is flawed. The writer’s upset with Molokai was triggered by the “blockade” of Molokai’s Kaunakakai port that prevented a tour boat from offloading its passengers there on several occasions recently.

The columnist is a former Coast Guard officer and practices maritime law; he presumably feels qualified to write on port blockades, but he then jumps to another issue involving resistance on Molokai.

“How different is this from barring Big Wind from Molokai? These things are all part of a continuing campaign to isolate Molokai from Oahu and keep it free of wind farms, cruise ships,tourism and a local economy. Secede from anything that smacks of Oahu, excpept for the social safety net, is a one-way isolationism…..

“Actually, it’s just as much our island as it is your island, and it’s just as much our harbor as it is yours. I am just as much a citizen and taxpayer of this state as you are, and this is my state just as much as it is yours. One island can’t wall off the others. That kind of thinking went out hundreds of years ago.”

Do Oahu residents truly have as much right to determine Molokai’s future as Molokai residents? Columnist Jay Fidell might as well have written, “What’s yours is mine, and since we on Oahu outnumber you over on Molokai, we get to call the shots.”

The state’s energy administrator still seems determined to push through the Big Wind energy project that would plant 200 MW or more of wind power on Molokai. He recently told Civil Beat that “moving the inter-island cable network forward” is one of his three top priorities.

Well and good, but does that mean community-wide opposition to Big Wind on the Friendly Isle will be disregarded in order to achieve the state’s renewable energy goals? The tail is wagging the dog here; the Legislature set energy goals, and they seemingly could to take precedence over opposition to environmental impacts that would be enormous on an island like Molokai.

Legislators created those laws and they can change them if achieving them would extract too high a price. Better to do what other island societies are doing – pursuing ocean thermal energy conversion as an off-island energy source that Hawaii’s leaders still can’t bring themselves to pursue equally as hard.

At least state energy administrator Mark Glick seems supportive. If only his superiors would band together as determinedly as leaders in the Bahamas, Guam and Indonesia seem to be doing (Google “ocean thermal energy conversion”).

Buried Lead: Murdock Says Lanai Island Is for Sale; Big Wind Project Faces Climb up a Glass Mountain; Oil Costs Are Up Again, Drive Electricity Rates to All-Time High

2011-11-17T10:47:00.003-10:00

The Star-Advertiser's graphic tells the rising-power cost story.

Once again we’re playing catch-up here at Energy Options due to the ongoing need to spend most of our time over at Yes2Rail. The anti-rail minority’s obfuscation and dumbed-down arguments need attending to each day.

We may be wrong, but we’ve found only one online mention of billionaire David Murdock’s recent declaration that he intends to sell the island of Lanai. Civil Beat mentions it almost parenthetically in the third part of its series on the Big Wind energy project and the opposition it faces on that island and by Molokai residents.

Part one deals with Molokai, which appears to be in near-total denial about the 200-MW wind farm proposed for the island; part two covers the divisions within Lanai’s community, and part three describes an uneasy future for the project.

OTEC?

Brushing past this series without spending more time on it is definitely uncomfortable, but there’s just no time to dwell on it today. Nor do we have time to recount the presentation made to Mr. Murdock’s representatives a few years ago on how ocean thermal energy conversion could allow Lanai to achieve total independence from fossil fuels and supply abundant fresh water to the island.

Maybe whoever purchases Lanai from Mr. Murdock will give the proposal more attention, now that OTEC is advancing in the Caribbean and even on the Big Island.

Word from the National Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) is that its board of directors has selected OTEC International to build a 1-MW OTEC demonstration project at NELHA’s Big Island facility. As for OTEC elsewhere, the technology is making headlines, including one above a story that complains OTEC and other water-based renewable technologies haven’t received enough attention in California.

Out on Guam, Ocean Thermal Energy Corporation will be using a $50,000 grant to conduct a feasibility study for an OTEC plant on that island. And you’ll find other OTEC stories if you use News.Google.com to find them.

Attention corporations and individual billionaires eager to own your own tropical paradise: It’s not too late to leave your mark on history by bringing a commercial-sized OTEC plant to the former Pineapple Isle. It would then be known forevermore as the OTEC Isle.

Electricity Rate Record

Never before have electricity costs been higher in Hawaii – and that means the highest in the country except for small outposts in Alaska and other remote locations. For the third consecutive month, Hawaiian Electric’s rates have climbed to new levels – 34.6 cents/kwh for residential customers this month. The Star-Advertiser has the story (subscription).

This is an unsustainable condition. Renewable energy’s development has never had more urgency. Let’s see something done with a technology that holds the most long-term promise – OTEC – and not a easier-to-build short-term solution – Big Wind – that has unacceptable environmental and economic costs.

Big Turbines Welcomed to Maui County, but Not the Whole County; Molokai Digs In Heels, Vows a Fight

2011-11-09T14:43:00.003-10:00

Senator Mike Gabbard meets the people of Molokai on Big Wind.

It’s hard to imagine the Big Wind energy project being built as planned. Given an opportunity to speak out against the installation of dozens of 450-foot-plus tall wind turbines on the island, Molokai residents didn’t waste it.

The Molokai Dispatch reported on a tour of the proposed site by members of the State Senate’s Energy Committee, including Chair Mike Gabbard. A 52-minute video posted with the story was filled with residents in green T-shirts standing up and speaking out against the project.

The I Aloha Molokai group presented petitions urging self-sufficiency for Oahu rather than being dependent on Molokai for wind-generated energy. Kanoho Helm of I Aloha Molokai gave the visitors the results of a survey on the issue: 437 opposed to the wind farm-cable proposal, 19 supportive and 13 undecided.

A continuing theme was the importance of conservation – especially on Oahu. Reduced energy demand on that island will reduce pressure to develop off-island energy sources.

Yes on Maui

Back in Wailuku, the Maui Planning Commission has given its OK to Auwahi Wind Energy to install eight 428-foot-tall wind turbines on Ulupalakua Ranch in Upcountry Maui.

All of the electricity generated by the 21-MW wind farm will be used on the island and not exported, in contrast with the Big Wind project.

The good citizens of Maui apparently will be asked to accept and live with both the visual impact of the turbines themselves but also the overhead transmission lines that will convey the power from the wind farm down into the valley. The Commission voted to relieve Auwahi Wind Energy from a requirement to underground the lines at any point.

As an aside, we think most Oahu residents will readily accept the visual “impact” of Honolulu’s future overhead rail line. Call it the Price of Progress in an already developed environment. Molokai residents say they’re not prepared to pay that price for their aina – a view State government ultimately will have to accept.

Ocean thermal energy conversion, anyone?

Seriously -- OTEC Now?

OTEC is making headlines -- seemingly quite a few more in the past couple months since the Ocean Thermal Energy Corporation announced plans to build two plants in The Bahamas. This blog began in 2008 to publicize the technology as an overlooked but critical piece of Hawaii's future energy mix.

With on-land impacts of other technologies apparently unacceptable to some of our citizens, it's time for the State of Hawaii to get serious about advancing OTEC with more than nice talk. Get Dan Inouye involved at some level in some way. If not now, when the good senator is still in power, when?

Biofuel Contact’a Rejection Stirs Columnist’s Ire, but Questions Still Need Asking about Renewables’ Costs

2011-10-25T13:40:00.004-10:00

It wouldn’t be accurate to say nothing’s been happening re energy issues in Hawaii since our most recent post. Just the opposite has been true, but our involvement with the Honolulu rail project hasn’t exactly been on hiatus since then either.

We were jogged back into action here at Hawaii Energy Options by the ThinkTech column in today’s Star-Advertiser (subscription required). Author Jay Fidell argues that the Public Utilities Commission’s rejection of the Aina Koa Pono biofuels contract – subject of our post immediately below – was a huge setback for the cause of renewable energy in Hawaii.

Fidel writes: ”It was a dream deal: local company, local investment,local labor, local feedstock, sending less money overseas, increasing energy security, reducing vulnerability to oil volatility, producing utility-scale renewables that can be shipped anywhere in the state without waiting for an undersea cable, building the economy and making us look good. So good, uyou’d think we’d snap it up.”

Sounds like the deal had everything Hawaii citizens could want – except a price the PUC could accept. According to the PUC’s decision, the price premium residents and businesses would have paid over the anticipated cost of oil during the 20-year contract would have been somewhere between $100,000,000 and $999,999,999.

The deal would have added only $2 a month to the average consumer’s electric bill, according to Aina Koa Pono. With its line-in-the-sand ruling, the PUC says two bucks a month over 240 months is too much.

Best Use of Biofuel?

Some in Hawaii question whether burning biofuel in power plants in place of residual fuel oil or diesel is its highest and best use. With the state’s tourism industry 100-percent dependent on petroleum to bring visitors here in planes and ships, the argument is made that biofuels should be reserved for transportation. Another sharp spike or even a gradual rise (see chart at right) to 2008 oil prices would put the entire industry and everything dependent on it in the tank.

Clearly, the PUC’s decision sent a signal – or fired a shot across the bow – to those who believe renewable energy’s costs have no limit. Reasonable limits must be imposed on how much local residents and businesses are expected to pay to get off oil, and that includes the physical impacts these projects would impose.

If you also think Big Wind when you hear "impacts," we’re on the proverbial same sheet of music.

PUC Draws a Line, Says Biofuel Plan Is Too Expensive

2011-10-01T08:52:00.006-10:00

The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission’s ruling this week that a proposed biofuel supply contract was too expensive could be a tip-off on how the commission will rule on other high-impact renewable energy projects.

It’s worth considering as the Big Wind project attempts to overcome the obstacles that are certain to confound it in the months and years ahead.

Molokai and Lanai residents say they’re determined to fight the planned 200-MW wind farms on each island because of impacts on the aina. There’s little point in denying 400-foot-plus wind turbines will have significant impacts; proponents don’t even try and instead work to offset them with localized benefits.

The PUC has signaled a “too much is too much” attitude. Ratepayers would have paid a premium for the Aina Koa Pono-supplied biofuel of at least $100,000,000 over the course of the proposed 20-year contract. Price details are still confidential, and the PUC refers only to a “nine-figure” premium – which under those guidelines could push the premium to the billion-dollar mark.

Tail Wagging?

It’s also worth asking whether the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative tail is wagging the dog. Just because targets call for significant slashes in the use of fossil fuels in the islands by 2030 is no reason to throw caution to the wind when renewable projects are up for consideration.

The PUC seems to be following a cautious approach to meeting those goals, and we’ll have to see if it applies to the Big Wind project.

Proven base-load geothermal technology is being heavily promoted by those who believe it's a better option than intermittent wind power. And as always, we're promoting the still-nascent ocean thermal energy conversion technology for its potential to play a major role in achieving energy security for the islands.

Geothermal and OTEC development will be expensive – no doubt about it – but some premiums may be worth it.

BY THE WAY: Don't let those charts in the right-hand column column fool you about the direction energy costs are headed in Hawaii. The price of gasoline has been rising here since June even as it declines across the country. We pay the highest electricity rates in the nation (32 cents/kwh on Oahu, much more on the neighbor islands), and the same's true for gasoline. And Subway's "$5 Foot-long" special during October? Forget it: "Prices higher in Alaska and Hawaii." Welcome to Paradise.

OTE Corporation Signs Memo of Understanding, Will Build and Operate 2 OTEC plants in The Bahamas

2011-09-22T09:47:00.003-10:00

Graphic from today's edition of The Nassau Guardian.

This one does seem to be the “real deal,” and maybe ocean thermal energy conversion technology finally is about to see its first commercial-grade power plants.

OTE Corporation has signed a memo of understanding with the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) to build, operate and maintain two OTEC plants somewhere in the islands – location to be determined.

The company, with headquarters in Pennsylvania and an office in Honolulu, says it will build the plants using its own financial resources and will require no financing by BEC or The Bahamian government.

Stories in The Tribune, caribbean360 and The Nassau Guardian have details on the deal. The latter leaves out the essence of how OTEC works – glancing over the process by saying cold and warm ocean waters “are combined to produce great amounts of stream (sic), which subsequently drives turbine generators."

But we’re in no mood to quibble with the reports coming from The Bahamas (beyond our usual copyeditor tendencies). This would seem to be a significant advance of the OTEC technology, and one can hope it will be pursued quicker here in Hawaii because of what’s will happen there in The Bahamas.

Is Hawaii the State that Says ‘No’ to Green Energy, or Does It Say ‘Yes’ When the Project Is the Right One?

2011-09-13T12:03:00.000-10:00

With the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo convened today, this is a good time to question the notion that resistance to renewable energy projects boils down to NIMBYism.

That’s the criticism in Jay Fidell’s ThinkTech column in the Star-Advertiser today (subscription) that’s headlined “Shortsightedness must stop if clean energy is to flourish.” A different headline writer might have composed “All clean energy projects must be developed no matter what” to summarize the column’s thrust.

Just where does majority opinion lie in Hawaii on this fundamental issue about getting off oil – at all costs, or with reason? Here’s an excerpt from a letter in today’s Maui News submitted by Susan Osako of Lanai City, displayed under this headline: “OTEC and geothermal should be considered first”:

“The mission to create a 100 percent clean energy Hawaii is our goal. We need and want ocean thermal energy conversion and geothermal. Both are firm/constant sources of clean energy in Hawaii. They can provide 100 percent of our electrical needs even more consistently than oil.”

The writer and Mr. Fidell agree that Hawaii must get off oil; where they diverge is their reaction to the impacts the Big Wind energy project would impose on Lanai and Molokai – with scores of wind turbines 400 feet and taller on the islands. Where Mr. Fidell sees a lack of courage in a state more willing to say “no” to green energy projects, Ms. Osako sees it differently from her perspective on the ground:

“The outsiders have descended on Hawaii and are pushing industrial wind turbines, hoping to cover every mile of open land. Recreation, vistas, weather, culture and heritage are invaluable assets to a small island. If you take away all of these things, what good is electricity from any source?” Maybe Mr. Fidell will find himself in a forum where he’ll be asked to answer Ms. Osako’s question.

Saying 'No' to Some

As we see it, projects can‘t be justified when their impacts would be massive on the land, the community and the people. Big Wind is such a project, and technology advocates like Mr. Fidell might want to re-examine the assumptions that have caused them to believe projects like Big Wind are inevitable.

Assumptions like “OTEC is still decades away” and “geothermal is still a cultural issue….” Those beliefs themselves are out-dated; companies working on OTEC plan to build Hawaii's first plant by the middle of this decade, and native Hawaiians are among those backing geothermal energy’s expansion in Hawaii.

The sooner projects like Big Wind are recognized as unacceptable and/or unfeasible, the sooner the entire state can rally behind base-load projects like OTEC and geothermal and truly achieve Hawaii’s goal of energy independence.

Asia Pacific Energy Summit Convenes This Week as Resistance To Big Wind Builds Steam on Molokai

2011-09-12T09:58:00.002-10:00

The third annual Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo kicks off tomorrow, and it takes a couple minutes for the website to cycle through the photographs of more than 200 speakers. They include a governor and ex-governor, utility representatives, legislators, military officials, advocates for solar, wind, geothermal and ocean thermal energy conversion technology, landfill experts, private equity investors, lawyers and many others. There’s at least one misidentification – the current chair of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission is still listed as a state representative – but getting everything right would be a stretch.

Word comes from Molokai as the Summit gets underway that opposition to the Big Wind energy project is growing, and one wonders whether that community-based effort will be noticed by the guests.

According to the Molokai Dispatch, the “I Heart Molokai” group is growing even as wind energy developers pledge their intent to work with the community.

We suspect the opposition will be explained away by Big Wind backers as NIMBYism, but we continue to believe it represents the fork in the road for energy policy makers here.

Go down one fork and you sink billions of dollars into an intermittent wind energy project with huge localized impacts and that can’t possibly pencil out in the short or long term. Go down the other and you sink billions into a baseload technology that holds the promise of releasing Hawaii from oil’s stranglehold.

We’re talking OTEC, of course, and we’ll be watching the Summit for evidence that something other than more endless praise for OTEC comes out of this conference.

‘I Aloha Molokai’ Group Speaks Up & Out on Big Wind

2011-09-06T20:33:00.000-10:00

A scene from an I Aloha Molokai video.

Let’s dispense right off with the notion that Molokai residents who oppose the Big Wind energy project are a bunch of NIMBYs with no appreciation of the issues.

NIMBYism doesn’t even enter the equation when the size of Big Wind's impacts are considered.

The “I Aloha Molokai” group has launched a campaign against Big Wind that goes to the heart of the matter – Molokai residents’ insistence that energy projects respect their values. Projects that threaten those values are not acceptable, as they are making clear in their campaign.

I Heart Molokai has sponsored series of high-quality videos created with plenty of professional expertise. Here are a couple quotes from one of them, accessible at the group’s website:

"Molokai says 'no' to a lot of things, but we do this to perpetuate our land, our culture and our lifestyle."

"These developers don't care about Molokai. They just want to make their profits and move on to the next money-making location."

Check out the material at the site and see if you can find flaws in the group’s arguments. High-cost Big Wind isn’t wanted on the Friendly Isle, and many of us on Oahu don’t see how the economics make sense – $3 billion to deliver an average of 160 MW of power – let alone the unacceptable impacts on Molokai, and Lanai, too.

PUC Rejects HECO on ‘Big Wind,’ Directs New RFP

2011-08-25T15:44:00.000-10:00

The “Big Wind” soap opera continues here in Hawaii even as Vermont residents add to the drama surrounding proposed utility-scale wind energy projects.

The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission has rejected a Hawaiian Electric Company request to allow it it to assign half of the 400-MW neighbor island wind energy project to a new developer on Molokai. No dice, said the PUC, which ordered the utility to submit a new request for proposals for that amount of power.

Civil Beat is following the Big Wind story closely and summarizes the most recent action at its website, along with earlier developments; the PUC’s order is also linked there. We note the following from CB’s story today:

“The Molokai wind farm is still a possibility. But Hawaiian Electric must put out a RFP for 200 mw of renewable energy, which can now be sited on any island that can reasonably reach Oahu via a cable, or on Oahu itself. The RFP also must be open to any technology, not just wind. The 200 mw Lanai portion of the project is permitted to proceed, but must gain final PUC approval.”

Ocean thermal energy conversion could be an “any technology” – another glimmer of a possibility that OTEC has a direct and applicable future in the islands. An OTEC plant parked 2 or 3 miles off the Kahe power plant on Oahu would require no extensive cabling to deliver its power to the power grid here. And with a capacity factor near 100 perceent compared to Big Wind’s anticipated CF of 40 percent or less, OTEC would be the better option.

Molokai & Lanai Residents, You’re Not Alone; Vermont Citizens are Fighting To Keep Giant Windmills Out, Too

2011-08-24T10:39:00.007-10:00

Vermonters rally against utility-scale wind projects.

August 25 Update: New England protest nets TV coverage.
Citizens from New England to Hawaii are thinking and speaking along this same line: Just because a renewable energy project is technologically feasible doesn’t mean it’s worth doing.

Vermonters are rallying in Montpelier today against utility-scale wind developments, and their concerns sound almost exactly like what Molokai and Lanai residents have been saying about the proposed “Big Wind” project on their islands.

“We are tired of the State allowing developers to force their inappropriate renewable developments onto the back of our communities and ridgelines,” said Mike Nelson of Albany, VT.

Organizers say they want to draw attention to other alternatives that would advance the state’s energy portfolio without scaring the land. “This isn’t about saying ‘No, no, no!’” said Pat O’Neill of the Lowell Mountains Group. “It is about saying ‘let’s do something that is good for our communities and that we can all get behind.’ The cost of solar is dropping rapidly, and it doesn’t have the impacts on our natural resources that utility-scale wind does. We can do renewable energy here in Vermont without harming our most natural assets.”

Sounds like a commitment to protect exactly what neighbor islanders want to protect – the aina. And Vermonters’ support for solar energy is certainly paralleled by solar support in Hawaii, where the solar energy resource is available directly from the sun and from the biggest solar storage battery on the plant – our tropical ocean.

OTEC Now!

Solar PVs and ocean thermal energy conversion represent Hawaii's one-two punch to provide long-term renewable energy security for the state. Some want to bridge to OTEC using geothermal revenues. Maybe Ku`oko`a is right in holding that vision, but there’s a big puka in that concept – no geothermal resource on Oahu and Kauai.

Bringing geothermal-produced energy to these islands would require either undersea cables – hugely expensive – or fuel in another form extracted from the geothermal process (such as hydrogen), or both. All islands in the chain are surrounded by that great solar energy collector of an ocean; OTEC plants moored just a few miles offshore would feed their energy to the host island using relatively inexpensive cable technology.

Like Vermont, Hawaii is still early in the process of developing utility-sized wind projects such as Big Wind, and like Vermonters, Hawaii residents are speaking up and protesting the NIMBY label that some seem too eager to pin on them.

Vermont rally organizer Steve Write of Craftsbury said ralliers are not NIMBYs or anti-wind. “For us, this is about protecting our state’s highest quality waters and keeping our habitats connected,” he said. “Today we hope officials see us as a growing movement that wants to change Vermont’s energy future for the better.”

Check out this commentary by Vermonters for a Clean Environment, and stay tuned to what happens to wind energy development in the Green Mountain State. It could be instructive here at home.

OTEC Firm Gets ‘First Approval in Principle’ for its Plant; Action Potentially Clears Way for Insurance & Financing, Improves Chances Oahu Will See Facility Built Here Soon

2011-08-18T11:55:00.012-10:00

We don’t want to over-promote this, but three lines in the headline do seem appropriate in this case: The latest news about ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) seems to suggest a major milestone that could speed OTEC development here in the islands.

ABS (short for American Bureau of Shipping) has given “first approval in principle” to a floating OTEC production facility that’s proposed by OTEC International (OTI) of Baltimore, MD.

ABS describes itself as the world’s leading classification society in verifying “that marine vessels and offshore structures comply with Rules that the society has established for design, construction and periodic survey.”

The approval amounts to a “seal of approval” of OTI’s design and overall concept for a “moored spar” to generate electricity using temperature differences between the tropical ocean’s warm surface and deep, cool waters from 3,000 feet below.

There’s nothing new about the OTEC concept, which was first theorized in the 19th century and was first proven off the Big Island’s Kona coast in the 1970s. But this may be the first time an international rating agency has found favor with a specific design to commercialize it.

An industry insider we rely on for insights tells us that if any other OTEC proponent has achieved a similar endorsement, it hasn’t been announced.

Significantly, he says ABS’s action means the United States Coast Guard will allow the platform’s use, insurance companies will underwrite it and investors can jump in with a strong sense of assurance, although the latter may not be a concern for OSI, which already has foundation backing. It also means a shipyard can actually build one of OTI's designs; we're assured by a reliable source that if OSI builds in Hawaii, it will be a 100-MW commercial version.

“It is not a sexy milestone but a critical one nonetheless,” our friend says, “because without it, no offshore OTEC facility will get built.”

Ian Simpson, ABS Director of Offshore Technology and Business Development, Americas Division, was quoted in a company press release:

“This concept combines proven offshore principles with off-the-shelf power, technology and proprietary innovations, all assembled in a unique way. The design application illustrates how ABS is able to use its novel concept approach and guidance to provide review of a concept within the framework of established safety standards.”

