Category Archives: Big Island

Big Island, Community, Lowering Electric Rates

PUC: Here’s When You Can Show Up & Make a Difference

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Richard Ha writes:

If we show up in huge numbers at PUC hearings, we can make a difference.

The PUC will hear HELCO’s proposal for a 4.2 percent rate hike, as well as about Aina Koa Pono’s proposed biofuel project, on:

  • Monday, October 29, 2012 at 6 p.m. at the Hilo High School cafeteria, and
  • Tuesday, October 30, 2012 at 6 p.m. at the Kealakehe High School cafeteria.

The Big Island Community Coalition opposes both proposals because they would raise, rather than lower, our electricity rates.

The PUC members are caring human beings. But they have to know what the people want. Only two people, I think, showed up at the last PUC hearing in Hilo. We need hundreds!

The Big Island is in trouble. We have one of the highest electricity rates in Hawai‘i – almost 25 percent higher than O‘ahu’s.

High electricity rates are like a giant regressive tax, only worse. As people leave the electric grid to escape its high cost, those who cannot afford to do so pay even more.

The Big Island has a robust supply of alternatives to oil. We need to mobilize and make meaningful change.

The world has been using twice as much oil as it’s been finding for 20 to 30 years now, and this trend continues.

Growing gap

In the last 10 years, the price of oil has quadrupled. Something significant has changed: This has never before happened in the 150 years comprising our “Age of Oil.”

Oil price quadrupled

In China, they use two barrels of oil/person/year, and even when oil costs $100/barrel, their economy continues to grow. Here in the U.S., we use 23 barrels of oil/person/year, and at $100 oil, our economy is sputtering. It is reasonable to assume that the price of oil will continue to rise as it continues to be influenced by China’s demand.

Who here is most vulnerable to rising electricity costs?

  • Senior citizens on fixed income, for one, who sometimes have to make choices between food, medicine and electricity. We cannot leave our kupuna – our moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas – out there to fend for themselves. These are the ones who sacrificed so we could have a better life.
  • Single moms are also very vulnerable. I talked to a person who has several kids she hopes to send to college. She told me the threat of rising electricity prices weighs on her every day.

According to this week’s Hawaii Tribune-Herald, 3,000 of the 10,000 folks in Hawai‘i who receive federal aid to help pay their electric bill are on the Big Island. We have less than 15 percent of the state’s population, yet more than 30 percent of Hawai‘i’s residents who receive federal assistance to pay their electricity bill are on the Big island.

Join the Big Island Community Coalition to receive an occasional email telling you how you can help bring down the cost of Big Island electricity.

Articles, Big Island, Community, Lowering Electric Rates, Renewable Energy Sources

‘HELCO & Your Bill: What’s Wrong With This Picture?’

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Richard Ha writes:

This Op-Ed piece just ran at Civil Beat, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald and West Hawaii Today.

HELCO & YOUR BILL: WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

By Noelani Kalipi 

Hawaii Electric Light Co. is applying to raise Big Island electricity rates by 4.2 percent — shortly after its parent company announced impressive profits that were 70 percent higher than last year.

What’s wrong with this picture?

We — John E.K. Dill, Rockne Freitas, Richard Ha, Wallace Ishibashi, Ku‘ulei Kealoha Cooper, Noelani Kalipi, Ka‘iu Kimura, Robert Lindsey, H.M. “Monty” Richards, Marcia Sakai, Bill Walter — invite you to join our newly formed group, the Big Island Community Coalition. Our mission is “to work together as an island community for the greater good of Hawai‘i Island and its people.”

Our first priority: To make Big Island electricity rates the lowest in the state by emphasizing the use of our ample local resources.

The proposed HELCO rate increase, coming at a time of record profits, does not sit right with us.

We understand the regulatory system, which is rate-based. Our concern is that we continue to see requests for rate increases at the same time that we read about record profits for the utility.

While we understand the fiduciary duty to maximize profits for the shareholders, we believe the utility’s responsibility to the rate payer is just as important. As part of good corporate business, it should benefit both by investing its profits into a sustainable grid.

The Big Island is one of the few places on the planet where we have robust, renewable energy resources that can be harnessed effectively to provide firm, reliable, low cost electricity for our residents.

One example is geothermal, which costs about half the price of oil. We also have solar, wind and hydroelectric. We have resources right here that can both lower our electricity costs and get us off of imported oils.

Lower rates would mean that when the grid needs repairs, or the cost of oil goes up again, it will not be such a punch-in-the-gut to our electric bills.

If HELCO is allowed to raise its rates by the requested 4.2 percent, plus raise rates again via the Aina Koa Pono project, and then the oil price goes up, that would be a triple whammy price hike on your electric bill.

