It’s not all about savings. It’s also about doing the right thing for the environment.
We all understand the environmental and sustainability issues that plague us around the world. We unfortunately have a situation that is more urgent than most areas. We live in an area that must continue to be sustainable by itself due to the remoteness of our location. Currently over 77% of our island energy is produced using petroleum products that harm the environment. What is even more serious is the fact that 100% of this is imported into our state. That means we are almost completely energy dependant on other areas of the world to run our economy. Is that really sustainable? Our economy is directly tied to the price of oil from around the world.
How do alternate energies fit in Hawaii?
HydroPower: We have no large bodies of water that can be dammed to generate a substantial amount of power.
Nuclear Energy: A Nuclear reactor on a small island in the middle of the ocean? You decide.
Wind Energy: Wind energy sounds like an ideal technology to harness our island trade winds. The problem is that nobody wants it in their back yard. There is a reason why you don’t see large billboards on the side of our freeways. It is because our greatest state asset is the tropical beauty of our islands. To keep our islands a beautiful place to visit, laws and beautification initiatives have kept large wind generation farms from being built in areas other than remote, hard to reach locations. These remote locations increase the installation, transmission line infrustructure, and maintenance costs to a price that is hard to make economic sense.
Future Technologies: There are new technologies that may be a great fit for our island home. These technologies include wave or tide energy, bio-desiel, geo-thermal, hydrogen, and others. These are possible solutions to our future energy needs, but it is also important to focus on what is available and proven technology today.
Photovoltaic Energy Technology is the “low hanging fruit” of our island energy sustainability tree and is a perfect fit for our year-round sunshine in Hawaii.
