 Okay, this is Hawaii, the state of clean energy. Sharon Moriwaki and I do this. We're co-hosts on that show and we're celebrating Howard Green today. Howard Wig today. I told you he's doing proper things. This is my day. So that's why, because this is usually on Wednesday. This is Howard Wig, Howard Wig, okay. And Howard Wig is the host of Code Green. That's my reason. I like Howard Green. You like it? Okay, we'll make the show then Code Wig. And, you know, we've been talking in the earlier segment of it. We've been talking about the award that Howard got, which is on the table, at the Hawaii Clean Energy Day program on Monday this week, August 20th, 20 days, okay. And he's properly fed it. He's probably an award winner. But now we're going to talk about, you know, what comes out of all of that, because he was able to get the code, the building code changed in Hawaii to be modernized and updated and more aware, conscious, built-in energy efficiency things. And tropicalized. And tropicalized. That's a new word we just found. Okay, so that's what I want to know from you. I mean, the title of this segment is actually 2.2 cent electricity. Kiss the toad. You might explain to the people what in the world that means. Okay, so we go back to the fairy tale days. And the princess comes along and the toad says, if you kiss me, I'll become a prince. And sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn't. And the deal is that when people think of energy efficiency or renewables, they think PV on the roof, photovoltaics on the roof. That is the prince in action. It's a bright, shiny object. It's moss to the flame. And they, oh, that's all they want. And they can brag about it like they can brag about a new car. Colour neighbors, what not. Status symbol. Energy efficiency is invisible. It's dull. It's boring. Are you saying it's a toad? Yes. Energy efficiency is like a toad. But if people will embrace it and kiss that energy efficiency toad, boom, they've got a prince of a deal on their hands. 2.2 cents. Compare that with 20 and 30. Gosh, that was much higher than that. So how do you, we need you to explain how you get to 2.2 cents. Is that on the wall or what? How do you calculate that? Okay, so LEDs are the easiest example that I can give. You spend, well now you go into a big box and you can buy say four LEDs for $9. What's that? $2.36 per lamp. So that's costing you something. You unscrew the old incandescent. You screw in the LED, you're using only 10% as much energy as before. And then you multiply the number of hours that that LED is burning. And one of you should know how many hours an LED burns. Thousands. 50,000 minutes. 50,000. So if you're saving, you've went down from 100 watt lamp to a 10 watt lamp, for all those hours, that's a ton. Multiply it by 50,000 hours all in exchange for a cost premium of say $3.10 because a new incandescent would have cost you 60 cents anyway. And you divide that, I won't go into the math. You both would fall asleep. But in this case... You could never do that to us, Howard. In this case, the cost per kilowatt hour saved is not just 2.2 cents. It's some minuscule fraction of 2.2 cents. Now you transfer that to other technologies that don't have that incredible pay... Oh, plus the LED is cool. The incandescent is hot. What do we need in our homes more heat? No, let's see. Your air conditioning load goes down. Same for commercial buildings. So that's the icing on the cake. Are you saying that these LEDs are part of the code? Yes. Well, how does that work? High efficacy. Lighting is part of the code. LEDs have improved so much that we have ratcheted up the lumens per watt. That's how you measure miles per gallon. More light. No, you get in exchange for a watt of energy in, you get X lumens out. Oh, more lumens per kilowatt hour, whatever. Yeah. And we have ratcheted the code up such that the only thing you can use now is LEDs. And for the Hawaii amendment, I've ratcheted it up even further. So when a builder builds and hands you the keys, whatever, that house is going to have LEDs all through it. Yep. Must. In this case, the code specifies that 75% of all lighting must be LED. But as long as you're installing them, why not just do 100%? How come you couldn't get 100% into the code? Because we crafted the model code about three and a half years ago, LEDs hadn't yet really taken off like gangbusters. So you have to wait until the next four years to ratcheted it up to what it needed? Yeah. We had the last code hearings about nine months ago in Kansas City. And we managed to get 90% required. 90% of all lights. The national code has to be adopted in each state. But it's uniform. That's what you were working on. There's a national code. So we talked about LED. I just wanted to ask another question because this has to do with, we had the code now. It's a statewide code. Just like the federal, the national has a code. But each state has to implement. It has to execute. What do we have to do on the county level? Because it's sitting there on the shelf. But it doesn't mean anything until the counties do something. Is that correct? So what do they need to do and how hard is that? Well, there is this entity called the Hawaii Building Code Council. And it's created by law, mandatory. We meet once a month and all four county building division managers sit on that council. That is permitting managers. Who are they? No, they're the ones. It's like DPP. Is that the Department of Planning? Yeah. They're the county. Well, DPP is the local. This is local. And then within DPP there's a building code manager. Okay, got it. Yeah. It used to be Tim Hu. Now it's on somebody else. Because Tim got elevated. And every county has that. And they sit on the council. And as we talk about adopting a new code and amending, and in Hawaii's case we amend the heck out of the energy code, they must buy off on it. Because they have a subcommittee, the four of them, and they meet separately and they vote separately. And every, all four of them must buy off on any new codes, any new amendments. For their county. Yeah. Not for the state. Do they input on the state also? Yeah, because... I think this council has input on the state. But I guess Sharon was getting at, or at least I would be getting at, what are the counties have to do to implement this code as far as that county is concerned? Okay. How much latitude do they have? So what does Kauai need to do? What does a big island? What does Maui have? Well, the first step is what I described. You must approve it. And in this case, Governor Ige has signed it into law. But the law is not self-executing. It does not bind, say, the county of Maui without action by the county council. Exactly. Right? Why do that have to happen? Why don't they just say, this will bind all counties in the state. Don't they have the power to do that in the state legislature? Yeah. So why are they holding back? We're a whole ruined state. What do you think the Codes would say about it? Well, but