Big Island Mayor Billy Kenoi has sent a strong message that the county will not support new renewable energy projects — such as Aina Koa Pono, which would add surcharges to every electric customer’s bill — unless they result in cheaper energy. “Unless it has lower rates, we will not support it,” he said recently.

UH-Hilo just had a $5.5 million electric bill — almost $500,000 more than last year — and HELCO’s proposed 4.2 percent rate increase would add another $230,000 to their bill. The same thing is happening at hospitals, hotels and businesses. Farmers’ expenses are going way up, which threatens our food security. Electricity rate increases ripple through every part of our economy. They are already rippling.

People are already struggling with their monthly HELCO bill. Some are having their lights turned off.

As rates continue to increase, more people will leave the grid and fewer will remain to pay for the infrastructure, meaning that those households and businesses that remain (because they cannot afford to get off the grid) will pay even more.

You may think the electric utility is a big powerful entity that you cannot affect, but you can. Pay attention! Show up! Write a letter! Do something! If you leave your name and contact information at www.bigislandcommunitycoalition.com, we will send an occasional email to keep you informed of what’s happening, and how you can help.

‘Nuff already!!

Let’s be clear. This is not about how green the energy is. This is about how much the energy costs. This is not about saving the world. It’s about saving ourselves first, so we are in good condition to help save the world.

We had hoped that HECO would have a balanced approach to solving the problems. There are books written on how corporations can take care of people and the environment as well as their investment. The term is called “triple bottom line.”

From The Triple Bottom Line: How Today’s Best-Run Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success – and How You Can Too:

Increasingly, businesses are expected to find ways to be part of the solution to the world’s environmental and social problems. The best companies are finding ways to turn this responsibility into opportunity. We believe that when business and societal interests overlap, everyone wins.

Rising electricity costs are like a regressive tax, where the poor pay a disproportionate amount of their income. Only it’s worse. As the price of oil rises, people who are able to, leave the grid. This leaves a diminishing number of people – those who cannot afford to leave – to pay for the grid.

What’s wrong with this picture?!

Big Island, Biofuel

Aina Koa Pono: Farmers Want To Know About Pay

Richard Ha writes:

Farmers want to know: What can Aina Koa Pono pay farmers to raise the crops they need to make pyrolysis oil?

On the mainland, large cellulosic biofuel projects wanted to pay $45/ton for feedstock. But farmers were getting much more than that – $100/ton – to grow hay. So the biofuel projects got a $45/ton subsidy, and could then offer $90/ton for the farmers' feedstock.

Last year, in a presentation, I heard Chris Eldredge of Aina Koa Pono say that they would pay $75/ton for feedstock. But farmers here in Hawai‘i make $300/ton for their hay!

I just shook my head.

From Big Island Now:

HELCO Proposes New, Cheaper Aina Koa Pono Deal

Posted on August 3rd, 2012 

by Dave Smith

Hawaii Electric Light Co. is asking state regulators to approve a new contract with Aina Koa Pono which the utility says will be cheaper for its customers than the proposal shot down last year.

Like the proposal rejected last year by the Public Utilities Commission, HELCO would buy 16 million gallons of biodiesel produced by Aina Koa Pono on former sugar cane lands in Ka`u.

However, under the latest proposal, Aina Koa Pono would also produce an additional eight million gallons of biofuel for Mansfield Oil Company for sale in Hawai`i and eventually the mainland, the company said in a statement Thursday. Read the rest

Big Island, Biofuel

Big Island Biodiesel Grand Opening

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Richard Ha writes:

Big Island Biodiesel had its grand opening last week, and I took a tour of its facility.

Biodiesel

I have been a long-time supporter of its business model. It works.

Now, with the help of the UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR), as well as the Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center and others, farmers can start to think about what crops might be profitably grown to make biofuels.

From a Civil Beat article:

Richard Ha, owner of Hamakua Springs Country Farms, who has been a vocal critic of biofuels in the past, was optimistic about the plant.

“They have the best business model to make it work,” he said. “And the reason for it is this facility is paid for . . . So when they come and talk to the farmers it doesn’t rest only on the farmers. They already have the business model.”

But he did say that it wasn’t without challenges for the farmer.

He broke it down this way:

Big Island farmers sell hay for $70 — $75 per 500 pound bale. That is $280 to $300 per ton. On the mainland the folks who were planning to make cellulosic biofuels needed it for $45 per ton. But, the farmers were getting $100 per ton for hay. So, they got a $45 per ton subsidy.

Beside the feedstock gap, the farmer will need to pay for something to squeeze the oil out of the sunflower. So, the obstacle to get over is quite high. Read the rest here.

Big Island, Biofuel

Challenges of Biofuels on the Big Island

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In the video below, Robert Rapier, Managing Editor and Director of Analysis at the Consumer Energy Report, discusses the challenges of producing cellulosic ethanol, the role natural gas plays in biofuel production, and the uses of excess heat in the production of biofuels.

