OCT 23

Let's hear it for Hawaii. The island nation is walking into the future a touch faster than the rest of the United States by pledging to never again build a coal-fired power plant. And since coal plants have a lifespan of between 30 and 50 years, Hawaii will someday be 100% coal free.

Another portion of the pledge is to be 70% powered by renewable energy in 2030. These are big goals, and not simple to achieve. Hawaii has a bit of an advantage over the rest of the U.S. though. First, a small population where power is already far more expensive (due to shipping costs) than elsewhere in America.

They also (obviously) have tremendous geothermal potential, not to mention plenty of windy and sunny days per year. However, they also face some unique challenges. Because the state is geographically divided from itself, it's difficult to generate power for each individual island. That's why part of this plan is to create an undersea cable connecting Maui (where lots of renewable power is already generated) to Molokai and Lanai.

The plan includes feed-in tariffs for renewable electricity, tax breaks for biofuels, and a plan to run Hawaii's many oil-fired power plants on "sustainably harvested" biofuels. This bit is the sketchy. If I know one thing about Hawaii, it's that it is a biological gem, and we certainly shouldn't be harming that...even if it means increased carbon emissions.

Details on the plan will continue to emerge, and we're hoping that other states will be following in Hawaii's footsteps soon.

Via TreeHugger

Comments (5)

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residents also making personal pledges t
written by Olin Lagon, October 23, 2008

Also, Hawaii residents have made over 27,000 personal commitments to change in their own lives via www.kanuhawaii.org - in about a year. More and more folks are signing up and declaring commitments they will do.

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written by hendu, October 24, 2008

Hopefully they plan on using lanai for biofuels, last time I was there all lanai was, was one big expanse of black plastic where the old dole plantation was. I think dole still owns most of the island so maybe they can use that land to make money. It was just sad seeing such a beautiful place left like that with no clean up.

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Misleading article
written by Kim, October 30, 2008

I have been a resident of Hawaii my whole life - 23 years so far. This article is very misleading as I don't know of ANY coal power plants in Hawaii at this moment. 90% of our energy comes from oil. There are no new plans in the works to build any coal plants. So, this promise is no big whoop! It is an easy 'low-hanging-fruit-equals-great-publicity' kind of thing to do.

If the author of this article were to dig deeper into Hawaii's politics, s/he would quickly discover that by 'renewable' Hawaii plans on meeting this goal largely with biofuels, namely biodiesel. The oil for this biodiesel will come from -- Indonesian palm oil, where rainforests are wiped out and replaced with palms to produce the oil that they then sell to people like us. Real sustainable. Sure, they 'hope' that 'one day' such oil will be produced locally. Let's face it - a half acre of land on most islands costs anywhere from $200,000 to SEVERAL millions of dollars. Who is going to turn a profit farming after paying a mortgage like THAT. Huge corporations, if that, that practice large scale monocropping traditional, pollutive agriculture.

There is nothing 'green' about this news. It is all hype and PR.

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written by Kim, October 30, 2008

I will go so far as to say: This site would be doing a much better service to the world if its authors would take the time to do better investigative research and report on what is actually happening, rather than just rewriting and reposting press releases where the same news proliferates all over the internet. Blogs like this - Treehugger is another great example - are so intensely focused on churning out quantity that they seriously lack quality. You are cluttering up cyberspace! If someone already wrote about it, just link to it if you must.

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Also!
written by Kim, October 30, 2008

Yes the governor announced a plan to transmit wind power produced on three of the major outer islands to Oahu by under sea cable. Can we think about how realistic such a plan is? Can you imagine how much it would cost to run a cable like that for 500 some miles? Does it really make sense to do that, considering that NONE of the islands currently produces anywhere near 30% of their OWN energy demands? How about when our cities on Oahu are infested with city sprawl - rooftops galore - yet hardly ANY rooftop space is used for solar or photovoltaic panels? It is sunny for 8 hours or more for most of the year here! Using sun power is a no brainer! THAT is the lowest hanging fruit. Until all of our rooftops have panels on them, it makes no sense to spend billions of dollars on wind turbines and cables. It is more sustainable for each island to be independent in power production and other infrastructure stuff, and there is no reason why we can't do that.

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