Tag Archives: Feedstock

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

Biofuel

Farmers & Biofuels

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This article appeared in Pacific Business News on August 13, 2010:

Biofuels have supporters, but
scale remains an obstacle

Pacific Business News (Honolulu)
– by Sophie Cocke

Three years ago, representatives of Hawaiian Electric Co. met with farmers on the Big Island to discuss growing feedstock that could be converted to biofuel and used in the company’s generators. But discussions grew quiet when local farmers calculated how much they would be earning.

There are 42 gallons in a barrel of oil, each container of which weighs 286 pounds. So oil, at $80 a barrel, would yield the farmers about 28 cents per pound.

“There’s hardly anything a farmer will grow for 28 cents per pound,” said Richard Ha, one of the local farmers who attended the meeting.

Profits decline even more given that the feedstock must be drained to obtain the oil. Four pounds of a crop can result in only one pound of oil, meaning farmers would be getting paid only 7 cents per pound for their crops.

“The farmers never went back to another meeting,” said Ha.

This story looks at biofuels, and their role in Hawaii’s push for energy independence…. (Read more)

It is no secret that I am very concerned about betting too much of our future on biofuels just because we feel that we need them desperately. The critical chokepoint is feedstock.

We need to take a deep breath and we need to talk to farmers. Read about when I asked HECO not to let us get flattened by the wild bull.