Hawaii Planning State-Wide Electric Car Network

MojoKid writes to tell us that Hawaii is planning on implementing a statewide electric car charging network. While the initiative seems to highlight the lower carbon footprint, Hawaii doesn't exactly seem like the ideal candidate for this initiative. One reader pointed out that perhaps a solar or wind power generation initiative might be a little better suited for the island state. "We have tons of wind and sun here that could be harnessed for electricity, but Hawaiian Electric Company has enough control over the government to block most wind and solar projects, and they make more money burning oil and diesel because the PUC lets them pass the fuel costs directly on to the consumer. Gov Lingle is taking all the credit, but if she actually wants to make a difference in oil consumption in the islands she needs to get large scale wind and solar projects pushed through first."

Comments

Electric car network, eh?

[Smidge207]

Would that be a...wait for it...wait...ethernet linear BUS topology?

*rimshot*

Thank you, I'll be here all night.

Tip your server and avoid the crab louie like the plague.

=Smidge=

Solar power would make most sense

[Anonymous Coward]

When I think of Hawaii, I think sunny. So it would make more sense to have a solar power initiative there and put an electric car initiative here in Rock Port where we're 100% wind powered.

Re:Solar power would make most sense

[Rei]

Hawaii consumes 10.5 billion kWh per year. Hawaii is 29,311,000,000 square meters. Sunlight hits the surface of the planet, if there's no clouds and if at a direct angle to your surface, at around 1,000W/m^2. For a place like Hawaii, a capacity factor of 20% or so seems realistic (capacity factor = percent of maximum power potential that you average over time). Let's go with 20% efficient cells. 29,311,000,000 * 1000 * 0.2 * 0.2 * 24 * 365.24 = 10,277,327,654,400,000 Wh per year. I.e, 10.3 trillion kilowatt hours per year. Hawaii need only cover one thousands of its land with panels to produce all of its energy from solar.

Now, of course, since solar is intermittant, it's not that simple. But the issue isn't land area.

Ride a bike.

[Zoson]

Being from Hawaii, and knowing how small Oahu really is.

Get a bike.

You can drive around the circumference of the island in about 2 hours. Enjoy paradise before you're whisked away to college and never get to go back.

Re:Ride a bike.

[WolverineOfLove]

I hate feeding trolls, but you should be made aware that many Hawaii residents leave for West Coast (or beyond) schools. Many more than you may assume.

I went to Washington State University in Pullman, Washington and knew no less than four Hawaii residents who wound up in the middle of the Palouse studying Computer Science. The only other state that beat them out in people that I met (besides Washington, of course) was Alaska.

Just my experience, and real numbers may vary, but I didn't think I'd be meeting that many folks, I was expecting more from Idaho and Montana.

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're saying goodbye to the electric car?

Ideal location

[Geoffrey.landis]

Ideal location for an electric car network. First, the islands are each relatively small-- thus, you won't have to worry about cars being driven out of state, and out of reach of the charging network.

Second, it's warm all the time. Cold temperatures are a real battery lifetime and performance killer, and this may become a real problem with electric cars in the mainland 48, since people in Minnesota are going to want electric cars. It's a good idea to deploy the technology in the favorable places, like Hawaii, first.

Re:Ideal location

[megamerican]

I'm from MN and you hit the nail on the head. People with garages would have no problem with electric cars, but not everyone has that luxury.

MN and colder environments would benefit from a hybrid car. Use a gas engine to warm up the battery. Once at a certain temperature rely on the battery system for power. Or have Jesse Ventura or (insert MN politicna here) come over and warm up the car for you.

Re:Ideal location

[MrNiceguy_KS]

Ideal location for an electric car network. First, the islands are each relatively small-- thus, you won't have to worry about cars being driven out of state, and out of reach of the charging network.

That was my first thought, too. At least from the consumer's point of view, the biggest downside of electric cars is the limited range. On Hawaii's islands, driving distances are limited.

Another advantage that occurs to me is the tourism aspect. Obviously, the Hawaiian islands get a lot of it, and I think electric cars could fit in well. Imagine, instead of renting a car from one of the standard rental places, your hotel has a small fleet of electrics available. You can rent one for the duration of the stay, or simply check one out from the front desk as needed. The electrics have reserved spaces (with charging facilities) in the parking garage.

