he Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative was inked four years ago, setting up the mandate for the state to achieve 70 percent clean electricity (40 percent renewable generation, 30 percent energy efficiency) by 2030. Since then, our total electricity usage has steadily declined, from 10,585 GWh in 2007 to 9,986 GWh in 2011. And thanks to a growing portfolio of renewable power, it’s taking less oil to generate each of those kilowatt hours. That’s the good news.
The bad news is the shallow slope of the trend suggests Hawaii will still be importing millions of barrels of oil in 2030 to make electricity. (As an aside, overall oil consumption in Hawaii has increased since 2008, corresponding to an increase in the use of transportation fuel—an area that demands much more attention.) And even if we reach our goal of 40 percent renewable generation — we’re currently at 10 percent — 60 percent of our electricity will still come from fossil fuel.
We simply will not reach our clean energy goals at the current rate of change. It’s a steep uphill climb, and the kind of change we implement must be transformative, not simply incremental. Such is the aim of Blue Planet’s priorities for 2012. The policy commitments fall into three categories: Enable transformative progress, remove obstacles to transformative progress, and ensure funding to achieve transformative progress.
Read more at Honolulu Civil Beat
Karen Chun
I’d disagree with Jeff Mikulina (who I admire tremendously) on two of his priorities:
1. Interconnecting the islands. I haven’t seen persuasive numbers that indicate that one island’s renewable potential is different in time from another island’s potential which would be what stabilizes the grid. Instead, this interisland cable is simply a scheme for Oahu to NIMBY all its renewable projects to the neighbor islands.
2. An “energy efficiency credit-trading program” is, like the CO2 credits, a scheme to make the big corporations and banks rich while they game the system and turn paper into a way to skim wealth from the ratepayers. Mandate conservation/renewable improvements and subsidize individual taxpayers. Don’t create yet another way for the Big Banks and Big Energy to game the system and rip us off.