Letters | 10-7-14

HECO planning report a bunch of shibai

HECO planning report a bunch of shibai

Last year, $5.09 billion left the state for all our energy needs. That’s 46.3 million barrels of oil.

The Public Utilities Commission told Hawaiian Electric Co., the electric utility for all islands except Kauai, to lower its rates — Big Islanders pay four times the national average and 25 percent more than Oahu. The PUC also told the company to transition to renewables and get out of the business of producing power. This was in response to the PUC’s rejection of HECO’s Integrated Resource Planning Report. However, this latest report is more of the same and the PUC isn’t going to stand for this affront.

In a letter to the editor in West Hawaii Today on Sept. 14, Richard Ha, who represents the Big Island Community Coalition, which sounds like a community-based organization, praises the report, although no other community, consumer or environmental group did, stating that HECO gave details on how it plans to reduce rates by 20 percent while increasing renewables. That is nonsense. HECO’s report gave a lot of lip service to renewables but no substance. The way HECO was going to lower rates was to use liquid propane gas. This has nothing to do with converting to renewables, and now that fracking is the methodology for extracting LP gas, it’s a very unsustainable and a dangerous path to go down.

One of the biggest bones of contention was HECO’s slowdown of photovoltaic systems. HECO wanted more studies on grid stability. However in a recent Forbes article, former U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has lashed out at HECO stating that “a Hawaiian utility has tried to slow the growth of solar,” citing “grid stability.” That’s another silly argument, solar installations “don’t threaten grid stability until they approach 20 percent of the customer base.” Presently Oahu is about 11 percent.

In the article Hawaiian Electric’s spokesman Peter Rosegg, “defended its position by noting that it has not halted rooftop PV installations in Hawaii. “We are approving new solar systems daily for interconnection and net metering.” However, as we all know HECO is full of it, its own monthly reports to the PUC show about 47 percent of HECO customers who have applied for PVs are still waiting for approval, many for more than a year.

We are paying the highest rates because we are using antiquated oil-fired plants. But HECO has fought this tooth and nail and has dragged its feet. The other reason we pay so much is because HECO’s investors receive an average of 10 percent return per year.

We could change this overnight in two steps. The first would be to have the PUC force (and they have been trying) HECO to put up huge PV arrays and wind generators. I know, you’re wondering where the dollars will come from? Look no further than power purchase agreements which many mainland utilities; commercial and private homes have used to get free technology. Plus the utilities, businesses and homeowners sign PPA contracts, which guarantee how much they will pay monthly or annually, and it is way below HECO’s rates. Plus there are no maintenance or repair bills. The investors who organize the PPAs are only paid for the power generated. If the system goes down, they don’t get paid, so they fix the problems fast. Are you wondering why anyone would want to invest in such a crazy scheme? Well, these investors get up to 65 percent in state and federal rebates on their investments in renewables. It’s a no brainer that in Hawaii we should be using wind, solar, biomass and geothermal. I’m not sold on waste to power.

Until HECO slowed down, Hawaii received billions of investor dollars in solar PPA . This helped Hawaii recover faster than the mainland and we have a low 4 percent unemployment rate. One in four construction jobs is in solar.

Step two? That’s another no brainer. Let’s go the way of Kauai and convert HECO to a cooperative utility. Then we own the power and all profits come back to the owners, not to mainland investors. There are entities that will come in and help in the transition from private utility to co-op utilities.

Tlaloc Tokuda

Kona

Maui measure is not a farming ban

Pro-genetically modified organism ads that currently air on TV are extremely misleading. Monsanto — the company that brought us DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, pesticides and a host of other toxic chemicals that continue to pollute the planet — and Dow, among others, fund these ads. They now want us to believe that genetically modified seed and crops are A-OK for you and your kids to eat. And they want you to think that a GMO ban, which is only a temporary one allowing for studies on human and environmental impacts, would wipe out farming in Hawaii. They make it seem like our economy would collapse without them. This is “spin” at its most dizzying rate of prevarication.

Similar to drug companies that rush products to the market only to subsequently find that they are harmful or even lethal, GMO producers use Hawaii as an incubator for GMO experiments and the restricted-use pesticides they require. The Center for Food Safety concluded in a 2011 study that genetically engineered crops actually increase herbicide use by 7 percent. Could the exponential growth of autism and other diseases in children be linked to the use of pesticides, hormones in foods and the consumption of GMOs? Do you want your kids exposed to these? Kids on Kauai were.

Why, when Hawaii’s six main islands encompass 6,314 square miles and the rest of the U.S. totals 3.537 million square miles, do these companies need to conduct experiments here? They don’t want GMO crop pollen and toxic runoff drifting into another state, do they? Hawaii and its people are guinea pigs. We are, after all, way out here in the middle of the Pacific and if something goes wrong, well …

The TV ads say farming in Hawaii will cease. We’re not that stupid. Hawaii always has had agriculture and the jobs associated with it and always will. Family-owned farms and organic ones designed to avoid hormones, pesticides, other chemicals and GMOs, will continue to grow and prosper. If all the chemical companies experimenting with GMOs were to leave tomorrow, Hawaii farmers would step in — as they have on the Big Island — to plant the human and earth-friendly crops we need to achieve the goal of local sustainability.

The TV ads show scientists claiming GMOs are safe. That’s similar to the U.S. Navy telling us that the munitions and unexploded ordnance cleanup of Kahoolawe was complete. Would Navy personnel take their families there for a picnic?

The truth is that no one knows the long-term effects of GMOs and they have yet to be proved safe in the long run. Bt toxins in GMOs can damage red blood cells and cause leukemia. Numerous studies link GMOs to cancer and the pesticides needed to raise them are linked to cases of cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, autism and other diseases. GMOs and their heavy pesticides are bad for humans and the environment.

Flora and fauna have throughout Earth’s history naturally mutated. GMOs are mutations engineered by humans. GMOs are not hybridized (a safe procedure) crops, but rather a process that includes taking genetic material from one species — maybe an animal — and inserting it into another such as corn. Yes, we want to see scientific advancement, but not at the cost of our lives, land and surrounding ocean environment.

The issue before us is not about a farming ban, but about a temporary GMO ban. Think twice before you vote and make an informed decision; if people are more precious than profit, you’ll make the right one.

Maureen Fagan

Kailua-Kona

Bicyclists’ outfits work like camouflage

This is a caution to all the biking athletes arriving here. Those multicolored outfits with patches all over them, like NASCAR drivers, may look cool in the cafe. Out on the highway they break up the outline and are excellent camouflage. Combine the patchwork jersey with black spandex shorts, and you are nearly invisible to drivers coming from behind.

Ken Obenski

Kaohe