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geothermal is the option this island shouldn't turn their back on. I'm as progressive as the next person, and I have a brain too. If Iceland, an entire country can tap geothermal without any problems to their society. Why can't we do the same thing here on the Big Island? Oh, that's right HELCO would do their best to make sure we all would never be allowed to tap that energy....STUPID!!
" If God had intended us not to masturbate he would've made our arms shorter."
George Carlin
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Support the 'Jack Herer Initiative'NOW!!
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If HECO is interested we'd better run for the hills, and they're talking coal!
Damon, ask Rob Tucker, he's the one who talked to a Sierra Club person!
The only way the people of this island are going to get ahead with power generation is to override HELCO, they're the ones who are ripping us off! Or are you hooking up to HELCO at 50K, and smiling?
Gordon J Tilley
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Beware Blue Point, looks slick and might work, but it would be mostly for large users, and Helco would have to make up the difference with householders! It almost sounds like Jfitz's wood gas rig, but doesn't get very specific how! It uses a fuel to operate, and uses the waste heat for AC and heating!
It is also a Bulletin Board (not grade A) stock, at least Ormat is an established company, with huge experience and capable to expand to over 200MW, sufficient to power the whole Island! Plus with the solar and wind, electric cars could get a foothold here!
My hope is the Hawaiian community would get behind this thing! Time to bury the hatchet, Mabe try look into what they're doing in New Zealand, Braddahs you could benefit a bunch from this thing if it could get going! It wasen't this company that caused the humbug, it was the state and some small drillers, working beyond their capability!
At least check em out, we all need a break!
Gordon J Tilley
quote:
Originally posted by Damon
Hawaiian Public Utilities Commission Ruling Opens Hawaiian Islands to BluePoint Energy and Distributed Generation Energy Market
......."Cogeneration, or combined heat and power (CHP), is widely recognized as one of the most efficient, environmentally sensitive and economical forms of energy production available today"......
Looks like BluePoint may be able to help consumers here in Hawaii.
quote:
Originally posted by gtill
Beware Blue Point, looks slick and might work, but it would be mostly for large users, and Helco would have to make up the difference with householders!....
I only posted it... because it was breaking news and it was interesting that it was being brought up as we were discussing this.
I haven't looked into the company too much just yet. [  ]
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Moved
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Starwood hotels picked up blue point for stand by power generation, but back in 2006. What else!
Gordon J Tilley
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Solar would also work well for Hawaii. Especially for hot water.
It's also very easy to make your own solar hot water heater. Solar will heat water even on cloudy days.
I wanted to add that the Movie, Burning the Future, is also on DVD and may be available on Netflix. I haven't checked, but I bet they have it.
This is a good discussion. I think de-centralized power is the way to go. Individuals and communities can create their own power sources. Of course, conservation is the key to the new energy future. We need to wean ourselves off our addiction to electricity.
april
april
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So SB and I were talking about PGV and Helco last night. For those who know - what are the drawbacks, limitations or benefits to PGV supplying our power directly? Breaking up the monopoly HELCO has?
Would they even be able to do that?
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That's the one thing strikes me in Hawaii, dependence on oil to generate electricity. I remmeber seeing all the rusty windmills near Southpoint and wondered why they weren't running? Of course that was two years ago and I didn't get a chance to visit that area this March so maybe they were repaired and are now running. Be glad the BI has at least the possiblilty for geothermal, I don't think the other islands do?
Puna: Our roosters crow first
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Perhaps there isn't one answer to the energy question but rather a lot of individual answers. If everyone were producing their own residential power with wind or solar wouldn't the state use a lot less oil? We are completely off the grid and our system was well under $10K. It paid for itself years ago. We would like a couple more photovoltaic panels but what we have is enough most of the time. We couldn't afford the whole system at the time so we just got half and have been making do and it's been working. It was about $6K to get the half of the system we are using.
Here is an interesting site which may help folks break away from HELCO:
http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_experiments.html
There is some interesting projects involving brake rotors turned into wind generators. I may try to talk my DH into trying one out for a summer project.
To get off the grid, your house wiring can remain the way it is. Replace all incandescent light bulbs with curly bulbs or fluorescent bulbs. Replace any electric unit which produces heat with some non-electric item. Mostly that means a gas stove, solar or gas water heater and a clothes line or gas dryer. Even if you stay connected to the grid, do all this anyway to lower your electric bills.
Then get an inverter (inverters change DC power to AC power) that will probably cost approximately $1.5K - $3K (Outback is a really good brand name for inverters), then get a bank of solar panels - probably around six to eight of them that put out 150watts or more per panel (those may run around $1K a panel), a charge controller (about $200) and eight to sixteen golf cart batteries. Those run about $80 each. We used welding cable with fittings soldered onto the ends to connect the batteries together but you can get battery cables for probably around $15 to $20 each. All that including paying someone $2K to wire it all together should run somewhere around $16K. You'd probably also want to get a small generator, a 1.5KW or 2KW to charge the batteries with during extended cloudy times. That would be an additional $2K. So, if your electric bill is $200 a month the whole system will be paid for in six years. This doesn't include any tax benefits you might get as well.
On that "other" Big Island forum someone was mentioning they had 33 solar panels (???!!! Either those are really small panels, they are in the shade or they are running a welding shop on electricity) AND they still had HELCO bills of $150 to $200 a month. Doesn't seem right to me but they didn't post any details. Seems getting entirely away from HELCO (other than being a stockholder) is the best way to deal with the price of electricity in Hawaii.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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Hotzcatz
Thank you for posting that site and describing your system, once we finish our house, setting it up for independence or at least reduction from Helco will be the next step. It seems so expensive to start it, but in time I think prices will go down and technology will get better - like computers-. I know it pays for itself eventually, but we also have 4 college tuitions to pay for!! This is a great thread.
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