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aloha,
i Just saw an interesting news story on CBS evening news and also on the current USA today news about countries like Brazil that are completely becoming oil independent by developing sugar based ethanol and developing infrastructure, combo fuel cars and refineries that cater to this technology.
Whats the upside for Brazil - cheaper to produce gas locally, no dependency on foreign oil, a new export product and a better environmental product....the main issue USA ethanol has not worked is that its based on corn products which is more expensive to produce, but here in hawaii we have lots of sugar that can be utilized.
i wonder if this can be an issue worth investigating in hawaii especially with our gasoline being the highest in the country.
heres the USA Today article,
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-0...OE=TECISVA
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There was a story on NPR this last week about a 15 million gallon capacity ethanol plant planned on Oahu. With Dole closing out pineapple in Hawaii there will be a couple hundred thousand acres of underused ag land. The plan is, as I heard it, to plant sorghum and cane for ethanol production.
Part of the ethanol run will be as an extender for gasoline and part will be to displace oil for electric generation.
So it seems that it is underway and I think it is great!
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Noel, sugar production today is drastically cut from the 'days of sugar '. Last year the Star Bulletin had and article looking into this. If sugar production returned to the pre-1985 level, we could produce enough ethanol to replace 30% of our gasoline cnsumtion. see article:
www.sest.hawaii.edu/csf/Honolulu%20Star-Bulletin%20Business%20-%20Think%20Inc%20August%201.PDF
The Hawaii government has also looked into this:
www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/new-fuel/files/ethanol-stillwater.doc
Hope these links help. Remember that many of the newer subdivisions are on old sugar land
Aloha, Carey
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this sounds good, hope they are serious about it, however with big oil in charge in the white house and congress it will be an uphill battle for federal funds.
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Hawaii is just about the perfect climate for sugarcane - temperature and rain. Using current technology, ethanol is produced mainly from extracted sugar, with some energy potential from burning the residues (stocks, leaves, etc). The ultimate goal is to be able to turn all the plant biomass into "sugars" that can be fermented into ethanol - there are plenty of carbohydrates/sugar moieties in the plant, but most are locked up in polymers not easily extracted (cellulose, hemicellulose, lignins, etc). Once those problems are solved, probably looking at ten years plus, then Hawaii could become fuel independent, even with continued development. That's the good news. The bad news is some foresight/planning is needed for two reasons:
1. developments eating up the existing prime sugarcane growing regions. 2. Utilization of land traditionally not practical for agriculture, such as lava flows from the last hundred years or so. Much of that land could do perfectly well with sugarcane, but there would have to be large scale conversion into plantable conditions (some form of ripping/pulverising of lava, etc.). Unfortunately, My impression is that the State/County are not real big on long-term planning.
Olin
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hello all,
nice input from everyone, i'll be willing to put my increased tax dollars into this worthwhile endeavor - i'll least i'll see my tax dollars being put to use benefitting the entire populace....athough better utilities throughout puna would be nice also....
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In Time magazine this week in an article about how Sweden, being much smarter than US, saw the future of oil dependence and reduced oil as an energy source from 74% in 1996 to 34% today. They project being 0% dependent on oil by 2012.
If they can do it so could we.
It is a shame that our country lacks the leadership to make such long term plans and committments.
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The problem is not only a lack of leadership, it is also the nature of the population that is different. Every time we have a "gas crisis," people reduce their use of gas, and sales of smaller cars go up. As soon as the "crisis" passes, most people return to their previous behavior. A government which deliberately raised gax taxes to increase the cost per gallon significantly in order to reduce consumption would almost certainly be voted out of office.
Howard
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It would be exciting to see this ethanol plant really come into fruition on Oahu, what a fantastic thing to show the rest of the nation that we can also be an exporter of product and not just an importer of products to the islands. That and the fact that we can diversify our economy from mostly tourism, agriculture, real estate and small businesses and even create a viable large scale industry to support the state economy.
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There is another aspect to this ethanol plant which would be a good thing. Dole is closing out pineapple. Those workers will be out of a job and out of a home. The lands, left fallow, would become a magnet for futher development. The ethanol venture would, apparently, employ many of the Dole workers and keep thos acres in agricultural use.
I hope the tale is as good as it reads. If it is a private venture I would have more inherent faith than if the state was involved.
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