The “moored spar” concept is being tested by StatoilHydro offshore of Norway in the North Sea to support a wind turbine. Like an iceberg with 90 percent of its mass below the sea’s surface, OTI’s spar concept puts the mechanical components – pumps, heat exchangers, generators, etc. – below the surface in a cylindrical spar and not on a ship or platform on the surface. The slide show at OTI's website makes this concept clearer than we can in this paragraph.

What this leads to depends on a laundry list of variables, but we hope more will be forthcoming soon from OTI about the company’s plans to build OTEC here in Hawaii. A power purchase agreement with Hawaiian Electric Company could be in the works.

Environmentalists Stepping Up to Fight ‘Green’ Projects

2011-08-12T13:51:00.003-10:00

Photo Credit: BrightSorce Energy

We’ve taken a break from the energy blog and let the most recent ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC)-related post hang in there while we blogged on Honolulu rail and even the infamous MLB.com Hawaii blackout of the World Champions. But it’s time to get back into an issue that’s hot in Hawaii and around the country.

The Big Wind energy project is becoming more problematic as the months roll by, what with Lanai and Molokai residents objecting to 400-foot-tall wind turbines and others doubting that the economics can ever work out. Spending $3 billion on a project that would deliver an average of about 160 megawatts of wind-generated power to Oahu doesn’t look like much of a deal. We say, better to launch a serious OTEC effort.

A Clean Technica article posted today has a disapproving reaction to environmental challenges to solar energy projects. It ends with this:

“The U.S. government and environmental groups need to take a hard look at the economic and energy future of this country and realize that their actions are making it harder not only to create jobs but the infrastructure this country needs to grow in a sustainable manner.”

The piece touches on several lawsuits brought by the Sierra Club and others and reaches the conclusion we’ve just quoted. The assertion is that litigation delays the inevitable transition to clean renewable energy development around the nation including in Hawaii, which is mentioned.

As we see it, there’s no such thing as a renewable energy project without limits. At some point, the costs and impacts of projects that are technically feasible impose those limits, no matter how well-intentioned the backers or presumably beneficial the project.

That’s why Big Wind seems objectionable from what we know so far. The impacts are huge, and so are its costs for the intended benefit.

Whether you agree or disagree, you’re invited to visit the Hawaii Energy Forum, where you can sign up and exchange views on this and many other energy-related issues. It’s free.

No Need To ‘See, Touch and Feel’ OTEC Generation

2011-07-21T08:47:00.009-10:00

Lt. Governor Brian Schatz visited Molokai recently and met with The Molokai Dispatch on a number of issues, including the proposed Big Wind energy project. After acknowledging that disagreements can arise over efforts to reduce the state’s dependence on imported fuel, he said this:

“When you think about it, we’re at 90 percent fossil fuel, and in order to move from 90 percent imported fossil fuel to clean energy we’re going to actually have to see, touch and feel the generation of energy. There’s no magic wand we can wave where we get clean energy without seeing, touching or feeling it, or paying for it….”

True, there’s no magic wand, but there is indeed one renewable energy technology just waiting to be developed in the islands that residents wouldn’t see, wouldn’t touch and wouldn’t feel – ocean thermal energy conversion.

OTEC plants would be stationed miles from shore, and depending on their hardware configuration, their profiles might be no more visible than a passing Young Brothers barge on the horizon, and possibly less so. Power would be sent to the islands via undersea cable, and so could abundant amounts of fresh water – again depending on which OTEC process is employed. (Makai Ocean Engineering’s OTEC website, source of this graphic, is the best we’ve yet seen for its explanation of the technology.)

The thrust of the lieutenant governor’s remarks was that fairness must be a part of renewable energy projects. When asked about community opposition that in the end might fight Big Wind on Molokai regardless of what’s fair, the lieutenant governor seemed to suggest a definition of “community” that’s larger than the island’s residents:

“I think it depends on how you define community. It’s very early in the process, and I’m confident that we can find ways to make renewable energy work and still have respect for and appreciation for the places where the energy gets generated… And so if you do these things in a way that’s fair, then you can get maybe not everyone unanimously in favor of something, but you can get some degree of consensus. And I think as long as you’re respectful and fair, that’s the right way to do things.”

We’ll have to see whether Molokai will continue its tradition of resisting projects with much less impact on the aina than Big Wind’s turbine farm presumably would impose.

This blog's hope is that Lt. Governor Schatz will become an outspoken proponent of OTEC from within the highest level of our state's government because of OTEC's vast potential to be the base-load energy resource Hawaii so desperately needs – one that virtually no one would notice, let along touch and feel.

Editorial Gives OTEC Two Thumbs Up — At Last; Could OTEC Be Rising as ‘Big Wind’ Runs into Turbulence? UPDATE: Ku`oko`a Plan To Buy HEI Scores Big Ink

2011-07-16T16:33:00.009-10:00

Sunday Update: Startup Ku`oko`a’s “heavy hitter” board of directors is highlighted in the Sunday Star-Advertiser’s business section. “Big Wind” rates only a minor, almost parenthetical mention in this story. Just maybe our theory (keep reading, below) about declining support for the wind energy project is seeing some proof. Join the conversation on Hawaii energy issues by signing up at the Hawaii Energy Forum (it's free) and tell us what you think about Ku`oko`a, energy efficiency/conservation programs, Big Wind and everything else about Hawaii's energy future.

Is it possible that ocean thermal energy conversion is now flowing along in the mainstream? The week began with OTEC making a splash on the Star-Advertiser’s business page. It ends with an editorial endorsing the technology as a “promising option” to help Hawaii achieve energy independence.

So what’s really going on?

Has OTEC truly gone from overshadowed and unmentioned status (see March 16, 2008 editorial in one-half of the same newspaper, the Honolulu Advertiser) to the hottest tech of the moment on its own?

Or does this hot new romance with OTEC hint at something else behind the curtain and below the surface – background radiation from a story bigger than the editorial’s content, which – let's face it – could have been written 30 years ago, and probably was?

OTEC and ‘Big Wind’

We’re thinking it does and that it has everything to do with the growing disenchantment and complications around the 400-megawatt wind energy project targeted for Molokai and Lanai.

Just yesterday the Star-Advertiser reported on a Public Utilities Commission ruling that requires Hawaiian Electric Company to go find a new partner for the Molokai segment of the project. It would appear that the whole Big Wind project is receiving the kind of scrutiny that was missing in 2007-08 when this mega-wind project swept through almost unnoticed by the general public – or so it seems in retrospect. The project prompted dueling commentaries from opponents and defenders in the past week that are linked from the renewable energy discussion Forum at Hawaii Energy’s website. (You’re invited to join the discussion there.)

News also broke in the past week of the intervener status both Maui County and Life of the Land have been granted in the Big Wind docket at the PUC.

Turning on a dime to reject one energy technology while embracing others seems to be the new rage. Both Japan and Germany have resolved to dump nuclear power, and although details are lacking, a friend in France says his country has turned against solar energy.

So that’s what we think is happening here, too. Some of the lever pullers behind the curtains have finally concluded that a $3 billion intermittent energy project isn’t even an intermediary stop on the path toward energy independence in the islands.

The new darling is OTEC, and our guess is that you’ll start seeing more evidence of OTEC’s ascendance the rest of this year. We’ll stick with that theory until something or someone convinces us we're wrong.

Memo to N.I. Residents: Oahu Power Rates Are High!

2011-07-11T07:35:00.004-10:00

Graphic from Sunday's OTEC story in the Star-Advertiser

Here’s the deal, and we’ll see if Molokai and Lanai residents think it’s a good one: Welcome the Big Wind energy project onto your island and have your electric rates lowered to equal what Oahu residents pay.

What’s your reaction to that, neighbor islanders? Is that a good deal or just so much snake oil?

We Oahu residents already are paying the nation’s highest electricity rates by far -- with the exception of your rates, of course. It’s impossible to believe they won’t increase after a $3 billion energy project is installed that has to be paid for the only way possible – in our electricity bills!

Maybe your electricity rates will decrease from their current impossibly and laughably high levels, but that’s like being thankful for getting a splinter out of your thumb while your hand is still clamped in a vice.

The other piece of the deal, as outlined today in the Star-Advertiser by an executive of Pattern Energy, is the promise of 100-percent renewable energy dependence on Molokai and Lanai, thanks to Big Wind. Pattern’s David Parquet says it’ll happen because the computer models and studies say it’ll happen.

And if It Doesn’t?

Studies look at historical evidence and predict the future based on the past. Are we slam-dunk positive those trade winds will continue blowing for decades to come as the climate changes? That’s something to consider, because the last thing you want to see if you accept Big Wind onto your island is dozens of wind turbines, each more than 400 feet tall, sitting there doing nothing in breezes too weak to turn their blades.

No matter what is offered by Big Wind promoters, it has to be measured against cost and environmental impact, not only for our generation but for your children and their children. It has always seemed beyond sketchy to us to put all our treasure and hopes into one intermittent wind project, especially when it requires undersea cables to fulfill its promise.

Ask any supporter of ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) how far the technology would advance with an investment of $3 billion, and we’re pretty sure you’d hear “all the way to commercialization on a level with what Big Wind would produce.”

With $3 billion backing OTEC, we’d be tapping into the world’s greatest and inexhaustible solar energy collector – the tropical ocean that surrounds our state – and it wouldn’t be intermittent power, like wind. It would be base-load power – running 24 hours a day, every day, taken from an ocean that scientists predict will be even warmer with climate change. (For OTEC, warmer surface water is good.)

That amount spent on Big Wind would preempt OTEC’s rollout on a similar scale, wouldn’t it? Only so much money can be squeezed out of the ratepayer – or so it would seem.

But you be sure to think about it, neighbor island friends. Imagine...spending only what Oahu residents pay for electricity.... Could Paradise ever be as sweet?

Media Finally Giving OTEC the Prominence It Deserves

2011-07-10T07:57:00.011-10:00

“The tropical ocean is the world’s largest solar collector and storage ‘battery’ -- so big that small thinking apparently can’t detect it.”

That quote is from the third post here at Hawaii Energy Options -- our reaction on March 16, 2008 to a Honolulu Advertiser editorial that omitted ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) from a list of “the Islands’ reservoir of power.”

OTEC was usually missing three years ago when reporters and editors wrote about Hawaii’s renewable energy options. That’s why this blog's first entry said:

“It's past time for lawmakers to look beyond the obvious and get serious about how to exploit the solar energy trapped in ocean waters surrounding Hawaii. Using existing technology, OTEC can extract that energy and create enough electricity to power tens or hundreds of thousands of island homes, as well as commerce and industry.”

What a difference three more years of near-total dependence on fossil fuel and billions of dollars sent out of state can make. Today’s Star-Advertiser puts OTEC on page one of its Money Section in the print edition – big headline, huge photo, half an inside page devoted to OTEC.

OTEC or Big Wind?

Even as the media were ignoring OTEC in March 2008, prominent space was given to the Big Wind project – 400 megawatts of wind energy on two neighbor islands, power shipped to Oahu’s grid via undersea cable.

Castle & Cooke responded to the mood of the moment with a commentary saying it and other Hawaii companies “are ready to proceed with projects that can help Hawaii meet its goal of generating 20 percent of our energy fro renewable resources by 2020.” C&C proposed a 300-400 MW wind farm – just the ticket to put all that unused Lanai land to use and offset the financial losses of the island’s two upscale resorts.

“We cannot afford to waste another year talking about the problems we face,” wrote Harry Saunders, president of Castle & Cooke Hawaii. “We know what they are and how to solve them. What we need is for government to facilitate private investment in renewable technologies and remove the roadblocks standing in the way of a secure and sustainable future.”

Hawaii’s government has gone “all in” on Big Wind since that March 2008 weekend, when oil traded around $111 per barrel on Friday. We can only speculate where government’s emphasis would have gone if commentaries and editorials back then had been pushing hard for base-load, low-impact OTEC instead of intermittent, high-impact wind. (The price quote for Brent crude two days ago was $118.20.)

OTEC's emerging prominence and the public's new awareness of its potential may be what's needed to pull Hawaii's energy planners back from their "all in" gamble on Big Wind -- a technology at once overwhelmingly unpopular with neighbor islanders and insufficient to meet Oahu's long-term energy needs.

With support comparable to what government has given Big Wind, a Big Ocean project using OTEC technology could be launched this decade and eventually meet our needs for generations to come. The time is ripe for the state to shift its focus from the neighbor island wind energy project and start focusing on the limitless and constant source of energy that surrounds us.

Big Wind Public Info Process Shows Signs of Cracking

2011-07-08T13:52:00.002-10:00

“You have to go through this process of noise, where you let people feel that they had a platform to speak. But you can’t let the noise distract you because time is a nemesis….” ~ Michael Cyrus, a managing partner at SteelRiver Infrastructure Partners, as quoted by Pacific Business News.

“…if they’re asking Hawaiian Electric (not to) say yes to anything because some people don’t like it, we can’t do that.” ~ Robbie Alm, executive vice president, Hawaiian Electric Company, as quoted by The Molokai Dispatch.

We’ll try not to read too much into those quotes. Taken one way – the way the speakers would want you to take them – they simply are evidence of the dogged determination and commitment Big Wind project supporters have to bring this wind energy project to fruition.

Taken another way, they could suggest a dismissive attitude about the public involvement process with neighbor island residents who have long complained that they feel like second-class citizens. We’d hate to see Big Wind confirm it for them.

Here’s another quote about the Big Wind public meetings, as supplied by Robin Kaye of Friends of Lanai: “Can’t we talk about something besides wind?” Governor Neal Abercrombie asked during his July 2 meeting on the island.

Maybe so, but it’s a pretty good bet that 80-percent-plus of the comments and questions the Governor will get on Lanai and Molokai any time soon will be about wind. After all, he’s the man who threatened back in April to condemn 10,000 acres on Molokai if it were necessary to move Big Wind forward.

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), the technology many of us believe is Hawaii’s best long-term hope for energy independence, continues to attract media coverage, as it does in today’s edition of Pacific Business News.

Governor Abercrombie would indeed have something else to talk about if he’d direct more of his resources toward base-load energy technologies like geothermal and OTEC and less toward intermittent wind -- especially when there's a headwind blowing at him on the neighbor islands.

‘Kill Big Wind Project before It Kills Our Pocketbooks’

2011-07-03T09:27:00.002-10:00

Today’s Star-Advertiser carries a commentary under the above headline (it’s slightly different in the original) by Mike Bond, energy industry veteran and Molokai resident. His piece rips the proposed wind energy project on Molokai and Lanai.

Bond calls Big Wind “an engineering and financial tsunami that will enrich its backers and leave the rest of us far worse than before.”

He follows a thread we’ve been picking away at for several months – the myth that Big Wind’s planned 400 megawatts of installed generation will satisfy a sizable chunk of Oahu’s power requirements. (See this February post and several others in March and April.) Inconsistent winds, line losses and other factors would not allow neighbor island wind farms to deliver more than a small fraction of their theoretical potential to Oahu via undersea cable.

Bond’s bases his argument against Big Wind on several factors, with the project’s financial impact taking the most heat. He writes, “In fact, no developer will even touch Big Wind unless the entire $1 billion for the undersea cable can be charged to HECO customers, raising our electricity bills by 30 percent.”

The piece should be required reading for anyone affiliated with the Big Wind project – if for no other reason than to be the basis of their response to the newspaper, which we can expect to read in a few days. Drawing out proponents would be a healthy outcome of Bond’s critical assessment of Big Wind, which on this Independence Day weekend concludes with a pitch for greater transparency and democracy through ratepayer participation:

“The governor, HECO et al. should realize that Maui, Lanai and Molokai are not colonies, nor part of the former Soviet Union. It’s time we were given the truth about Big Wind, so this ridiculous project can be quickly killed before it eats us all out of house and home.”

Pattern Energy ‘Won’t Go Forward’ if People Say No; HECO says Opposition Not Enough Reason To Stop

2011-07-01T12:23:00.001-10:00

This sign greets visitors at Molokai's airport.

We should have learned by now to check in frequently with the neighbor island newspapers for their coverage of the proposed Big Wind energy project -- The Molokai Dispatch, for example.

It wasn’t until this morning’s report on Hawaii Public Radio by a Dispatch reporter that we heard one of the most important utterances to date about Big Wind, which would install 200 megawatts of wind generating capacity on Molokai and another 200 on Lanai. Their output would be transmitted to Oahu via undersea cables.

A June 26th story at the Dispatch’s website quoted Christian Hackett, senior developer for Pattern Energy, which wants to build the Molokai project:

“We have no doubt that if the community does not support the project after we’ve gone through the process and provided the information and answered questions thoughtfully, this project won’t go forward,” he said. “Molokai residents have a history of successfully stopping projects that they don’t believe in, and that’s gonna happen here – if we don’t get community support for the project, the project won’t go forward.”

Mr. Hackett undoubtedly is an optimist out of necessity and still has hopes of attracting the community support he needs. According to the Dispatch, however, public opinion surveys have found opposition to Big Wind above 90 percent on Molokai.

We don’t know the surveys’ questions, protocols and margins of error, so we have no way of evaluating their quality, but it wouldn’t be surprising if scientific surveys using accepted best practices in opinion polling found similar results. No survey suggesting anything but overwhelming opposition to Big Wind has been publicized to our knowledge.

Count us among the skeptics that Big Wind will ever be built – not with the widespread opposition as described in the surveys and newspaper stories.

“We Can’t Do That”

The bigger reason to question the project, though, is the intermittent nature of the energy source. As a long-time believer in ocean thermal energy conversion and its eventual role in supplying base-load abundant power to the islands, we can’t join the enthusiasm for Big Wind as expressed by some of Hawaii’s major energy players.

That includes Hawaiian Electric Company, which apparently is positioned to endorse major energy projects like Big Wind regardless of public opinion. HECO’s Robbie Alm told the Dispatch last week: “…if they’re asking Hawaiian Electric (not to) say yes to anything because some people don’t like it, we can’t do that.”

“Some people” in this case would seem to be virtually the entire population of Molokai. That’s a questionable position for any company to take – especially a public utility.

Big Projects Panel Let’s ‘Big Wind’ Off Easy

2011-06-30T09:10:00.000-10:00

It’s no knock on attorney Jerry Sumida to suggest that the Big Wind segment of last week’s Big Projects panel at the Plaza Club didn’t quite match the build-up. (We would have posted about the June 23 event earlier but for a getaway week in Waikoloa on the Big Island. If any place in Hawaii deserves the “Big Wind” designation, this is it.)

Careful as always to measure his words, Sumida presented the basics of the Big Wind energy project without prejudicing the issues, going only so far as to suggest “not making or delaying a decision (on the project) is actually making a decision. Either we remain stuck in our dependence on oil as we are today or we do something about it.”

Some of the pre-event publicity implied that NIMBYism might thwart plans to build 200 megawatts of wind energy generating capacity on Molokai and another 200 MW on Lanai, but Sumida didn’t go there. He instead noted that Hawaii exports about $4 billion annually to buy the oil that runs 95 percent of the state’s economy.

“What could we do with these funds if they stayed here,” he asked, saying the choice is between exercising greater independence in our energy future or not. Big Wind could contribute to achieving that independence, he said, but questions need to be asked and answered for the benefit of all stakeholders.

Biggest of the Big

The Big Projects panel sought to understand why large projects like Big Wind, the Super Ferry and Honolulu rail seem to take forever or don’t succeed at all. In that regard, former Governor Ben Cayetano dominated the event with his recitation of why he’s fighting the rail project. We wasted no time addressing his comments at our sister blog, Yes2Rail.

“Hey, Gang! Let’s Put On a Show and Call it ‘Big Wind’”

2011-06-19T17:44:00.009-10:00

6/20 Update: PBN story says "HEI's credit rating could complicate Big Wind."
It’s whacky, but when we read the editorial in the Star-Advertiser this morning on the Big Wind energy project, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland popped into mind.

The connection with the young actors of the late ‘30s and early ‘40s was the over-the-top enthusiasm for Big Wind in some circles – the same kind of boundless enthusiasm oozed by Rooney and Garland on the silver screen in their “backyard musicals.” Maybe you’ve seen them on TV.

The lasting impression from those musicals was the brainstorm the actors would have about what they could do with all their singing and dancing talent. “Let’s put on a show!” one of them would shout, and then they would. It was cute, and audiences loved it for a while.

In the end, audiences cooled to the cuteness, and we’re wondering if that will be the ultimate outcome of Big Wind, the plan to build 400 megawatts of installed wind energy capacity on Molokai and Lanai and transmit it to Oahu with seafloor cables.

There’s plenty of enthusiasm for the project – from Hawaiian Electric Company, the State Energy Office, the Public Utilities Commission, wind energy producers and landowners Castle & Cooke and Molokai Ranch.

But the ranks of the skeptical and unenthusiastic are growing. Neighbor islanders appear united in near-unanimous opposition to forever turning over thousands of acres of their islands’ open space to the farms. Environmental organizations and even the County of Maui are complaining about the lack of transparency.

And then there’s the presumed inadequacy (from where we sit, at least) of putting Oahu’s energy eggs into one neighbor island basket and relying so heavily on the intermittency of wind power. Oahu needs base-load power, but even an optimistic assessment of Big Wind’s potential suggests that only about 160 MW would be available on average for Oahu’s grid. OTEC, anyone?

Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney never had to worry about whether their on-screen musicals would succeed. MGM had it written into the script.

Big Wind’s script is only a broad outline, however, and there’s still doubt about who some of the major players will be. Then there’s the potential for strange plot twists, such as possible State condemnation of Molokai land to bypass local opposition. And you thought Spider Man has had trouble on Broadway….

Big Wind will be part of a panel discussion on Thursday sponsored by the Hawaii Venture Capital Association and ThinkTech under the broad title, “What makes Big Projects so hard in Hawaii?" The public is invited to register for the paid event.

‘Big Wind’ Starting To Look Like a ‘Big Denial’

2011-06-13T11:27:00.003-10:00

Honolulu Star-Advertiser graphic

The “denial” of which we write is the string of denials issued by the Public Utilities Commission to parties that want a seat at the table in the formal consideration of Big Wind, the 400-megawatt neighbor island wind power project. The Friends of Lanai and Life of the Land both have received rejections of their bids to intervene in PUC dockets on the project, and now the County of Maui is asking for more Big Wind transparency.

Another “denial” might be the apparent tendency to dismiss neighbor island residents’ concerns about the impact of adding 200 or more wind turbines to their rural landscape. Some in the community are crying NIMBY and implying that not-in-my-backyard concerns are illegitimate.

The Hawaii Venture Capital Association is hosting a panel discussion on June 23 titled “Big Projects – Why Are They Stuck?” The event’s online announcement says “the program will examine some of the Big Projects we’ve been waiting for and try to find out why they haven’t been completed and what should be done.” Big Wind and the Honolulu rail project are on the agenda.

The apparent willingness to embrace Big Wind also is a denial of sorts of the promise of base load technology to address Oahu’s future electricity needs. Some see more promise in geothermal than wind energy for that purpose, whereas we continue to believe ocean thermal energy conversion is the best long-term answer.

