Category Archives: Video

VIDEO: Why I Support Thirty Meter Telescope

I hope you’ll watch this short video. It’s about why I support building the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea.

We formed the non-profit group PUEO to support education – primarily, but not exclusively, for native Hawaiians. It was formed for the very long run.

On video, I talk about how I became aware of rising oil costs and how much we rely here on oil.  We are so dependent on tourism. I thought about how we had better diversify our economy.

There is a direct relationship between education and family income. This is why we push education. And the TMT is already helping with it.

There’s a time we need to stand up for what’s right and be counted. And it’s not an adverserial situation. We just want our voices heard. Why can’t we have both cultural respect as well as taking care of the folks on the lowest rung of the economic ladder?

TMT photo courtesy TMT International Observatory

Video: After The Storm

Richard Ha writes:

What a storm! The house shook with intense thunder and lightning last night. This morning, an eleven-mile stretch of Highway 19 was closed, 20 miles north of us, because of the storm.

During the day today we expect no more than 6 mols/meter square of plant-useful sun energy. Ideally, tomatoes need 25 mols/meter square.

Cloud cover and rain are most associated with low sun energy. This low sun energy applies to PV systems on people’s roofs, too. Leaves are another kind of solar radiation collector.

But even though the sun energy is down, our new hydro generator is at max production.

So, if the sun is bright, the plants smile and so do we. If it’s rainy, we generate more electricity.

Either way, we are happy.

Here’s information on waterflow in nearby Honoli‘i Stream as of this afternoon. It’s from the USGS (click to enlarge).

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Here’s the same information year to date.

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Watch ‘Seeds of Hope’ on PBS This Thursday

We are in this PBS program. Watch it Thursday at 9 p.m. on PBS.

PBS Hawaii presents "Seeds of Hope"
Thursday, September 19, 2013 at 9:00 pm

Maui filmmaker Danny Miller's documentary tells the story of Hawaii's return to local and traditional methods of growing food. Through the voices of farmers, teachers, industry experts and community members, it covers traditional Hawaiian agriculture, pressures of urban development, the plantation legacy and solutions to solving the state's growing food insecurity.

Huffington & Omidyar Visit Hamakua Springs

By Leslie Lang, blog editor

Thursday was such an interesting day. Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, and Pierre Omidyar, founder of Honolulu’s online newspaper Civil Beat (and founder of eBay), spent some time at Hamakua Springs Country Farms.

The background is that Huffington Post and Civil Beat have teamed up to start HuffPost Hawaii (and they asked Richard to blog for the new online news organization. Here’s his first HuffPost Hawaii post, by the way.)

So this week, Arianna and Pierre were making the rounds in Hawai‘i for the big HuffPost Hawaii launch. They spent Thursday on the Big Island, where they were welcomed with a big reception at ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center.

The only other Big Island stop they made was to Richard’s farm. They had asked if they could come and meet Richard and learn about what he’s doing. So that happened Thursday afternoon, and Richard invited me to join them there.

What a completely fascinating day. There’s something about being around really smart people who are doing big and really interesting things, making things happen and making a difference. Richard is completely like that, too, as you know if you’ve been reading this blog. It’s invigorating to be around that kind of energy.

Both Arianna and Pierre are very friendly and down-to-earth, and both are interested in issues of sustainability and what Richard is doing.

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Richard told them about his background — flunking out of college the first time around and ending up in Vietnam, coming back and trading manure from his father’s chicken farm for bananas to start what eventually became Hamakua Springs Country Farms — about seeing prices start rising, rising, rising and wondering why; about attending five Peak Oil conferences and starting to learn what was happening. He talked about how he forces the changes needed to get to where he needs to be five or 10 years in the future.

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He talked about the current threat to Big Island farming from anti-GMO bills, and Pierre asked some very salient (and polite) questions about some common GMO fears, such as of:

  • Commercial control of seeds. Richard replied that in many cases, such as with, for instance, the Rainbow papaya, virus-resistant seeds are developed by the university and not controlled by any big business at all. This, he said, is often the case.
  • Cross-pollination, or “pollen drift.” Richard responded that due to numerous studies, we know how much drift there is for different crops. Farmers work together, he says, to plan what is planted where, plant so many lines of “guard rows” and it’s completely manageable.