Re:Ideal location

[Rei]

Common misconception.

Your car has trouble starting in the cold because it uses a lead-acid battery. Lead-acid batteries lose power output *very* fast at low temperatures. Nickel-metal-hydride are a little better, but not much. NiCd, Zebras and the advanced forms of li-ion do excellent in the cold (traditional li-ion are fine in the cold, but you damage them if you charge them during below-freezing temperatures). A123s, for example, are rated for storage at down to -50C and usage at down to -30C.

Most upcoming highway-speed EVs use advanced li-ion.

It is already there.

[arthurpaliden]

The infrastructure for electric cars is already in place as the majority of places are already on the electricity grid. All that has to happen is for the cars to be fitted with a plug and be able to charge off of house current (110/220). Then some enterprising person will come up with a 'coin operated' charging unit to be placed at the front of all comercial and public parking spaces. And it is all done.

Re:It is already there.

[Michael O-P]

Yeah, most places in the US are on our aging, antiquated electric grid. If all cars operated today were electric, and charged at night when there is less demand, there would still not be enough generation and transmission capacity to power them all.

Citation? Or opinion?

While you make some other decent points, I believe that our grid would ramp up with the adoption of electric vehicles.

Re:It is already there.

[ArsonSmith]

Yeah, most places in the US are on our aging, antiquated electric grid. If all cars operated today were electric, and charged at night when there is less demand, there would still not be enough generation and transmission capacity to power them all.

Lucky all cars today are not electric. All cars tomorrow will not be electric. All cars next year will not be electric. All cars next decade will not be electric. Perhaps in 50+ years when all cars are electric we may have had time to incrementally increase electric supply to match the slowly growing demand. Stretch I know, but it's possible. Much more possible then waking up tomorrow in a world full of electric cars and not enough power to charge them.

Re:It is already there.

[dbrutus]

Does the manufacture of electric cars somehow reduce the supply of Luddite, NIMBY, and BANANA protestors who shut down any effort to improve power generation and transmission? There isn't going to be a durable majority for improvements until people start dying from the brownouts and blackouts.

Re:It is already there.

[Rei]

With this, the time it takes to charge a battery is non-trivial. Its not comparable to the five minutes it takes to fill your gas tank.

Oh really?

Altairnano solved this problem by using an innovative approach to rechargeable battery chemistry by replacing graphite with a patented nano-titanate material as the negative electrode in its NanoSafe batteries. By using nano-titanate materials as the negative electrode material, lithium metal plating does not occur because the electro-chemical properties of the nano-titanate allow the deposition of lithium in the particles at high rates. These electrical properties mean that even at very cold temperatures there is no risk of plating. No undesirable interaction takes place with the electrolyte in the Altairnano batteries, which permits the battery to be charged very rapidly, without the risk of shorting or thermal runaway. In fact, in recent laboratory testing, Altairnano has demonstrated that a NanoSafe cell can be charged to over 80% charge capacity in about one minute. Actual charge rates achieved in specific applications will vary due to the application environment.

Altair has demonstrated the use of their cells in cars and trucks, giving them 5 to 10 minute charges. It's similar to Toshiba's SCiB that was covered here a couple months ago. Of course, even some non-titanate chemistries can charge quite well. Phosphates and stabilized spinel packs can usually take a full charge in 15 to 20 minutes.

Not necessarily

[Once&FutureRocketman]

Gov Lingle is taking all the credit, but if she actually wants to make a difference in oil consumption in the islands she needs to get large scale wind and solar projects pushed through first."

This isn't necessarily true. Solar and (especially) wind generation technologies are developed and being deployed. The barriers in this case are political and secondarily economic, but once those barriers fall (due to cost of fuel, or due to political changes), adoption can be relatively rapid. Deploying large-scale wind is an understood problem.

Electric cars, on the other hand, are likely to require a much longer adoption curve. For one thing, they are private vehicles, subject to private decisionmaking and biases. For another, there still isn't a really good, affordable electric car on the market. Third, they will require a well-established infrastructure before anyone but the early adopters will use them.

