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The prices we pay here in Pahoa are beyond rediculus for energy costs. I bugs me everytime I see they're trucks saying " Helco giving you the power" It should say "Helco giving you the finger".
In the old days they used sugarcane husks to burn for energy, very clean and was almost free. This can be done again, on the mainland ethanol from corn is driving food costs up really badly. We in Hawaii depond solely on the desires of tourists if they come great if not well you know the rest. My point is why not rebuild the sugarcane industry for ethanol use just like my home country Brazil. We can grow year round, unlike Kansas with thier corn. This would give us a cash crop for the mainland to buy, cheap and renewable energy for us.
Reduced unemployment, cheaper energy costs would equal more money in our own economy and less foodstamps or wellfare.
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Two problems with ethanol; The acreage required to produce to meet need and still burning fossil fuels creating CO2.
My leaning is geothermal, but it doesn't seem to get much traction here.
Dan
Ethanol is great, if you want to switch from food crops to fuel crops. Food is people fuel. Ethanol is car fuel. Bio-fuels have caused food prices to skyrocket globally.
The key is to figure out how to do with less or none at all.
A silly as it sounds, Obama was right about tune up your car and slightly over inflate your tires. Take the bus, combine trips, Car pool, line dry your clothes, wear them more between washes. Make a solar water heater, get tough and take a cold shower, Build a Jay Fitz rocket stove. eat food raw, etc.
Try to get your electrical consumption down to 200 - 300 kwh per month.
Get a bike.
Co2 level is a function of Henry's law. You will see in the next 20 tears that Co2 levels will drop as the Sun cycles toward cooling. the ocean temps which lag will drop start absorbing Co2 by the giga-ton.
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There are a lot of folks who aren't connected to the power grid at all and some who only have it as a backup. Go wind and solar and then you don't have to worry about the price of grid power. We've been completely off the grid for a long time and a lot of the rest of the folks around here are off grid, too. We, are, however, invested in Hawaiian Electric. They send us money instead of the other way around. You can do it, too, go off grid and invest in HE.
Frequently folks take their electric bill into a solar company and ask for a system sized to run their house. If you go that route it will be horrendously expensive. To get a much more reasonably priced system go over your house item by item and figure out how to use the least amount of power possible. Then take that number in to ask for a quote on a power system. That would be a much more affordable system.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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I am all for green energy, Wind, Solar and Geothermal! We are thinking of installing 2 wind turbines on our waterfront property later this year. My only concern about wind power is the birds that get caught in it. Geothermal makes so much sense on the BI. Also, we have a LOT of rushing rivers, water power also would make sense.
Sugar Cane? Isn't that industry known for extreme pollution when the have to burn the cane fields?
I lived in Chicago where all gas has ethanol. Gas is just as expensive there as it is in SF or Hawaii. NO KIDDING! Furthermore, it is true that the charge for ethanol subsidized corn farmers and made corn much more expensive. Also because it was so profitable for farmers, they quit growing wheat and other grains which is why cereal, flour and birdseed among other things have doubled in price.
Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany
Devany Vickery-Davidson
East Bay Potters
www.eastbaypotters.com
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talkin energy? why isn't the sun our #1 source? it's free, plentiful, and renewable! for instance, our local government could say, if you want a commercial building permit you must cover any roof you build with solar panels, no panels no permit! every hotel on the west side could be adding power to the grid, but no they just take!
geothermal? yeah right, put our dependance on electricity down on the rift.. hahaha! yikes those who think this is a good idea need to take a geology class. if you worry about highway 130 being our only way out of puna in the event of something happening with kilauea, what does that worry say about all of us becoming dependent upon geothermal?
biofuels? a great idea, after all the people on the planet have been fed! has anyone figured out how to feed 'em all yet?
solar! have you noticed how a plants' leaves track the sun? the entire planet is covered in solar powered organisms! what are we missing here? everything shy of solar power is just BS!
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Plenty of geothermal sites not on the rift.
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Small scale do it yourself solar systems, or the only kind that make sense, are effectively illegal in Hawaii, are they not? They aren't going to be either small scale or sensible once you get that permit and licensed electrician involved.
Maybe making good solutions illegal, unaffordable, or unpermitable might be in some way part of the problem.
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quote:
Originally posted by DanielP
Plenty of geothermal sites not on the rift.
Where? In the late 70's and early '80s Dr Don Thomas (currently the head of the CSAV program at UH) made a map of all the geothermal resources in Hawaii. Dr Thomas initially identified 20 potential sites throughout the state, of which, upon further investigation very few were actually considered viable. In the end only the two rift zone of Kilauea and a small area on the southeastern tip of Maui were actually defined, and legally designated, as geothermal subzones. Since that time there has been 3 efforts at tapping into this resource, all of which were on Kilauea's East Rift Zone. And, even though the area being explored was designated as being 100 percent viable, one of the three, built right on the rift, failed to find any resource at all. So, please enlighten me as to where one is going to find all those geothermal sites that you are referring to.
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I know a guy who runs a multi-room bed and breakfast on hydropower with no utility hook-up. First, it took him 3 years to get the permits. Second, he has a 60 foot waterfall in his back yard. Do you know how rare that is? Third, sometimes when there has been no rain or too much rain has washed away his collection pipes, he has to run a generator.
There is a school of thought that says hydropower is not green. Many beautiful valleys have been inundated to build hydropower dams. The organic matter that collects at the bottom of such reservoirs decays and emits methane which is worse than CO2. Gotta admit I don't know how a hydropower reservoir is worse than a natural lake in this regard though. Anyway to make hydropower work you have to take a river that was doing its own thing before and put it on a leash. Practically speaking there will be some environmental consequences from this. Big dams ruin spawning runs. Who will be the judge as to whether your small backyard system is having an unsatisfactory impact on the environment? Emotionally, there would be some PETA types who would object to altering the river at all.
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