They asked about Richard’s new hydroelectric system, and we took a dusty, bumpy country road drive out to see where the water runs through an old sugar cane flume, and then through a turbine.

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Arianna and Pierre were very interested in this, and in how, when the switch is thrown very shortly, the farm will be saving perhaps almost half of its monthly electric bill, which now averages $10-11,000.

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Pierre asked about returning excess power to the utility, and was shocked to learn that due to a technicality, Richard will not be paid for the power he feeds to HELCO. Pierre kept returning to that and said, more than once, “That’s just not right.” Richard finally replied, “Well, at least it’s not wasted.”

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Richard Ha, Arianna Huffington, Pierre Omidyar, Leslie Lang, June Ha

Richard talked about how they have converted the farm from growing mostly bananas to being a family of farms, which brings in local farmers who then have a close-to-home place to farm. This, in turn, means the farm produces a more diverse crop.

He told Arianna and Pierre about growing their current experiment growing tilapia, to learn how to add a protein component to the food they produce and also use the waste as fertilizer. Workers can fish for tilapia there and take some home for their families.

Arianna and Pierre both seemed sincerely interested. They paid close attention and asked good questions.

Richard told them about talking with Kumu Lehua Veincent, who was principal of Keaukaha Elementary School back in the early days of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) push. He told them that he asked Kumu Lehua, “What if we ask the TMT for five, full-ride scholarships to the best schools in the nation for your best students?” He told them that Kumu Lehua thought about it for a minute and then quietly asked, “And what about the rest?”

This was a turning point, explained Richard, who said that at the time he could feel his ears turning red. He told Arianna and Pierre that that phrase, What about the rest? gives him an “unfailing moral compass.”

It always brings him back to the rubbah slippah folk, he told them. The “rubbah slippah” folk are in contrast to the “shiny shoes” folk. When he explained this, Pierre looked down at his own shoes.

“I wore my shiny shoes today,” he said, “but I meant to change into my sneakers before coming to the farm.” He mentioned his shiny shoes a couple more times during the visit.

“I felt they absolutely got what I meant when I advocated for the ‘rubbah slippah’ folks,” Richard told me, “and completely support that idea.”

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Richard’s daughter Tracy had laid out a beautiful spread of Hamakua Springs produce back by the office, where there was a tent set up, and Arianna zeroed in on the longan.

“What’s this?” she said, and Tracy explained that it’s a delicious fruit. She handed one to Arianna, along with some wipes (they are juicy and messy), and Arianna loved it.

Arianna gives the impression of being very family-oriented. “At what point did you and June get married in this long process?” she asked, when Richard was explaining how he got started farming 35 years ago. (The answer: 32 years ago, and when June joined the family she took all the farm receipts out of a big banana box and straightened out the accounting.) Arianna asked Tracy if she had siblings. When she was introduced to Richard’s grandson Kapono, she looked at him, and at his parents, and asked, “Now, are you Tracy and Kimo’s son?” (Yes.)

She gave June a copy of her book, On Becoming Fearless.

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Both Arianna and Pierre are such interesting people. One of the things Richard talks about is forcing change, and that is something that both his guests are all about, too: Looking down the road and fixing things, forcing the change instead of letting things bumble along.

It is refreshing to be in the presence of such interesting thinkers and doers. Great day.

This is a video Civil Beat did with Richard recently, before Arianna and Pierre’s visit. It’s really nicely done and you get to hear a bit about some of the topics they discussed yesterday (while seeing gorgeous views of the farm).

Civil Beat & Huffington Post Coverage

Honolulu's Civil Beat came to the Big Island and interviewed Richard for this really good article on energy and Hawai‘i – and then today it was picked up by the Huffington Post. Wow. 

From Civil Beat:

Energy Prices Shock Hawaii Farmers Into Alternatives

by Sophie Cocke  8/15/13

HAMAKUA, BIG ISLAND — Lush green fields rise and dip through the rolling hills that stretch down to the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean. The verdant surroundings and tropical air suggest this farm could be one of countless others. So does the water that flows past leafy, green taro fields, stalks of corn that sway in the breeze and the sweet potato patch.

But the subtle, steady swooshing of the water signals how this farm is different. The water has been diverted from a mountain stream, down a 150-foot slope and into a small, blue shed where it sends blades spinning to generate electricity.

Yes, Hamakua Springs Country Farms has its own hydroelectric plant.

