PCF— Environmental Sustainability Day

PART I

Our day began with a panel discussion with Hawaiian Electric Companies Robbie Alm, Executive Vice President; Colton Ching, Manager, Corporate Planning Dept.; Darcy Endo-Omoto, Vide President, Government and Community Affairs; and Scott Seu, Manager, Resource Acquisition Department.

Robbie Alm spoke of how Hawai'i is in a unique position to "get off of oil." The rest of the US is stuck on cheap energy from coal, whereas Hawai'i gets most of its electricity from burning petroleum whcih we all know is volatile and only going to go up in price. The break down of Mainland versus Hawai'i electricity generation:
Mainland:
coal— 48%
natural gas— 21%
nuclear— 20% (I was surprised it was so high)
hydro— 6%
petroleum— 2%
renewable— 3%

Hawai'i:
petroleum— 77%
coal— 15% (I was surprised that figure was so high)
renewable— 8%
hydro— 1%

With a Gross State Product of $63.8 billion (Colton Ching), Hawai'i spent $8.4 billion on energy with most of that ($7 billion) getting sent out of the state. 90% of the spending is on fossil fuels: jet fuel (34%), electricity (32%), gasoline/marine fuel (27%)

HECO, according to Mr. Alm has made a commitment to change its corporate philosophy to provide clean energy. Employees or managers who refuse to embrace that philosophy have been let go. The three goals for HECO heading into the future:

1) meet clean energy goals (renewable, greenhouse gas targets) while maintaining service
2) reliability, safety
3) reasonable costs

They are proposing a paradigm shift for energy:
— from economic drain to economic engine
— from energy insecurity to security
— from environmental harm to compatibility
— from price volatility to stability

To achieve those goals HECO will aggressively pursue all forms of renewables: solar, biomass, geothermal, OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion), wind, wave, biofuel, refuse (H-Power), and hydrogen. For now, the most viable commercially, available on a large scale in a five-year horizon, and with no fuel cost are solar and wind energy.

The large scale wind generation plan calls for putting wind farms on Moloka'i and Lana'i and then sending the electricity to O'ahu via an underwater cable. (The neighbor islands represent 322,922 people— roughly 38% of the state— but are much richer in renewables. The Big Island gets 29% of its peak load from wind, Lana'i 28%, and Maui 17% from wind.) The challenges of the underwater cable project:
— interisland connection
— effective integration of intermittent generation
— what to do with oil-burning plants?
— switch to sustainable biofuels?
— testing at Kahe and Ma'alaea
— new biofuel unit at Campbell Industrial Park
— customer role
— choices: efficiency, pricing options

The role of HECO is changing. The key word I heard was "decoupling:: eliminating the incentive of HECO to make more money when people consume more electricity. As a result it will set rates and revenues based on grid and investments in the new grid that are financially sound and reliable (two other key words repeated several times).

Resources:

hawaiienergyfuture.com
heco.com
hawaiicleanenergyinitiative.org
hawaii.gov/dbedt/info/energy
Hawaii National Energy Institute
hawaiienergy.com


PART II

The next part of the day consisted of a presentations about the "State of the Industry: Hawai'i's Clean Energy Initiative" from representatives of the government and alternative energy industries.

Representing the government were Ted Peck, state energy adminstrator; Representative Hermina Morita, Chain, House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee; and Carlito Caliboso, Chairman, Public Utilities Commission.

Representative Morita started off discussing the importance of using the statutory power to implement energy policy. Long-term thinking is required connecting PUC, Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, the legislature, and the gubernatorial administration.

Mr. Caliboso gave a brief history of the PUC: created by the legislature to regulate utilities, so that they are reliable (there's that word again), with fair rates, and provide a reasonable return. The latter two goals are in conflict with each other and that's where the challenge lies in working with a for-profit company like HECO. Policy objective include: energy security— reduce dependence on foreign oil, ensure supply, stable prices; and climate change.

Ted Peck showed how the Hawai'i Clean Energy Initiative— which seeks to generate 70% of Hawai'i's energy with renewables by 2030— shapes up in specific data.
Current (ha!) situation:
— 2,351 MW capacity
— 1,691 MW peak load
— 201 MW renewables
— 853 MW under development today

The near-term potential for renewables: $1.3 billion in revenue ($158 million in tax revenue) and 2,600 construction jobs; $220 million annual revenue ($12 million tax revenue) and 500 sustained jobs. To achieve this objective the state is focused on getting private money into the transformation. They need $16-20 million and so far they've received $220 million from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act passed in the spring of 2009.

The industry representatives were Wren Westcoatt from First Wind, Roy Starling from Hawai'i Energy, Riley Saito from Sun Power Corporation, and Joel Matsunaga from Hawai'i Bio Energy.

Wren Westcoatt spoke of how First Wind has 8 wind farms nationwide and 2 in Hawai'i (Kaheawa on Maui and Kahuku on O'ahu). He said it generally takes 3 years to build a project: 2 years for permitting and environmental assessments, and then 6-9 months for actual construction. Once built a project will run for 20 years. He also said they have a 8 MW battery by Xtreme Power, Inc. to store energy in case the wind dies down.