So IMO it makes sense for them to focus on electric cars now, and on wind/solar tomorrow, because the leadtime on cars is going to be long. On the other hand, the benefit of moving to renewable electricity will hit the bottom line much faster, so they have an incentive to be working that angle actively too.

Re:Not necessarily

[LWATCDR]

The problem is that electric cars have the economic pressure.
Watch how oil has dropped. Say hello to SUVs and good buy the fuel efficient cars.
Gas is back being cheap and people have short memories.
I knew a person that had an electric car... In 1974!
Electric cars will be dead soon until the next price spike. The difference is that it will take an even longer spike before companies are willing to invest in alternative energy after the beating they take this time around.

This isn't my hope but just past experience.

Re:Not necessarily

[apoc.famine]

Solar and Wind? Are you friggin kidding me? I would have guessed that geothermal would have been the number one choice for a.....volcanic island chain. I mean, Iceland can give some pretty big pointers on that front.

Still, I agree with your point. Once the car infrastructure is there, it's far easier to add in another method (or three) to produce electricity. Hell, people could even invest in their own private generation of choice, if they wanted.

Solar/wind are terrible choices for Hawaii

[Anonymous Coward]

>>because the PUC lets them pass the fuel costs directly on to the consumer.
Of course, that's what businesses do!

Hawaii is a terrible candidate for solar power. Obviously the author has no idea of how many hundreds of acres would have to be blanketed with solar arrays to provide enough electricity to run a fleet of cars. Additionally, studding the crest of every hill with windmills hardly seems like a plan. People come to Hawaii for its beauty. And considering the limited size, it's not like they have the equivalent of a southwest desert to plant these arrays. Operators would have to chop down trees and build them on hillsides.

Of the 'green' alternatives, geothermal seems like a low-impact possibility. Nuclear, too. Small, safe, extremely high output, dependable.

Gov'mentary

[cwAllenPoole]

Government would be great, if it weren't for all of the politicians...

One problem at a time

[jmorris42]

Don't try to solve multiple problems. If electric distribution can be solved, great. But idiots saying "If we can't solve every problem and have a green wonderland NOW then screw it." are just holding back progress. Solving power generation is a totally seperate problem and should be tackled by a different effort.

Specifically, wind and tidal energy are NEVER going to be close to cost effective. If you want to solve generation build nukes. We know how to build them safe, we know how to recycle the fuel and we have enough domestic supply to last a century or so. If we can't move on to fusion or some other super tech by then we deserve a Darwin Award.

Re:One problem at a time

[bluefoxlucid]

Treaties say we can't recycle the fuel. After the first use, we can reuse the fuel as the reaction core of a breeder reactor, and draw 19 times more power out. 5% of the power comes from stage 1, 95% comes from stage 2; stage 2, of course, is the complete transition from basic spent to fully weapons-grade uranium and then plutonium.

Re:One problem at a time

[NoKaOi]

The points I was trying to make are:
1) If you're going to set up an electric car network, start with the places where it makes the most sense. Like places where it isn't >30 cents per kWh with nearly all power generated by burning petro. Once it's established in places where it makes the most sense, then begin moving to other places.
2) This is political showboating by Gov Lingle. She is doing this to make it look like she cares about reducing oil consumption as a distraction from the fact that she tries to block anything that is not oil friendly in order to pad the pockets of corporations like Hawaiian Electric Co and Alexander & Baldwin. These things include blocking large scale wind and solar project, trying to block legislation giving tax incentives for home solar, and allowing the fuel pass through that HECO is allowed to charge us which they wouldn't get with wind and solar, thus giving them significantly higher profits from oil generation which costs the customer (those of us that live here) a lot more money.

So...in conclusion, this is all about trying to distract us from the fact that she is not actually trying to reduce oil consumption, at the co$t to those of us who live here.

I live in Hawaii

[pwnies]

...and let me tell you something about planning here. For the last 30 years they've been "planning" a system of rail transport on Oahu, and it simply hasn't come to pass. A lot of development projects here are simply shut down because many of the locals are very adverse to change. Even projects like these that have good environmental impacts at face value will require a ton of development. Behind that development will be an equal amount of litigation just to get the permits.
I'm not one to try and sound negative, but it will never happen in Hawaii outside of Waikiki (a lot of development happens there in order to help boost tourism).