In general, a circular production model with the production facility in the middle is most efficient. Flat land, deep soil without rocks, lots of sunshine and adequate water supply give significant efficiency advantages.

These conditions do not exist in sufficient scale on the Big Island, making it difficult to produce biofuels in any cost-effective way.

Big Island, Hamakua Coast, Peak Oil, Sustainability

Sustainability in Hamakua

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My worlds collided on Saturday, when I led a tour that included a stop to meet Richard and see Hamakua Springs Country Farms.

Along with Hilo historian and anthropologist Judith Kirkendall, I lead van tours around East Hawai‘i. Right now we are doing a series of five tours that focus on agriculture and sustainability – what people are doing right now to be more sustainable, and how we can support them and also be more sustainable ourselves. The tours operate through Lyman Museum.

Our tour this past Saturday was called “The Garden As Provider,” and we focused on Hamakua. First we met at the Lyman Museum and heard a short talk by Sam Robinson about Let’s Grow Hilo. That’s the program she started that has volunteers planting edibles along downtown Hilo streets and in traffic medians.

“Anyone is free to help themselves to the fruit or vegetables once it’s ripe,” she told us, and she invited anyone interested in the project to come help plant and tend. They meet every last Sunday at the East Hawai‘i Cultural Center at 2 p.m.

Then we visited Barbara and Philip Williams, who live just outside Hilo near Pueopaku. Barbara grew up in Kenya, where they lived 50 miles away from the nearest railroad and so had to be self-sufficient. After she and Philip married, they lived on a plantation in East Africa. Now on the Big Island, they still grow and harvest everything they can. They have animals, including goats, and every fruit and vegetable you can imagine. “We retain the habits of being self-sufficient to the present day,” she told us.

From there we headed to Pepe‘ekeo, where Richard met us at Hamakua Springs.

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Richard is such an interesting speaker. He told us the story of how he started in farming (after flunking out of UH and consequently serving in Vietnam, he returned home and helped his father on the family’s chicken farm; then traded chicken manure for banana keiki and started farming bananas). He talked about how they decided to move the farm to Pepe‘ekeo and why (hint: free water; the farm alone has one-third as much water as supports agriculture where 234,000 people live in Leeward O‘ahu). Our tour group was totally engaged.

He told about how he started noticing prices going up (on fertilizer, boxes, all the things they were using on the farm) and how he realized it was due to oil prices and decided to attend Peak Oil conferences to learn what was happening. And how he felt bad and so didn’t tell the others there that he would return to Hawai‘i and wear shorts throughout the winter, and grow his produce throughout the winter; nor how we have geothermal to provide us with energy – which we don’t even fully take advantage of.

He spoke about how he has been positioning themselves for how conditions will be five or 10 years from now, and about the hydroelectric project that is getting going on the farm very shortly, and how since his workers first asked to borrow money for gas to get to work he has started what they call the Family of Farms, working with nearby farmers. And about how they are experimenting with how they can produce protein on the farm by raising tilapia, and giving their workers fish (and produce) every week in lieu of monetary raises they cannot afford to give right now.

There was more, and as editor of this blog for all these years, none of it was new to me, but I, too, listened intently and enjoyed it thoroughly. It was fascinating to hear Richard pull all the pieces he talks about on this blog together into one, interrelated, narrative that tells such a real, on-the-ground story of how things are (and how they are changing). The people on the tour were really interested. We all were. Afterward, I heard people talking about what a great thinker he is, and how much they enjoyed meeting him.

That Richard, he’s all right!

We also went to Hi‘ilani Eco House in Honoka‘a, an amazing house being constructed to be as “green” as it gets. Wow, that’s a fascinating place (they say it should last for 500 years!) and they are very open to groups visiting, if anyone is interested. And we stopped a couple other places as well.

It was a neat day (the upcoming tours are listed here if you’re interested), and Richard’s information really made it so good. We were all wowed. Thanks, Richard!

Big Island, Community, Eating Locally, Sustainability, Taro/Poi

‘Let’s Grow Hilo’ Sprouting Up Downtown

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Hilo’s street scape is changing. More native plants, such as kalo, are sprouting up along the roadways downtown.

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This is the traffic island at Mamo and Keawe Streets.

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Mamo Street, looking toward the Hilo Farmers Market.

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This past weekend I saw a group of folks planting more kalo and other native plants on Front Street. It’s part of “Let’s Grow Hilo.”

From Big Island Weekly:

…In Hilo, the Natural Farming Hawaii group has planted taro, bananas and other edibles such as papaya trees in median strips and other areas that were previously wasted ground. In partnership with the Hilo Downtown Improvement Association, the group has only just begun to beautify Hilo with edible landscaping. Their first area is located at the intersection of Mamo, Keawe and Kilauea streets, near the Hilo Farmers Market. Their use of natural farming methods and local materials such as coconut husk mulch from the farmers market are helping to create verdant gardens in the middle of city streets.

