Federal and state energy officials are planning a major investment in new technologies in an attempt to make Hawaii the nation's first state to get the vast majority of its energy from renewable sources.
By Bob Keefe, Cox News Service
reprinted courtesy Star News Online.com January 27, 2008
Federal and state energy officials are planning a major investment in new technologies in an attempt to make Hawaii the nation's first state to get the vast majority of its energy from renewable sources.
U.S. Department of Energy officials are expected to announce the unprecedented plan Monday, just before the opening of a U.S.-sponsored international summit on climate change in Hawaii.
If Hawaii and the Energy Department are successful in making the state mostly energy-independent in coming decades, it could serve as a model for the rest of the nation, which President Bush has described as "addicted to oil."
To accomplish the ambitious goal, the Energy Department plans to solicit proposals from researchers, companies and others to dramatically expand Hawaii's use of solar and wind power.
But it also wants to find ways to tap into Hawaii's unique resources to develop renewable sources of energy.
These include harnessing the power of ocean waves, creating new biofuels based on algae or palm oil, and increasing the use of underground heat generated beneath the island state's volcanoes.
Under the program, federal agencies and the state of Hawaii could invest billions of dollars in the development of new energy technologies over the next several decades, government officials say.
The Energy Department picked Hawaii for the initiative because of its unique resources, its strategic location for national security, and the state's recent emphasis on developing more renewable energy.
Andy Karsner, the Energy Department's assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, is expected to announce details of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative along with Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle on Monday, before leaders of the major world economies convene Wednesday in Honolulu. This week, Lingle hinted about the program in her annual "state of the state" speech.
The initiative, Lingle said, could position Hawaii "to be a model for the world" when it comes to renewable energy.
Energy Department officials "think that we can be the first economy in the world totally based on clean renewable energy, and we can do it in one generation," Ted Liu, director of Hawaii's Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper.
The goal is ambitious, to say the least.
Hawaii today gets about 90 percent of its energy from imported oil. Because of its isolation, its gasoline prices are typically the highest in the nation.
In recent years, the state has pushed hard to decrease its dependence on oil.
Lingle and the state legislature previously mandated that Hawaiian electricity companies get 10 percent of their fuel from renewable sources by 2010, 15 percent by 2015 and 20 percent by 2020.
The adoption of this "renewable energy portfolio" - similar to ones in other states - has spurred development of innovative projects in Hawaii, including a garbage-to-electricity plant near Honolulu, a research project for wave power elsewhere on Oahu, and a dramatic surge in wind power projects throughout the islands.
The federal government's new initiative should generate more ideas, including some that could make their way to mainland states as well.
"The idea is to make Hawaii a model," said an Energy Department official who did not want to be named. "If you can do it in Hawaii, you can figure out ways to do it all over the country."
reprinted courtesy Star News Online.com January 27, 2008
original article at http://www. starnewsonline.com/article/20080127/NEWS/801270417/-1/xml
brought to you by Wailea Makena Real Estate Inc.
www.Wailea-Makena-real-estate.com
Peter Gelsey R (PB)
Wailea Makena Real Estate, Inc.
direct (808) 357-4552
Toll free 800-482-5089
fax (808) 442-0946
email pgelsey@aol.com