Honua Ola Bioenergy, fake emails sent to PUC

[leilanidude]

This project should have never been allowed to even start construction. There was never any intent by this company to price the electricity to be sold, at a price that would benefit Hawaii island consumers.
There has been a lot of recent false claims by the company and their employees, even holding "save our jobs" rallies. Social media was being blanketed by these employees with all sorts of fake claims about the project and the jobs.
I do not doubt for a minute that this company was trying to deceive the PUC with fake support letters.
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2020/09/0...e851d817d1
"The PUC said after receiving the seven emails, it sent a standard message to the email addresses acknowledging receipt of the public comments. The PUC said it got replies Monday from the seven email address holders, saying they did not send emails in support of Hu Honua.

“The Commission is gravely concerned about this matter, as: (1) it impacts and risks violating the privacy of those who have had their email accounts used to file public comments they did not authorize; and (2) calls into question the credibility and legality of other public comments filed in this docket, which the Commission notes number in the thousands.”

[randomq]

It would have cost less than oil generated electricity, even if not as cheap as solar. But... Wow, sending in fake testimonies might be their undoing. I wonder if it was them or a misguided supporter.

[leilanidude]

I think it was a combination of the company along with a misguided supporter. I find it odd that the PUC came out on the emails on Monday and by Wednesday, the company had already "investigated" and provided a response of "it wasn't us".

The "support page"  https://savehawaiiislandjobs.com/

seems to try and imply that they will be saving us all from burning fossil fuels. Excuse me, but all those chain saws and trucks moving logs up and down the highway will be using a lot of fossil fuels.
This was the wrong project for this island.

[rainyjim]

Classic, Hawaii. State and county twiddles thumbs on blocking telescope(s), but a wood burning power plant that sells energy at twice the cost of solar - only in Hawaii?

Laughing down the street here that they are calling it renewable and bioenergy now - whatever those terms are supposed to mean - probably somewhere in the same neighborhood as ‘sustainable’.

[kalakoa]

Isn't PGV also a source of clean energy and jobs? But it's not run by the "right people", so cannot be allowed to restart...?

[ChunksterK]

I'm puzzled because I thought the president of Honua Ola, Warren Lee, was one of those "right people." He was the Hawaii County Public Works Director under the Kenoi administration and is well connected with the old boys network. Could there be a split in the ruling bloc? Several well connected people told me that the half-hearted prosecution of Kenoi was engineered not to convict him, but to squelch his gubernatorial ambitions. So Honua Ola might be caught up in a Byzantine back-room political brawl among the powers that be. It's so confusing when the "right people" are no longer the right people.

[kalakoa]

Small possibility it's simple economics: in the 10 years they've been building Honua Ola, solar has gotten cheaper and large-scale storage has become practical.

For fun, consider how many units of Tesla Powerwall could be installed for the price of one Honua Ola. Not 100% coverage but enough to make a difference.

[ChunksterK]

"Small possibility it's simple economics . . . " - kalakoa

I suppose, but since when has saving the consumers money mattered when it came to making sure the well connected get to make all the profits they want? And utility contracts in Hawaii generally have guaranteed profit margins built in.

[Seeb-2]

If they did equivalent in oil cost Thing like all the other generators it would be accepted, but they wanted $200 a barrel Guarantee. Think oil is in the $40s