 Welcome back to Energy 808, The Cutting Edge on a given Monday morning. I'm Jay Fidel here on Think Tech and we have Tam Hunt with us. He joins us from the Big Island and he's an energy lawyer. Welcome to the show, Tam. Thank you. So what is it to be an energy lawyer these days, especially on the Big Island? Can you give us a little praisey of who you really are? Yeah, well, I've been a lawyer now for almost 20 years and in the last 15 years I've focused entirely on renewables. So I'm a rare lawyer that gets to make a living doing things I believe in fully and that are, you know, entirely beneficial for the environment. That means for me a mix of about half working on regulatory policy at various utility dockets, mostly in California at the California Public Utilities Commission. I also help some fellow developers and EV charging developers get permits, get connected to the grid, that kind of thing. So it's a nice mix of regulatory and contractual environment along. Yeah, sounds great. So you're making any progress these days. I remind you that we have COVID going on. We have economic crash. Yeah, you've heard, yeah. It's after a while it's gonna dawn on all of us. And we have an economic crash going on. And then of course in California we have wildfires going on. All those things don't really play well with the development of renewable energy, do they? They don't for the most part. There's certainly some benefits, you know, not very long-lived benefits. So for example people staying home is leading to a near term drop in greenhouse gas emissions. This though is not going to last. Obviously this pandemic will be gone. We'll probably roar back economically and probably have even more emissions. So those who are celebrating the near term dip I think are being excited. What it does do unfortunately is really sets back initiatives like mass transit, taxis, car sharing, because these kind of effects will be for years to come in terms of diminished public ridership. And that's really worrying for me. Well, you know, just before we get into the specific initiatives that we were going to talk about on the big island, I do want to mention that I saw an article in the Times this morning about how young people, you know, the young voters especially are somehow becoming sensitized to climate change now. It's stoning on them that we have a serious problem. Maybe it's the wildfires. Maybe it's the extreme weather in the Caribbean. But the article stood for the proposition. I'm sure there's some evidence there that people are starting to realize that that is an important platform point. And I guess if you want to look at the two presidential candidates, it's really not a platform point for Donald Trump, but it is a platform point and maybe an increasingly important platform point for Joe Biden. What about that? It is, yeah. Joe Biden's got a great initiative actually looking to spend and $2 trillion over four years on climate change mitigation and associated green tech and climate tech. And this is actually really far-sighted. Planted put forth actually has some great, I wrote a summary. I can share with you listeners if you'd like to send a link to them. As for young voters, yeah, it really is actually a bankable issue, a running issue. I had to give a little plug for a show I watched recently on Netflix, which really is pretty inspiring and kind of fun. It's called The Politician. It's actually about a very young politician who runs first for a high school office and then evolves into running for state Senate in New York. And his main campaign blank is climate change. This show is meant to appeal to young voters. And it really is actually, I think, resonating in a real way that the planet is being despoiled, to say the least, by the older generation leaving, you know, a big mess for the younger generation to take care of. That's not cool. Yeah, we've received a commission, so to speak, a grant to make some movies about the relationship of climate change and COVID, how COVID affects climate change, and it does simply because of the different level of emissions and how climate change affects COVID, which is an interesting sort of, you know, biosphere kind of analysis. So we're into that. We all have to be into that. And certainly, I think when Democrats, as and when the Democrats, you know, get back in the White House, they'll be, they'll be the Green New Deal somewhere along the line, even if they're not completely impressive. Yeah. Well, let's talk about the things that you wanted to discuss. One is the Green Conservation Corps in Hawaii. Whoops, that's not in the right sequence, is it? Well, let's talk about it anyway. The Green Conservation Corps. That's fine. Hawaii County Net Zero Energy. What is that? How does it work? And why do you want to talk about it? Yeah. So we have a local initiative we're calling Think Big on the Big Island and Big Sands for Big Island Green. And what we're looking at is really combining the obvious, you know, depression level unemployment issue. We're currently facing the Big Island with the already existing urgent need to address climate change and recognizing that, look, we can and should see this as an opportunity to create local jobs, paying jobs that put in place more roofed up solar on county facilities on car ports, et cetera, put some place EV charging stations, improve energy efficiency in buildings, builds new trails, maintains trails, builds new recreation facilities, maintains existing rec facilities all across the board, just like the Civilian Conservation Corps that was enacted by Roosevelt back in the 30s that was actually quite successful in creating, you know, good jobs for a lot of young men. The new version of course in our century is men and women, but doing not only trail maintenance, et cetera, but really focusing on climate mitigation. And our view is this could in fact be a real serious job creator on the Big Island and statewide and achieve some really great improvements in quality of life. So right now we're pushing this at the county level and trying to coordinate