Farmer Richard Ha borrowed money to install the plant as part of a 19th-century solution to a very 21st century problem: sky-high energy rates….

Read the rest here

There's a short video interview with Richard at the end, too.

- posted by Leslie Lang

Cutting Edge Info on Peak Oil: Here, Now & in November

Richard Ha writes:

Five Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) annual conferences later, it’s very clear to me that the information I learn at the conferences is cutting edge. It’s consistently two or more years before what the experts there are talking about shows up in the mainstream news.

From the first ASPO conference I attended, I noticed there were stock traders in the audience. I asked them why there were there, and one told me it was so he could make better investment decisions.

The oil decline situation is much more serious than people realize, and I highly recommend that anyone who wants to be on the cutting edge of knowledge attend the next ASPO conference. It is usually held around the end of November.

I also recommend you visit the ASPO-TV site and take in some of the videos there.

Robert Rapier gave this interesting talk at ASPO last year, which may be of interest to folks who have more than just a passing interest in energy issues.

Robert Rapier – Navigating a New Energy Reality from Peak Oil TV on Vimeo.

Robert, who presented at the conference the last two years, lives
in Waimea now, where he moved to take the job of Chief Technology Officer for Merica International.

He has written a book, Power Plays: Energy Options in the Age of Peak Oil:

In Power Plays: Energy Options in the Age of Peak Oil, energy expert Robert Rapier helps readers sort through energy hype, doom and gloom, and misinformation to understand what really matters in energy, and how it impacts individuals, investors, businesspeople, and policy makers worldwide. The book
covers the overall global energy situation, the particular risks for the U.S. with its present energy mix, the energy outlook for the developed world and emerging economies like China and India, what peak oil really means, and the present and likely future of natural gas, coal, oil, nuclear power, and alternative energy sources. 



The book also addresses common misconceptions. For instance, most readers are likely unaware that the U.S. is the third-largest oil producer in the world. Or that Canada leads the U.S. in per capita oil consumption. It will also highlight interesting facts—for example, China has solved part of its energy challenge by
mandating solar hot water systems in all new construction. Most
importantly, the book will provide specific energy insights unavailable elsewhere and help individuals and business planners chart future actions and decisions. 

In a recent blog entry, Robert talks about why rising natural gas prices will affect the biofuel industry (natural gas is a cost component of the biofuel industry).

He once told me that if a biofuel project has a negative energy balance, it would never be cheaper than oil.

He is highly technically qualified and has a knack of making difficult issues and conclusions easy to understand. I highly recommend both his book and blog.

Did You Win Our Caption Contest?

Richard Ha writes:

Announcing the winners of our photo caption contest, which we announced last week.

First, here's the video that the caption was for:

We had four winners. Here they are, in alphabetical order:

 

Richard Gozinya:   A lot of magical stuff happens and then…poof!…out comes the biodiesel.


Rico Reed:   Fresh running photo-shop!

 

Baron Sekiya:   Ho brah! Check out da video I went shoot of dis faucet. I bin watchin' dis ting all week in da office…UNREAL!!! Da bucket neva even ova-flow once wit water! How dey do dat?

 

Brendan Shriane:   Sherwin-Williams' invisible paint might just work a little too well. 

 

I got a real kick out of these.

The prizes? Rubbah slippahs, of course! At one of the recent PUC hearings, a friend of mine donated three grocery bags full of rubbah slippahs.

To our four winners: Give me a call on my cell phone, 960-1057, to claim your prize. Please really do call, because I would like to talk to each of you.

Irradiator Starts Operating on O‘ahu

Richard Ha writes:

On Tuesday, I was in Honolulu and got to see locally grown produce go through the new O‘ahu irradiator as part of the equipment’s first commercial treatment.

It looks like a tall carousel, and automatically lowers units of produce underwater for a certain amount of time and at a specific distance so the irradiation is applied uniformly.

Curry leaves and papaya were part of that first treatment. Other products, such as basil and other in-demand produce, could also be exported using this method.

It’s a good example of how folks worked through environmental and other issues to come up with an acceptable solution.

The irradiator is located at the old Del Monte pineapple facilities, now occupied by the Hawaii Ag Research Center. “Stevie” Whalen, the Center’s leader, has an impressive vision of private and public organizations that will each help the whole.