they were in on it. Weren't they in on it? Good point. Yeah. Sounds a bit like a kabuki to me. No, it's traditional. And it's not just the energy code. It's the plumbing code, the electrical code, seismic code, everything. But at the end of the day, where the counties approve this, it's the same code, isn't it? Yeah. They take liberties? They can amend. Do they? To a minor, minor extent. To show they're involved. So you mean they customize it to Kauai? Because the tropical considerations in Maui are different than the Big Island. Maybe the temperature or something. The wind. What? What can be different? I could tell a lot of tales like that. But it's up to them, the building code managers who attend the council to go back to their boss. They had a public works and say, hey boss, this is good. We've got to adopt it. And the public works boss goes to the mayor, hey mayor, we've got to adopt it. And in this case, I know that three out of the four mayors in town are very aware of this and they want it. Now, well, number one, they have... Hasn't happened yet. Hasn't happened. Too early. And so that's step one within the county. Step two is once the administration has bought off on it, they have to introduce it to the county council. County council has to consider three readings each separated by a month. If on the third reading it's approved, it goes back to the mayor's office for signature. I mean, none of the counties have gotten to the stage of introducing to the council. So it hasn't been so. That's your next award. Making sure they introduce it. So what were they doing these ten years while you were doing this? They were waiting. They were getting preoccupied. Just for instance, we say they're underpaid and overworked. In this case they might be... Overworked and underpaid. They're underpaid. Overpaid and underworked. Overpaid and underworked. But Howard, suppose I have an enlightened county. I'm not saying which one might be the one. And I say the old system, Howard was busy in upstate New York with that. We're going to do it ourselves. We're going to do the best possible code for the most best renewable efficiency. Could they have done that? Could they have modified it county by county, regardless of what you did? As long as it's as stringent as the model code gets. As long as it saves equal to or more energy than the model code. So they didn't have to wait for the governor to sign this bill, the energy code. They could have done it on their own. They could have done it on their own. Or they just could have taken the code from the stock and barrel and given it to the mayor. Mayor says, yep, giving it to the council. Yeah, but it didn't happen on any county. It didn't happen, no. The other thing is that, okay, so the governor, let's see. This happened in the 2017 legislature, to your credit. And the governor signed it, what, recently? No, not the legislature. It was just their building code council. Or it didn't require legislative action. It went through something called the administrative procedures. Oh, it's like rules. Like rules, yeah. MAPA. And you really don't want to hear about that. No, let's make it a sausage in a more advanced way. So then the governor finally, everything is satisfied under the requirements of the administration. March 20th, 2017. He signed it. He believes and done my work. Sure. Have you had a tattoo coming? So he signs it. Yes. This March, what? 20th. March 20th. Yep. And he said this act should take he six months ago. Ten days after signing. So there we had to wait ten days. Okay, all right. So roughly six months ago. Incidentally. And nothing has happened in any of the counties since then. Well, not in the county level. But when he signs, that's a state government document, all state government buildings are affected. And remember that all university buildings, including all ten community colleges, are affected. All 265 public schools are affected. So the state has to follow. The state has to follow that. Just that the counties have to take that property. So if I'm a builder, didn't say the big island, right now today, I don't have to follow the code. You don't have to. But if you talk to me, you will. Why? What would you say to me? Oh, I just persuaded them. I said, don't give your clients a piece of junk. Yeah. What can you do about it? Right now it's just persuasive. Because I can talk building talk. I can talk engineering talk. I can talk dollars. That may not talk to you. You may be building, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe building right now under the, you know, the dinosaur code. Yeah. But shouldn't you maybe be talking to the people who are going to buy the houses to say, hey, builder, why don't you follow this code? Because I'm going to say 30% more if you build it the right way than if you build it the old way. I just had a good lunch with an activist realtor. And that's not an oxymoron. And she says, yes, you must get to the realtors at the national level, oh, and the appraisers too. When you have an energy efficiency or renewable energy item in your house, that should be appraised and add to the value of the home. Okay. And it's happened on paper nationally and we're working on that. It's like the cars now have it, you know. Pre-efficiencies. Fuel efficiency. Pre-efficiencies. Then you start the movement that people will demand the market will change. And it is changing. It is changing. So I guess the hold up for me is these various county councils. Does that include Oahu? Yes, it does. Wow. So we're lucky here because we have camera one. Camera one is a straight interface to all of the mayors and the county councils of all of the counties. And this is going to let you tell them what's on your mind about what they should be doing right now, okay? Ready? Go. Honourable mayors when you adopt the IECC International Energy Conservation Code 2015 you will be reducing the energy use in say a new home by up to 33%. And in many cases you will reduce construction costs. Wow. Repeat. Reduce construction costs. Plus you will be building a more comfortable and more healthy home. Let's get on with it. Wow. Now, of course, Monday is Labor Day but Tuesday would be a good time. Sharon, we're out of time. Can you close? Yes. I'm just so excited that it's finally passed and it's just the beginning. So I really thank Howard for his energy. No pun intended. No pun intended. Oh, pun intended. And not giving up. And not giving up because it's for our future. And we really do appreciate all you're doing. So you have to come back and tell us when the first county comes on board we're going to give them a real boost and make them be the model for the other counties. Maybe even be a guest on Think Take Away. A Navy bit. Absolutely. What a privilege. Yeah. Howard, I think we can join and say you really deserve this award. That's personal. And as far as I'm concerned I think Sharon would agree you're a hero. Hero. You're an energy hero. Thank you so much. Aloha. Thank you. Aloha.