with state level groups. And we have early support from the county council and we of course are going to have to wait for funding. This will be an expensive measure and we're going to have to wait for funding to come from probably the federal government hopefully before the election, but I'm pretty sure after the election that will happen if Biden comes in. And so we're really trying to lay the groundwork for this idea to get people, you know, aware and excited about the potential here to create new jobs that really can do great things. That's a wonderful idea actually. And I am immediately reminded of FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps, that one it was, the triple C back in the middle and it was a very important initiative to deal with the lingering depression, which was still going on in that period of time. And certainly we, you know, in Hawaii, we have to remake our economy, reimagine it and we have to offer jobs and we have to move on from jobs that are no longer available. We can't, we can't return to the old, this would be a new idea, a new normal. Exactly. Yeah. And I mean, people I think are still not quite internalizing the degree of job destruction we've seen in Hawaii and are going to continue to see. It's been mastered, of course, by pretty generous federal unemployment benefits, but those ended a month ago. I think people are going to start really feeling a pain quite soon. And we really need to get ahead of the curve here and get people working, doing productive things. And this is really a way to transform our local economies in a way that I think very few people can argue with. Well, I totally agree. Of course, the problem as you identified it is where do you get the money to pay the people to do the work? Right now the government is in dire straits in Hawaii. We're way below the curve. And federal government under Trump is really not offering any money to the states for this kind of thing. In fact, I think that's kind of stuck in general right now. And so the big question will be raising money. Do you think there's any money available for the private sector? Well, I think this has to be a mix of public and private sector funding. You know, I don't know the landscape in terms of philanthropy that well in Hawaii, but I do know there are some great groups funded in large part by some fairly wealthy individuals who certainly could and I think should step up and help to fund this kind of initiative. I think we can get a match of federal funding with local philanthropy. We can get a lot of jobs created in the near term and this could be rolled out. There's, you know, there's already models in the islands for this kind of program. It's really a matter of scaling it up and getting people on the ground to manage it, get the train, get it rolled out. So I think if we get the framework in place in the next month or two, once funding becomes available from the feds and local, hopefully philanthropic matching funding, it could be rolled out fairly quickly. Well, totally consistent with the whole thing about connecting with the land. The whole Hawaiian culture thing is consistent with this. So I really hope you can do it. Are you are you pushing this? Are you active in making it happen? Yeah, we have some early support from the County Council here in Hawaii and and we're hoping to get a resolution before the full council before, you know, I think in September is the plan and I'm optimistic that a lot of vote yes, that then expresses the County Council support for the measure for the program itself. When funding becomes available, hopefully the next few months then it could be set up fairly quickly. And so it's too soon to say it will actually happen and what timeframe but I'm optimistic it will happen in some form. You know, I'm hoping to become a measure for a model for a statewide funding in the same way. I was just going to say that it's a model creates a model as the big island often does on things like this. And so if it works, if it's doable on Hawaii Island, well, maybe the other islands will take note. People, people would want to it. I think everywhere in the state and of course, then it becomes a model for the mainland too. Might even be a model for the federal government, you know, shades of FDR. Even Trump can see some benefit here. Let's not get carried away actually. I wish it was so, but that's not likely. Okay. Let's talk about the think big initiative for the big island that big with a capital B, capital I, capital G. What is that? How does it, how does it different from the conservation core? Yeah. So think big is an overarching initiative looking at five different areas. So green energy, solid waste, education, parks and trails and local ag being a really important fit one. And so what I just mentioned of course is kind of an it goes to a lot of those different factors in terms of the green conservation core. A second major initiative we're pushing is a county council net zero by 2030 initiative. And it would be a bill that the county council would adopt that would commit itself to achieving a hundred percent renewals by 2030 for its own use. And that's a key distinction. I'm not saying that the county should necessarily adopt a 2030 goal for the whole county to become fully renewable. That's doable. But I think, you know, let's take this step by step. So if the county itself steps up and says, look, we can do this in the next 10 years. And we should is a lot of reasons to do it. We currently have a statewide 2045 mandate for the state to become fully renewable, but is of course an increasing amount of science showing that that's not fast enough. Now, it still sounds really fast. A lot of people 25 years to transform them fully renewable, but frankly, given the magnitude of the issues we're facing in terms of unemployment, climate change, et cetera. We really need to think a bit bigger. Hence the name. Think big. And so the county is looking to adopt this measure for its own needs and thereby inspire the private sector to do the same. Well, you know, it's the whole