What seems certain at this time is that Big Wind will continue to provide its share of "Who-Shot-JR” moments in Hawaii’s long-running renewable energy soap opera.

Hawaii’s ‘Tsunami of Isolation’ Dictates Innovation

2011-05-28T09:16:00.005-10:00

A long holiday weekend with plenty of writing time helps break the silence here at Hawaii Energy Options. Frankly, we’ve been giving the Big Wind Soap Opera a rest until the producers have settled on a permanent cast and the characters are either married off or poisoned out of the script. New plot developments might test our resolve, however.

No such writing drought has affected Pat Takahasi, the innovative thinker and chief advocate of the Blue Revolution. Pat is a staunch supporter of breakthrough energy solutions, with ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) at the top of the list.

One of Pat’s contributions to Huffington Post earlier this year noted that the earth’s surface is two and one-times more water than land, yet “almost never is the ocean recognized as part of the (energy) solution.”

Pat recently wrote about Japan’s energy crisis that became apparent thanks to the March tsunami and crippling of the country’s nuclear energy industry – not just one plant but the whole concept in that nation.

“Suddenly, the Great Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster has thrust the Blue Revolution as the optimal solution for Japan’s future,” he wrote a week ago today at his Blue Revolution Hawaii blog.

Hawaii’s Energy ‘Tsunami’

Unlike hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis that cannot be ignored, Hawaii’s energy crisis has been a decades-long slice of life for island residents. Our state’s isolation requires energy lifelines thousands of miles long to meet our needs. This dependence is like a nagging discomfort in the body that one day becomes a catastrophic illness; we’re vaguely aware of the problem and maybe take an aspirin to relieve the minor pain, but we go about our business without doing much of anything to address the real problem.

The public-private push behind Big Wind strikes us as a misstep that's likely to delay real progress in addressing our energy tsunami – a head-long rush to develop an intermittent power source that can’t possibly provide the long-term energy security Hawaii requires. A comparable effort behind OTEC would make ocean energy a reality.

The Blue Revolution concept includes plans for a Pacific International Ocean Station (PIOC), an ocean version of the International Space Station. The PIOC would pioneer OTEC and other ocean-based energy and clean water applications.

Innovative thinking, like the Environmental Island concept offered by the Shimizu Corporation (at left), is all around us, yet “official” Hawaii seems oblivious to these concepts. Big Wind advocates have invested their energies in a project that would have tremendous impacts on two of our neighbor islands and do nothing to ensure base-load power delivery to our populations for generations to come.

Pat Takahashi is one of Hawaii’s authentic visionaries and deserves a place at the table in discussions of permanent energy solutions to meet Hawaii’s needs a century from now. Unfortunately, the focus now is on meeting a paper goal to achieve a percentage of renewable energy use by 2030.

Our best suggestion on Memorial Day weekend: Bookmark Pat Takahashi’s various websites and visit them often!

PUC Rejects FOL’s Petition to Intervene in ‘Big Wind’

2011-05-13T06:39:00.000-10:00

It was more than predictable. Legal technicalities tend to outweigh the down-home emotions of individual citizens as revealed in the petition filed by the Friends of Lanai with the Public Utilities Commission seeking to intervene in the Big Wind project docket.

Rather than repeat all the “who shot JR?” twists, we’ll direct you downward in this column to previous posts on Big Wind. We’ve called it a soap opera due to all the romancing, spurning and dissing among the players.

The PUC rejected FOL’s petition (which is what Hawaiian Electric Company urged it to do) and noted that FOL isn’t a party to the docket and therefore couldn’t petition for intervention.

Where this harried project goes next is anybody’s guess. Will the Governor condemn 10,000 acres of Molokai land for Big Wind? Will First Wind find a parcel somewhere in the county to build 200 megawatts of wind power? Will all 400 MW end up on Lanai, as apparently is still possible? Will Pattern Energy and Molokai consummate their budding relationship? What next for the Friends of Lanai? Does a $3-billion investment in an intermittent wind resource make sense?

We asked Robin Kaye of the FOL group exactly that – what’s your next step? Here’s his emailed response today:

“Good questions. We're doing the necessary legal research and questioning right now. The PUC has been operating like this (opaque, no-explanations-necessary) for quite a long time. HECO and the PUC appear to move in lock-step. It's really bad government. They write the rules, they interpret the rules, and they then appear to adjudicate the rules. There doesn't seem to be much precedent for challenging the PUC re regulations; lots regarding rate cases, but very little around the issues we're raising. And it's doubtful they consider "residents' interests" at all. One would have assumed that the Consumer Advocate (we think this is an oxymoron) would take that role, but they appear to be in step with HECO and the PUC on this.”

Columnist: ‘Big Wind’ a Must No Matter What, Including Condemnation, ‘Bribes’ to Residents, Huge Investment

2011-05-10T10:42:00.014-10:00

We believe energy and technology columnist Jay Fidell is on target on most subjects he covers, but his ThinkTech column in the Star-Advertiser today is not one of them.

Fidell thinks the so-called Big Wind neighbor island wind farm and inter-island cable project is so absolutely critical to Hawaii’s energy future that it simply must happen, no matter the cost and no matter how objectionable the project might be to Molokai and Lanai residents and those who agree with them.

Calling Big Wind the “keystone of our Clean Energy Initiative,” Fidell argues that Hawaii must “get over” the reluctance to initiate eminent domain proceedings.

“The governor needs to get the Big Wind parties in a room and jawbone them into a deal,” Fidell writes. “Failing that, he should do exactly what he threatened – yes, condemnation. Take heart, governor. Be impatient about clean energy – you have the power. Make eminent domain imminent. Many people will support you in this, and a condemnation will assure progress on wind and other projects. Do it once and things will be easier going forward.”

In other words, run roughshod over the legitimate concerns of neighbor islanders whose public statements on Big Wind are virtually unanimous in opposition. Is this the state of affairs we want in the Aloha State?

Benefits or Bribes?

The ThinkTech columnist says “there’s a kind of benefits package inflation going on” to – let’s face it – bribe/entice those residents into supporting Big Wind and forever changing the look, feel and nature of their islands. As Fidell notes, a 200-megawatt wind farm requires “something over 10,000 acres” as a footprint.

The benefits on the table include a 50-percent cut in electricity rates; improved water utilities, roads and fire stations; scholarships and educational programs, and preservation of native lands.

That last one is of course ironic – land preservation programs as 10,000 acres are turned over for generations to wind turbine towers taller than the First Hawaiian Bank building in downtown Honolulu.

But think about the education lessons that might flow from these enticements. What lessons would neighbor island children learn about government’s relationship with its citizens if eminent domain is exercised? What lessons would be learned about how one gets what one wants?

The best lesson for all of us from this frenzy over Big Wind would be a recognition that a solid plan has yet to be developed to deliver firm power to the citizens. These overly-involved and intricate plans to make Big Wind happen remind us of the parable of the camel and the eye of a needle. Does a good plan require this much intrigue? Wouldn’t a preferred and superior energy future for the state require far less gyrations and be obvious in its relative simplicity?

The Big Wind Basket

The most dangerous aspect of “Big Wind or Bust” is that this project could soak up $3 billion that might otherwise be invested to ensure a strong energy future for Hawaii. Wind is an intermittent power source, and the neighbor island farms would fall far short of delivering their 400 MW of installed capacity to Oahu.

The farms’ capacity factor is estimated to be between 20 and 38 percent, meaning Oahu would receive on average between 80 and about 150 MW of power -- not the aggregate 400 MW on the turbines’ nameplates.

An average output of 150 MW and less can’t possibly justify a $3 billion investment. That amount, invested in ocean thermal energy conversion, which this blog has been touting since its first post, would surely move OTEC from its current promising-but-risky phase into large-scale energy production – with NO on-land impacts.

OTEC plants floating miles off each island could provide the secure energy future for Hawaii that Big Wind can’t. So could geothermal energy from an expanded resource on the Big Island and possibly on Maui, as well. Like OTEC, geothermal would be a base load energy source.

This blog isn’t the only advocate for these energy technologies; see Kuokoa’s website for background and advocacy regarding geothermal energy. And we certainly are not the only ones who believe Big Wind’s on-land impact would be too severe to tolerate; see the Friends of Lanai website.

Betting the Future

We do have to thank Jay Fidell for painting this issue in the starkest and most alarming terms – the seizure of private land to enable the big dreams of a relatively small group of energy planners who are satisfied with betting our future on how strong the wind will blow years from now.

Are we blind to the bizarre weather shifts Hawaii has experienced this year alone? Don’t our planners believe climate change is happening, and if they do, are they so certain Hawaii’s trade winds will always be there?

Of two things we are certain: The sun will continue to shine and warm our tropical ocean, the world’s largest solar energy “battery” and OTEC engine. And Pele's geothermal power will always be with us, too.

OTEC and geothermal energy are Hawaii’s energy future. That’s where electricity customers should willing to have their dollars invested – if not for this generation's benefit, then for the benefit of all that follow.

Public TV Show Reviews Hawaii’s Energy Future

2011-05-09T11:08:00.004-10:00

Afternoon Update: HECO urges PUC to reject Friends of Lanai petition on Big Wind bidding.
There never can be too much conversation about getting off oil in the Aloha State, so the topic on public television’s “PBS Hawaii Insights” show last week was more of what we needed.

Watch it and you can pick and choose the parts you like, the parts you don’t like and the parts that support your particular technology preference and/or your major concerns. We’ve noted here our concern about the Big Wind project, which at times has resembled a “soap opera” with its big swings in plot and players.

Our biggest concern is that a great deal of effort and faith has been invested in Big Wind by many key players, including some on this TV show, even though the entire project is highly problematic at this time. The anticipated impacts to be visited on Molokai and Lanai may be so great in the end that Big Wind simply won’t happen, and you can be sure opponents on those islands will be heard.

That’s why we wonder whether $3 billion invested in the two neighbor island wind farms and an undersea cable to connect them to Oahu would soak up so much money from Hawaii as a whole – businesses, residents, government – that there would be nrothing left for other technologies that conceivably could come online later. In that regard, we’ve picked the following quotes.

Hermina Morita, chair of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission:

“One of the key objectives of Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative is to demonstrate with the US Department of Energy that there’s no one solution, that it will take multiple technologies, diversity and the integration of these various technologies to come to a solution, and what better place to do it than Hawaii….? There’s no one technology that’s gonna solve our problem, and we really have to approach this from a systems (basis)….”

Mike Hamnett, chair of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum:

“There are a number of (technologies) that are right over the horizon. So in the whole biofuels area, a lot of people are looking forward to the role that algae will play…. The people who are in the algae business they’re saying it’s three years, five years away, but having the diversity of resources allows us to not put all our eggs in one basket, so if we get a new technology….even ocean thermal energy conversion has got a lot of potential….but if we take a diversified approach to the whole thing, and as these new technologies come on line we can swap them out for the things we’ve already developed and get the best of all worlds, rather than putting all of our eggs in any single technology basket.”

There’s that energy basket again, and without actually connecting his remarks to Big Wind, the HEPF chair mirrored the same concern that we have – that the Big Wind project is becoming the technology that’s far more desirable than all the others, notwithstanding the breadth of discussion about other technologies on the program.

Please watch the video, then chime in with your opinions at the Hawaii Energy Forum, which is linked at the top of the page. Click on any of the major issues listed there, such as Energy Policy to comment on the TV show, register in the upper right-hand corner (if you haven’t already) and weigh in on one of the most important conversations happening in Hawaii.

First Wind, Rejected at Every Turn, Keeps Trying

2011-05-02T21:13:00.001-10:00

(Evening Update: Please visit our sister blog, Citizens Helping Officials Respond to Emergencies (CHORE), for our instant analysis of what was missing in communications to Oahu residents during the hours-long blackout late today.)

First Wind, the Boston-based energy company, must be wondering if it has lost its touch. After being hailed for its wind projects on Maui and a new one on Oahu’s North Shore, First Wind is getting nowhere with its bid to be a player in the Big Wind inter-island energy project.

The Public Utilities Commission has rejected First Wind’s request for an extension to secure land for a 200-megawatt wind farm either on Molokai or Maui. The company’s efforts to cut a deal with Molokai Ranch were spurned, and the ranch has turned to Pattern Energy of San Francisco for that island’s share of the project.

The PUC said First Wind didn’t have proper standing to file an extension request so it could find the land it needs. Only parties to the Commission’s docket may do so, the PUC’s denial letter said, and Hawaiian Electric Company, which is a party, refused First Wind’s request to file the extension on its behalf.

That makes three rejections for First Wind – by Molokai Ranch, the HECO and now the PUC. Unknow now is whether the PUC will add another by rejecting the company’s protest of Castle & Cooke’s assignment of 200 MW of allotted wind energy potential from Lanai to Molokai and Pattern Energy.

Soap Opera-ishness

We had to make up that word to capture the craziness that the Big Wind project has become. Also protesting the C&C “assignment” is the Friends of Lanai group, which noted last week that Pattern Energy “is not a party to any PUC Docket, nor party to any agreement with any public agency in Hawaii. Despite claims to the contrary, FOL believes HECO and C&C have no right – and no authority – to arbitrarily ‘select’ a new developer.”

One possible outcome of all this would be the PUC’s agreement with First Wind and FOL that C&C can’t just up and “assign” 200 phantom MWs to Pattern, which showed up late in the game at Molokai Ranch’s invitation.

Another possible outcome would be for all of Big Wind’s 400 MWs to be built on Lanai, an option that surely would trigger the mother of all protests by the FOL group and others.

It’s not for nothing that we’ve called this whole affair a soap opera.

More ‘Big Wind’ Twists; First Wind Objects to New Plan

2011-04-27T11:41:00.015-10:00

(Update on Friends of Lanai PUC petition near end of post.)
We’ve compared the Big Wind energy project to a TV soap opera because of the twists and turns, the new relationships that supplant the old, the spurned suitors who aren’t taking the rejection well – it’s all there in some of our recent posts, starting here. And now there’s more drama.

First Wind, the energy company that has created a name for itself in the islands by building wind farms on Maui and Oahu, was to be part of the 400-megawatt wind project, but it failed to reach an agreement with Molokai Ranch to build 200 MW on that island.

The ranch turned to a new company – Pattern Energy of San Francisco – to develop the farm on its land. Castle & Cooke, which owns nearly all of Lanai, wants to build a 200-MW farm there, but because First Wind fell out of the plan, C&C believes it has the right under the original Big Wind agreement with Hawaiian Electric Company and the state to build all 400 on that island. (Consider us among the skeptics that such a huge development could ever occur there; a 200-MW farm seems problematic enough in light of Lanai residents’ opposition.)

But C&C now says it wants to assign 200 MW back to Molokai, where Pattern Energy would build a farm with Molokai Ranch’s blessing. First Wind is having none of it, as reported in Pacific Business News, which seems to be doing a more diligent job on this story than any other media outlet.

Paul Gaynor, First Wind’s CEO, has written to the Public Utilities Commission to object to the Molokai Ranch/Castle & Cooke/Pattern Energy deal, calling it a direct violation of the original agreement with HECO to connect 400 MW of installed wind energy capacity on the two neighbor islands with Oahu via undersea cable.

Subversion Claimed

Gaynor wrote that the agreement is now “being subverted, if not breached, by these most recent developments in which C&C has unilaterally claimed a right to develop the full 400 MW and further is seeking to ‘assign' 200 MW to an entirely new party its ‘development opportunity’ on another island, Molokai, with respect to which C&C has no relationship, contract or any other legal rights whatsoever.”

See what we mean about the soap-opera comparison? The only thing missing so far is a shotgun wedding, and that might just be in the script, too, if the state and utility energy planners become desperate to connect the wind farms to Oahu’s grid.

Some are supporting options to massive wind development, such as widespread solar energy distributed generation and/or base load sources like geothermal energy and ocean thermal energy conversion, which might be developed over the next decade or two and connected to Oahu. The neighbor island wind farms would be intermittent sources that on average would deliver somewhere between 25 and 38 percent of their installed capacity to Oahu.

Hawaii’s energy planners have integrated Big Wind to such an extent that supporters say failure to build it will threaten the state’s ability to meet the 2030 goals of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative. Others simply ask, so what, and is it all that critical to push through Big Wind in light of its attendant controversies and uncertainties?

FOL Files Petition

Meanwhile, the Friends of Lanai group filed a petition with the Public Utilities Commission yesterday to reopen the competitive bidding process for Big Wind. The FOL press release says:

"Pattern Energy is not a party to any PUC Docket, nor party to any agreement with any public agency in Hawaii. Despite claims to the contrary, FOL believes HECO and C&C have no right -- and no authority -- to arbitrarily 'select' a new developer. The entire process has been shrouded in secrecy. There has been no public discussion of costs, no responsible consideration of other means to meet the non-binding goals of the State's renewable portfolio standards, and no clarity on where the proposed undersea cable might surface on Oahu. The process hasn't even determined from which islands the wind resources would be harvested. The rush to Big Wind should stop here and now."

4/29 Update: The Star-Advertiser covers the FOL angle today.

Join the Conversation

If you have thoughts on all of this, Hawaii Energy (the state’s conservation and efficiency program administrator) has a Forum where you can express them. Just go to the Forum and register by clicking on the link in the upper right corner. Look for the Big Wind discussion within the Renewables category for now.

Finding a Way for Solar Power To Reach Its Potential

2011-04-24T10:14:00.000-10:00

The Star-Advertiser devoted editorial page space a couple days ago to a problem that’s holding Hawaii back from achieving greater reliance on solar energy.

Blame it on the clouds. When they pass over photovoltaic systems on rooftops, PV power output understandably drops, and that can affect the electric grid’s stability, according to Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO).

HECO requires a costly study before new PV systems can be installed on neighborhood circuits that already have at least 15 percent of their total generating capacity coming from alternative resources.

Only 4,000 of the state’s 267,000 single-family homes have PV systems, says the editorial, and that number isn’t likely to grow in neighborhoods where the 15-percent barrier has been reached. Nobody has been willing to shell out the $15,000 to $40,000 cost for one of those studies that could lead to an installation.

Eleven out of Oahu’s 465 circuits are thus stymied. The remaining 454 circuits would seem to offer plenty of expansion possibilities, but those 11 are where the money is, as evident by their PV penetration.

Sharing the Load

Finding a path for solar power expansion on circuits where economic power is concentrated and the will to invest already exists is the challenge. There has to be a way, perhaps by adding another of those small surcharges or fees we all pay in our electric bill to fund rebates for energy-efficient appliances.

The beneficiaries of the surcharges are those among us who replace inefficient refrigerators, water heaters and even light bulbs, but the entire population also benefits when we cut our kilowatthour demand and therefore our reliance on oil to generate electricity. The same would be true of a surcharge that funds those PV-connected studies.

Do the laws of physics allow an entire circuit to be PV-powered? Only in the dreams of PV system marketers, no doubt, but that could be a goal for the 21st Century – after lots of experimentation, development of storage capabilities and, yes, more studies.

Kuokoa Promotes Its Plan for Hawaii to Get Off Oil

2011-04-21T11:18:00.001-10:00

Kuokoa, the newly formed company (Hawaiian language advocates prefer Ku`oko`a), has a plan to accelerate Hawaii’s move to energy independence.

Eliminating oil from our daily diet not only is desired but a necessity in the short term, not just the long. Oil prices continue to rise driven by worldwide consumption (see oil clock at right) along with seen and unseen forces.

Kuokoa CEO Roald Marth has been giving presentations to groups large and small in recent months. He spoke to the Rotary Club of Honolulu on April 5th. If you have any interest in Hawaii’s energy dilemma, do yourself a favor and watch the video.

Nation’s Highest Gas Prices Reach Historic Territory; Hawaii Drivers Have Never Had To Pay This Much

2011-04-20T06:17:00.004-10:00

That's the headline today at our Yes2Rail blog, where we conclude that Honolulu rail's future success is assured -- for cost reasons alone, but certainly also for convenience.

The conclusion here at Hawaii Energy Options is that new record-level prices for gasoline in Honolulu and statewide drive home the importance of reducing the state's demand for oil to generate electricity and power our transportation sector.

Please visit Yes2Rail, especially if you'll be filling up in Hawaii in the next few days.

Feedback – plus Wind Study as Recommended Reading

2011-04-18T10:06:00.002-10:00

We did the unusual over the weekend and sent a link to Friday’s post on Big Wind to a few dozen energy-focused people in industry, academia and government. We asked for feedback if our conclusions in that post were off the mark.

And we got feedback. Dr. Luis Vega’s opinion counts for a lot, and he recommended reading the “Oahu Wind Integration Study” by Jay Griffin et al:

Simply by reading the Executive Summary you will be positively surprised at the technical viability of incorporating additional wind and PV into the Oahu grid with “state-of-the-art” modifications ( e.g., up-gradable controls to modify ramp-up speed of existing fossil fueled generators and the latest controls available for WTGs). This report forced me to “upgrade” my technical analysis (cost, political viability etc. is a different discussion) and open my mind to additional wind as well as nascent wave energy and other intermittent resources. I hope that reading the Griffin report will open up your mind to wonderful possibilities. It opened mine.

So we've started to read the report and, like Dr. Vega, recommend it to all Hawaii-based visitors to this post. From this lay person's perspective, it covers generation issues remarkably well. So far the reading suggests the Study evaluates the feasibility of adding 400 megawatts of wind power from neighbor island farms.

We'll continue reading the study to its end, but we’d make the point that feasibility isn’t what is driving our present concerns about Big Wind. Impacts and costs are top of mind here at Hawaii Energy Options. So, too, is a “favorite” renewable energy option of ours – ocean thermal energy conversion.

OTEC is mentioned numerous times in the Study because it assumes the addition of a 25 MW OTEC plant by 2014. Here are two such entries:

“A small amount of baseload energy is provided by HPower (waste to energy), Honua (gasification) and OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion).” And… “One of the significant changes from the present operating year to 2014 is the additional capacity of HPower and contributions from OTEC and Honua.”

As an OTEC advocate, we’d like to believe this ocean technology could conceivably be providing much more than 25 MW to Oahu’s grid by 2030, which is the target year for attaining the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative’s goals.

Does the Study assess how much OTEC generation would be feasible if $3 billion were spent to develop 400 MW of Big Wind power and the undersea cable to transit that electricity to Oahu? Don’t know yet, because we haven’t finished reading it, but early indications are that Big OTEC isn’t analyzed.

But we are reminded of those Nature programs on public television. Some animal species will sacrifice a new hatchling or cub to ensure the viability of others. Could OTEC’s promise of abundant baseload energy be fully realized (once it’s proven in this decade) if Big Wind already is in the nest? How much money can these islands afford to feed its renewable energy projects? Would Big OTEC even be attempted if so much is spent on Big Wind/Cable?

We don’t know the answers and would hope someone as capable as Dr. Vega – who heads up the Nawaii National Marine Renewable Energy Center – and/or the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute would look into it.

Now….to finish reading the study. We encourage your feedback by adding a comment, below.

