Do you know about Better Place coming to Hawai‘i?

Better Place is working to build an electric car network, using technology available today. Our goals? Sustainable transportation, global energy independence and freedom from oil.

Shai Agassi is founder and CEO of Better Place, and in the following video he talks about his mission. His company has a plan to take entire countries oil-free by 2020.

From ted.com: Agassi stunned the software industry in 2007 by  resigning from SAP to focus on his vision for breaking the world’s fossil-fuel habit, a cause he had championed since his fuse was lit at a Young Global Leaders conference in 2005. Through his enthusiastic persistence, Agassi’s startup Better Place has signed up some impressive partners — including Nissan-Renault and the countries
of Israel and Denmark.

Electric vehicles for our transportation needs are starting to come into focus. Better Place has announced that it is partnering with Hawai‘i to make mass adoption of electric vehicles powered by renewable energy a reality in the state by 2012.

From Better Place:

A bill currently going through the Hawai‘i State Legislature will require that large parking facilities have charging stations for electric vehicles.

People are even developing heavy transportation electric vehicles.

Why is Hamakua Springs Country Farms interested in electric cars?

It’s because we are building a hydroelectric plant, where we will generate electricity from water that runs through a flume on our property. We will sell the excess electricity back to the public utility.

We wonder how farmers everywhere in Hawai‘i can participate in renewable energy production.

Oil is a finite resource and world population is increasing at the rate of 70 million annually. We all know that oil prices will rise to unbearable heights in the future.

We also know that our food security depends on Hawai‘i’s farmers farming, and making enough money that they stay in farming. How can we position our farmers so they make money on renewable energy they generate on their farm, in addition to the money they make farming? Because we know that if the farmers make money, the farmers will farm.

Renewable energy production is capital-intensive, not labor-intensive. There is no weeding, spraying, plowing or harvesting. Once a renewable energy project is installed, the farmer can go back to farming.

In conjunction with this need for food security, I suggested to the Farm Bureau that we initiate a bill that would authorize preferential rates of return for bonafide farmers who produce renewable energy. HB 591 HD1 SD2 is likely to be passed by the Legislature this session.

If the farmers make money, the farmers will farm. And then we will have food security.