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A county guide to cutting oil dependency

Hawaii County's weekly newsletter has a reminder that a sustainable energy report prepared by the county's Department of Research and Development, and the Kohala Center, will be the topic of public meetings this month. The meetings will preview the plan's recommendations for reducing the county's dependence on fossil fuels and  provide an opportunity to give comments and suggestions for the final document.

The Puna meeting will be at 7 p.m. August 15, at the Ola‘a Community Center at Kea‘au Middle School.

Here's the report, which holds some interesting information. For example, the Department of Water Supply is the largest consumer of electricity on the island, taking about five percent of the total supply. I believe I reported that here before, but what's surprising is that 44 percent of the water the DWS pumps never gets to where it's supposed to go because the pipes leak. So that's one of the recommendations. Do the plumbing.

Another part of the proposed plan is to close HELCO's diesel-powered Puna and Shipman electricity-generating plants with an expansion of Puna Geothermal Venture to pick up the slack.

Also mentioned is the insidious concept of "avoided cost," which provides windfall profits for alternative energy providers but gives no breaks to energy consumers.  Reader Mike Middlesworth called my attention to this Hawaii Tribune-Herald story last month about a new wind farm whose private owners paid the same amount by HELCO for its wind-generated power as HELCO pays for imported fuel oil. The sustainability report encourages County officials and HELCO to lobby the Public Utilities Commission to end the practice.
Posted on Friday, August 3, 2007 at 04:25PM by Registered CommenterHunter Bishop in , , | Comments4 Comments | References1 Reference

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Reader Comments (4)

Mahalo for the meeting notice. I am looking forward to attending ours in Kona on the 7th. Back in May, the Kohala Center gave a brief summary of their findings but unfortunately I could not attend. However, in reading over the preliminary report I was very disappointed that they failed to encourage residential consumers, especially those living in the hot and windy areas to use solar drying of their laundry vs using a clothes dryer. How unfortunate. Its seems that the solutions had to with buying the right "energy efficient" equipment in order to save energy vs using some old fashioned physical exertion in order to save energy. I guess thats the Yale way?
August 4, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterKELIIPIO
WHT's article on Tuesday about the HELCO/county energy plans included a comment from HELCO's Warren Lee that the utility would be interested in purchasing power cheaper than the avoided cost. He didn't mention (or it wasn't reported) whether it would also be interested in returning those savings to consumers.
August 5, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterDave Smith
Excellent point about "solar-powered" clothes drying!
There is much in the research of great benefit, but nothing wrong with stringing up a clothesline.
August 5, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterJames Weatherford
The latest Big Island Weekly editorial also discusses the Kohala Center Report as disappointing in that it does not give enough emphasis to voluntary consumer reduction. Yes, Josephine, I too usually line dry my clothes - it is not only cheaper and more environmentally friendly, but they smell fresher and without the intense chemo-floral smell of dryer sheets!

And there are lots of other painless ways for us to save energy. Even if we have an electric hot water heater (probably THE biggest residential energy hog) and can't afford to replace it, we can still turn it off and time all our hot water use for whatever time of day best suits our lifestyle. Maybe we should have a contest for the most innovative ways to save energy at home?
August 11, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterRene Siracusa

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