NY Times Nearly Ignores Big Wind Capacity Factor, Which Must Be Major Consideration In Project Decisions

2011-04-15T10:13:00.010-10:00

Capacity factor comparison between energy technologies by NREL. The dot is each technology's average capacity factor; the horizontal line shows the range.

The New York Times has published a two-part series on Hawaii’s energy dilemma, yesterday and today, and it’s a pretty good summation of the Big Wind project to build 400 megawatts (MW) of installed wind energy capacity on the neighbor islands to meet energy demand on Oahu.

There are two major problems with this series from where we sit:

1) Developer Castle & Cooke didn’t respond to the Times request to be interviewed for the piece. More on that below.

2) Although the wind farms’ capacity factor is mentioned in passing in today’s story, the impression you get from the piece is that Big Wind will provide 400 MW of power for Oahu’s use. It won’t, and that’s because even a capacity factor of an optimistic 40 percent for the farms means they’d deliver only 160 MW on average to Oahu’s grid. (That doesn’t even factor in line loss when transmitting the power via undersea and overland cables.)

A Hawaiian Electric Company spokesman goes so far as to say Big Wind “could provide as much as 14 percent of Hawaii’s electricity….” Recall if you will that little equation you learned in algebra class that helps in times like this. Using the 40-percent capacity factor (which may be high), the question is: “If 160 megawatts provide 14 percent of Hawaii’s electricity, how many megawatts would 100 percent be?”

Cross-multiply 160 and 10, divide the product by 14 and you get 1,142.857 megawatts as the total Hawaii electricity production in 2030. That clearly won’t be the total 19 years from now; Oahu’s peak demand is more than that today, so how did the spokesperson arrive at 14 percent for Big Wind’s contribution?

If you use 400 MW in this equation – the nameplate maximum generating capacity for Big Wind – you arrive at a much bigger number, 2,857.142 MW in 2030, which is a more realistic estimate of electricity generation two decades from now.

So it appears once again that Big Wind proponents are selling the project based on the wind farms’ installed capacity and not how much power the farms on Molokai and Lanai reasonably could be expected to generate for Oahu's benefit.

The local media consistently use the nameplate figure when writing about Big Wind, which means they’re either ignoring or don’t understand the capacity factor issue. That’s obviously a big failure in their reporting because it oversells the project’s presumed value in comparison to its huge environmental impact.

You can read about capacity factor all over the Internet by entering the phrase in a search window: localize your inquiry by adding "Hawaii" to the search.

Castle & Cooke: ‘No Comment’

From today’s New York Times story on Big Wind: “Officials with Castle & Cooke did not respond to interview requests for this story.”

A reasonable question: Why not? As a key player in this project, how does Castle & Cooke decide to ignore the New York Times, which many believe is the nation’s best and most influential newspaper?

We don’t have an answer to that question and would ask Lanai residents to take a stab at one. They’re used to dealing with the company, which owns 98 percent of the island.

If anything, Castle & Cooke should be bending over backwards to be responsive on a project that evokes so much skepticism, criticism and anger. As the Times piece and other media report, nearly everyone who’s spoken up at the programmatic environmental impact statement hearings on the two neighbor islands has strongly opposed Big Wind.

This is no time for bunker mentality. If Big Wind proponents can’t stand the heat of a simple media interview, it’s hard to imagine them being forthcoming when the going gets really tough.

Big Wind certainly is in for some tough going, and skeptics have reason to worry now whether the State has too many of its energy eggs in this basket. Maybe the best news in this Times story is that the State says it will take a longer look at renewable energy alternatives to Big Wind.

Geothermal, ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) and distributed solar generation presumably will be high on that list. Note geothermal's capacity factor in the above chart; it's among the highest of all the technologies since it is base load and not intermittent like wind power. OTEC isn't on the chart because it hasn't been built yet due to financing challenges, but Hawaii remains a key location for several companies working on it. Once built, base-load OTEC presumably would have a high capacity factor rivaling geothermal.

Yet Another ‘Big Wind’ Plan Switcheroo: C&C ‘Allocates’ 200 Phantom Lanai Megawatts to Molokai for Farm

2011-04-11T17:43:00.004-10:00

One really does get the feeling the proverbial powers that be are hell-bent on getting Big Wind built, no matter what and no matter how many hoops they have to jump through to get there.

Today’s news is that Castle & Cooke, which once upon a time had been granted the opportunity in a paper deal with Hawaiian Electric Company to develop 400 megawatts of wind energy on Lanai, has “allocated” 200 of them to Molokai.

That seems like a stretch, since there was never any certainty 400 or 200 megawatts of wind energy would ever be built on Lanai. The opposition of local residents and the considerable impact a huge wind farm would have on the island (it would cover a quarter of the land) make the outcome of any such plans problematic at this point.

But since everything’s on paper so far, allocating 200 MW of Lanai wind energy to Molokai seems easy enough, even if keeping the players straight takes some doing.

Castle & Cooke’s Molokai megawatts are now apparently intended for Pattern Energy of California, which stepped in after developer First Wind was unable to secure an agreement with Molokai Ranch to build a 200-MW farm there.

First Wind missed a deadline to seal up the land and has asked the Public Utilities Commission for an extension. In the meantime, the ranch said it would work with Pattern Energy to fulfill Molokai’s portion of the Big Wind plan.

And then it was revealed on Friday that Governor Abercrombie was threatening to seize 10,000 acres of Molokai Ranch land through eminent domain if the ranch didn’t play nice in the Big Wind project.

All this frenetic maneuvering makes you wonder why the Big Wind players are prepared to do just about anything to be sure the plan actually is realized – seize thousands of acres of ranch land, “allocate” megawatts from one island to another, whatever.

Is it because it’s Big Wind or nothing – that all the State’s energy eggs are in the Big Wind basket? And where Molokai and Lanai residents fit in all of this is still anybody’s guess. Will it matter that they’re overwhelmingly opposed?

Come back tomorrow for a new twist, because at this pace, there’s sure to be one.

‘Big Wind’ Soap Takes a ‘Who Shot JR?’ Plot Twist; Governor Talks Land Grab if Molokai Ranch Balks

2011-04-08T15:11:00.005-10:00

Yesterday’s post likened the Big Wind energy project to a soap opera and urged readers to stay tuned as the plot thickened. It’s the most confusing energy plan going, and the latest twist hints at desperation by the State to make Big Wind happen, no matter what.

According to Pacific Business News, Governor Neil Abercrombie is threatening to overcome Molokai Ranch’s refusal to work with developer First Wind by seizing land for a 200 MW wind farm through eminent domain proceedings.

Calling this affair a “soap opera” was whimsical yesterday, but not today, now that the Governor’s trying to force a shotgun wedding between the ranch and First Wind.

No deal has been consummated except on paper or in officials' imaginations, and nobody’s pregnant, so what’s with the State’s urgency to force through this plan?

Clearly, State officials have stacked virtually all their big energy eggs in the Big Wind basket, and it’s prepared to break new legal ground, according to PBN’s story, rather than scramble those eggs.

By threatening eminent domain, Abercrombie is also telling Molokai residents to take a hike. And it’s not just Molokai residents who appear overwhelmingly opposed to Big Wind; the Friends of Lanai group is engaged in a strong anti-Big Wind campaign to prevent at least a quarter of their island from being ceded to a farm.

So we have 400 MW of wind energy in a nice plan but no certainty that those wind farms will be built or where they’ll be built and no certainty that the undersea cable plan to bring that power to Oahu will ever be executed either.

What’s missing here is Plan B, but the threat to seize Molokai Ranch suggests there is no Plan B – just Big Wind.

What about expanded geothermal? What about distributed generation via thousands of solar panels on roofs all over the state? What about finally launching a serious ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) effort? Both geothermal and OTEC are base load, not intermittent like wind; both would have much higher capacity factors* compared to wind, and OTEC would have the additional advantage of not upsetting the neighbors. OTEC plants would be floated miles off shore.

The plot line for this soap is way too shaky, and there could be bodies all over the place before it’s over – wind developers, land owners, residents, State and local politicians, electricity customers….you name it.

If you’re confused about where it’s going, just wait until Big Wind winds up in a protracted court case that puts everything on hold as oil prices go through the roof and consumers pay through the nose.

Better to scramble the plan now and create a new energy omelet with better ingredients.
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* A facility's capacity factor is the percentage of its installed generation capability that's actually delivered in electrical power, on average, to the grid. With a CP around 25%, Big Wind's farms would deliver only about 100 MW or less to Oahu.

‘Big Wind’ Soap Opera: Search for Tomorrow's Energy

2011-04-07T18:11:00.009-10:00

The Actors: Hawaiian Electric Company, Molokai Ranch, First Wind, Pattern Energy, Castle and Cooke, Lanai Residents, Molokai Residents, Legislators, State Energy Office, Public Utilities Commission, the Media and others yet to be identified.

The Supporting Cast: The Inter-Island Cable Project, electricity customers.

The Locations: Molokai and/or Lanai and/or Maui and maybe the sea floor between these islands and Oahu.

The Plot: The State believes the wind resource on neighbor islands Molokai and Lanai can provide 400 megawatts of power to Oahu – 200 MW each – by tying the knot with the state’s population center using an inter-island cable. Landowner Molokai Ranch balked at the proposal for a long-term engagement with First Wind, which consequently missed a deadline to secure a site for its wind farm on the suddenly-not-so-Friendly Isle. The ranch said First Wind hadn’t been good at courting Molokai residents, who are famously shy regarding plans for the island. First Wind asked the Public Utilities Commission to extend the deadline to find land for its farm, but Hawaiian Electric Company refused to hold its peace and objected to any such extension. First Wind’s unsettled situation prompted HECO and others to suggest that maybe all 400 MW could be sited on Lanai, where residents are as shy as their Molokai cousins about a wind farm that might cover as much as a quarter of their island. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the landowner found a new suitor for a wind farm – Pattern Energy of San Francisco, CA, but legislators are wondering whether the impacts the wind farms would have on the two host islands would be enough to call the whole thing off.

Remaining To Be Resolved: Will the Public Utilities Commission extend First Wind’s search for a land-owning partner, or will the PUC favor Pattern Energy as a bonafide suitor? Will Molokai residents show a friendlier side to any of the players, and what about the Friends of Lanai, who want nothing to do with Castle and Cooke’s 200-MW Big Wind plan, let alone 400? Will Maui become an alternative to these budding relationships? How much power can actually be delivered to Oahu from intermittent-source wind farms on neighbor islands with a capacity factor in the neighborhood of 25 percent? Will the media ever understand capacity factor – the percentage of a generating facility’s installed capacity that on average can actually be delivered to the electricity grid? What will the undersea cable linkage between Maui County and Oahu actually cost, who will develop it and what would be the impacts of its installation? And what will electric customers say about opening their wallets when it finally dawns on them that they’re expected to pay for all this investment?

The plot can only thicken, so stay tuned to Big Wind as The Players maneuver behind the scenes and act out their parts in what’s already become the state's most confusing energy plan.

All 400 MW of ‘Big Wind’ Project Headed to Lanai?

2011-03-31T17:08:00.008-10:00

That’s the prospect – some Lanai residents might call it a nightmare – that may be in store for the Big Wind energy project now that First Wind hasn’t secured the land it needed to build half the project on Molokai. (See Update below.)

Pacific Business News today speculates/postulates that the only option to move Big Wind forward is to build all 400 megawatts of the project on Lanai.

“Hawaiian Electric Co. officials have told PBN in the past that if Molokai's part of the project fell through then all 400 mw could be developed on Lanai, where Castle & Cooke is the developer for that proposed wind farm.”

It’s hard to imagine that happening no matter how generous the community benefit package that's offered to Lanai residents. If one-fifth of the island would be needed for a 200-MW wind farm, would 40 percent be reserved for a farm twice as big?

Castle and Cooke may own 98 percent of the island, but would residents accept that much of an impact? Our guess is no.

So here we go – flying right into a headwind that’s buffeting the Big Wind project, which in many respects has been the Big Egg Basket for utility and state energy planners. Whether those eggs are headed for a scrambling remains – as they say in the editorials – to be seen.

APRIL FIRST UPDATE: The other half of Big Wind may be going to Maui -- and it's apparently no joke.

With Big Wind's location -- the most important detail of all -- still undecided, you have to hope energy managers are not locked in so tight on the project that they're giving no attention to ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) and geothermal technologies.

The latter is proven in Hawaii and could be expanded to both increase its contribution to the Big Island's electricity grid and create alternative energy byproducts -- hydrogen and ammonia, which could be exported for use in transportation and agriculture.

OTEC would tap into the world's largest solar storage "battery," the tropical ocean that surrounds Hawaii. As the most promising long-term base load renewable energy resource for the islands, OTEC is ripe for implementation.

It's time to move the technology beyond promising and start the doing. Locally and elsewhere, companies are working on it.

Oahu Greets First New Wind Farm in a Generation

2011-03-24T06:53:00.003-10:00

Looking at the recent progress in wind energy development in the Hawaiian Islands, it seems odd that the most “recent” wind farm dedication on Oahu was 25 years ago this month.

The occasion was the official start-up of Hawaiian Electric Industries’ 15-turbine farm in the hills above Kahuku. The farm's construction began in 1985, and the 15 Westinghouse turbines were plainly visible from Kamehameha Highway and the Turtle Bay Resort.

So was their failure. The turbines deteriorated rapidly in the North Shore’s caustic elements. Blades were thrown, gears failed and it wasn’t long before some of the towers were missing their nacelle. Eventually, they all came down, including the world’s largest wind turbine that was later erected nearby.

But that was then. The welcome mat is out for a new generation of wind turbines (above) that will be dedicated today above Kahuku to power about 7,500 homes.

First Wind is extending its industry savvy in Hawaii conditions gained on Maui. The farm has 30 megawatts of capacity as well as a 10-megawatt battery storage system.

The expectation is that this farm will be much more resilient than the original Westinghouse installation and that we may see another farm on Oahu within 25 months, not 25 years. It’s going to take that kind of progress from wind and other forms of renewable energy if Hawaii has any hope of slashing its debilitating dependence on oil.

Hawaii Energy Doubles Rebate for Solar Water Heating

2011-03-17T10:45:00.001-10:00

Hawaii’s solar water heating installations are up around 80,000, giving the Aloha State the highest per-capita rate in the country. But it could and maybe should be a lot higher. The sun’s out here nearly all the time! That includes that cold dark stretch called Winter on the mainland.

Hawaii Energy, the administrator of the state’s conservation and efficiency program, is trying to improve the numb the pers upping the rebate for new solar water installations between March 21 and May 31. It will double to $1,500 during that period.

The company maintains a Forum and invites anyone with questions, suggestions or insights to join the discussion. n

Big Island Puts On a Show for Geothermal Energy

2011-03-10T17:32:00.002-10:00

Hawaii's visitor industry is chugging along just fine compared to one and two years ago, and the new eruption phase of Kilauea Volcano on the island of Hawaii can only add to the numbers. According to local and national media, visitors are flocking to view the latest phase of the world’s longest volcanic eruption.

Beautiful, awe-inspiring, amazing – call it what you will, and those who are determined to expand Hawaii’s renewable energy resources call it a great teaching moment, too.

You wouldn’t want to build a geothermal energy plant anywhere near the rift zone where the lava fountains recently appeared, but supporters say there’s plenty of heat beneath the surface in the Puna district where the existing power plant has been producing power for nearly two decades.

Enjoy the eruption photos and videos at the above links, and when you do, imagine what capturing just a tiny fraction of that sub-surface heat and turning it into other forms of energy would mean to the most oil-dependent state in the country. Geothermal energy will help end that distinction.

Politics & Energy: States Start Backing Away

2011-03-07T12:46:00.002-10:00

The more other states go weak in the knees about renewable energy development for political or other reasons, the more steadfast Hawaii looks by comparison.

SustainableBusiness.com has done a short survey of the energy landscape across the mainland now that different people are sitting in their governor’s office. The report documents more negatives than positives.

It’s not just energy, of course. Governors are tripping over themselves and each other on their way to network interviews as they turn down billions in federal funding for rail projects.

As we said after alleged baseball fans rejected the sport following 1994’s MLB strike, that means “more beer for the rest of us.” This time around, maybe that means more money for energy and rail projects in Hawaii.

We can hope, because as the charts show, oil prices are uncomfortably above $100/barrel and heading north.

More Geothermal Power

Word from the Big Island that Hawaii Electric Light Company and Puna Geothermal Venture have reached a deal for an additional 8 megawatts of geothermal energy that will be dispatchable -- i.e., available on demand by system operators. As noted on Ku`oko`a chairman Richard Ha's website, this new contract has other attributes, such as a lower fixed price per kilowatthour of geothermal energy.

Pitching OTEC

Elsewhere, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory sent three "story tips" to the media today, including one on ocean thermal energy conversion. We OTEC supporters will gladly accept support from each and every quarter, including Tennessee. Tennessee?

What Are Hawaii’s Parameters To Get Off Oil? Total Project Costs, Impacts Deserve Full Consideration, too

2011-02-27T14:29:00.003-10:00

The big spread in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser "Insight" section today is all about the Big Wind project – although to the writer’s credit, she didn’t actually use the term that’s too much in vogue these days.

Big Wind is the proposal to build 200-MW farms on Molokai and Lanai and export their power via underwater cables to Oahu and within Maui County itself.

Total cost of the two farms and the cable is estimated at $3 billion, or about one billion bucks each. Neighbor island residents who testified at the recent scoping hearings were nearly all opposed to installing 400-foot-tall turbines on their islands and, they say, forever changing the islands’ character.

Paper Deadlines

A US Department of Energy official in the story is credited by the reporter with saying the Big Wind project is “Hawaii’s best option for meeting a deadline now adopted in state law: producing 40 percent of its electricity through renewable sources by 2030.” (That’s a quote from the story, not a direct quote of the official.)

Someone close to the process of creating the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative's goals has said they were pretty much arbitrarily selected. They sounded good at the time, are potentially achievable and still sound good, but the question needs asking: At what price will Hawaii pursue them?

Are there limits to what we’re willing to do and spend to meet the 40-percent goal? We have difficulty believing Lanai and Molokai residents will lower their opposition to hundreds of 400-foot-tall wind turbines on their islands. Call it a hunch based on the fate of other projects that once were up for community acceptance – especially on Molokai.

With geothermal energy already providing base-load power on the Big Island and having a promise of much more, is Big Wind truly the best and most economical way to reach the HCEI goals?

Some already are proposing a major expansion of the Big Island’s geothermal field – in energy output, not the size of the field’s footprint. Hydrogen fuel could be created from the geothermal energy process for transport by ship to other islands and – thinking big – to the mainland or elsewhere. In other words, Hawaii could become an energy exporter by skillfully developing its impressive geothermal resource.

Another potential base-load power source is ocean thermal energy conversion, which still awaits funding for a chance to make good on its vast potential. Today’s Star-Advertiser’s story mentions OTEC as a prominent alternative to Big Wind, and the 2/28 edition of the Wall Street Journal (already available online) touts OTEC as one of three technologies “that may provide more energy in the future.”

Biggest Bang for Buck

Also to the writer’s credit, she did not assert in today's story that Big Wind would actually create 400 MW of electrical power for export to Oahu. As we’ve taken pains to note this month (see earlier posts below this one), something called the “capacity factor” must be considered when evaluating how much power actually would be produced by any given generating plant.

Oil-fired generators have a capacity factor of about 100 percent, since they’re base-load sources and only come off line for maintenance and during the odd unplanned outage. OTEC, if it’s ever built, also would have a CF near 100 percent.

Wind farms have capacity factors much less than that, and it’s been estimated that the Big Wind project’s capacity factor would be around 23 percent due to variability in wind strength. We usually use 25 percent, since one-fourth of 400 MW is easy to calculate. On average, the two wind farms would export about 100 MW of power, not 400.

Dropping one to three billion dollars onto geothermal energy and OTEC could go a long way in achieving HCEI’s paper goals, too. We agree with a Hawaiian Electric Company official who’s quoted in today’s story, “We’re way early to take (any energy source) off the table.”

It also figures that it wouldn’t be right to push one pet project – and that’s what Big Wind seems to have become for many – to the exclusion of other forms of renewable energy that could provide base load power with far fewer impacts.

Here We Go Again – Oil at $111 per Barrel

2011-02-24T17:09:00.003-10:00

We started this blog nearly three years ago on the day oil hit $111 on the way up. We even got pretty worked up about it; here’s a taste of our first post:

“OTEC’s too expensive, you say? Shake out the cobwebs! This is 2008, not the 1980s; oil traded at $111 a barrel today!”

We started the blog to promote the unexceptional idea that ocean thermal energy conversion was indeed viable at that price – and even more so after another $36 was tacked onto the barrel price of oil by July.

Where are we headed today? Nobody knows, because nobody knows how the turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East will shake out. We can only assume at this time that the sky’s the limit.

Hawaii has a few more megawatts of installed renewable energy today than it did in March 2008, but the green-energy contribution is still just nibbling around the margins of the total power demand.

Base load energy is what we need. Geothermal energy and OTEC are Hawaii’s best options. No additional megawatts have been added from those technologies in the past three years.

What does that tell you? It says we’re as vulnerable as ever to supply interruptions and spikes in the price of imported energy.

Kama`aina will remember the tire outlet TV spot that played on Honolulu TV stations decades ago:

“Go now, Hawaii. Why pay more?"

Why? Apparently because we’re not yet serious enough about the necessity to get off oil. Maybe the oil crisis of 2011 will do the trick.

All 400 MW of ‘Big Wind’ Could Be Built on Lanai?

2011-02-18T09:38:00.008-10:00

That’s what a story in today’s edition of Pacific Business News says in its 7th paragraph:

“All 400 mw could come from Lanai, 400 mw from Molokai or 400 mw could come from Maui,” according an official in the State Energy Office.

The reporter repeats the thought in the 10th graf:

“If Molokai falls through, all 400 mw of energy could be generated on Lanai, as opposed to the original plan to generate 200 mw of wind energy on Lanai and 200 mw on Molokai.”

Was this made known at the “scoping hearing” two weeks ago on Lanai, Molokai, Maui and Oahu? If it was, we missed it in the reporting.

Today’s story focuses on Maui as a potential site for some of the Big Wind project. A representative of First Wind is quoted: “…if we are not able to do the project on Molokai, we would want the state to seriously consider Maui.” So Big Wind’s final location is anything but firm.

That Pesky Capacity Factor–Again

While the Big Wind project is planned for 400 mw of installed capacity, we’re amazed at how loose the reporting is on the actual amount of power that would be delivered by the wind farms.

For example, another PBN story today reports on funding options for an undersea cable to deliver Big Wind electricity to Oahu: “The cable is a critical part of the wind project that would bring 400 megawatts of wind energy from Molokai and Lanai to Oahu.”

No, it wouldn’t. It would deliver the amount of power the wind farms actually would be able to produce due to wind variability, unquestionably less than their installed capacity.

It’s called the “capacity factor,” a subject we covered in late January. Oil-fired power plants have capacity factors close to 100 percent because they’re base-load plants that operate 24/7. Intermittent sources of power like wind and solar farms have much lower capacity factors.