thing about how whether government likes it or not government sets the pace sets the tone government. I'm not sure how to put this, but government does lead people. If I if I give you a president, for example, even if he's not a good president, people listen to him anyway. If I give you a governor or a mayor, he's the governor or the mayor or she and people listen to him anyway. And so if the county, the Big Island County, it's a program like us, it's clear to me that people will see this as a leadership act and it will have an effect beyond government that this will affect the whole county anyway. And maybe other people outside the county or watching the county. So my suspect just as a as an elected leader has a leadership effect like it or not the county, if it does this, it will it will be a statement. It will be a not to developers and to environmentalists and to you know, people who care about the environment keep people care about the green energy. Don't you think so? It will. That's that's our hope. I do for sure. Yeah. And the key thing we're discussing and highlighting in our advocacy is we don't want just a statement and a vague goal. This bill we're promoting will if pass actually have a requirement that the county R&D Research and Development create a report, an action plan showing how the goal could be met by 2030 milestones along the way and metrics. So it's not a simply, hey, sure, let's do this at some point in the future. It's really, you know, going to be an action plan with real goals and real metrics and milestones. Yeah, that will be a goal show, you know, from the aspirational goals we've seen so far, you know, let's do 100% by 2045 or 2040 like that without any detail. You have to have a detailed plan. You have to know which foot is coming. Exactly. So yeah, making by 2030. That's a that's a 10 to 10 your hand. That's not tomorrow, but it's not so far in the future that you can simply see as being a generational challenge. It's a here now challenge or the decade to achieve it. So, you know, not to be too, you know, self-aggrandizing, but it's kind of like a local moonshot for the county. You know, 10 years is long enough to really do something significant, but not, you know, it's not so near term, but it's crazy. It's actually quite doable. So what are the, what are the steps forward? In other words, what are the, what are the benchmarks along the way? What happens first and how long does that take? What happens second? How long does that take? Well, in terms of logistics, we have a draft bill. We have a champion and a counselor who is going to introduce it fairly soon. I won't name the person just yet. Once the bill is introduced, hopefully the council as a whole passes it before too long. Then it will go to R&D to create the action plan. Our draft we have until the end of 2021 to produce an action plan that will have milestones for 2025, 2028 and 2030 to achieve these goals. And so we don't be too prescriptive and requiring certain percentages by those dates. We'll leave it to R&D and the community-based process to figure out those actual details. And draft legislation, as I have done for years now, the key is always to be specific, but not too specific. Because if you're too specific, you can easily face problems in terms of you know, pushback or just not knowing enough. Because frankly, you know, big with this, we're not on the ground in R&D's shoes. We are not maintenance people or county facilities. We don't know the details, but we do know enough to be able to put out an ambitious but achievable goal like this and then let the people are on the ground, create the details. Who are those people? Is there a designation in the bill about who would deploy and who would implement it? Well, in terms of the planning process, research and development is currently run by Dan Lay and Riley Saito. And we've been discussing discussions with them for a few months now about these, you know, various measures we're promoting as a thing group. In terms of the actual on the ground implementation of the action plan, it will focus primarily on rooftop solar, on-site battery storage, improve energy efficiency through better lighting technologies, better AC, whether it's AC and buildings and the key piece, probably the hardest piece is fleet turnover to purchase EVs, primarily electric vehicles across the board, electric vehicles are by far the most efficient kind of technology out there and they're becoming increasingly affordable, increasing in long range. If you can charge your EV fleet with on-site solar power is quite cheap. If you charge your EV fleet with grid power is quite expensive. So a virtuous cycle here. If you go big on solar, you can also go big on EV fleets and save money. So the whole plan would cost money to do it, but it will save money long term through fuel savings. Well, when you talk about EVs or you're including hydrogen, Riley Sato, Sato has been very helpful in terms of developing hydrogen buses in the Big Island in a way that would be a model for other islands. He's a real hero in that regard. But query, when you talk about electric vehicles, are you talking about hydrogen as well? I'm more of an EV fan than a hydrogen fan. There's a big difference in efficiency and has been a big debate in the last few years about the efficiency differences, technology comparisons. I personally prefer to see fully E-fleets. I accept there are some use cases where hydrogen may make sense, but the efficient differential is about three times more efficiency for EVs as a big hurdle overcome. Okay. Well, the other thing is the money as indicated in our discussion around the conservation core. What about the money for this? How much is this cost? Is it, you know, is it going to be hard to fund it? How is it going to be funded? Yeah, that's a great question. And the action plan will certainly include analysis of what it will cost. So I don't want to give it for this point. I recognize fully there will be some pretty hefty capital costs to go big on solar, recharging EV fleets. But I know enough for my