On one parcel of a government-created energy laboratory, rows of mirrors shine white-hot in the sun, turning heat into energy. On another, brown water tanks harbor strands of algae that will be made into fuel. Nearby is a wind turbine whose blades spin parallel to the ground, nurtured by 42 green private-sector businesses on 877 acres of land in Kona.
California should take note. As the acknowledged leader nationally on things green, California, as Goliath, is being challenged by tiny Hawaii, as David, in the quest for green dominance. Its 2020 plan is to produce 70% of its energy from renewables, (which blows away California’s goal of 33%, over the same period)!
But for the Hawaiian state, they may have little choice. The otherwise tropical paradise relies almost exclusively on imported oil (more than 50 million barrels annually) to fuel its vehicles and power plants, rendering the state vulnerable to spills, price swings and geopolitics. Hawaii residents already pay the highest pump prices and electricity rates in the country. This makes Hawaii a harbinger of things to come to the rest of the U.S.
Their ambitious goal is to transform the nation’s most energy-dependent state into its cleanest and most sustainable. This year, Hawaii began requiring that all new homes be built with solar water heaters and is working to build a network of recharging stations to jump-start mass use of electric vehicles on the islands. Meanwhile, the state’s public utilities commission is devising a compensation system to encourage homeowners and businesses to go solar by paying them to generate green electricity.
The policies stem from an agreement called the “Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative,” signed with the Department of Energy in 2008, in which the state pledged to produce 70% of its total energy needs by 2030 — 40% from renewable electricity generation and the remaining 30% from energy efficiency.
About 6.5% of Hawaii’s electricity came from renewable sources other than hydroelectric power in 2007 — about half what California, the nation’s solar champion and a major player in wind and geothermal energy, has achieved. But experts said Hawaii’s small size and unique geography could prove advantageous in the race for energy independence. With just 1.3 million inhabitants, its energy consumption is small. The islands have abundant solar, wind, geothermal and wave resources. And Hawaiians are less likely to object to the cost of renewables since they already pay high energy prices.
Some of Hawaii’s projects might sound like the stuff of science fiction. The state is exploring building a 30-mile undersea cable to link proposed wind farms on Lanai and Molokai into the electric grids on Oahu and Maui. A local company is working to provide air conditioning in 40 downtown Honolulu buildings using chilly sea water pumped from three miles out in the ocean. And Hawaii’s own Gas Co. is using municipal solid waste and animal fat to make synthetic natural gas to supply energy to its customers.
The Big Island’s grid already obtains about one-third of its power from renewables, including solar, wind and geothermal. It’s also at the forefront of some of Hawaii’s biggest experiments, thanks in part to the Natural Energy Research Laboratory of Hawaii Authority.
In addition to its role as a green business incubator, the lab is a leading center for research on generating electricity by exploiting temperature differences between deep and shallow layers of seawater, a process known as ocean thermal energy conversion.
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