Big Wind’s capacity factor is estimated to be 20 to 25 percent – which means on average, the wind farms would actually be exporting 80 -100 mw of electrical energy between them, or 40 - 50 mw from each island at a cost of $1 billion for each farm to contribute 50 mw or less to Oahu's grid. That's an incredibly steep price.

Why Does this Matter?

To fully understand what we’re getting into with the proposed $3 billion Big Wind project (a billion for each wind farm and another for the cable), we need to accurately assess its anticipated contribution to helping Hawaii get off oil.

When someone writes that Big Wind “could account for up to 25 percent of Oahu’s electricity needs,” we need to appreciate that simply is not true for anything but middle-of-the-night demand -- and it may not even be true then if winds over Molokai and Lanai were light.

Oahu’s peak demand is around 1200 mw, according to a recent column at Renewable Energy World.com by Hawaiian Electric Company CEO Richard M. Rosenblum. To provide 25 percent of the peak demand, Big Wind would itself would have to have 1200 mw of installed capacity!

That would be triple the size and at a presumably much higher cost of the current Big Wind proposal. That surely is not what was discussed at the scoping hearings.

So as Big Wind goes through the required scoping, impact assessing and community relating, let’s all work hard to truly understand the project and what $3 billion (plus?) would get us.

We’ll all be paying for this project in our electric bills. We all need to ask whether that kind of money should be spent on Big Wind or whether a like amount would produce more available renewable power with fewer impacts.

Naturally, we have some thoughts on that subject and have expressed them repeatedly here on this blog. Despite the absence of a test of a commercial-sized plant due to funding impediments, ocean thermal energy conversion is a candidate for base load renewable energy on a scale even larger than Big Wind at the $3 billion investment level.

In light of the strong opposition to Big Wind on Lanai and Molokai, planners might well move some of their fragile energy eggs out of Big Wind’s basket and into the ocean, where they can be hard-boiled.

With Opposition to ‘Big Wind' Strong on N. Islands, What Now Is the Best Path to Hawaii Energy Independence?

2011-02-11T12:35:00.007-10:00

Hawaii must get off oil as fast as possible. On that there’s no disagreement beyond maybe the oil companies, but how we get there is another matter.

Neighbor islanders who spoke up on the plan to install large wind farms on Lanai and Molokai – 200 megawatts on each island – clearly don’t want Big Wind. If there’s support on Maui, Molokai and Lanai, it didn’t show up for the hearings.

Civil Beat, Hawaii Reporter and the Molokai Dispatch have carried post-hearing pieces on that neighbor island sentiment. So is that the end of Big Wind? After all that planning, invoking and proselytizing, are Big Wind’s backers going to slip away quietly?

Not likely, with heavyweights Castle & Cooke, First Wind, Hawaiian Electric Industries, the State Energy Office and others having invested so much energy into making it happen. But surely, even the most optimistic among them has cause to pause after the emotional objections at the hearings to forever changing the nature of the host islands.

Link or No Link?

Big Wind presumably makes sense only if a cable transmits the two farms’ electrical output to Oahu. The estimated cost of the farms and the cable link among the islands is $3 billion – steep for an average output of 100 MW or less (figured on a capacity factor of 23-25 percent).

Linking the islands has been a long-term vision, starting perhaps with the late C. Dudley Pratt, Jr., who ascended to HECO’s presidency in 1981 and created HEI within six months as a holding company to facilitate renewable energy development.

Would a cable link be viable with a smaller wind concept? Could Little Wind be built independent of a costly cable -- smaller farms with less impacts that reserve some of their generating capacity for other purposes, such as creating hydrogen and/or ammonia? Would that be acceptable to neighbor islanders?

These and other options need study before tossing out the entire concept of sharing individual islands’ resources with all the others. Sharing already happens all the time among the islands. Some residents believe the neighbor islands could get along just fine without Oahu, thank you, but getting along well or anything close to current living conditions would be doubtful.

Sharing the Load

Hawaii has a strong incentive to embrace all forms of renewable, home-grown energy. No other state comes anywhere close to our dependence on fossil fuel for nearly everything we do. Increasing our clean-energy generation is the goal; creating an acceptable mix of energy sources is the challenge.

Geothermal energy on the Big Island is being promoted as the surest way to satisfy that island’s entire electrical demand and create an export component by manufacturing hydrogen for use in other markets within Hawaii and beyond. Kuokoa Inc. is banking on this concept in its bid to buy out HEI and transform the state to 100-percent renewable energy within a decade.

Others are promoting ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) just as aggressively. This blog has long agreed with their assessment that the tropical ocean’s inexhaustible supply of stored solar energy could meet the entire state’s electrical demand with minimal impact to the islands themselves.

Each of these grand schemes – Big Wind, Big Earth and Big Ocean – will require both creativity and compromises to reach their potential. None can expect a smooth path to fruition. The Big Wind scoping hearings are just a prelude to what lies ahead for all.

How promoters react to the opposition, modify their plans, finance them and build support will determine how quickly Hawaii achieves energy independence. That’s the goal – whether it’s within one decade, two or three.

Confluence of Events: MECO Needs 50 MW of New Firm Renewable Energy, NOAA Launches New OTEC Website

2011-02-10T07:26:00.008-10:00

Diagram accompanying today's NOAA website launch.

Once upon a time, a seminar leader drilled a phrase into his attendees’ heads: “The Universe makes no mistakes,” he’d say over and over, while leaving it to his eager subjects to figure out what that meant in their personal lives.

We’re thinking the proximity of two events that happened apparently independent of one another this week was no mistake.

Tuesday press release: Maui Electric seeks to add 50 megawatts of firm renewable power

Thursday press release: NOAA Launches Website on Emerging Marine Renewable Energy

Coincidence? Not if you believe the Universe makes no mistakes.

MECO’s announcement that it wants a good-sized chunk (for Maui) of firm green power is likely to incentivize ocean thermal energy conversion developers to kick into overdrive. They’ve been saying it for generations: OTEC is Hawaii’s best long-term hope to end its dependence on imported fuel and Get Off Oil.

They have the technology figured out. The big hurdle now is funding, and they’re undoubtedly working feverishly on it.

NOAA’s Role

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is the licensing authority for OTEC facilities. A NOAA team visited Hawaii in November 2009 on something of a “scouting trip” to bring members up to speed on what’s happening with OTEC in the Aloha State.

Team leader Kerry Kehoe said then, “If I were a Las Vegas odds maker, I’d say the odds are better than 50 percent that the first OTEC pilot plant will be built in Hawaii – and the first commercial plant, too.”

We followed up our post on Kehoe’s visit with a hope that NOAA wouldn’t regulate OTEC to death, as some have feared. Dr. Luis Vega, director of the National Marine Renewable Energy Center at the University of Hawaii and indefatigable OTEC enthusiast, countered that concern a few weeks later.

We trust NOAA’s intentions mirror those of OTEC developers – to put this technology to work as quickly as possible while paying due regard to environmental concerns that must be addressed as OTEC approaches is long-predicted contribution to replacing fossil fuel for the generation of electricity. The launch of NOAA's new OTEC website is an encouraging step.

Back to Maui

When finally operated at commercial scale, OTEC is expected to be a firm dispatchable power source. That’s what MECO requires, and although Maui is on well on the way to becoming a showcase for wind energy in the state, that technology is not yet capable of 24/7 support of the electric grid. Maybe that’ll happen with a revolution in battery storage technology, but it’s not here yet. (2/12 UPDATE: A new phase of the Kaheawa wind farm on Maui will have a 10-MW battery backup system, so we may have to modify our view about that technology.)

So what are MECO’s options? Observers doubt there’s enough hydro-electric potential to meet the utility’s 50-MW need. That might leave only biofuel with the potential to satisfy MECO’s future RFP.

But that source isn’t without potential problems either. Consider a worst-case scenario involving drought, crop failure, supply chain interruption or any other circumstance that would threaten the biofuel supply. And biofuel isn’t without its environmental impacts.

Beyond interruptions, many believe biofuel is best reserved for the transportation sector. Airlines are going to need a substitute for oil-based fuel, and biofuel is a leading candidate.

All of this amounts to lots of questions and few answers as of now, but we take comfort in knowing “the Universe makes no mistakes.”

That phrase is not an invitation to sit back and let the Universe take over. It’s an invitation to take action and make the future your own.

‘Big Wind’ Hearing Evokes Strong Opposition on Lanai; Residents Decry Major Impacts, Lack of Energy Options

2011-02-06T13:10:00.007-10:00

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, so we’re obligated to connect with football, just as we did at another blog last week on Pro Bowl Sunday.

“THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!!!” yelled Arizona Cardinal Coach Dennis Green four seasons ago after the Chicago Bears stormed back to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

And Lanai residents are who we thought they were, too. Yesterday’s hearing to gather comments on the Hawaii Interisland Renewable Energy Program – dubbed “Big Wind” by promoters – evoked strong opposition, as reported today in the Maui News.

We trust the reporter accurately described their reaction, and we’ll recommend her story for the details. But one comment jumped out – the complaint by Lanai resident Beverly Zigmond that no energy alternatives are listed in the project’s documentation. “The choices are big wind or nothing,” she said.

For the Record

Castle & Cooke was presented a few years ago with a plan to revolutionize Lanai’s energy use by using an ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) plant anchored a few miles off shore that would free the island completely from its virtually total dependence on fossil fuel.

The plant would have produced more than enough power to satisfy the island’s demand for electricity, as well as abundant quantities of potable water (always an island concern) and hydrogen. Electric- and hydrogen-powered vehicles would have provided transportation, and the island likely would have become a magnet for green energy enthusiasts around the world; visitors would have found two (currently money-losing) world-class resorts waiting to accommodate them.

For whatever reason, the company didn’t bite at the opportunity to facilitate the development of Hawaii’s first commercial scale OTEC plant, and the acclaim to be enjoyed for that distinction will be someone else’s legacy.

The point of today’s post is to suggest that there are indeed alternatives to wind power in Hawaii, and that goes for each of the islands. As we noted here not long ago, the state undoubtedly needs all renewable technologies to reach its aggressive clean energy goals. Wind, geothermal, solar, biomass, waste and ocean energy all have their place.

As of now, it seems Lanai and Molokai residents are unconvinced that their islands are the place for Big Wind.

OTEC Likely To Have Its Moment in ‘Big Wind’ Hearings

2011-01-31T09:12:00.007-10:00

Public meetings important to Hawaii’s energy future will be held this week in Maui and Honolulu counties to explain the “Big Wind” concept and hear what residents of Oahu, Maui, Lanai and Molokai think about it.

The State Energy Office is supporting a wind energy plan to build two 200-megawatt wind farms, one each on Molokai and Lanai, and undersea cables to transit electrical energy to Oahu and within Maui County (as shown in the above diagram that accompanies today’s story on the meetings in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser).

The State sees Big Wind as an important component of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative and its goal of relying on renewable energy for 40 percent of Hawaii’s power needs by 2030. But Big Wind’s eventual success is by no means certain.

The Friends of Lanai group objects to the impact Castle & Cooke’s proposed 170-turbine wind farm would have on the island’s open space, which the Friends say would forever be altered. Molokai residents have repeatedly resisted efforts to change the nature of the “most Hawaiian island.”

The ‘Capacity Factor’ Factor

Life of the Land, which describes itself as “a Hawaii-based Environmental and Community Action Group,” believes ocean thermal energy conversion is a better option than Big Wind. LOL’s executive director says OTEC would cost less than Big Wind’s estimated $3 billion price tag.

Few media stories here mention “capacity factor” in their energy coverage, so we’ll mention it here in the hope reporters will soon acquaint themselves with the concept.

An argument can and undoubtedly will be made at this week’s hearings that on average, wind farms actually deliver only about 25 percent of their installed generation capacity to the grid due to wind variability, from full-on gale strength to dead calm.

Big Wind’s capacity factor also is likely to be around 25 percent, so on average, the Lanai and Molokai wind farms would export around 100 megawatts of electrical energy at a cost of $3 billion.

Life of the Land and many others (including this blog) believe Hawaii’s energy conversation must eventually take stock of the significant disparity between intermittent energy sources, such as Big Wind, and baseload sources like geothermal energy today and OTEC tomorrow.

Baseload plants have capacity factors approaching 100 percent. They operate around the clock and only reduce their output for planned maintenance and relatively rare unplanned outages.

Bigger Bang for the Buck?

In broad terms, Big Wind would deliver 100 megawatts of power at a cost of $3 billion. The question needs asking: How much power could be produced at the same cost by building more geothermal plants on the Big Island and/or finally taking the OTEC leap to develop the first and subsequent ocean thermal plants?

We’ve already suggested here that maybe Hawaii has to make a choice between technologies based on what we can afford. Others discount the need for such a choice and believe all energy sources must be up for discussion.

They undoubtedly have a point – that at no step along the path to energy independence can Hawaii afford to choose between green technologies. If Hawaii is to actually end all fossil fuel use within a few decades, we’ll have to tap all existing sources and develop new ones.

We don’t believe we can reach the goals set by HCEI and President Obama in his recent State of the Union speech with existing on-line technologies. New ones like OTEC, wave energy and hydrogen power and others will be required.

This week’s meetings will afford the opportunity to go beyond Big Wind to other big ideas – including, we anticipate, OTEC.

President’s Home State Can Provide Clean Energy Path; 80% Green Power Goal Will Need Ocean Component

2011-01-25T20:11:00.006-10:00

“Race to the top” may be a national education program, but for truly audacious goal-setting, look no further than the President’s national goal to achieve 80-percent reliance on clean energy by 2035!

Until now, the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative’s goal of achieving 40 percent from renewable energy by 2030 had seemed aggressive. As of this evening, it's passé.

Hawaii’s favorite son has seen that goal and upped the bet by going all in! Here’s how he stated his renewable energy challenge in his State of the Union Address and how he plans to pay for it:

That's what Americans have done for over 200 years: reinvented ourselves. And to spur on more success stories like the Allen Brothers, we've begun to reinvent our energy policy. We're not just handing out money. We're issuing a challenge. We're telling America's scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we'll fund the Apollo projects of our time.

At the California Institute of Technology, they're developing a way to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, they're using supercomputers to get a lot more power out of our nuclear facilities. With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

We need to get behind this innovation. And to help pay for it, I'm asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don't know if – I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own. So instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow's.

Now, clean energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they're selling. So tonight, I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: By 2035, 80 percent of America's electricity will come from clean energy sources.

Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all -- and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen.

Back to the Sea

Mr. Obama’s far-reaching goal surely fires the imagination and fosters hope for a nation that can function without reliance on climate-damaging, economy-damaging oil.

Hawaii is poised to fire the nation’s collective imagination with the innovations we can initiate and achieve here in the Aloha State. The President didn’t mention it, but ocean thermal energy conversion – OTEC, what we’re calling Big Ocean – can be a 21st century technological breakthrough to change the energy game.

Can we truly achieve Mr. Obama’s 80-percent goal without a game-changing energy breakthrough? Can it happen only with intermittent wind and solar farms backed up with batteries, biofuels and nuclear power? Can his quantum leap be achieved without tapping the inexhaustible stores of solar energy in the world’s oceans?

For the sake of argument, we’ll suggest it can’t happen with existing technologies. It will take breakthroughs in one particular technology – ocean energy technology – and if it’s to happen, there’s no better place for it to begin than Hawaii.

Mr. President, look to your home state. Support efforts to fund development of a pilot plant in Hawaii to demonstrate OTEC’s viability to replace oil-fired electrical generation in Hawaii within a decade!

By the time the nation reaches your 80-percent goal, let’s ensure that Hawaii will already be solidly locked in at 100 percent!

Big Wind vs Big Ocean: Should Hawaii Make a Choice?

2011-01-24T20:04:00.008-10:00

In a perfect world, every possible renewable energy technology would be available and used to the maximum extent practicable here. But even in our Hawaiian paradise, there are limits.

The Japanese plan to capture solar power in earth orbit and microwave it to ground stations. Bingo – an inexhaustible energy supply. But then there’s that word “practicable.”

Even if the technology were available today, would it pencil out? Would it be worth a massive infrastructure investment in Hawaii to capture solar energy in space and microwave it to islands that already have an abundant supply of solar energy?

Hawaii is ideally situated to tap into terrestrial solar energy – in the strong and steady winds that blow across the islands, in the tropical ocean that surrounds them and in the heat below the surface of some islands in the form of geothermal energy. Most would agree that using those sources is preferable than a much more expensive space-based solar system.

Asking THE Question

Let’s continue with another potential choice – between Big Wind, which is what they’re calling the plan to build two 200-megawatt windfarms on Lanai and Molokai, and what we’ll call Big Ocean, the potential to harvest even more energy from ocean thermal energy conversion. Should Hawaii build one and not the other?

Some are already asking questions and expressing opinions about Big Wind. A group called Friends of Lanai had a commentary at the online journalism site Civil Beat today. In short, the Friends don’t want 170 wind turbines, each over 400 feet tall, erected on their island to supply Oahu with electricity via undersea cables. The sacrifice is too great, they say.

They’re concerned about the cost to build the windfarms on the two islands and to construct and lay cables (including redundancy cables) between the islands and Oahu. A billion here, a billion there, and before you know it, you have a $3 billion price tag for Big Wind that could grow larger.

Is Big Ocean Competitive?

Some argue that much more power could be generated at less cost using OTEC plants floating free or moored in deep water a few miles off the islands, with much shorter and shallower cables connected to power grids.

Advocates (including Hawaii Energy Options for the past three years) argue that OTEC’s environmental impact to generate a like amount of electrical power as wind is much less than hundreds of towering structures on land.

But their home-run argument is that OTEC is baseload power, capable of operating continuously without regard to variables in wind strength and sunshine. To advocates, the argument comes down to baseload OTEC vs intermittent wind and solar farms, with baseload far superior.

Build Now, or Later?

But then there’s that other key factor. Wind power is proven technology after decades of trial and error, including right here on Oahu’s North Shore. Hawaiian Electric Industries built early generations of wind turbines in the hills near Kahuku, and those failures helped lead to successes in the current generation of turbines.

OTEC is still on the drawing boards after being touted as the energy game changer for decades, without one commercial-sized plant in service anywhere in the world. At first glance, there’s no competition; wind wins.

But Hawaii’s energy future reasonably shouldn’t be based on first glances. The technology we choose will be expensive – we’ll all pay for it one way or the other in our electric bills – and will be with us for generations.

Do we embrace Big Wind now, with its environmental impacts, intermittency and big cable costs, or do we hold off to develop the will and the investors to build that first OTEC plant to prove or disprove its worth, once and for all?

Some argue we can’t delay Big Wind if the state is to meet its Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative green energy goals. Big Ocean advocates say it would be wrong to rush to Big Wind and waste the opportunity to perfect a technology that could revolutionize energy production in the 21st century.

Big Wind vs Big Ocean. Stated that way, it does look like a competition of technologies. With only so much ability to financially support the green energy transformation of Hawaii, perhaps it should in fact come down to one or the other.

How Lanai Residents’ Issues with Wind Are Addressed Will Be Prelude to Big Island’s Geothermal Concerns

2011-01-12T09:15:00.001-10:00

Getting Off Oil is a goal most in Hawaii support in the abstract, but as with most issues, taking action at the neighborhood or island level might be another matter.

Lanai residents voiced their concerns about the proposed 200-MW wind farm on their island at a State Capitol hearing yesterday, and those concerns are likely to be shared by Big Island residents concerning geothermal energy.

Kuokoa, Inc. has proposed a private-investor buyout of Hawaiian Electric Industries and transitioning the company’s utilities on Oahu, Maui, Lanai, Molokai and the Big Island to 100-percent reliance on renewable energy within 10 years. Kuokoa officials have said geothermal energy will play a big role in achieving that ambitious target.

But that can’t happen with only one 30-MW geothermal plant – the one operated by Puna Geothermal Venture Hawaii. Major expansion would be required, and maybe it’ll happen through creative approaches with those who’ve been opposed to expansion plans.

Each Island an Island?

Consider this view expressed yesterday by a Friends of Lanai representative concerning Castle & Cooke’s proposed wind farm:

“Each island should be independent amongst themselves…. Not dependent on other islands and other people to feed their needs.”

Such extreme independence would of course make Lanai virtually uninhabitable, but comments like this undoubtedly reflect the views of many on the neighbor islands. Achieving fossil fuel-free energy independence throughout the state certainly will require exporting energy from those islands to Oahu in one form or another.

How Castle & Cooke, the State, First Wind, Kuokoa and other renewable energy developers address those concerns will determine whether they achieve their renewable energy goals in the decades ahead.

Startup’s Plan for 100% Green Energy in 10 Years Begs The Question: What Technology Will Replace Oil Plants?

2011-01-08T08:43:00.011-10:00

We called Kuokoa Inc.’s proposed takeover of Hawaiian Electric Industries the “biggest energy-related story in Hawaii of this young century” yesterday, and others are giving it enough attention to merit the description.

The Star-Advertiser features the story on page one today but doesn’t go beyond quotes, comments and reactions from analysts and executives about the start-up’s intention to take HEI private.

Here’s the big unanswered question we’re posing to Kuokoa’s leadership: What technology will you use for baseload power generation if you retire HEI’s fossil fuel plants within a decade?

Oil and coal are burned to generate close to 90 percent of the electricity produced by HEI’s utilities in baseload generation plants, which churn out electrons around the clock. Battery storage is still in its infancy and is unlikely to be anywhere near ready to provide on-demand power when intermittent wind and solar sources can't. How Kuokoa replaces HEI's current baseload generation is the big issue the media have so far ignored.

OTEC’s Opportunity

But not Hawaii Energy Options. As we said in our first post on March 14, 2008:

“Ocean thermal energy conversion is the best long-term technology solution to reduce Hawaii’s dependence on imported oil. OTEC is far superior to the other energy alternatives touted for electric power in the Aloha State – so superior in replacing oil for baseload electricity generation that any legislator, government official, utility executive, energy expert or environmental leader who doesn’t support OTEC is simply not believable.”

To that list we’d add executives of companies who propose taking over utilities that burn billions of dollars of fossil fuel annually. How Kuokoa answers our question will have more to do with its prospects for success than whether it can raise the money to buy HEI.

Kuokoa CEO Roald Marth is quoted as saying it won't be difficult to raise the $2 billion-plus. Reporters so far apparently haven’t asked him about the hard part – actually replacing upwards of 2,000 megawatts of fossil fuel power generation with baseload renewable power – units that reliably deliver electricity 24 hours a day, every day, rain or shine.

Baseload Options Are Few

As we noted here a couple days ago, Kuokoa chairman Richard Ha was a guest on our Hawaii Public Radio program “Energy Futures” nearly a year ago while the show was still on the air. He expressed interest in developing the Big Island’s geothermal resource to a greater extent than the single power plant now operating in the Puna district.

Maybe Kuokoa thinks geothermal can be the baseload wave of the future, but obstacles to the island of Hawaii becoming the power source for the entire island chain are formidable.

Opposition by environmentalists and cultural practitioners blocked plans to develop a 500-MW geothermal field in the 1990s, and there are reasons to believe opposition would resurface if new plans were launched to exploit "Pele power."