own analysis over the years and reading, you know, dozens of other related reports that the fuel savings from his measures pay for the capital costs for too long. And a key source of savings I already mentioned in Hawaii, if you can basically, you know, decouple from the electric grid and very high electric costs by going solar on facilities, you then can transit those cost savings to the whole energy infrastructure including not only on-site electricity use, but also the EV fleet use. That will I know enough now to say with some confidence pay for the whole thing within, you know, probably a decade. So no matter of, you know, getting that from capital costs to that's not an easy lift. But there are many sources of funding for the kind of thing. State is broke right now. We won't go there. But certainly some federal funding will be available kind of thing. There is certainly various kinds of private funding, hopefully available in some manner. And we're also hopeful that there will be a community of block grant funding for this kind of thing too. I heard you talk about getting off the grid in this in the details of this plan. And I don't know if you notice but there's a there's a bestseller coming out on Amazon called something just like that getting off the grid. And it could be this is part of COVID. It could be this is a part of getting away from the madding crowd that people are interested these days and getting off the grid perhaps more than they were. And of course the Big Island is perfect place for that just in terms of the space of it and the fact that it costs a lot of money to connect to the grid. So how about spending that on developing your own infrastructure you know in a micro grid. But where is that? Where does that play in the Big Island initiative you're talking about? Yeah. Well, micro grids is kind of the catch all term here and micro grids can be either their own disconnected grid or they can be connected to the larger grid. In this case we want the best of all worlds you'd want to have basically the ability to operate as a local micro grid to still have the larger grid to fall back on and to interact with if you have excess power you can't store on site. You want to be able to send it to the grid through that metering or related policies but you also want to use as much of your own power generated locally as you can. So in this case when I talk about installing large amounts of roofed up solar you want to see basically all county buildings become effectively micro grids with solar power and on-site battery storage and locally be chargers and charges many fleet vehicles as you can from that on-site solar micro grid you know policy. I work on micro grid policy for a nonprofit client in California called the Green Power Institute and there's a lot of incentive now in California especially to develop islandable micro grids because of all the wildfires and the power shutoffs we don't have quite the same situation in Hawaii by any means but there are still big financial incentives to become your own grid effectively in Hawaii a lot of people are doing that of course for years now we've seen a huge growth in roofed up solar we have the high solar penetration of the nation for obvious reasons we have very expensive power and so in the same way that going solar at your home or business makes sense in Hawaii you know a lot of sense financially it makes a lot of sense for local governments are the same. How does this affect the relation of the I want to say rate payer user consumer and the utility help go on the big island how would that be changed if at all? Yeah well in this case you know when I talked about the best of all worlds having both microgrid being connected to the grid still you are not affecting the larger grid except by diminishing the amount of power you draw from the grid and so it does not negatively impact other rate pairs because because you're just going to be still paying you know some T and D part of your power bill you simply not paying the same generation bill and so Hawaii is partially decoupled in terms of its revenue for utility please being decoupled from power sales California is fully decoupled so they actually don't make money on power sales they make money on infrastructure Hawaii is kind of a blend of the two so we should go toward full decoupling here in Hawaii to remove that incentive to sell power as revenue stream it should be instead fully infrastructure-based I'm familiar with any jurisdiction which is using performance-based rate making or maybe that hasn't really happened anywhere but here you know Hawaii is leading the charge in that you know I've not been involved in that docket here in Hawaii but I'm looking forward to being finished and rolled out it could be a real model for the rest of the country you know well you know one thing that strikes me is that some of the elements of of these plans I'm sure you've thought about this they're the conservation plan and also the B.I.G. initiative the big island and you know the hundred percent renewables by 2030 doesn't require PUC approval No the two things I've talked about today will not require PUC approval the county can of course you know do what it wants in terms of going on solar and buying EVs and you know implementing a county imposed mandate to go hundred percent is purely a county measure no PUC required for that the GCC the green conservation core is a jobs program so no PUC approval required for that Yeah good well that makes it easier I suppose from and you know you're you're a lawyer that deals with regulators that's really an important consideration well and why the big island though I mean I I personally love the big island and I I understand why anybody would rather be there than any other place in the state but query why the big island for you and for this initiative why I live here that's a short answer when I start local and you know create good programs that work locally and then hopefully see them grow and you know other places too is it is it better suited than the other islands well in