Power Plants?

Maui's beleaguered agriculture may provide a green answer to the island's future energy needs.

 

Jill Engledow

 

Illustrations by Guy Junker

The year is 2020, and green fields still flourish across Maui. Solar panels on thousands of roofs transform sunshine into hot water for thousands of families. Wind turbines spin electrical power from thin air. The sky over the Central Valley is clear. The vehicles on Maui’s roads emit few of the nasty pollutants produced by burning petroleum; some of them even trail a faint scent of French fries. The specters of fossil fuel depletion, political and geographic vulnerability have dimmed on an island that grows ever nearer to energy self-sufficiency.
   
Or, look at 2020 through a different lens. In this reality, electric bills and the cost of gasoline eat up a big chunk of every paycheck. Waste products of power plants and automobiles smudge the sky. No one knows when the next oil crisis will be, or how long the world’s supply will last. Hawai‘i, out here all alone in the Pacific, prays for tourists, and Mauians pray that tourists still want to visit an island whose dusty brown former sugar fields are being converted to subdivisions as fast as developers can pour concrete.
   
Which vision of tomorrow will become Maui’s reality? That depends in large part on efforts made today to find reliable sources of clean, renewable energy. Hawai‘i is already a leader in that area, producing about 7 percent of its energy from renewable resources, compared to a 2 percent national average. From geothermal energy in Puna, to garbage incinerated for “H-Power” on O‘ahu, to bagasse (sugarcane waste) burned at the HC&S mill in Pu‘unene, the state is off to a good start. Maui, with 6 percent of its energy from bagasse burning and another 9 percent from wind power, is ahead of the game.
Since 1996, Maui Electric Company has installed nearly 8,000 residential solar heaters. The pioneering Maui-based Pacific Biodiesel (see MNKO V. 8 No. 4) has perfected the art of turning used restaurant grease into automobile fuel (hence the french-fry smell in vehicles that burn its biodiesel). Kaheawa Wind Power’s towers are at work above Ukumehame (see MNKO V. 10 No. 2), and plans are underway for more wind power at ‘Ulupalakua.
   
But wind power, while useful, is a “soft” energy source, available only when the wind blows. And neither bagasse nor wind can power an automobile. Ethanol can.
   
An alcohol derived from fermenting sugar-rich crops like corn or cane, ethanol is a “firm” energy source that can provide fuel for both transportation and electric plants. Ethanol already fills 10 percent of Hawai‘i’s gas tanks, and could someday provide much of Hawai‘i’s transportation fuel (as it does in Brazil), while lowering pollutants and greenhouse emissions.
  
At this point, all the ethanol in Hawai‘i is imported. Recognizing that both Federal and international trade laws prohibit the state from banning imported fuel, whether from the U.S. Mainland or other countries, the Legislature came up with a tax-credit plan to encourage the building of local ethanol processing plants. Two of the major players in the race to produce Hawaiian ethanol are old-time Maui farmers, Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company and Maui Land & Pineapple Company.
   
Ethanol could be the saving grace for Maui’s sugar industry, which is searching for ways to survive in a volatile world market. If sugar fails, the green fields of Central Maui could turn into a weedy wasteland or be dotted with condos and mini-malls. The bagasse that has provided power for decades would disappear, along with any potential for ethanol production.
   
No one knows yet which crops make the best sense as feedstock for ethanol-processing plants. A new international consortium that includes Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Kamehameha Schools, and Kaua‘i’s Grove Farm Company is beginning research into that very question. ML&P CEO David Cole and major stockholder Steve Case are the connecting links in this partnership. Case also owns Grove Farm, and Cole sits on the Kamehameha Schools Board of Advisors.
   
One of Hawai‘i’s major landowners, Kamehameha already was researching the possibility of biofuel development, says Senior Vice President of Planning Mawae Morton. With 365,760 acres statewide, 95 percent in agriculture or conservation, “We’re committed to agriculture, and we’re committed to using agriculture to maintain green space in Hawai‘i,” Morton says. “If anything happened to either fuel supply or prices in Hawai‘i, that could have serious impacts” on the economy, to the detriment of both the schools and the native Hawaiian community that is Kamehameha Schools’ constituency. Joining forces with two other big landowners results in greater efficiency and less risk for the schools, Morton says.   Continued on next page


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