Sam Robinson, Coordinator of the Hilo Downtown Improvement Association’s “Let’s Grow Hilo” project explained the decision that prompted the launching of edible landscaping: “It started as a guerrilla movement. I just started planting things around town. It’s a project I’ve wanted to do since I was a teenager because I love to garden and grow my own food. When I first started planting in Hilo, I got permission from some of the business owners where I was doing plantings, but basically I just started doing it….”  Read the rest.

Also from that article:

“We’ll be developing a walking map as we add more garden areas so people will know where they can go to pick their own free fruit and vegetables. Our ultimate goal is to give all residents the knowledge and the means to change their diets for the better by providing recipes and education for healthy meals and snacks.”

I really like this. It is unusual but very appropriate.

Big Island, Biofuel, Community, Geothermal, Peak Oil

Hawaiian Perspectives in Support of Geothermal

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Over the weekend I was on the panel of a Hilo Community meeting called “Hawaiian Perspectives in Support of Geothermal Development.” It was held at the UH Hilo, and I estimate that about 50 people attended. By far the majority of the folks there were in favor of geothermal development, provided it is done in a pono way.

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Each panel member spoke about his/her area of interest.

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From left to right, this is Wallace Ishibashi, co-chair of the Geothermal Working Group, and member of the Royal Order of Kamehameha; Robert Lindsey, Big Island OHA trustee, Geothermal Working Group member; Mililani Trask, Hawaiian legal rights attorney and consultant to Innovations Development Group. 

I talked from the point of view of a banana farmer who, five years ago, found his operating costs rising, and attended three Peak Oil conferences to learn how to position his business in a future of rising oil prices.

I talked about how there are serious outside forces at work. The world has been using twice as much oil as it has been finding, and has been doing so for the last 20 years. The winds of change will soon be blowing and oil prices will be rising. It is very serious, and we cannot afford to insist on individual agendas. It is no longer about us now; it is about future generations.

There are many ways that we can deal with depleting oil.

HECO’s plan of fueling with biofuels will cause electricity rates to rise. Rising electric rates means that folks on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder will be the first to have their lights shut off.

There are people who advocate small scale, individual solutions to energy independence. This approach will encourage those who are able to leave the grid to do so, and leave the folks that are unable to leave to pay for the grid.

Another, much better, alternative is to bring more geothermal on line. Geothermal is proven technology, clean and lower in cost than other base power solutions. The more geothermal we use, the more we protect ourselves from future oil shocks.

I told the group what I had asked Carl Bonham of the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization: If we can maximize geothermal as our primary source of base power, will we become relatively more competitive to the rest of the world as oil prices rise? He said yes.

I told the group that we are lucky to have the options that we have, especially geothermal. Very few in the world are as lucky.

In modern Hawaiian history, our economy has taken, taken, taken and the culture has given given given. We are at a unique time now when the economy can give and the culture can receive.

Do we dare dream of prosperity for future generations? I believe that most felt that geothermal was the way to get us there.

There are a thousand reasons why “No can.” We are looking for the one reason why “CAN!”

Big Island, Geothermal

Met With Earl Bakken

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On Friday, June and I visited Earl Bakken at his Kiholo Bay home, an oasis in the midst of kiawe trees where there are many, many birds flitting around, cheeping and chirping. It lifts one’s spirit.

He wanted to talk about a Manifesto for Hawai‘i Island, and he wanted to talk with me about geothermal.

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Talking with him, I was struck by how focused Earl is on the well-being of people. Complete selflessness. He says the North Hawaii Community Hospital in Waimea (which he helped found) is 20 percent science and 80 percent spiritual. June goes there occasionally and she feels the difference.

I was also struck by how concerned he is about Hawaiian culture and spirituality. He told me he was very much influenced by Papa Henry Auwae.

We talked about his idea for a Manifesto, his dream of developing a world-class hospital for Hawai‘i Island, and perhaps using the construction period of the TMT to educate Hawai‘i’s kids – perhaps by setting up a construction cam, so a conversation about engineering and science and everything in between can begin in the schools.

He spoke about geothermal as a gift for Hawai‘i’s people. Certainly that is a subject very close to my own heart, and that conversation continues.

Here is a synopsis of some of what Earl Bakken has accomplished to qualify him for the 1999 Minnesota Business Hall of Fame. Since then, he has done so much more. Many of his new projects have been done on Hawai‘i Island.

Here are several pages of Earl’s dreams. The ones marked “D” are done or accomplished, and the ones marked “I” are in progress.

At the bottom right of the first block on that page – still in progress, he says – you can see that he dreams of a Manifesto for this island, one that would create energy independence, science and tech education, and health and wellness for the people and the land.