Re:I live in Hawaii

[popdookey]

Pure Nonsense. The funding mechanism for mass transit was approved two years ago. The locally preferred alernative route, from Barber's Point (Kalaeloa) to Salt Lake, was approved last year. In our most recent election the voters approved the technology to ride on this elevated fixed guideway. We chose rail. As a resident of Oahu, and closely connected to the sources of this press release, I can assure you that we have not the solar, wind, wave, nor geothermal power infrastructure to provide even 10% of our State's electrical demand. The only thing that should be discussed as innovation in Hawaii is the locally manufactured, grid-rechargeable, small form-factor vehicle that has exclusive access to our elevated fixed guideway that we are paying 6 billion to build with fixed rail. Unfortunately the de-commissioned Barber's Point Naval Air Station sits barren, Hunt Development has lost the financial capacity to develop it, and we are sitting on top of the greatest lost tech opportunity in America. Instead of making these cars, we are importing them while building an Ancient Fixed Rail System. You, Slashdot, need to understand the technology travesty going on here on Oahu.

That is what they're doing

[megamerican]

That's exactly what they are doing. They are using solar energy to power the car charging network.

FTA:

The infrastructure for this network will be powered by Hawaiian Electric Companies, with much of the electricity coming from renewable energy sources, such as "solar, wind, wave and geothermal."

Even the editor didn't RTFA!

Re:That is what they're doing

[maxume]

You just recycle the batteries. It isn't that big a deal. The atoms don't wear out, the molecules do (that is, a stable, reversible chemical reaction is a neat trick; when you are recycling them, you don't need to worry so much about the stable or the reversible anymore, so you can recover the material).

Re:That is what they're doing

[cayenne8]

"Gasoline powered cars are dirty!"

Yeah...but, they're fun to drive.

But, even while I could see myself in a high performance electric car, like a Tesla some day...I shudder to think about losing my gasoline powered motorcycle!! Half the fun of that is the smell and sounds of a rumbling engine and well tuned exhaust. When that all goes, I'll be sad...hopefully it will be LONG after I'm dead and gone...

Re:That is what they're doing

[DragonWriter]

CO2 isn't dirty. It is a life giving gas.

Like many things, its good in moderation (for CO2, at the naturally occurring level in the atmosphere.) OTOH, adding CO2 faster than it is taken out of the atmosphere by natural processes is considerably less good; as such, it is "dirty".

However, coal and gas powered things do emit more than CO2 which is bad for the environment.

True. As do oil powered things, though CO2 is the main global threat (most of the other forms of pollution produce effects that, while more severe in the short term, are more localized.)

That's why I don't understand why the Western nations want to cut carbon emissions while givng countries like China, India and Russia a near free pass.

Uh, they don't. OTOH, they do want to reduce global carbon emissions, and given the actual per capita emissions, they don't have any credibility doing that unless the developed countries, which emit more, start the process.

China and India have almost no environmental regulations compared to the US and Western Europe.

True.

Shipping our industry overseas is actually going to increase pollution.

The idea is to make industry cleaner, not ship it overseas.

Re:That is what they're doing

[Sparr0]

The smells and sounds of a well tuned engine and exhaust are "none" and "none". The only "good" smells people describe from an engine are caused by leaks, and all noise is wasted power.

Re:That is what they're doing

[adolf]

Yeah. Noise is wasted power.

But not bloody much of it.

Wikipedia's page about sound power has a table with a few examples. It states that a helicopter produces 0.01 Watts of sound, while a machine gun makes just 10 Watts.

Let's assume, then, that the gentleman's motorcycle is Really Fucking Loud, and produces about a Watt worth of sound. This is only 0.00134102209 horsepower wasted as sound.

I think we've all got better things to worry about than amount of energy wasted making sound with gasoline-fueled piston engines.

Move along.

Re:That is what they're doing

[capnkr]

And as a *Former* resident of Oahu, my biggest question when I read the summary was:
 
Will these electric cars be running around uninsured like so many other cars are on Oahu?
 
