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Correct! And delivered by a state sponsored monopoly called Matson and Young Brothers! And a state government that is one of the largest anywhere! And expanding, with HELCOs to make solarpower!
How about fixing OTEC to work again, and expand Ormat to kill the oil import costs. Place underground electric lines to Kau, and Kona. Right down the middle of the road, all around the island. No more fuel surcharge, promote electric cars!
Between solar, wind and geothermal, we could eliminate oil imports!
Gordon J Tilley
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You don't have to get your power from Helco, ya know. Instead of having "them" fix it, if everyone made their own electricity then we wouldn't have to worry about Helco's electric rates, use of oil, etc.
As far as the general state of our economy, about all we have are service jobs. When folks get a college education, they don't look to Hawaii for employment opportunities!
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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I think that they are saying that "high" minimum wages are one of the causes of being the 6th worst economy. Accident rates should be brought down, but a lot of the cost of worker's compensation are high awards for minor injuries. The law is stacked against the employer and its insurer.
Aloha,
Rob L
Aloha,
Rob L
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The PBN headline is somewhat misleading. If you go to the original source of the report,
http://www.alec.org/ the actual rating is for economic competitiveness and not strength of economy. Those two things are related, but not the same. They rate Vermont, a fairly prosperous state as the worst. Regardless, it isn't good news, and Hawaii continues to have a reputation as a difficult place to do business.
Cheers,
Jerry
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Here's my question and perhaps the good Dr. could reply?
How is it that since the cost of gasoline is only circa ten cents per gallon higher here on the Big Island than most of the mainland, the cost of electricity is three times the mean cost on the mainland when most of our electricity is produced from bunker fuel, a petrochemical, which takes 'less' refining than gasoline?
JayJay
JayJay
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Monopoly! When you're the only game in town ya charge what the market will bear. Better yet, being basically part of the govt. they're protected by law from any competition!
What if Geothermal wanted to expand, establish it's own lines and cut the rates? No way Jose, Matson and YB simply wouldn't ship for them if they tried! In Hawaii, you play the game or get stepped on unless yor're in with em!
Gordon J Tilley
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quote:
Originally posted by gtill...
Correct! And delivered by a state sponsored monopoly called Matson and Young Brothers!...
Dont forget at least one other - Sause. They bring many of the flat racks over from No west.
They (shippers) are no better than the airlines ... well worse because they dont ever run the $19 tariff.
Does any one remember when Alaska Tel wanted to get into the game here (so Point, etc)? Hawaiian tel had such limited service on many parts of the Big Island - but they basically tied up AT in court so bad they pulled out.
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Other than the obvious monopoly, one reason frequently given for our high cost of electricity is the lack of connection to an interstate (or even interisland) grid. This prevents bringing in power for peak usage periods from other regions and forces HECO and its subsidiaries to have reserve generating capacity on every island that is infrequently used. They also claim that the fragmented nature of the small individual island grids prevents ecomomies of scale in power plant construction, distribution networks, etc. Some of this is legitimate and some is not, IMHO.
It should also be noted that state utility regulatory law guarantees HECO, et al., a profit on their investment regardless of how badly they manage their monopoly. This is supposedly to protect them from going bankrupt and leaving us without a power producer. Yeah, right.
As far at the geothermal and wind energy projects, the State guys keep telling us that they they guarantee the producers the same rates as HELCO gets because they would not come here otherwise. It does not take a very cynical person to think that protecting the good old boys at HELCO from competition is a big reason for this. And so it goes on and on.
Cheers,
Jerry
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Just curious, how much do you pay per kWh for a residential service on the Big Island? Also, what are the most significant contributors to electric load in a typical house? For instance, where I live in CO it is heating.
Marcia