Roy Starling shared how Hawai'i Energy main mission is to uphold the conservation and efficiency part of the HCEI. Of the 70% alternative energy called for in HCEI, 30% will come from cutting down on waste in our current grid.

Riley Saito highlighted how progress is being made in photovoltaic (PV) technology due to federal subsidies, uncapping the tax credit, and a drop in PV prices. We are getting close to voided (?) costs.

Joel Matsunaga explained how Hawai'i Bio Energy has 6 partners: Grove Farm, Kamehameha Schools, Maui Land and Pineapple, Vinod Khosla, and Ohana Holdings (Pierre Omidyar). Farmers grow the crops to use as biofuels but they need land, water, technology, and the seeds. So far they've experimented with sorghum, eucalyptus, sweet beets, amd micro-algae. The latter is funded by the military. Phase 1 has called for Hawai'i Bio Energy to produce oil at $2 per gallon and jet fuel at $3 per gallon, which they have successfully achieved. Phase 2 calls for getting production costs of oil down to $1 per gallon. The goal is to have a "green fleet"— bio-fuel jet fuel by 2012.

The potential for alternative energy in Hawai'i is huge. Moloka'i and Lana'i wind farms can produce 10% of the state's energy needs. Solar heating is currently on 25% of houses-- why not more? Solar energy is the most intense in the US-- we currently generate 10/w per capita, we're on pace to double that every year, feed-in tariffs are under development, and the dept. of energy estimates we can generate 1 GW of energy from solar. Biofuels have the potential to send 5 million barrels per year to HECO for their biofuel plants. This could double agriculture in Hawai'i and displace 10% of the pertoleum to the state.


PART III

Our second stop was at the Gas Company where we heard from Tom Young, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer; Mike Kita, Director of Supply and Logistics; Stephanie Ackerman, Vice President, Sales and Customer Loyalty; Jill Tokunaga, Vice President, Marketing; and Vince Loo, SNG Plant Manager.

The Gas Company has 1,000 mile network on the south side of O'ahu. They boast an 89% efficiency rate in their production and transmission (versus 30% at HECO).

The Gas Company's renewable strategy starts with Act 234 which requires Hawai'i businesses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to below 1990 levels by 2020. Hawai'i is unique in that we have no natural gas, so we must produce our own. TGS is the only US gas utility that produces its own syngas. Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG) is a low carbon heat source. TGC seeks to produce 50% of their SNG from renewable sources by 2015. Their plant flexibility allows for renewable gas generation and experiments are under way utilizing various biofuels. They currently use naptha from the neighboring Tesoro plant. Its also conceivable that they might be able to use the spent algae use by Hawaii Bio Energy as a feedstock.

Hydrogen is a bi-product of the SNG process. This hydrogen can be used to develop hydrogen fuel cells for the future.


PART IV

Our next stop was at the H-Power plant where we heard from Robert Webster, Facility Manager; and Rodney Smith, Facility Business Manager. There we learned that the average US citizen produces 4.5 lbs. of waste per day, versus 6.8 lbs. in Hawai'i (include tourists).

Waste composition:
cardboard and paper— 31%
yard trimmings— 13.2%
food scraps— 12.7%
plastics— 12.0%
metals— 8.4%
rubber, leather, textiles— 7.9%
wood— 6.6%
glass— 4.9%
other— 3.3%

H-Power is managed by Covanta. They claim to be able to burn 80% of all municipal waste (excluding hazardous, medical, or sewage waste) and that once the third boilers is built they will be able to burn 100% of the waste and convert it into energy. 1 ton of trash burned equals 1 barrel of oil. They are able to generate 45 megawatts of renewable energy, or enough to power about 45,000 homes. They also are able to recycle the ferrous and non-ferrous metals that come out of the burning process. The left over ash is sent to the landfill.

This all sounded way too good to be true, and considering the source it probably is. They claim that there is virtually no emissions of hazardous gases into the environment and that the ash is not a problem. They seemed to suggest that recycling is a waste of time and resources because they can burn almost all of our solid waste. Because their bonuses are based on how much electricity they produce, it makes sense that they would want as much of our waste as possible.

PART V

Our long day ended at the Fed Ohrt Water Museum in Kalihi. We heard from Arthur Aiu, Community Relations Specialist, Honolulu Board of Water Supply; and Carolyn “Cat” Sawai, Internal Conservation Program Coordinator, Water Resources Division. They essentially told us that we have nothing to worry about when it comes to water (?!). Apparently we get approximately 5 billion gallons into the watershed each day but only pump about 150 million gallons. Nevertheless, they still gave us a packet about how to conserve water, which is nice. If we ever run into a water crisis in the future, there is already a well drilled into the caprock to allow for desalinization. that may be nice as well, but not the proper message in my view.