:D Just kidding, kinda - the insurance rates are ridiculous there! (Which explains why so many people don't bother to carry it...) Maybe *that* oughta be fixed, first. Then they can get to work on those windmills up by Turtle Bay that never seemed to be turning whenever I drove by... ;)
 
The 2nd time I lived there I commuted by bike. What a great place for that, especially once they finished the bike path by Kam Highway. Great place to live, miss the surf, and the biking. Aloha!

Re:That is what they're doing

[cayenne8]

And do re-read my original post. I alluded to the fact that I could get excited about a high performance car such as the Tesla, but, my main sadness at loss....would be of an internal combustion engine. So much of the fun of a normal, cruiser type motorcycle IS the rumbling engine, and the exhaust note (fairly loud, but not too obnoxious).

Those things that are a large part of what makes riding a good heavy bike would be lost on an electric version....

I don't see us as a country switching over anytime very soon....so, I'm guessing I'll be able to ride my bike for the rest of my life and enjoy it. But, I also wouldn't mind getting a tesla or something in that ballpark whenever they should be come slightly more consumer-ish...and come down in price about $20K or so...

No, Geothermal

[d3ac0n]

When I think of Hawaii, I think of Volcanos.

Why in the world would they not investigate Geothermal power as an option? While I would agree, Wind and Solar would also be good, passing up Geothermal when you live on the flank of a volcano seems rather... odd.

Re:No, Geothermal

[LMacG]

Only the "Big Island" (Hawaii) has an active volcano. The other islands still need alternate sources.

Re:No, Geothermal

[Rei]

They have, and there are some small geothermal problems. One of the problems presentin Hawaii but not elsewhere, however, is cultural. Among some native Hawaiians, the volcano is still revered. Think of it as though someone discovered a way to generate electricity from Jesus statues involving drilling into them.

Re:No, Geothermal

[lord_sarpedon]

That'd be awesome

Re:No, Geothermal

[Lazyrust]

As someone who lives on the Big Island where the volcano is, I can tell you first hand that there is already a geothermal power generator.

But, theres some serious issues that come up:

1. Cultural differences between Native Hawaiians that consider the volcano, and the Hawaiian Goddess that lives there, sacred and those who want to develop the power generators. This was a huge issue when Puna Geothermal Venture first went into the district of Puna, and still is.

2. Geothermal isnt nearly as clean as people think. Occasionally there is A LOT of sulfur dioxide emissions released from the ground from the drilling and testing, not to mention the operation. Back in 1993, there was a major leak that shut down the plant temporarily. The neighboring subdivision (which was there many years before the plant) was inundated with sulfur dioxide gases, causing health problems and land values to drop. Monitoring stations were put in after many public complaints to the county were made.

3. The other issue is with HECO burning oil and coal for power generation. Yes, we pay for the fuel through increased fuel costs passed onto the consumers. The sad part is that while oil prices rose, the fuel charge also rose, now that fuel is low, those charges haven't dropped. Why invest in new power technologies, when you just pass the costs onto the consumer for what you are doing now? While it seems to make sense to them, no one takes into consideration the pollution, time, man-power, and additional bunker fuel used to transport those fuels to the islands. Hawaii is the most isolated land mass on the planet, its not like we can bring in fuels via train or truck from another part of the country. The Big Island already has solar and wind farms, but the technology really is under developed, and not as widespread as it could really be. On top of all of this, there is a cap of how much power that HECO can buy from outside companies. The real kicker is that HECO pays for the power at the same rate as it costs if they were to burn fuels to generate that power. There is NO cost savings to the consumer.

The Big Island has a population of approximately 201,100 people, and is about the size of Rhode Island (4,028 square miles) , so there isn't an issue with land, just money and politics. Who ever has the money and the political connections makes the rules.

When I think of Hawaii, I think of corporate corruption, ill planning, a small but vocal population against virtually any kind of development, and a local government where favoritism is the norm, and educated development isn't.

Re:Question

[mosb1000]

No, I'm saying you should have a plan that has some hope of working before you start to implement it. Building wind and solar plants for supplemental power generation is great (though expensive), but for now nuclear is a far better option.