Then there’s the matter of financing and building a deep water cable between Hawaii and Maui. If connecting Lanai and Molokai to Oahu with a cable would cost an estimated $1 billion, we can only imagine what laying a cable through the much deeper Alenuihaha Channel between Maui and the Big Island would cost. That expense could be avoided and geothermal energy still used statewide by using that power to create hydrogen, which could be shipped to the other islands.

Carpe Diem

OTEC advocates have been pounding on doors for decades, trying to convince financiers that OTEC technology is ready for deployment. All it needs is backing to take that first leap – to build that first commercial plant to demonstrate OTEC’s technology and ability to be scaled up quickly.

As they and we have said repeatedly, OTEC has the potential to provide all the electrical power and hydrogen fuel the islands could ever use, and more. What’s been missing until now is the will and vision to make it happen.

Is Kuokoa prepared to provide those essential ingredients that would result in OTEC finally coming of age? The days immediately ahead could provide the answer.

Startup Company Proposes Takeover Offer for HEI, Would End Fossil Fuel Generation within 10 Years

2011-01-07T14:47:00.010-10:00

It’s arguably the biggest energy-related story in Hawaii of this young century. Startup company Kuokoa Inc. has announced its intention to buy out Hawaii Electric Industries (HEI) and take it private, create a statewide electricity rate of 20 cents per kilowatthour and phase out all fossil fuel power generation within a decade.

Call it what you will – one skeptic calls it “a comedy” – but Kuokoa’s plan on its surface is enough to make hearts beat faster for those who thought getting off oil for electrical generation in Hawaii might take four decades, not one.

Kuokoa’s website is in a holding pattern with nothing beyond the home page; what little information is available on the plan was found online first at Honolulu-based Civil Beat and later at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and Pacific Business News. Civil Beat continues to be out in front and posted an update on HEI's initial reaction to the proposed takeover.
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4:45 PM UPDATE: Hawaiian Electric Company and Castle & Cooke have signed a Power Purchase Agreement for wind energy generated on the island of Lanai. HECO's press release has details.
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According to those sources, Kuokoa’s leadership includes Big Island farmer Richard Ha, chairman; venture capitalist Roald Marth, CEO, and Ted Peck, president. Today is Peck’s last day as State Energy Administrator.

Will HEI Turn 30?

Whether HEI will reach it’s 30th anniversary in June remains to be seen. The holding company was formed in the summer of 1981, a creation of Hawaiian Electric Company’s president and CEO C. Dudley Pratt, Jr. We wrote about Pratt's HEI career in May after his death.

Pratt anticipated Hawaii’s green energy revolution even before he was elevated to HECO’s corner office earlier that year, and he set about to implement a diversification plan for the state’s largest utility that he first wrote as an MBA student at the University of Hawaii.

HEI became the parent company of HECO, which had the Maui and Big Island utilities as subsidiaries and still does. Other HEI subsidiaries were created, starting with Hawaiian Electric Renewable Systems, the vehicle for building a wind farm in the hills above Kahuku.

Pratt envisioned HEI as the provider of essential services to Hawaii’s population, and he expanded HEI by acquiring American Savings Bank, Hawaiian Tug & Barge and Young Brothers (inter-island cargo shipping). HTB and YB were acquired by SaltChuk Resources, Inc. of Seattle, WA in 1999, but ASB is still owned by HEI.

The 10-Year Plan

Kuokoa reportedly intends to sell the savings bank, but the most eye-catching part of its plan is the company’s intention to “write off HEI’S fossil-fuel burning assets and invest billions to convert the power-generating system to entirely renewable energy within 10 years,” according to the Star-Advertiser report.

If achieved, this plan would leave the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative in its dust – a plan Peck was central to helping create among signatories HEI, the State of Hawaii and the U.S. Department of Energy.

HCEI’s current goal is to curb fossil fuel dependence for power generation to 30 percent by 2030, with renewable energy supplying 40 percent and conservation accounting for a 30-percent reduction in demand. Hitting the Target Zero Goal within 10 years seems remarkably ambitious – enough so to fire the imaginations of those who recognize oil’s stranglehold on the state and its people.

Premium gas costs $3.799/gallon at many Oahu stations – up 5 cents per gallon since yesterday – and regular gas costs up to and beyond $4/gallon on some of the neighbor islands. Predictions for the price of oil may be a dime a dozen and unreliable, but even so, predictions that oil will hit $150/barrel by this summer have a sobering effect.

We’re eagerly looking forward to more details about Kuokoa’s plan and will relay them as they become available.http://www.heco.com/vcmcontent/StaticFiles/pdf/20110107_C&C-HECO_LanaiAgreement.pdf

HECO ‘Spreads the Wealth’ to Support Biofuel Use; Customers on All Islands To Pay for Big Isle Power; BREAKING NEWS: Scroll Down for a Blockbuster

2011-01-06T17:44:00.010-10:00

We can’t wait forever for ocean thermal energy conversion to live up to its hype, so it’s great that other local renewable options are coming on line. The latest is biofuel, as announced today by Hawaiian Electric Company. HECO has signed a contract with Aina Loa Pono, a local company that will supply biofuel grown on the Big Island for use in the Keahole Point power plant operated by HECO subsidiary Hawaii Electric Light Company.

THIS JUST IN at 8 PM: According to online subscription news service Civil Beat, a local group "aims to buy out Hawaiian Electric." Ted Peck, whose last day as State Energy Administrator is tomorrow, is said to the president of the company, called Kuoloa Inc. Noted Big Island farmer Richard Ha is also involved. Ha was a guest nearly a year ago on Hawaii Public Radio's "Energy Futures" program when the topic was sustainable agriculture. He expressed considerable interest during the program in Hawaii Island's geothermal energy potential, and it's possible Kuoloa Inc. will investigate ways to develop the resource. Peck was a program guest on three occasions, including our first and final shows. Hawaii Energy Options will be following this story in the days ahead with considerable interest.

The contract contains a provision that seems to be a “first” in Hawaii. Quoting from HECO’s press release:

“Subject to approval by the Public Utilities Commission, with input from the Consumer Advocate, the contract would initiate an innovative plan to provide economic support to Hawaii Island customers while encouraging more renewable energy statewide. It asks for the PUC to spread among customers of Hawaii Electric Light Company, Maui Electric Company and Hawaiian Electric Company the difference between the price of locally grown and produced biofuel and the fossil fuel it replaces.”

In other words, customers on all islands served by HECO and its Maui Electric and HELCO subsidiaries will help pay for power produced by Aina Loa Pono and consumed only by HELCO customers on the Big Island. HECO’s release says the subsidy would add less than 1/3 of a cent per kilowatthour, or between $1.55 and $1.86 per month for customers whose monthly use is between 500 and 600 KHW.

It seems like an innovative way to help spur development and use of renewable energy on one island when the cost of doing so might be too much for that island’s customers to absorb.

Price and terms of the biofuel contract are being kept confidential for now, so we don’t know how much more expensive the locally grown fuel will be per KWH than the fossil fuel it replaces. HECO’s release notes that the cost of oil is likely to surpass the biofuel’s cost over time.

In sum, this seems like a favorable development in Hawaii’s decades-long quest to Get Off Oil, an innovative approach that might find its way into other renewable energy contracts.

As philosophers like to remind us, the ocean connects rather than separates our islands. The new Aina Koa Pono contract is a tangible way for residents of many islands to help the residents of one of them reduce oil imports and keep some of that money at home.

‘Will 2011 Be the Year OTEC Makes it Big?’ Also, Hawaii's PUC Gives OK for 20-MW Solar Energy Plant

2010-12-28T10:14:00.001-10:00

The headline’s question comes from a Renewable Energy World.com piece on ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) and the potential for OTEC to finally take off next year.

Yeah, we know – the same thing has been asked at the end of just about every year in the past decade, or more. But it’s still a good question to ask now.

As the Todd Griset piece notes, the U.S. Navy has been parsing out grants to Lockheed Martin Corp. to design and commercialize a 10-MW plant here off the coast of Oahu. Lockheed in turn is working with other firms, including Makai Ocean Engineering of Honolulu, to work out the design of the massive pipes an OTEC plant would use.

We’ll join Mr. Griset in predicting big things for OTEC next year, and with some predicting a rise in the price of oil to $150/barrel by next summer, OTEC is sure to attract more attention than ever as a way to meet our long-term energy requirements.

20 Megs for Mililani

The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission has given a green light to developer Castle & Cooke’s plans for as 20-MW solar plant in central Oahu.

That’s an unusual move, since it involves a waiver from the usual requirement that competitive bids be entertained for projects exceeding 5 megawatts. The PUC’s approval stipulates that the solar farm be developed by competing and totally independent corporate entities.

Looks Like This One Goes into the ‘Trust Us’ File: Consumers Can’t Know Details of New Oil Contract

2010-12-20T11:41:00.003-10:00

Trusting others is what we’ll have to do, since a new Tesoro-Hawaiian Electric contract awaiting approval by the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission isn’t available for public inspection.

The case involves Tesoro’s contract to sell low-sulfur fuel oil to Hawaiian Electric Company. According to this morning’s Star-Advertiser, Tesoro is losing money on that contract and wants the PUC to approve a contract revision. From the newspaper:

“Under the current contract, Tesoro is locked into selling fuel oil to HECO at a loss, causing a financial hardship for the company, a Tesoro spokesman said. Both HECO and the state consumer advocate have agreed to the proposed "price structure revision," the details of which were not made public for competitive reasons. The Public Utilities Commission is expected to make a final ruling on the proposal this month.”

What’s In It for Us?

The State Consumer Advocate presumably is protecting consumers’ interests, but we can’t know that for sure because of “competitive reasons.” That’s asking a lot of consumers – to trust everyone working behind closed doors to act in our best interests.

Since most reasonable questions must remain unanswered, we’re left to speculate about the unknown. Here’s one:

How much will electric rates be increased to help out Tesoro?

The state is attempting to transform itself into a green energy economy by increasing our reliance of renewable resources. Getting off oil is Hawaii priority number one, but as HECO burns less oil to satisfy Oahu’s power requirements, Tesoro will sell less to the utility.

Fewer sales translate to a weaker financial picture in most businesses, so can we expect more contract revisions to charge more for the reduced amount of fuel oil Tesoro unloads on HECO down the road?

The utility passes along fuel costs in the electric bill’s fuel adjustment clause, so any increased fuel oil costs will be paid by consumers – the only ones in this scenario who don’t know what’s going on.

That is indeed a lot to ask of consumers for the sake of Tesoro’s profits – to be happy with higher electric bills while being kept in the dark about one of their biggest monthly expenses.

OTEC Progress Measured at a (Steady) Snail’s Pace

2010-12-17T16:00:00.008-10:00

Night falls on Energy Island's vision of an OTEC plant. Check out an animation of a day/night cycle at this futuristic facility.

Once again we plead guilty for spending almost all our online blog time at Yes2Rail, where the latest news is the acceptance of the Honolulu rail project’s final environmental impact statement by the state’s chief executive.

An EIS for Hawaii’s first commercial-scale ocean thermal energy conversion plant is, alas, nowhere to be seen, but as they say, sometimes it’s smart to save the best for last.

OTEC made news in Hawaii today with a Hawaii Public Radio piece on where OTEC research stands in the islands. Reporter Ben Markus has several sound bites from companies and individuals involved in the Navy-sponsored OTEC research here.

For a much more exhaustive discussion on OTEC and its potential to meet the planet’s energy needs AND reverse warming of the oceans due to climate change, read the long piece by “Paul from Potomac” at OpEd News. It begins:

“Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion is by far the most balanced means to face the challenge of global warming. It is also the one that requires the greatest investment to meet its potential. It is a most intriguing answer that can save us from Armageddon.”

How’s that for a lead-in? It warms the cockles of this OTEC lover’s heart as we approach the Winter Solstice.

‘This Close’ To Being on NPR’s Science Friday Program

2010-12-06T12:04:00.008-10:00

Getting on a national call-in show is problematic, since the audience could be in the millions. But we had our chance during last Friday's Science Friday program produced by National Public Radio.

One of the guests was Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus (at right). Host Ira Flatow’s website said the show would “talk about efforts to increase efficiency and move to greener energy sources within the armed forces.”

What an opportunity to talk ocean thermal energy conversion – and with the SecNav no less! The Navy has invested in OTEC development, and if nothing else, we could thank the Secretary and urge even more Navy support for this game-changing energy technology.

So we called the show’s number and were surprised to hear not a busy signal but a ring, and even more surprised when the call was answered. The person on the other end asked for name, location and what we wanted to discuss. “Turn off your radio and wait until you hear Ira say, 'Doug in Honolulu,’ and you’ll be on the air.”

This really was going to happen! And so began our wait to talk OTEC with a policy maker at the top level of the Navy's chain of command. We’d open with a brief description of Hawaii as the state more vulnerable than any other to oil supply disruptions and price increases. We would tell the audience that Hawaii's average price of retail electricity is about three times the national average, a condition that affects the Navy and all military branches.

Then we’d get into OTEC and thank the Secretary for the Navy’s support of Lockheed Martin’s efforts and engage him and host Flatow in a discussion on OTEC’s vast potential.

So we waited…and waited…and waited some more, and after nearly 25 minutes, we could tell Flatow was starting to wrap up the show. Sure enough, he uttered the dreaded words, “We’ve run out of time” without taking a single call. Oh, man….

You hardly ever come this close to talking with someone this senior about anything, let alone something as important to Hawaii, nation and world as OTEC.

But those are the breaks. We’ll have to have a more compelling description of what we want to talk about for the telephone answerer the next time we get “this close.”

Rooftops to OTEC, Hawaii Energy Is Moving

2010-11-22T16:42:00.004-10:00

Lockheed Martin's rendition of an OTEC plant.

A friend was talking about the apparent tendency for everything to be going by faster and faster these days – a condition one author once called “The Quickening.” From where we sit, nothing seems to be happening faster than renewable energy developments in Hawaii.

It’s happening from small rooftop solar projects to the islands’ first ocean thermal energy conversion plant. Well, the latter is still in the far-off-but-getting-closer stage, but today’s news from Lockheed Martin is encouraging all the same.

The company announced that the U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command has awarded Lockheed Martin $4.4 million more to advance the design for an OTEC plant off Oahu’s Kahe Point. That amount has been added to the $8.1 million contract issued last year.

Just a few days ago Hawaiian Electric Company announced that it is taking applications under its feed-in tariff program – a way for independent power producers to sell HECO energy using pre-established rates and standardized contract terms.

Conservation, Too

Thanksgiving Week is not too soon to start reminding power consumers to do their part in conserving electricity during the holiday season. Hawaii Energy, which administers the state’s Conservation and Efficiency Program, put up a couple press releases today. “Look for the ENERGY STAR label” is a message you’ll be hearing a lot in the weeks to come.

All of which goes to show that if you take a few days off to attend to matters other than energy, you’ll be playing catch-up soon enough.

OTEC and Rail – Oahu’s Future Winning Pair

2010-11-15T07:01:00.000-10:00

This will be the shortest post ever at this blog. Please read the most recent post at sister blog Yes2Rail for a glimpse of how ocean power will be energizing transportation on Oahu within decades.

EU Moves Aggressively To Develop Green Tech

2010-11-11T09:20:00.005-10:00

Carbon capture projects will also be funded.

“Old Europe” or not, the European Union has come up with a fresh approach to developing technologies that could produce commercial-scale renewable energy projects, including ocean thermal energy conversion.

The EU setting aside billions of euros to fund 50 percent of the construction and operation costs of dozens of projects, according to the Royal Society of Chemistry’s publication.

We’ve always thought it would take that kind of governmental subsidy to get OTEC up and running, and now European nations are moving to make it happen. According to an industry insider who helps keep this blog informed, “…the program also would fund OTEC in the territories of the UK, France, or the Netherlands. This would apply to Diego Garcia, Reunion, French Polynesia, the Cayman Islands, Curacao, etc.”

Hello? Are you paying attention, America?

Hillary Clinton Does the Unexpected: Endorses OTEC

2010-11-08T19:00:00.006-10:00

Now, that’s my kind of Secretary of State – one who actually speaks the words “ocean thermal energy conversion” as she discusses renewable energy opportunities in the Pacific.

Secretary Clinton stopped off in American Samoa today and pledged Obama Administration support for the islands, but she might as well have been talking about Hawaii as she described the territory’s near-total dependence on oil.

“This is a particular opportunity for investment in clean and renewable energy sources including wind, solar, wave and ocean thermal energy conversion power,” she said. “I know that the islands currently import 100 percent of your energy requirements mainly petroleum. These high energy costs born by a small population make renewable energy a very attractive option.”

America’s top diplomat talking up OTEC – it’s almost beyond imagination, especially since this blog was started to help end the silence on OTEC and elbow it into the public’s consciousness.

As we noted in one of our first posts, editorial writers were forever ticking off renewable technologies but not including OTEC in the mix. This one in the Honolulu Advertiser on March 16, 2008 was typical.

And now the United States Secretary of State proclaims OTEC’s value along with wind, solar and wave energy. My word……

Geothermal Energy Gains the Spotlight Amid New Assessments on the Views of Key Communities

2010-11-02T17:47:00.009-10:00

Power from Mother Earth has been quietly contributing to the island of Hawaii’s energy requirements for decades, and now geothermal energy is producing eye-catching headlines that seem to presage either new developments in the industry or new public attitudes about its acceptance, or both.

Pacific Business News’ contribution in its October 11th issue was headlined “Geothermal energy holds vast potential to power Big Island.” Hawaii Business magazine’s piece in the November issue, “Geothermal’s Second Chance,” focuses a great deal on the concerns expressed by the Native Hawaiian community and others over the years.

A quick read of the magazine’s piece leaves us wondering whether attitudes truly have changed about geothermal’s impact on the community or whether there’s a new “what’s in it for me?” vein running through all of this.

It's understandable that various communities would have something to gain by allowing geothermal to expand. The state as a community has much to gain by reducing our collective dependence on fossil fuels, and geothermal power potentially could make a huge contribution.

It’s just that there may be reason for a go-slow acceptance of this implied new well-spring of support for geothermal among key constituencies, such as the Native Hawaiian community.

A Little Perspective

We wish we had been akamai enough to know how to preserve the weekly Energy Futures programs on Hawaii Public Radio that we produced and hosted from July 2009 to this February. (The show's no longer on the air.) We got smart enough to save just one – with a Nobel Laureate at that, the late Dr. Stephen Schneider. The program originally aired in August 2009 and was rebroadcast in November.

Had we known how to preserve those programs we'd invite you to listen to the July 27, 2009 edition of Energy Futures that was devoted to Native Hawaiian perspectives on renewable energy. Our guests that day were Dr. Daviana McGregor (at right) and Ramsay Taum of the University of Hawaii.

That said, we have the next best thing to offer – a transcription of Dr. McGregor’s comments a few weeks earlier at a similar discussion sponsored by the Sakamaki Extraordinary Lecture series at UH.

We recommend spending some time with Dr. McGregor’s views before assuming, based on the recent journalism, that the coast is clear to expand geothermal energy’s contributions to the state’s energy grid. We doubt that it's as clear-cut as some would have you believe.

We bring this up only because it’s critical to have a clear-eyed assessment of the challenges and opportunities before Hawaii as we do everything we can, including expanding geothermal energy, to Get Off Oil!

OTEC Touted as Technology to Combat Sea Level Rise

2010-10-28T18:43:00.002-10:00

We’re quoting liberally today from comments by inventor Jim Baird to an Energy Collective piece on global warming and sea level rise by David Hone, a “senior climate change advisor” for Shell International Petroleum Company.

Baird’s comments take a surprising turn on Hone’s piece (and one Hone probably couldn’t have anticipated) by praising ocean thermal energy conversion’s (OTEC) potential to both power the planet and be a remedy for sea level rise.

Some Googling suggests Baird is an inventor of something called the Global Warming Mitigation Method, and OTEC has a role. Here are some of his comments to Hone’s piece:

“Not only does OTEC remedy the problem of thermal expansion, it is also the remedy to our dying oceans.”

“OTEC consumes heat already in the system rathern than generating more heat to produce energy that inevitably leads to additional warming, most of which is accumulating in our oceans.”

“OTEC has the prospect of becoming the largest global source of renewable energy while mitigating global warming.”

“If OTEC isn’t the climate’s Silver Bullet, it is certainly the next best thing.”

That’s the kind of enthusiasm and full-on support we like to see for OTEC, which is what we’ve also tried to generation from this blog’s first post. Thank you, Jim Baird, for making a strong case for ocean thermal energy conversion.

It’s a case Hawaii residents and government officials need to embrace in total to simultaneously end our debilitating dependence on imported oil and provide an inexhaustible supply of energy to power our state.

Visitor Examines Hawaii’s, Military’s Energy Issues

2010-10-26T13:49:00.002-10:00

It’s always good to read a visitor’s views on how the most oil-dependent state in the country is planning for a clean-energy future. That perspective comes today from Kevin Bullis, energy editor of MIT’s Technology Review who is on a fellowship from Honolulu’s East-West Center.

Bullis focuses much of today’s post (first in a series) on ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), a subject for which we never tire here at Hawaii Energy Options.

Bullis makes two especially noteworthy points: First, by investing in potential base-load energy sources (including OTEC), “the military may be performing a very useful service for clean energy,” and two, “electricity consumers won’t pay much more (than they’re already paying), if any, for clean energy.”

We’ve always assumed OTEC won’t take off without significant investment by the military based on the nation's strategic importance of getting off oil and onto an accessible, affordable source of renewable energy. OTEC’s our favorite candidate.

And Bullis reminds us that whatever schemes government and industry work up to expand Hawaii’s renewable energy sector, those projects can’t be ridiculously expensive. The plan to link windfarms planned for Molokai and Lanai with Oahu via an undersea cable comes to mind when we start talking about hugely expensive energy initiatives.

Lining Up the Projects

Such a project seems technically achievable, since undersea cable and wind turbine technologies are maturing, but we’ve always wondered whether sinking more than a billion dollars into a three-island electric grid might actually preclude OTEC from achieving its potential here.

We consumers ultimately will pay for these projects in our electricity rates. It might just be a good idea to give the military, Lockheed Martin and their partners a chance to see what they can do in the next few years in making OTEC more than a drawing board pipedream.

Go too fast with the neighbor island wind and cable projects and OTEC might be roadblocked simply because it would be last in line. As Bullis points out, we consumers can stand only so much rate shock.

Rail Has Pro-Energy, Pro-Environment Place in Hawaii

2010-10-25T09:14:00.011-10:00

We don’t often “cross-post” to our Yes2Rail blog, but today we do because of the theme it shares with Hawaii Energy Options – GOO, or Getting Off Oil.

We’re somewhat surprised that a few high-profile environmentalists here are reluctant to come out strongly for Honolulu rail. They avoid full-out support by citing rail's alleged visual impact along its 20-mile route.

What I’d ask them given the opportunity is their reaction to the 25 or so high-rises planned in Honolulu’s Kakaako district, the last relatively low-rise urban space that a generation ago was dubbed Honolulu’s “Sleeping Giant” by a visiting delegation of architects (I wrote the story for the Honolulu Advertiser).