terms of local production for sure yeah we're much bigger and in terms of you know meeting the state man they were 100% renewables by 2045 we are on our way with the mix of we're gonna have a lot of large scale solar installed next few years we have some wind already we have a lot of rooftop solar so we definitely have this base to go fully renewable here and you know a while who does too for most of its needs be much more dense is more tricky and of course being a much smaller island no great fact I'm sure you notice the big on is twice as big as all other islands combined so it's a lot bigger a lot more space but a lot of that is you know taken up with conservation area which is on used lava land which could be used for solar make kind of thing so we definitely are we are the low-hanging fruit for going 100% renewable in the islands for sure are the people you think you know the way they see the the land the environment renewables are they are they likely to be amenable to the elements of these plants well solar so far has received almost no pushback as I'm sure you've heard in the power on a Wahoo and other islands has been you know there is wind here South Point and of course Kohala but it's been no new large wind facilities proposed on the island for a long time so it's all been solar for new projects and to date I've seen or heard nothing about you know major concerns or even minor concerns about solar it's just a very you know low impact technology I think we go to the point where exporting solar power from the big out that will be an issue but for now there's no plan to export it simply about being used you know on our island and the last thing I'd like to discuss with you Tam is the whole thing about lawyers you know the project you describe really really does need lawyers like like you it does need people who can draft legislation that would work who have some experience who can appreciate you know the vagaries of regulation and of course contracts in all directions to make to make the developments work and you and I could sit down and I'm sure you've done this and and think of all the contracts you would write in order to implement all the the plans involved in this initiative it's a matter of it's a matter of writing legal papers and and there you are I don't know if there's another lawyer in all of the big island who can say that he's a a green energy lawyer maybe there maybe there are I'd like to know that but don't you think that we need more lawyers of clean energy in Hawaii who dedicate their practice to it who dedicate their lives to it I mean you think so definitely yeah and like I said earlier you know I feel pretty lucky to have been able to carve my niche and definitely we need more people who do what I do know any candidates well I'm well I want to talk about that for a minute so are you going to be able to you know practicing on the mainland and do this here because I mean practicing on the mainland is demanding I mean I know a lawyer who actually lives here and practices in Philadelphia believe it or not no problem partner in a big firm in Philadelphia full-time practice but she lives here and so the same I suppose it's really not an obstacle for you to practice in California and live here I mean we do have the internet and that makes it easy we do yeah and iron you know the pandemic is actually become easier to work remotely you know unsurprisingly only I worked remotely for the most part for years before the pandemic to even in Santa Barbara I worked mostly remotely my my work at the California PUC is sent in San Francisco but most of those meetings are webcasts anyway and there's certainly protons about being you know in person versus Zoom you can get a lot more done when you're there in person but you know I've made it work for many years now so to be clear my my clients are all based in California currently my work in Hawaii is purely voluntary it's all volunteer work I'm on the board of the statewide EV Association the new Hawaii EV Association I created this new Think Big initiative with various like minded people I do some other volunteer activities so to me it's really a matter of being able to turn my skill set into NASA for my community in a way that is you know the best thing I could with my limited you know volunteer time and so I will be taking the bar here in Hawaii for too long and become a bar certified in Hawaii but currently I'm purely doing volunteer work and I'm you know practicing my day job in California that may change for too long but certainly I'd like to see more folks who do work entirely on renewables or at least make it to be part part of their practice here in Hawaii Don't you think there's a likelihood at least in in your practice your future whether it be as a volunteer or as a practicing lawyer for a law firm that does what you are doing or want to do a law firm that would advance green energy all over town and write power production agreements and advocate in various places for green energy and like not to take wooden nickels to move the needle ahead all the time a law firm that would be an environmental activist law firm isn't there room for that could that happen would you be part of that there is yeah and I certainly would like to be more involved with like kind of people in Hawaii you know there are some great groups doing advocacy you know Blue Planet Lupono Sierra Club doing great work but they don't have the funding for full-time lawyers you know it's just it's an issue even non-profit lawyers aren't cheap and so you know Hawaii is ahead of the curve in many ways but it's also behind the curve in other ways and having a thriving vibrant nonprofit sector as a way when I compare to my work in California Hawaii could use a lot of improvement yeah who knows maybe that's part of the conservation core you know one element of it find out how are lawyers sure lawyers practicing conservation Tam Hunt a lawyer who is doing very good work on the big island and has great initiatives and advancing great ideas for clean energy there thank thank you so much Tam