PBS Hawaii: Alternative Energy Part Two

Last Thursday, PBS's round table with Dan Boylan centered around energy policy in Hawaii. Guests included Robert Alm, Executive VP of Hawaiian Electric; Theodore Peck, State Energy Administrator of DBEDT; Senator Mike Gabbard, Chairman of the Energy and Environment Committee; and Carlito Caliboso, Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission sharing their commentary.  The discussion was great. It hit upon a lot of the issues which have been percolating on this blog but the optimism exhibited by these policy makers was exciting. It's a shame that even a snippet of the discussion could not be a part of the morning television or radio programs, which get more of an audience than PBS. 

Boylan got the discussion started by asking why solar panels weren't on the roofs of every home and business in Hawaii. The panel speakers responded by saying solar is the easiest and cheapest way to wean our island off fossil fuels tomorrow. One speaker said, "Talk about '[Keep it] simple stupid'." Another called solar panels a "no brainer".  Despite the fact that solar panels eventually pay for themselves and end up saving home owners' money in the long run, the panelists acknowledged the modest capital investment required is a deterrent for many home owners.  Solar water heaters, all agreed, was the no brainerest no brainer of them all, paying itself off after just two years!  

The issue of our outdated grid seemed to be one of the the biggest issues of the day. Currently, the grid is centralized and home owners producing renewable energy in their own homes are unable to sell excess energy back into the grid, thereby wasting perfectly good energy. Alm commented that this was not a problem unique to Hawai, that all states are dealing with this same issue right now, and that some of the Obama Stimulus Package may be used to modernize our grid. 

I was delighted to hear one of the panelists state simply that Hawaii has abundant agricultural land that it is lying fallow because it is simply not profitable farmers. No solution offered on that one. 

It was Mike Gabbard who mentioned that he had actually met Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, who he described as "salivating" at the prospect of Hawaii becoming a model of sustainability. Nelson was salivating presumably because it is sooo possible here, with the multiple modes of alternative energy (solar, wind, geothermal, ocean thermal) available here and our desperate need to be sustainable given that we live on an island 2,500 from anywhere. "The world is watching," Gabbard said.  

All of the speakers kept coming back to the possibility that we will repeat the mistake made in the 1970s--of forgetting about all of this once gas prices go down again.  "$140 barrels of oil does not work," Alm said. Energy prices are back down as a result of the global economic downturn, but he encouraged everyone to take out their electricity bills from a couple months ago and put it up  on their refrigerator as a reminder of what will surely come again.