Electric cars match up very well with wind power

[grandpa-geek]

Charging electric cars is mostly an overnight load. Wind power is mostly an overnight resource. If we had 25% wind power and every car were electric or pluggable hybrid electric, wind would provide enough energy for all the battery charging. Denmark is now at 25% with plans to go to 50%.

Wind is also intermittent and variable, as is solar. Storage is needed between the generation and load to ensure that the right amount of power will be available when needed. Electric car batteries provide suitable storage. Without proper storage, some experts claim that for grid reliability you need as much conventional generation available as you have wind power running. There was an incident in Texas where they lost 1500 megawatts of wind generation in about four hours because a weather front came through and they had to dump interruptable loads and bring up conventional generation to maintain reliability.

Hawaii Electric tried wind power some years ago, and it threw their grid into instability. Older wind generators eat lots of reactive power, and the need to feed their reactive power requirements was what made the Hawaii grid unstable. (Electric power has sine and cosine wave components. Reactive is the sine component. A common related term is power factor.)

Newer technologies can take care of the reactive power issue, but it has to be done carefully. In the late 1980's Tokyo suffered a voltage collapse and blackout because of peculiar circumstances in which they simply ran out of reactive power.

Energy in Hawaii is more complex than that

[VirtualSquid]

I live on Hawaii island and study the energy issue so i can give some perspective.

First, to dispense with the false choice in the summary: It's not "car charging network" vs. "solar and wind". Of course we need both. Renewables are held back for both political reasons (no carbon penalty, 'avoided cost', slow bureaucracy) and physical reasons (no storage, no renewable baseload except geothermal on this island). There are a _lot_ of important-but-unpopular things the State could do to really make a difference - like tax gasoline and the importation of food - which they will never do because they don't have the guts.

However, we could do every possible thing - give away electric cars, tax the hell out of fossil fuels, put solar and wind and geothermal in every possible place, grow biodiesel crops for liquid fuel, burn biomass for carbon-neutral baseload electricity, wave power, condemn car-dependent suburbs - all of which we should do - and Hawaii would _still_ be a totally unsustainable place. Oil permeates every single bit of our culture, such as our 95% imported food.

Anything short of a mass exodus (not exactly a popular idea) and a return to a semi-agrarian lifestyle (not particular popular either) is not sustainable. Very few people in Hawaii realize it, and of the few educated people, many are in denial or hold out unrealistic optimist for a silver bullet ("fuel from algae will save us!")

For more info, see my biofuel notes

Re:Energy in Hawaii is more complex than that

[NoKaOi]

You make some good points, HOWEVER, it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing thing to have a major impact on our economy, and thus our quality of life. For example, many people I know are either scraping change from the couch cushions just to be able to buy food, or have multiple jobs and thus no free time in order to pay the rent. Doing those things you listed above would have a significant positive impact on those people, basically by keeping more dollars here instead of sending our tourism and development dollars immediately back to the mainland, even though we certainly wouldn't be 100% independent.

Now let's talk about that 95% imported food. It sure as heck doesn't have to be that way, but it's part of the same political engine that makes us get >90% of our power from burning petro. For example, here on Maui, HC&S (Hawaii Commercial & Sugar Company) has 37,000 acres of sugarcane. All of the sugar they produce gets shipped off to the mainland or other countries. The water used to irrigate this sugar cane is provided by EMI (East Maui Irrigation), and consumes most of the agricultural water available from East Maui. HC&S does not - I repeat DOES NOT - turn a profit. In fact, recently they have been losing money. So why do they continue to grow sugar with all this land and water, when they could be using it to grow stuff that could be consumed in Hawaii? The answer is Matson. Matson is the shipping company where most of that imported food comes in on. Matson, EMI, and HC&S are all owned by Alexander & Baldwin. So, while HC&S and EMI lose money, Matson makes a huge profit because it forces us to pay to ship our food in. All this in blatant violation of the state constitution, specifically article 11, sections 3 and 7.

Guess who the major campaign contributors are for most of the local and state politicians. Guess who says "how high" when A&B or HECO says "jump."

Now to tie this obscenely long comment back to the original article...the point of car charging network is not to reduce oil consumption or to improve sustainability. Is it a good thing by itself? Yes. Is it a good thing come re-election time? Hell no. Lingle and other politicians will point to it, saying they are doing everything possible to reduce our dependence on the mainland and foreign countries, while the people of Hawaii happily cast their votes as their metaphorical rectums are bleeding from being financially raped.

