Posted on 09/01/2015 6:09:15 AM PDT by thackney
Comments by Hawaii Governor David Ige this week has left Hawaiian Electric in a quandary regarding its plan to burn regasified LNG shipped from Canada in its oil-fired power plants, a source at the utility said Friday.
"We're in a bit of a stew at the moment," the source, who asked not to be identified, said.
Ige previously supported using LNG as a transitional fuel as the state moved to 100% renewable generation by 2045.
"When it was first proposed, I was willing to support it as a transitional fuel because it had some clear advantages for Hawaii," Ige said Monday, noting that using LNG would save customers money by allowing the utility to meet environmental rules without making a huge investment in current power plants.
But the low cost of oil has reduced the savings that would be gained from converting to LNG, he said.
"So I have reached the conclusion that Hawaii does not need or want LNG in our future. It is time to focus all of our efforts on renewable energy and my administration will actively oppose the building of LNG facilities in Hawaii," Ige said.
Ige said Hawaii Gas will need a supply of natural gas and is not opposed to the company obtaining LNG supplies if it can be done without a large investment in infrastructure and as long as it is not used to supply Hawaiian Electric's power plants.
Darren Pai, a spokesman for Hawaiian Electric, said in a statement the utility's "power supply improvement plan" called using LNG to transition into renewable energy.
"Existing oil-fired generating units would be converted to run on cleaner and lower and even more stably priced LNG before eventually being deactivated and replaced by more efficient, responsive generation designed to support increasing amounts of variable sources of renewable power such as solar and wind," he said.
The governor's opposition is something to be concerned about, the utility source said.
"We can't go directly to intermittent renewables without firm generation to back it up," he said.
Hawaiian Electric has been negotiating with Fortis BC Energy to liquefy the natural gas in British Columbia. Negotiations have taken longer than expected and Hawaiian Electric has delayed LNG deliveries until 2019, the company said previously.
Hawaiian Electric Co. delays $235M LNG project for two years
http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/news/2015/06/03/hawaiian-electric-codelays-235m-lng-project-for.html
Jun 3, 2015
Hawaiian Electric Co. does not envision shipping liquefied natural gas to the Islands until 2019, two years later than it originally planned, according to public documents filed with state regulators this week.
The $235 million project, which still needs the approval of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, calls for a vendor to supply and deliver up to 800,000 tons of LNG per year for up to 15 years.
Hawaiian Electric had said that it would begin the shipments starting in late 2016 or early 2017.
Can’t they just derive Ethanol from Pineapples? Make the governator pedal a stationary bike hooked up to an alternator?
What a joke!
Cane-fields throughout Hawaii are burned on an annual basis. The GHG and particulate emissions during these “proscribed” burns can equal or surpass the emissions of any Title-V location on the mainland.
Sure they can, but like all energy sources, cost it the real issue.
You better visit Hawaaii now while you still have magnificent views. In 30 years, they will have covered all of the islands with windmills.
Sugarcane is burned before harvesting to remove the unproductive leafy material that makes up 20 to 25 percent of the cane plant. The leaves contain very little sugar, but if not removed before processing the cane, they can reduce the amount of sucrose (sugar) that can be recovered from the cane stalk at the factory.
http://hcsugar.com/what-we-do/faqs/
five days no power will resolve the issue.
I was just there last month. There are already a string of windmills on Maui by Kahilui.
While economically justifiable, it still doesn’t minimize the emissions by BACT/MACT standards used on the mainland.
Maybe the Hawaii watermelons need to use the “unproductive leafy material” as their alternate source of energy?
Issues and Challenges, Location
http://www.hawaiianelectric.com/heco/Clean-Energy/Issues-and-Challenges
A key challenge to any major infrastructure project, including renewable energy facilities, is location. Most people say they favor renewable energy, but when it comes to building a project, they may say “Not in My Back Yard.”
Renewable resources are not shared equally among islands. Oahu has the most people and thus the greatest electricity demand but limited sites and resources for renewable energy projects. Hawaii Island has abundant geothermal energy, a resource no other island presently uses for electricity.
Each Hawaiian Island has a separate stand-alone grid and it presently is not possible to move electricity between islands. Some renewables are not always available, like sunshine, wind, even the water in small streams. Having a large percentage of variable or “as available” energy on small, remote grids such as those in Hawaii is challenging, making it harder to maintain reliability and power quality. In addition to variable renewable energy sources, the electric utilities need “firm” energy sources which are available on-demand 24 hours a day to meet its customers’ energy needs.
Supporting facilities, including power lines, substations, transformers and other equipment also pose a challenge. Most renewable energy projects are built in remote areas, far from population centers. Infrastructure to bring the power from these places to the grid – and to store or “smooth” variable “as available” energy — is expensive and adds to the cost of the electric power.
Still, Hawaiian Electric, Maui Electric and Hawaii Electric Light Company are working hard to increase renewable energy. This includes encouraging other companies to develop renewable projects, adding power lines and substations needed for renewable projects and working on ways to smooth and store “as available” power.
With very little sugar content, the leafy material does not have significant energy to release.
Agreed.
But, OH!, those GHGs and particulate emissions...
Lefist luddite. Simply amazed at the ignorance of people sometimes, although I shouldn’t be.
They should get treated no differently than any other pollution source. Fines and regulations no different than an oil refinery producing the same levels. It is either acceptable at all facilities or none.
Precisely my point...but the cane-fields aren’t treated “equitably” as a source.
“You better visit Hawaaii now while you still have magnificent views. In 30 years, they will have covered all of the islands with windmills.”
In flying into Maui a couple of years ago, I saw on their travel brochure the proud thumping-on-the-chest that the island had 10% of its electrical energy generation capacity in the form of windmills.
Sure enough, when we got closer to our hotel, I saw a number of wind turbines on the side of a mountain dominating the skyline.
Only problem? only a couple of them were turning.
Then I realized the twisted line said ‘capacity’ not actual electricity.
The scam is that they brag about it being installed, not that it actually produces anything.
This is symptomatic of the ruse they pull over all of the supposed renewables: it is a feel good thing, enriching the promoters, but in reality does nothing to generate anything.
A scam.
Agreed, but it is not plentiful in Hawaii.
No oil, no gas, ....
http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=HI#tabs-3
This is why the better solution is safer forms of nuclear power like the molten-salt reactor fueled by thorium-232 (which is as common as lead in the soil!) dissolved in molten fluoride salts. Once that technology becomes viable, we will have enough electricity generated to effectively make the use of petroleum as a motor fuel obsolete and end the use of burning coal to generate electricity—meaning vastly cleaner air in our cities.
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