PGV at 30% production

[blizzardwizard]

yes hemp isn't legal enough here. It also not nearly as profitable to grow mixed male female fields as the seeds take nutrients from the """legal high""" producing female buds.

[kalakoa]

Hence my confusion: if the State encouraged hemp production, there would be enough pollen in the air to ruin outdoor recreational production. Licensed medical producers are already required to grow indoors...

[Justin]

I think renewable energy, specifically solar, will really take off in the next 5-10 years as batteries become both more efficient and cheaper. There's more than enough sun, even in Puna, to run all the power necessary at a given house, and charge electric vehicles as well. The problem has been that solar required either 1) a grid-tie to HELCO, which they (for all practical purposes) killed a few years ago, or 2) going completely off-grid, and dealing with inefficient, expensive, or labor-intensive batteries.

But once Tesla (or better yet, multiple competing companies) can manufacture batteries that you can cheaply install on the wall of your garage and that require no maintenance, which can store at night nearly all of the electricity produced during the day, everyone can (and likely will) jettison HELCO and install solar. The "grid" will slowly decline in the same way landlines disappeared over the past 20 years. Yes, businesses and some less technologically inclined people will stick with the old technology, but there will be less and less every year.

[kalakoa]

Off-grid here. Batteries weren't expensive or labor-intensive. If they're inefficient, I'm not seeing it. No lifestyle compromises, either.

Tesla already makes zero-maintenance battery packs that hang on the wall.

HELCO's grid-tie limits are primarily about revenue protection.

[randomq]

Yeah, my amortized cost to be completely off the power grid is now less than a dollar a day. I do have an hour or so of monthly maintenance using the cheapest lead acid batteries, but I can live with that for now.

[kalakoa]

When I still had wet batteries I plumbed them with a gravity-feed BWT setup:

https://www.usbattery.com/products/watering-systems/

Totally worth it. Caps are standard size, you can move everything to new batteries as needed.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

An application for a four stall Tesla Supercharger has been filed for the island of Lanai.  Also, a mention that there are plans to convert the entire island power supply to solar electricity.  At some point:

This would seem to indicate that the chargers would be of the Urban Supercharger variety and in likely service of Larry Ellison’s Four Seasons Hotels, which rely on Model X vehicles to shuttle guests to and from the airport and around the island’s luxury amenities.

Ellison plans to convert the island’s power from diesel to solar/battery, and obviously Tesla’s expertise here is likely to be tapped.

https://electrek.co/2020/12/22/it-appear...on-island/

[Obie]

But for now it's grid tie.

Why not go all in and make it stand alone solar ?

ELECTRICAL WORK INCLUDES INSTALLATION OF UNDERGROUND HECO SERVICE (480/277V, 3PH) AND PAD MOUNT METERING SWITCHBOARD.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

I’ll just add this news story from today, not directly Hawaii related but tangentially related if you drive a car or truck in Hawaii:

GM Sets 2035 Target to Phase Out Gas-, Diesel-Powered Vehicles Globally


https://www.wsj.com/articles/gm-sets-203...1611850343

[blizzardwizard]

electric or internal combustion, they will both would require oil imports to Hawaii. at that (2035) time demand for solar will increase immensely, but I suspect the oil market will still hand a brutal bill to HELCO.

As far as I am concerned they should just legalize real weed growing, so people who want to get high can get high and the people who want to make hemp oil/fiber/fodder can do that. Although, I suppose there are lots of people who use CBD specifically to not get high, just to feel the soothing effect. having had a pot plant turn out male myself I can say for sure that any field large enough to produce a meaningful quantity of oil will will absolutely RUIN any bud crop for miles if the wind is right. The bud production is reduced by at least 85%. I would like the soothing effect of taking my biodiesel car to the weed store and getting lit up.

---

after a cursory web search I have determined hemp can infact hybridize with cannabis and ruin the crop