In /. terms:
1. Use up all the land and water for sugar cane so nothing else can be grown.
2. Block wind and solar projects so all of our energy has to come from imported oil, passing the cost directly to consumers.
3. Force us to important our food on Matson.
4. Promote development, even though everyone who lives here is against it, to use up even more resources, create a larger customer base, and let the mainland based developers make money, a small percentage of which is given back to the politicians in the form of campaign contributions.
5. PROFIT!

But how does Iceland do it?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

But 89% of the houses in Iceland are heated with geothermal energy (http://iceland.ednet.ns.ca/schedule.htm).

Can't Hawaiians use geothermal energy to at least heat their houses . . . um, in Hawaii . . .

Wait, let me get back to ya on that one . . .

Re:But how does Iceland do it?

[MichaelSmith]

What we need is a superconducting heat pipe between Hawaii and Iceland (I know, they are in different oceans). Then heat can flow to Iceland and cold in the reverse direction!

Re:But how does Iceland do it?

[jeffstar]

what they really need is an inter-island grid. That way they can use big island's geothermal power, maui's wind power and solar on all islands.

Plans have been made to attach oahu, maui, molokai and lanai and build about 400MW of wind power.

Re:But how does Iceland do it?

[MichaelSmith]

We've got one of those from Tasmania to Victoria. It supplies hydro power from Tasmania to the mainland Australian grid.

There's talk of putting in a pipe for fresh water as well. My uncle used to work for one of the water companies here. He told me that the water flow from Tasmania would be entirely gravity fed because it originates on high ground.

Great testbed....

[jemenake]

I've seen some comments that didn't think Hawaii was such a great venue for this, but I think it's perfect.

For an alternative-fuel demo, you need to have infrastructure (ie, fueling stations). In places like California, this results in the governor picking a single stretch of highway which runs the length of half of the state and plopping down hydrogen fueling stations at manageable distances between them. The problem being that, you better not miss your next fuel stop because every station is pretty much "Last Hydrogen for 100 Miles" and you better not need to stray too far off of the anointed highway. On the other hand, some cities are trying to plop charging stations everywhere so that you don't have to *plan* your fueling... but that stops at the city limits.

To really give people a picture of an alternative-fuel future, you need to have fueling/service available as ubiquitously as fossil-fuel stations are today.... and they need to extend as far as anyone might care to go. To keep costs down, you'd need to try a place that geographically limited... where people *can't* go too far away.

An island is perfect for that. And Hawaii, in particular, is even better because it's a vacation hotspot. People will vacation there, drive their electric rental car, get a tan, have lots of sex, come back home and have all of those memories intermixed. So, electric propulsion gets a "cool by association" bump.

So, I just want to be clear... I view this as a great *PR* move for alternative fuels. True, from an engineering point of view, there are better places to do it. True, it's a drop in the bucket compared to our continental consumption. True, we burn an assload of fuel to fly over there. But I see this as more about getting the U.S. to "buy in" more quickly to a future that doesn't involve petroleum. Something like this would finally be a testbed where people could experience electric cars without ever worrying about "Oh crap, where am I going to fuel it?". A possible true glimpse into the future.

Re:Waves?

[jeffstar]

They are installing a prototype wave powered generator on maui. There are concerns that birds will be sucked through the turbine.

Oceanlinx is the company

Re:Question

[Rei]

Oh really? They've never worked? Because here I am in a state with almost 8% of it's power from wind, approaching our share from nuclear (11%-ish). Wind should pass nuclear in the next five years or so up here. Just a couple years ago it was less than half as much as we got from nuclear. Better explain it to my utilities that what they're doing is impossible.

Wind in the great plains is actually cheaper than nuclear per kilowatt hour. It's almost cost-competitive with coal.

Re:Big Island has room for solar power

[Retric]

Hold on, 92 * 92 = 8464 square miles, there are ~300 million people in the US so 8464 / 300 * 1.2 =33.8 square miles. Unless you think the people in Hawaii uses 3% of the electric that the average person in the US.