Kakaako is sleeping no more, and those new buildings will effectively wall off the ocean for a big chuck of the city’s mauka neighborhoods. But the 30-foot-high rail structure won’t be visible once you’re a block away, not only in Kakaako but along most of the route.

Without question, rail will reduce transportation energy requirements and air pollution, so we encourage your visits to Yes2Rail – today and every day.

Hawaii Will Try Feed-In Tariff Program for Clean Energy

2010-10-14T19:35:00.012-10:00

Did the earth move for you, too? It must have for a lot of us, the way this week’s Public Utilities Commission “feed-in tariff” (FIT) ruling was anticipated. The new, improved and simplified way to pay for individual small-power producers’ sales to the electric utilities is touted as the beginning of a bright new day for renewable energy. The PUC's order has all the details.

According to PUC Chairman Carlito Caliboso, “The predictability and certainty that FITs provide to renewable energy developers should (encourage) future renewable projects and ultimately advance the state’s efforts to wean itself off of imported fossil fuel.”

Yes, that indeed is the goal – eliminating imported coal and oil to burn and generate electricity for the islands. Those imports now account for 90 percent of the electricity generated here.

Getting Serious about the Goal

Let’s keep the conversation going on this primary goal that individuals, corporations and governments all must acknowledge and embrace.

There’s been enough hot-air talk over the years about achieving this goal to produce a thousand megawatts of wind power, but do we all really believe that it must happen?

What will it take for all of us to get serious about this goal – wholesale oil prices near $150/barrel again, with retail costs even higher? That’s no way to live – reacting to circumstances beyond our control.

I think the only way to change our way of life in this regard is through education – more intense, more widespread and more comprehensive than anything we’ve seen so far. Who will the T. Boone Pickens of Hawaii be who, instead of building wind turbines, will throw money behind an educational effort that’s unprecedented in the state, and perhaps the nation?

It’s going to take more than replacing a few incandescent light bulbs in our homes and feeling good about it. With our extreme dependence on imported oil, Hawaii residents are among the most at-risk people in the world! Do more than 10 percent of us truly believe that in our guts? I doubt it, and we haven’t even touched on climate change, ocean level rise and all the rest.

This is serious stuff. It’s encouraging there’s a new FIT program, but to truly be “fit,” Hawaii must go on a crash green-energy diet and embrace the concept of GOO -- Get Off Oil -- and stay on that diet, forever!

Just What Exactly Is Hawaii’s Top Energy Goal – Cutting Energy Consumption or Eliminating Fossil Fuels?

2010-10-10T10:17:00.019-10:00

Two energy-related stories in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin today got me thinking.

“Energy reform a top goal” is the headline above the gubernatorial campaign story. The piece mentions the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative (HCEI) and its goals to increase renewable energy dependence and energy efficiency. The two major candidates have strikingly different approaches to energy issues, so voters with concerns in this area might well give it a read.

The other story by the Associated Press (linked from another website) relates Japan’s efforts to create “smart cities” that are energy-efficient. Billions are being spent to create smart grids with a goal, the story says, “…to drastically cut carbon emissions, which many scientists believe cause global warming – ideally to zero.”

That’s when I had my flashback to the 1980s and my years at Hawaiian Electric Co. One of the “truths” we rolled out on occasion said electricity sales and economic prosperity were linked in a nice relationship. Graphs depicting the nation’s economic prosperity and growth over the decades also showed upward trends in electricity sales.

Technological change and energy efficiency improvements may have moderated that relationship, but the underlying “truth” for HECO employees, at least, was that their company’s product was doing good for Hawaii.

GOO -- "Getting Off Oil"

Something else we talked a lot about in the ‘80s was renewable energy and the importance for the state to reduce its oil imports. Decades later, that’s still a hot topic here, and much of the energy conversation focuses on HCEI and its goals.

I’m beginning to wonder whether HCEI’s two major goals – replacing carbon fuel use with renewable energy, and improving energy efficiency – is one goal too many. Wouldn’t we better off focusing on just one goal that’s measurable, the reduction of imported oil and coal? That’s Hawaii’s Big Enchilada, after all.

There’s not enough space or time today to get into this deeply (the Giants-Braves playoff game will start soon), but one can imagine scenarios in which increased electricity use in the islands would be a good thing. The electrification of the car industry is one of them.

Imagine a future in which every vehicle runs on something other than gasoline. Bio-diesel fuel may power many of them, but it’s reasonable now to conclude electricity would power many more.

GOO and More Energy Use?

Electricity use presumably would increase significantly to meet the electric car and truck demand, and on its face, that wouldn’t seem to support HCEI’s conservation goals.

Our imagined future also includes the vast growth of Hawaii’s renewable energy industry, and the electricity for the green-vehicle fleet would come from wind, solar, refuse, ocean and perhaps other power sources. This scenario suggests economic development that both supports and resists HCEI’s goals.

Let’s also imagine that Hawaii truly does achieve the decades-old dream of being a center for intellectual property development, software development and other clean industries. Electricity consumption presumably would grow to power those industries, too, but according to HCEI, that would be a bad thing.

Simplifying the Goal

Getting Off Oil is the one goal that virtually everybody believes is pure and good for both the economy and the environment. Growing Hawaii’s renewable energy industry across the board would support it, but the other goal of reducing energy consumption is a lot murkier.

It relies on an imagined energy demand in 2030 that the islands would reach if we continue “business as usual” without conservation efforts, then applies a 30-percent reduction to that imagined demand. I’ll admit that I’ve always thought it’s a dicey concept – measuring the reduced demand for electricity decades from now.

What is readily measurable now and in the future are oil and coal imports. Increasing renewable energy’s contribution to the economy could significantly reduce fossil fuel imports if green energy remained a top priority at the local, state and national level.

Heaven knows we’ve written enough here about the potential of ocean thermal energy conversion to meet a huge percentage of the islands’ electricity requirements. The contribution of other green technologies similarly would reduce fossil fuel imports.

It would be a tremendous achievement if those imports were cut significantly by 2030 and eliminated altogether by 2050, even if energy consumption were to increase according to the electric industry’s old “truth.”

That’s how I see it on this Sunday morning, with the playoff game about to begin. More later. (BTW, this blog has no power over the advertising below and adjacent to our posts, so political ads shouldn't be inferred as our endorsement.)

Kauai Eyes 3-MW Solar Farm with Batteries

2010-10-08T06:27:00.006-10:00

Is it just me, or is everything moving faster these days? It’s been an month since the previous post here. I had a good excuse, and the good news is that my wife’s leg has mended nicely over the weeks – and out of necessity, I’ve been perfecting my smoothy!

The big news in Hawaii renewable energy circles today is the 3-megawatt solar farm planned for the island of Kauai. Today’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser has the story.

It’s good to see developments like this on Kauai, which is served by the state’s only utility that isn’t a Hawaiian Electric Company subsidiary. The other islands enjoy most of the renewable energy publicity, which is understandable.

OTEC’s Still Out There

Jay Fidell of ThinkTech Hawaii has been doing a better job than this website recently in staying in touch with energy developments in the Aloha State. Jay’s column last Sunday noted that ocean thermal energy conversion is still on “simmer” thanks to Lockheed Martin’s decades-long slow crawl toward a viable project in Hawaii.

It’s somewhat amusing that a website called Creative Loafing had a post last week on OTEC, an “introductory” for newcomers to the concept. We’re still high on OTEC, but “loafing” pretty much describes the rate with which OTEC has been progressing over the years.

A senior state official shared a tad of OTEC optimism at Hawaiian Electric’s Energy Expo last week, noting that the U.S. Navy will enhance OTEC’s prospects here by buying the first plant’s power output. We’ve always thought OTEC would live or die on whether the Navy devotes a significant chunk of its budget money to advance the technology, and maybe that’ll eventually be the case. Don’t count it out as long as Dan Inouye remains chairman of the United States Senate's Appropriations Committee.

Broken Leg Imposes Break from Energy Blog

2010-09-08T11:04:00.000-10:00

It’s been nearly a month and half a world away from our most recent post here at Hawaii Energy Options. My wife’s broken leg (in three places, prompting three operations) in France has focused attention on only the most important things in life, and try as I might, I can’t put ocean thermal energy conversion in that category.

But it’s impossible to ignore all OTEC-related news, so here’s a recent mention of the partnership between Makai Ocean Engineering and Lockheed Martin on the ongoing Hawaii project. The two have been affiliated for some time already, so it’s not clear whether this is new news.

Back to recuperation.

No Nukes in Hawaii – Period! Build OTEC Now!

2010-08-11T20:58:00.002-10:00

A mayoral candidate in Honolulu has proposed building nuclear power plants on islands floating 15-20 miles offshore beyond the horizon. Let’s hope he’s just sunk his campaign.

If we’re going to build power islands and pour billions into the effort, there’s more than enough evidence that ocean thermal energy conversion is the technology to get the job done and not create massive environmental problems along the way. Our first post here in March 2008 attempted to generate greater awareness in OTEC, which appeared to be off the media's and public's radar.

The environmental community already is weighing in on this preposterous idea. Maybe the only good thing to spring from it will be greater community awareness and a government-backed drive to make OTEC a reality in this decade.

Just to be clear: No Nukes in Hawaii – Period! Build OTEC Now!

Refocusing this Blog Where It Belongs -- on OTEC

2010-08-04T04:55:00.003-10:00

Waters west of Hawaii show OTEC's promise.

We write about electric cars and wind energy and undersea cables and geothermal and all the rest, but every now and then we have to come back to the center, and for this blog, the center is ocean thermal energy conversion.

Have you noticed the articles published all over the world that “introduce” readers and audiences to OTEC? It’s as if their authors are saying, “Listen up, people. Here’s a technology you really need to know about!”

That’s the feeling we got from a new piece at Gizmag.com, which declares “Hawaii ideal for ocean-based renewable energy plants”

Yes, indeed, and we’re happy to see the number of advocates is growing.

HECO Electric Car Rate Could Be Just the Beginning; Lower Rate Would Be Good, but What About FOFOP?

2010-07-29T08:08:00.007-10:00

Not to be curmudgeonly about Hawaiian Electric’s proposed lower rate for electricity used to charge electric cars in the overnight hours, wouldn’t the utility do well to offer the lower overnight rate to all customers?

HECO’s stated goal is “to make Hawaii EV-ready as new, highway-capable EVs are expected to hit the market in the coming year.” That’s well and good, but there’s presumably another goal (not mentioned in this story) in increasing demand in the late-night, early-morning hours.

Renewable energy projects like wind farms often have no market for their electricity when the load drops at night. Higher demand in the overnight hours provides that market and displaces to some extent oil-fired generation at the utility’s power plants.

Giving all customers a lower rate at night presumably would push off some of the demand from the peak hours between 5 pm and 9 pm and lessen the requirement for HECO to fire up its higher-cost peaking units.

The Equity Factor

We wonder also how important the lower electric rate will be in influencing potential customers to buy an electric car. They’re the ones with either the cash and/or a good credit rating to make the purchase, so they’re primed to begin with.

Other factors such as environmentalism, sustainability awareness and FOFOP – fear of future oil prices – could be at least as important as lower electricity rates in motivating someone to buy an EV.

As announced, the lower rates will apply to a tiny segment of the population – a total of 1600 customers in the three counties HECO serves. Left out of the plan is the great majority without the buying power or inclination to participate in the coming EV craze. Without knowing the details of this new rate plan and how it would fit in with other plans, we have to presume that other categories won’t be increased over time to offset the lower EV rate.

Let’s hope the Public Utilities Commission recognizes the good intent of the lower EV-charging rate but expands the concept to a bigger good thing. Lowering the rates for all customers in the overnight hours would encourage expansion of wind and other clean-energy sales to the utility and benefit everyone – not just those who can afford the cash outlay for a new electric car.

Catching Up with OTEC – News from Elsewhere

2010-07-19T09:14:00.004-10:00

Afternoon Update: Dr. Stephen Schneider, the noted climate scientist and co-Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (with Vice President Al Gore and other members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), died today in Europe. He twice was a guest on Hawaii Public Radio's "Energy Futures" program last year; we interviewed him on al variety of topics, including global warming's implications for Hawaii. The interview has been archived on the Internet.

* * * * * * * * * *

We hope the day will come when media stories about ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) – many many stories – will be datelined Honolulu. For now, we have to be content with news from around the world.

Like this one out of Tamil Nadu state in India. A new renewable energy park there will feature a number of green technologies, including OTEC.

Or this one and its companion piece that mention OTEC’s potential to generate ammonia and hydrogen for transportation fuel purposes, as well as generate clean electrical energy.

OTEC news related to Hawaii is on holiday, it seems. We’re pretty sure the U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin and the State Energy Office are all quietly at work on their parts of the puzzle.

For now, we’re content to let places like North Carolina keep the OTEC vision front and center, even though the players in the nation’s acknowledged favorite OTEC location – Hawaii – are content to keep it quiet.

Oahu’s First Wind Farm in 25 Years Breaks Ground

2010-07-13T13:40:00.002-10:00

It’s been a wait of 9,253 days since ground was last broken for a wind farm on Oahu (Hawaiian Electric Renewable System’s Kahuku project – February 4, 1985), but Kahuku Wind Power LLC ended that wait today. The company has commenced building its 30-megawatt project in the hills above Kahuku on Oahu’s North Shore.

It’s somewhat ironic that the state’s most populous island has had to wait until 2010 to participate in the wind technology revolution. The Big Island and Maui have been on that path for years. It hasn’t been for a lack of trying; Hawaiian Electric’s plans for a plant in the Waianae mountains were done in by local opposition to the visual impacts.

The Kahuku region has a tradition of accepting what others reject. HECO called the area the “wind energy capital of the world” (maybe just a tad aggressively) after the HERS project and the world’s largest turbine, the Boeing MOD-5B, were in place in the Kahuku hills.

That description was shelved after every one of those turbines was dismantled due to machinery failure over the next few years, but Kahuku’s back – at least as wind energy capital of Oahu.

And that’s a good thing.

Kauai Publishes Its Energy Sustainability Plan

2010-07-08T14:35:00.001-10:00

No two ways about it: We’ve been lax in staying abreast of energy developments in the Aloha State, but the guilt is too great. Here’s something that’s already a couple weeks old but worth mentioning before it’s truly ancient:

The County of Kauai has completed its Energy Sustainability Plan, and it’s now available online. The Plan seems pretty aggressive in some areas, including an increase in the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative franchise taxes by 30 percent.

It appears on the surface at least that the revenues would be devoted to supporting energy efficiency initiatives. That would contrast with the new$1.05 tax on each barrel of oil imported to the state; most of those revenues are going into the state’s general fund.

We’ll be watching developments on Kauai and the community’s efforts to build sustainability in the energy sector.

More ‘Big Wind’ Developments, plus Solar and OTEC

2010-06-17T10:30:00.001-10:00

Following up on our caution last week about counting Molokai’s wind farm eggs too early, now comes word in the Molokai Dispatch of a temporary setback to locating the 200 megawatts of wind capacity on the island.

Deep in the story is this observation by the reporter: “A quick drive around the island reveals numerous hand-painted signs speaking out against wind development.” Similar postings signaled community opposition to a Laau Point luxury home development, which was never built.

We can’t know at this early date the extent of community opposition to wind. We’re just saying it could be significant, so be ready.

Moving On….

Renewable energy meetings are happening in Honolulu this weekend, beginning with NOAA’s public information session on its rulemaking and regulation intentions for ocean thermal energy conversion this afternoon at the East-West Center.

And beginning Sunday, 18,000 attendees are expected at the IEEE photovoltaic Specialists Conference in the Hawaii Convention Center. The first Eastern Pacific tropical disturbances of the season will still be too far distant if they head this way, so sunny days are expected all next week. Let’s hope the forecast for sun power policy is the same.

Hawaii Energy Pieces Seem To Be Coming Together, but Let’s Forget All That Talk about ‘Cheap’ Wind Power

2010-06-11T12:13:00.005-10:00

You can hardly pick up a newspaper (the only one we have, now that the Advertiser is gone) without reading positive economic news for Hawaii, and the same can almost be said about green energy initiatives here.

Yesterday’s significant news was the awarding of a contract to a Los-Angeles company to study the route and conduct impact studies of a future undersea cable linking the islands of Oahu, Molokai and Lanai. The idea is to provide an energy export channel – the cable – from two future 200-megawatt windfarms, one each on Lanai and Molokai, to Oahu’s population and commercial base.

It’s far from a sure thing. Despite optimism about the cable and wind projects, numerous issues remain to be carefully assessed. Local opposition to truly massive wind energy projects could be significant on Lanai, which has become a get-away-from-it-all destination for wealthy mainlanders. A venture fund founder with a home on Lanai was quoted last year as saying, “I am not going to live on an island that’s the biggest wind farm in the Pacific.” Long-time local residents are no less resistant.

Molokai residents are known for their determined opposition to anything that would transform the nature of their island. They’ve successfully blocked port calls by cruise ships and high-end home development projects, placing environmental and cultural protection ahead of potential economic benefits.

Too Cheap for Meters?

The impacts study itself will cost $2.9 million in federal stimulus funds, and the cable’s cost is estimated today at $1 billion, which will be covered over time by Oahu’s electric customers. Big Wind is seen as a key element in Hawaii’s effort to replace fossil fuel for electrical generation (currently around 78%) with renewable energy, and there’s considerable enthusiasm for Big Wind.

An Associated Press story paraphrased a state official as saying customers will benefit in the long run from “cheap wind power instead of relying on potentially expensive oil.” But let’s just get used to not calling Big Wind “cheap” power. That’s the kind of talk used by nuclear energy proponents in the 1950s. Nuke power would be so cheap, they said, as to eliminate the need for electric meters. Compared to what future power prices could rise to if Hawaii continued its dependence on imported oil, wind power presumably would be less expensive, but it won’t be cheap.

Who’s on First?

We also wonder about what the impact will be on other potential renewable resources after 400 MW of wind power are locked in and plugged into Oahu's grid with a billion-dollar cable. NOAA is gearing up to regulate and promulgate rules for the first ocean thermal energy conversion demonstration projects (see Honolulu meeting notice), and it’s looking more certain than ever that Hawaii will see a pilot plant this decade. We even heard last week at the State-sponsored Clean Energy Day that the next US Navy budget will have $250 million in it for OTEC R & D.

Ocean energy is another decade or more away from making significant contributions here, but it’s worth asking now what the dynamic would be if a baseload energy source like OTEC were ready for development after an intermittent source like Big Wind already is online.

Both OTEC and Big Wind have a long arduous path before they’re in place, so let’s just leave it like this: We’d be more comfortable with the cable/Big Wind project if there were an equal commitment and push behind building Hawaii’s first ocean thermal conversion plant. In light of the significant issues Big Wind faces, let’s be sure OTEC gets its due in the years ahead. Hawaii will need a lot of energy eggs in its basket to get off oil.

Could This Be the Long-Delayed ‘Summer of OTEC’?

2010-06-08T12:37:00.006-10:00

Maybe this is just the first of many ocean thermal energy summers after decades and generations even of OTEC’s long winter.

The National Atmospheric and Oceanographic Administration’s OTEC open house and information session next week is one sign that the climate maybe changing for this highly anticipated but always-delayed ocean technology.

Another indicator – the June issue of Oceanography, the official magazine of the Oceanography Society. It’s a special issue on Marine Renewable Energy, and among its offerings are lengthy pieces on the potential and obstacles to capturing solar energy in the oceans. This sentence jumps out:

“The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimate that the total combined potential for all ocean renewables in the United States exceeds national electric energy use.”

Realistically, smaller amounts are likely to be extracted by ocean energies, but even that could be considerable. The article continues:

“….ocean energy could ultimately provide at least 10% of the electric supply of the United States. In coastal areas, where these resources are plentiful, the indigenous sources may, on a regional basis, represent a much larger fraction of the local energy supply and may indeed by the best long-term energy option.”

It’s not unrealistic to think the majority of Hawaii’s electric energy needs could be obtained within a generation by exploiting OTEC and other ocean technologies. Eventually, OTEC could electrify the entire state while accommodating contributions from the other renewable technologies.

In other words, clean energy would power the entire state, including vehicles and eventually aircraft. That’s the vision that’s driving numerous clean-energy initiatives in Hawaii, the world’s most geographically isolated and one of its most oil-dependent societies.

The June issue of Oceanography from its first article to the last is recommended reading, and anyone truly motivated to learn more about OTEC might well attend NOAA’s open house in the East-West Center on June 17. It's free.

C. Dudley Pratt, Jr., Hawaiian Electric Leader (1981-90), Renewable Energy Innovator, Leaves a Full Legacy

2010-05-29T15:14:00.040-10:00

6/4 Update: NOAA will hold an Open House and Information Session starting at 4 pm on 6/17 at the East-West Center in Honolulu on its Regulatory Process and Rulemaking Plan for ocean thermal energy conversion.

The news that former Hawaiian Electric President C. Dudley Pratt, Jr. passed away Wednesday at his Kailua home brings back a flood of memories gathered over nearly a decade in the 1980s while working for him. Hawaii’s renewable energy industry is in debt to the man. Here are some of those memories.

The Holding Company

Mr. Pratt wrote his MBA thesis at the University of Hawaii on utility company diversification and wasted not a moment pursuing that vision at HECO once he was named president in January 1981. He followed Carl Williams, whose legacy was colored by an op-ed piece Williams wrote in the 1970s pooh-poohing green energy’s potential in the islands. The piece gave the impression that HECO was reluctant to get aboard the fledgling renewable energy movement in the same decade that saw the OPEC oil embargo, which led to Hawaii’s restrictive gas-purchasing rules (odd or even license plate numbers), gas lines and high utility bills.

Dudley Pratt’s arrival in the corner office marked an abrupt departure from HECO’s super-conservative past. Utility diversification had started on the mainland, and he foresaw the potential for oil price hikes and an era when HECO’s electric sales couldn’t keep up with the demand to continuously add value to shareholders.

Mr. Pratt’s public announcement of his intention to create the Hawaiian Electric Industries holding company came about one month after I joined the company as a direct report to him after serving as an aide to Congressman Cec Heftel. He wanted the company’s communications effort to keep pace with his ambitious plans and therefore had our office under his direct supervision, a circumstance that later was shown to have its drawbacks (discussed below).

A key moment in HEI’s creation (details of which I believe are publicized here for the first time) involved overcoming the reluctance of Transamerica Corporation to approve the diversification plan. The company owned enough preferred shares to block creation of the HEI holding company and signaled its intention to do so.

While Mr. Pratt and his team assessed the looming impasse, we learned from Harvey Meyerson, also a former Heftel aide who had moved on to work for U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga of Hawaii, that Mr. Matsunaga had been invited to speak to Transamerica executives in San Francisco. Mr. Pratt authorized Harvey to tell the Senator about the Transamerica problem. Whatever Mr. Matsunaga said or did in San Francisco did the trick, and Transamerica fell in line, removing the last barrier to HEI’s creation.

