BY FRED HEMMINGS – Geothermal energy is clean, safe and abundant and is firm capacity.
Wind and solar are great but not firm capacity. Geo thermal could energize the entire big isle with enough energy left over to also create another form of energy to be exported.
Our citizens pay the highest prices at about 34 cents a KWH for electricity. The National average last I checked was 10-12 cents.
Geothermal if support and not hindered by needless fees and red tape could dramatically reduce the cost of energy on the Big Isle. If you want to clean the environment, help the poor,reduce costs of living such as the punitive energy costs please support geothermal energy.
Hawaii has the most potential for renewable energy and yet we are 90 plus percent dependent on fossil fuels. Ironically,Hawaii is one of the biggest per capita polluting states thanks in part to the environmental extremists who have in the past opposed geo thermal.
There have been erroneous claims that geothermal is fracking. Geothermal is not fracking.
It is important to note that New Zealand get about 10 % of their nations energy cleanly and inexpensively from geo thermal., Our one 30Â MW well at Puna has been operating for years despite the mindless opposition to it in the eighties.
It has produced clean efficient energy for all these years.
Yet unfounded opposition continues.
The just say NO syndrome where the loudest and sometime most misinformed minority rules the day has thwarted many beneficial programs for Hawaii such as the Super Ferry and Geothermal. Please join me and reasonable people in supporting much need energy diversity including geo thermal.
Fred Hemmings is a former state senator, energy expert and world champion surfer who lives in Kailua, Hawaii.
I live in Puna, near the plant, and our farm is only a few blocks from a proposed drilling and development site. If this site is developed, our lland will become unsaleable, and unlivable from the noise, gas and light pollution. Is this clean energy? Our objections are hardly "mindless". We are among some of the best informed people around on the hazards of this industry, be cause we see it firsthand, and we have to study it closely. Geothermal might be a good idea somewhere, but in the middle of populated neighborhoods, NO.
I have lived in Puna for 29 years and witnessed and experienced Geothermal Energy. When I first arrived here I believed in Geothermal free clean and green wonderful. The Dept of Health allowed open venting and dumping of waste on the ground. My son used to ride home on the school bus thru clouds of H2S and heavy metals and tell me about the smell and how he did not feel so good. I was busy building my home and my flower business and still believed in the Health Dept and Geothermal. Then the blowout in 1991. Told to leave our homes. I got EDUCATED. THE HEALTH DEPT OPENLY LIED TO US. We are constantly being exposed to to toxic releases. PGV touted good neighbor does not own the power plant they lease it for a Dummy LLC. If it blows they walk. There is 60,000gals of isopentane 2000' from peoples homes. PGV admits that 40-100 gals cannot be accounted for everyday. Isopantane is an oil byproduct and toxic so much for that myth. Enhanced Geothermal ie fracking is going to be used in new development. WE ARE ASSURED THAT IT IS SAFE of course the people who assure us do not live here. SO FRED COME ON OUT AND MEET THE COMMUNITY AND GET EDUCATED
Fred,
Come visit some of us nay sayers. Find out what the problems with noise, H2S, and water contamination are. Read the letters we have written and the off-hand elitist responses received from state authorities that are responsible to regulate geothermal development.
I have no problem with "geothermal" as an isolated, pristine concept by people that don't live near it. In fact, it does have strong advantages. But I do understand geothermal in the community. Only one thing is worse than a NIMBY. That is a person who ignorantly says it is ok as long as it is in your backyard.
Come visit, listen, consider, and then decide.
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