Mr. Renewable Energy

One of the subsidiaries Mr. Pratt created early in his tenure as HEI’s chief executive was Hawaiian Electric Renewable Systems (HERS) to facilitate construction of a wind farm in the hills above Kahuku and the Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu’s North Shore. A Department of Energy demonstration wind turbine had proven the viability of the wind regime there; one of the turbine’s blades still stands next to HECO’s Ward Avenue facility where Mr. Pratt had it installed. He launched HERS on a path to capture energy in the northeast trade winds by presiding over a rain-soaked and muddy groundbreaking and blessing of the land in February 1985.

A little more than a year later on a bright, blue-sky day, 15 600-KW Westinghouse turbines went into service, becoming Oahu’s first serious effort in wind energy technology. (The memento at left fixes the date as March 27, 1986.) Although the early-generation turbines were no match for the region’s corrosive sea-spray environment, the enterprise helped capture the public’s attention to the importance of what became a mantra around the company – “Get Off Oil!” (A new generation of turbines will soon be put to the test in the Kahuku hills.)

As those early Westinghouse turbines began to degrade, more than one suffered a catastrophic blade loss as centrifugal force threw blades into the ground while injuring no one or damaging the towers. Our black-humor joke in Corporate Communications was that the blades’ throw radius encompassed Lihue on the island of Kauai. These incidents never were reported in the media, even though we distributed short press releases each time they occurred. If we hadn’t been transparent and word leaked out, it’s likely the accidents would have been splashed across page one. Mr. Pratt’s insistence on openness and transparency once again proved to be the right approach, as was the case after Hurricane Iwa struck the islands in 1982, as discussed below.

Continuing to think big, Mr. Pratt had HERS acquire the world’s largest wind turbine, the Boeing MOD-5B, and had it installed in the Kahuku region. Tip to tip, the blades measured longer than a football field – 320 feet. Attendees at its dedication in 1987 included Senator Matsunaga, and an aerial photo of the experimental machine standing tall against the lush green backdrop of the Kahuku hills made it into USA Today.

Mr. Pratt’s vision for Hawaii energy independence extended beyond Oahu to the islands of Maui and Hawaii, where HECO subsidiaries Maui Electric and Hawaii Electric Light Company sold electricity at an even higher kilowatthour cost than on Oahu. MECO hosted a 340-KW demonstration Windane turbine near its Maalaea power plant for most of the 1980s. Maui has become one of the wind energy success stories in the islands.

Across Alenuihaha Channel on the Big Island, a small geothermal plant had been established in the Puna district. Mr. Pratt envisioned a grid linking Hawaii Island’s considerable geothermal resources – believed to be as much as 500 megawatts – with the other islands, including Oahu and its much higher power demand.

A deep-water direct-current cable would be the link, and Dillingham Construction Company, which was formed in Hawaii when the islands were still a kingdom, tested the feasibility of such a cable by accurately laying a small test line across the 6100-foot deep channel between the islands. The concept was abandoned in the 1990s due to widespread community opposition to large-scale geothermal development in the native forest. However, Mr. Pratt’s dream of creating a multi-island electric grid lives on.

Hurricanes and Other Moments

The 1980s were HECO’s “Challenge Years” due to a series of island-wide or near-island-wide power outages that hit Oahu much too often. Mr. Pratt oversaw a large-scale reliability improvement effort that circumstances beyond HECO’s control made necessary. Hurricane Iwa struck the islands on November 23, 1982, and although its greatest impact was felt on Kauai, Oahu’s winds exceeded 100 mph that night. (Photo shows distribution lines on the Waianae Coast the next day.)

The Corporate Communications staff rode out the storm in HECO’s Richards Street headquarters, about three blocks from the Honolulu Harbor power plant. So confident were we that we wouldn’t lose our lights that we had failed to bring flashlights or candles into the office. Someone found a pack of matches, which we used to cut the gloom as we called Load Dispatch at Ward Avenue over still-working telephone lines.

We reached Mr. Pratt in generator-lit Load Dispatch, where he was assessing damage to the system. About 95 percent of HECO’s customers were without power; only neighborhoods adjacent to the Waiau plant at Pearl Harbor were still being served. Our conversation lasted about 30 seconds. “The storm kicked the s--- out of the transmission system,” he said. “We’ve lost eight of our 138,000-KV lines.” He told corporate communications to “tell the public like it is,” the kind of guidance communicators want to hear.

We began our fruitless attempts to call the only radio station still on the air, KGU-AM, thanks to its emergency generator that came with its designation as an emergency broadcaster. The only number we had for the station was in the phone book, and that’s what listeners were using to call in with their personal storm stories. Failing to get through, we drove to KGU's studios on the top floor of the newspaper building and talked our way onto the air.

The wisdom in Mr. Pratt’s direction to “tell it like it is” was confirmed in the weeks and months to come. The public said repeatedly that HECO’s reports on damage to the electric grid and the repair efforts already underway by line crews working under harrowing circumstances were the first they heard as they sat in complete darkness. The only other broadcast on the dial was from a station with a religious format and a tower on Molokai that escaped damage. (The station's content at the height of the storm was a Bible-thumping sermon that many residents later said had freaked them out.)

Mr. Pratt directed a complete top-to-bottom emergency procedures review after the hurricane that made the company better prepared for future major outages. Corporate Communications’ new emergency SOP included a list of non-published phone numbers into every radio station’s control room, and departments throughout the company rewrote their SOPs based on lessons learned from Hurricane Iwa. Work began on a new 138-KV transmission line on flat land away from the mountains to improve system reliability. Other major outages – “Black Wednesday” in July 1983 and another island-wide blackout in August 1984 – spurred ongoing system reliability improvements on Mr. Pratt’s watch.

The Personal Side

We’re convinced that nearly everyone who knew Dudley Pratt would describe him as a gentleman – a bow tie-wearing one at that. (It was with reluctance that he abandoned his bow tie and adopted more conventional neckwear for his annual report photographs.) He was soft-spoken in public and virtually all his company meetings and presentations, but in his office he would often cut loose – growling and grousing about what was pushing his buttons at the time. His leadership was so respected within the company that when he would pass on one of Corporate Communications’ bright ideas at his senior staff meetings, he deliberately would refrain from speaking up for it, lest it appear to be a command decision. Consequently, the communications office had no champion for its proposals at senior staff. That problem was corrected after about 18 months, when Corporate Communications was slipped into the org chart of a staff vice president and later became an officer-level department in its own right.

Oil or no oil? Contrary to predictions heard everywhere at the time, Mr. Pratt was adamant that the world would never run out of oil. He believed improved technology would find resources that were still unknown or unreachable in the 1980s, and the past three decades have proven him right. BP’s oil disaster undoubtedly strengthened his resolve that getting off oil is the right path not only for Hawaii but the nation and world.

Getting away from it all Mr. Pratt’s version of the perfect vacation was to pilot Waipouli, the sampan he built in his back yard in Kailua, out to one of the small island outcrops in the Hawaiian archipelago northwest of Kauai. He’d stay out there fishing for a week or two with his pals, as at-home on the open oceran as he was in corporate boardrooms all over town (newspaper reports say he was a board director for 32 organizations).

Designing the future Thanks to the diversification effort that included the acquisition of Hawaiian Tug & Barge, American Savings Bank and other companies, the need for a new corporate logo to visually tie all the companies together became apparent. Clarence Lee, the award-winning and nationally known designer, had been working with HECO for years (and still is). Clarence was tasked with coming up with a new look that could be applied to all the HEI companies.

When the day finally arrived for Clarence to present his proposals, the two us went to Mr. Pratt’s office and took chairs in front of his desk, which, as usual, was clear of papers and clutter. Only two colored pencils were set off to the side, which struck me as curious. One pencil was yellow, the other green. Clarence began his detailed presentation, which continued for quite some time, and then sat back for a reaction. After a few moments, Mr. Pratt reached for the top desk drawer and quietly said, “I kinda like this” as he pulled out a piece of paper on which he had precisely drawn large H-E-I green letters in block form, surrounded by a green rectangle against a yellow background. The letters looked like the big block Y often associated with Mr. Pratt’s alma mater, Yale University.

What Mr. Pratt lay upon the desk a generation ago is what is now in all HEI documents – and so is his idea for a logo to tie all the electric utilities together, a circle behind a graphic representation of all the state’s islands that's painted on thousands of utility trucks, signs, transformers and pieces of equipment. (Clarence Lee has written to note that green soon was replaced by Punahou blue.)

That was Dudley Pratt – a hands-on leader who implemented excellent ideas and a vision to benefit not only the companies he headed but all the people of Hawaii. He was in fact a keiki o ka aina – a child of the land, descendent of 19th century missionaries, who saw an honorable mission in electrifying the islands he loved and carving new paths to energy independence.

Services for C. Dudley Pratt, Jr. will be held at 5 pm on June 7th at Honolulu’s Central Union Church – a fitting location for Mr. Pratt's memorial, having been founded 167 years ago as Seamen’s Bethel in the Port of Honolulu.

Castle & Cooke Plans Nation’s 2nd Largest Solar Farm

2010-05-27T13:08:00.004-10:00

Castle & Cooke's 1.2-MW solar far on Lanai.

With all due respect to Florida, Hawaii is the Sunshine State. Consider what we learned just today – that Tampa, FL experiences 30,000 to 50,000 lightning strikes each year. They’re not bolts out of the blue; they’re bolts out of CLOUDS! Our back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests Florida is much cloudier than Hawaii, so there you have it.

In light of the Sunshiny Aloha State’s abundant solar energy cascade, a reasonable reaction to today’s news about a 20-megawatt photovoltaic solar farm destined for central Oahu might be, “It’s about time!” With pineapple no longer the cash crop it once was, Castle & Cooke (owned by Dole Food Company) is going to convert 120 acres of a pineapple plantation to a solar energy crop.

At 20 MW, the plant (which requires Public Utilities Commission approval) will be about 17 times larger than Castle & Cooke’s solar farm on the island of Lanai, now the state’s largest such facility.

The farm could be up and running as early as next year and would support the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative by taking another bite out of Hawaii’s massive dependence on imported oil for the generation of electricity. Every 20-MW bite counts.

NY Times Updates OTEC Project in French Polynesia

2010-05-17T13:03:00.002-10:00

Today’s edition of the New York Times has a story out of Singapore that revisits efforts to deploy an ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) plant in Tahiti. Hawaii Energy Options first reported on those plans in October 2008, but the story wasn’t exactly “new” at that point. Partners Xenesys (Japan) and Pacific Petroleum (Tahiti) were mentioned several months earlier in a press release on their joint venture.

There’s not much new or encouraging in the story about significant OTEC progress in French Polynesia, although it does note that the French and French Polynesian governments are picking up 68 percent of the costs of a feasibility study.

Lockheed Martin’s OTEC efforts rate a mention at the end of the story. Oft-quoted Ted Johnson seems to be sticking to his assessment that an OTEC pilot plant could be operating in Hawaiian waters within four years. His current target is 2014, a year later than his assertion when he addressed the Asia-Pacific Clean Energy Summit & Expo in Honolulu last September.

And so goes OTEC – forever slipping dates and pushing the first pilot plant onward into the future. We’ve been down this sluice run before, and it’s about time for OTEC to make a big splash in the here and now!

Once Called the ‘Wind Energy Capital of the World,’ Kahuku’s Still in the Game

2010-05-13T14:39:00.012-10:00

It’s seems fitting that the community of Kahuku on Oahu’s North Shore will soon see the construction of its first new windfarm in a generation.

Wind Power, a subsidiary of First Wind, has received Public Utilities Commission approval for its power purchase agreement with Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO). Twenty-five years ago or so, HECO’s monthly “Consumer Lines” newsletter mailed with electric bills lauded Kahuku for its potential to be a wind energy leader because of its exposure to northeast trade winds.

HECO had collaborated with the U.S. Department of Energy in the construction and successful operation of the MOD-OA turbine in the hills near Kahuku a few years earlier. “Makani Huila” (Hawaiian for Wind Wheel) performed so well that HECO chief executive C. Dudley Pratt, Jr. directed the installation of one of the turbine’s blades at the company’s Ward Avenue building in Honolulu, where it still stands.

Hawaiian Electric Renewable Systems, along with HECO a subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric Industries, built a windfarm in 1985-6 with 15 600-KW Westinghouse turbines. The project overlooked the Turtle Bay resort but nevertheless had the backing of local residents and even the resort’s management, which distributed windfarm brochures to guests. New World Power Corporation, then operated by the Kuhns brothers, purchased the declining operation in 1993, but those early-generation turbines were no match for the elements, and nearly all traces of that project have been removed.

World’s Biggest Turbine

In 1987, Kahuku became the proud home of the world’s largest wind turbine – the 3,200 KW Boeing MOD-5B, the last of the federally sponsored turbines. The blades were longer than a football field, tip to tip, and the whoosh they created was truly impressive to visitors, including the late U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga, who attended the MOD-5B’s dedication. Production was lower than projected, however, and that project also was scrapped.

Kahuku Wind Power will build a dozen 2,500 KW turbines at its site and will benefit from the lessons learned from all previous projects in the Kahuku hills, as well as First Wind’s Kaheawa project above Maalaea, Maui. By all accounts, Kaheawa is a booming success, and we discussed its record with First Wind’s Noelani Kalipi on Hawaii Public Radio’s “Energy Futures” show back in September when we still had time to be the show's volunteer producer and host.

We wish Kahuku Wind Power in finally realizing the community’s potential to be one of the wind energy capitals of the world.

Hawaii Is Priciest Place To Own a Car, and Soaring Oil Tax Doesn’t Help

2010-05-05T17:06:00.008-10:00

The price of rent, groceries, gasoline, electricity.... Hawaii is either at the top or real close in each of those categories, and now we learn it costs more to own a vehicle here than any other state. The hits just keep coming, don’t they?

According to Edmunds.com, the average vehicle ownership expense over five years is driven higher in the Aloha State thanks to Hawaii’s taxes, fees, insurance, fuel and maintenance.

And just wait ‘til Edmunds factors in Hawaii’s new $1/barrel oil tax increase that kicks in this July! That’s up from 5 cents per barrel. The increase will add about 2.5 cents to the price of a gallon of gas – not to mention the cost of just about all other goods imported into the state.

Ah, but it’s for a good cause, backers said, since increasing the cost of fossil fuels may just spur on the development of alternative energy sources. If that’s what it does, we’re fine with it, but a big chunk of the $22 million that’s expected to be raised annually will simply go into the state’s General Fund to help balance the budget. Let’s just say many of us will be watching closely to see exactly what good comes from this across-the-board increase in the cost of living here.

Nissan Leaf Heading to Hawaii

As the nation’s only island state with relatively short commuting distances, Hawaii would seem to be an ideal location for electric vehicles. Nissan North America Inc. apparently thinks so, too.

Hawaii will be an initial launch market early next year of the Nissan Leaf, an all-electric car that will be introduced on the mainland starting in December. According to CNET, federal tax credits of $7,500 would bring the Leaf’s prince down to just over $25,000.

With the high price of gasoline here helped along even higher by the $1/barrel boost in the oil tax, Hawaii consumers may be even more eager to try the Leaf than Nissan expects. A real quick survey found two people at the 10th Annual Hawaii Build and Buy Green Conference and Expo today who said they're on the waiting list for Leaf.

We won’t name names, but you can take a guess in the comments section below. Just think about which highly visible officials would want to be on the cutting edge of clean and green personal transportation in the state.

A New Hawaiian Island? Could Be, If OASIIS System Comes Our Way

2010-04-22T13:02:00.007-10:00

"Megawatt Island" would capture solar energy, store it below.

Earth Day is as good a day to announce new approaches to generating electricity and reducing fossil fuel dependence as any other – maybe even better. GreenFix Energy chose today to distribute a press release on OASIIS, which stands for Oceanic Atmospheric Solar Insulated Incapsulation System.

You have to admit, OASIIS does seem to involve outside-the-box thinking. The basic technology is ocean thermal energy conversion or OTEC, about which we’ve been writing for more than two years. But OASIIS is a new twist on an old idea – incapsulation (sic) of ocean water in a chamber beneath a floating platform that’s 1 to 3 square kilometers in size! The water with its captured solar energy remains in the capsule rather than being dissipated by ocean currents. A video explains the process and the potential for villages, marinas and shopping on these power islands.

There’s nothing in the release to suggest anything more than an intriguing idea at this point – no patent, no financing, no firm plans. In this respect, GreenFix seems to be in the same boat as Deepwater Structures, Inc., which similarly publicized its untested but provocative technology idea a couple months ago.

We’ll be watching both companies to see where they go with their approaches to OTEC. As a cheerleader for the technology, we’re standing behind them – and other peoples’ money – 100 percent and wish them well.

Piece by Piece, Lockheed’s OTEC Plant for Hawaii Taking Shape

2010-04-17T09:55:00.003-10:00

We choose to remain optimistic about ocean thermal energy conversion as “The Big Breakthrough Technology’ here at Hawaii Energy Options, no matter what the skeptics say. Doing so lets our mind’s eye see the first OTEC plant coming together, and the latest piece is from Owens Corning.

The company is showing off its modern composite technology that it says will be used to construct the large cold-water pipe for Lockheed Martin’s planned pilot OTEC plant, presumably intended for positioning off Oahu’s leeward coast.

The Owens product is called XStrand, a high-strength glass fiber that everyone involved will be able to withstand the subsurface conditions and pressures on the pipe, which is perhaps the biggest technology challenge in the OTEC system. Lockheed’s OTEC program manager Dennis Cooper shares our optimism.

“OTEC could enable Hawaii achieve energy independence within a generation,” says Cooper. “Our independent research and development work to date has shown OTEC to be technically feasible. The next step is to demonstrate it on a commercial scale.”

Such a demonstration would seem to leap-frog the pilot plant phase, but if that’s what Mr. Cooper wants, we say go for it – just as we’ve been saying since this blog’s initial post two years ago.

Don’t Bother Preaching to Depts. of Navy, Ag; They’re In the Choir

2010-04-09T11:12:00.001-10:00

What came out of the two days of biofuel discussions at Marine Corps Base Hawaii this week was either mana from heaven or too good to be true, depending on your outlook. In short, the U.S. Navy Department and U.S. Department of Agriculture are partners in an effort to encourage creation of a biofuels industry in Hawaii that could be a win for everyone involved – Hawaii agriculture interests and the Navy included.

The big “need” mentioned repeatedly in the two-day forum is a substitute for jet fuel. To say the military burns a lot of it woefully understates the issue. According to Joelle Simonpietri of Pacific Command, 70 percent of the Department of Defense’s energy use in the Pacific is jet fuel, nearly all of which is derived from petroleum that comes from foreign sources.

Jackalyne Pfgannenstiel, assistant secretary of the Navy for energy, installations and environment, said national security depends on energy security, so finding biofuel alternatives to jet fuel is a major priority.

The Navy’s goals in its new approach to energy security are five-fold: reform the acquisition process; reduce petroleum use; “Sail the Great Green Fleet,” which translates to greening up the fleet’s fuel supply; increase renewable energy use ashore (to 50 percent by 2020), and increase renewable energy use Navy-wide.

Much was made in the media coverage of the potential for HC&S of Maui to become a major biofuel player, inasmuch it already has a century of expertise in growing cane.

Even as the biofuel forum was underway on Tuesday, solar technology was highlighted at a bidders gathering on a massive photovoltaic RFP at the Marine base. The week was an eventful one for renewable energy advocates in Hawaii and offered more than a little encouragement for good progress in the decade ahead.

Biofuel Conference at MCBH Kicks Off Major DoD Interest in Hawaii

2010-04-03T08:09:00.005-10:00

Thanks be to those of you who’ve continued to visit this site for the past couple weeks while our attention was fully, completely and unequivocally diverted elsewhere. We even let the 2nd anniversary of our first post on this website pass without mention, which is probably a good indicator of how hectic life has been recently.

But we’re back, and there’s quite a bit to be enthused about, starting with front-page news this morning about the industry forum to be held at Marine Corps Base Hawaii next week sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Navy. The nation’s most dependent state on imported energy will “play key role in biofuel use,” according to the print edition's headline. (The Air Force photo shows an A-10C Thunderbolt II on a recent test flight using a 50/50 blend of biofuel.)

Registration was to have been completed more than a week ago, but we’ve taken a shot at attending and hope to be among the observers and participants next week.

Hawaiian Electric’s RFP

We suspect it’s no coincidence that Hawaiian Electric Company has just issued a request for proposals to provide locally grown biofuels for a new plant built at Campbell Industrial Park on Oahu, as well as its other generation plants that could be modified to burn biofuels.

We sat in on a meeting with a senior HECO official recently and heard about the potential for biofuel to be mixed with oil in firing the company’s Kahe power plant on the leeward coast. Tests will be conducted to determine whether and how much power output might be degraded with a biofuel mixture burned in a converted generation unit.

The Kahe plant is Oahu’s largest electricity generation site and therefore, we’ve always thought, the largest hurdle to overcome in making significant cuts in the amount of oil imported for that use. Converting the plant to burn a large percentage of biofuel would be a major advancement in getting off oil.

There’s sure to be a fair amount of buzz at next week’s forum about this prospect.

More OTEC News: US DOE Favors Lockheed Martin with 2 Grants

2010-03-17T05:17:00.005-10:00

It’s not the amount that’s important; it’s the intent.

One million dollars is pin money to the Department of Energy, but Lockheed Martin and other ocean thermal energy conversion advocates have reason to be happy at the latest grant money headed toward Lockheed.

Whether it merits the big headline above Lockheed's PR release is another question. If the day ever comes when the government doles out really serious money for OTEC, we’ll all need bigger computer screens to handle the news.

And here's a gratuitous mention of Hawaii in this blog post to be sure the state shows up along with OTEC as often as possible in OTEC-related web searches. Hawaii is the obvious front-runner candidate for the first pilot plant and eventual commercialization.

Hawaii. Hawaii. Hawaii. We can't put say it often enough.

NDIA Publishes Detailed and Encouraging Article on OTEC Status

2010-03-16T08:16:00.006-10:00

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) isn’t advancing fast enough to satisfy advocates of this potential baseload generation technology. So when a 1400-word article appears in a National Defense Industrial Association publication that reads like a cheering section, it’s time for some fist bumping.

The piece is a soup-to-nuts review of the OTEC technology, including its history in Hawaiian waters and OTEC’S chicken-and-egg problem:

"Because of the high costs associated with water pumping technology, the OTEC concept will not be able to attract investors unless a demonstration plant is built, experts say.

“'The solution is to get a megawatt-class plant in the water up and running so that the industry can see, one, it’s feasible. Two, it works, and three, we understand the costs,'" says Robert Varley, program manager of the Navy’s $8.1 million contract with Lockheed Martin Corp. to develop a 10-megawatt pilot plant.

Lockheed’s Ted Johnson was in Honolulu recently conferring with State officials, including State Energy Administrator Ted Johnson, and told Hawaii Energy Options the company remains committed to building the pilot plant here.

With more than 9 months remaining in the year, there’s plenty of time left for 2010 to be the year OTEC moves from having great potential to being (water) shovel ready. Articles like this one keep the cheering section energized.

9 am Update: Not to be outdone, Renewable Energy World.com has a 1250-word piece today headlined Ocean/Tidal/Stream Power: The Road to Commercialization. The cheering is getting pretty loud!