 Bingo four o'clock rock here on think-tank Hawaii the state of clean energy our favorite energy show Every Wednesday at 4 p.m. And my favorite co-host Ray Starling. Hi Ray say hi hi Jay All right good to be here. Okay. Okay, and we have in the studio. We have Layla Tahiralee, okay who is with Tarviva who won an award. We'll talk about that. Hi Layla. Hello Bonjour. Yes, and also To add to pre-imag... wait N'est pas peau that means don't be afraid Je suis là, I'm here for you To add to premier, you will always have value in my eyes. It's getting good now Et je t'aime and I love you, but that that's a statement of God's relationship with humankind So it's nothing romantic. Very good. Okay, so my friend's good enough. It is. Okay, we're gonna do the whole show in French Lee that means you too. Anyway. Oh, and we'll show you. Oh, excellent. Excellent. There he is. I did eat. Oh Okay, Ray. I hope you can do that At least sign mentors in the county engineers office in Kauai. They also won an award So we're gonna talk about awards today, and then this is springing off the Hawaii clean energy day program on August 16th just more a week a week ago, which was really a splendid program and You know Ray was there in fact He was on one of the panels and he is actually on the show that is now playing think-tech on OC 16 show that is playing all week Which is what I call a summarized version of eight hours of conference that day. What do you think of that conference, right? I thought it was a great conference. It's Bringing things closer to where we need to be for a 100% clean energy Yeah, and I'm looking forward to seeing your condensation of that whole day Yeah, and Lee how about you? I mean I mean we we actually interviewed there you there and we're talking about multimodal transportation And you wouldn't let me off the hook for a minute as I remember That was a fun conversation Jake and Yeah, I thought it was a really great conference. It's really good to get people together to talk about clean energy, I'm Sure, we'll talk about this a little bit more my my angle on that is more mode shift than fuel type and Always feel that that's an important component to really bring into the energy discussion And I'm sure we'll have a chance to talk about that more and I feel it ultimately you could make me agree with you But it's ultimate Okay, let oh you were there too. Yes What did you think what happened there on clean energy day? I really really liked it What I really liked was the update on where we are at today to where this really really good call a hundred percent 2014 you think we can do it of course Okay, we have to believe in it. We have to believe in it. Yeah, only question. You have to fashion a path away Why? Okay, so the fact is that this program one of the high points of the program was that Sharon Moriwaki of the Co-chair of the Hawaii energy power forum Hawaii energy policy forum and Mike Hamlet the other co-chair they gave six awards away And we are systematically going through the awardees Last week we did a couple of awardees and we're doing two more today and Let's go women first. Okay, can we do that? Okay, it's your turn. So you got an award Or I should say Tara Viva got an award For Transformation achievement transformational achievement in clean energy. That's quite something and it was so much publicity about it There's such a crowd and with the adulation we have add you last the arm That much that much So tell us about first tell us about tell Terviba. What is it? What does it do? What do you do for it? And then we'll talk about the award. Sure. So Terviba is a startup we are based in California and we have Two big projects one in Hawaii and one in Florida where we plant in trees The trees we're planting are Pongamia. It's a legume tree and It's a tree and that is producing every year some seeds and from the seeds We can extract some oil because these seeds are very similar to soybeans So just like soybeans we can extract some oil that we can refine into biodiesel That's one of the products and with the seed cake left we can do animal feed and the seed is actually enclosed in a pod and With the shell we can burn them for electricity So these three products are really important for Hawaii for both renewable energy through the oil in the electricity And also for sustainable food through the animal feed with seed cake. Wow You don't leave anything behind. No, that's fabulous So how far advanced are you? Are you you know actually making the seed? Are you actually extracting the oil? Are you actually, you know giving animal food and all that is all these things? Three things actually happening now. So that's a very good question. What is happening right now is like we have 50 trees planted in Kuniya. It was our first pilot here in Hawaii These trees are four years old and we harvested them for the first time this year And it was a consequent harvest It was about 12 kg of pods per tree in average, which is like more than we expected first so we had very good results and In Haleiva we have a 50 acres orchard So also really on track on our same kind of trees exactly Same thing Pongamia. In the same time we are having Research on the animal feed. We are developing some animal feed with the Pongamia seed cake with Texas A&M Do they like it? They do like it. What kind of animals? Cattle. Oh cattle. Yes, we don't have feed here for cattle. Exactly. That's why it's really a big deal Yes, it is a big deal. You know we have to ship all that stuff in and it takes all the fuel to get it here And it's really not efficient at all. So they either ship the food to Hawaii or it's too expensive They actually have to ship the cows to the mainland. We should have it for years Exactly. Ship the cattle to the mainland, feed them there, fatten them up, then bring them back. Exactly. Oh, that is so humbling. So we try to stop that. Okay, all right. Okay, so now we know and what do you do for them again exactly? I am associate for them. Okay. So I work on the number side I work about the grants that we had with the energy accelerator And I also look at all the invoice. I look at all the different partners coordinate everybody to work in the field Yeah, I recall that when William Bush got up there, he received Cush When William Cush got up there and received the ward the first thing he wanted to say is thanks to the energy accelerator He was very very supportive of them. Yeah. Why? What is that? What have they done for you? So the energy accelerator is a startup program and they just help to develop this ecosystem of Energy startup in Hawaii for us all together to go toward this goal of hundred percent renewable energy And they're really trying to understand what our challenges and how they can help us They really want to be a bridge So why are you here exactly? Is Hawaii a special laboratory for Teraviva is this an important part of your development you started on the mainland you are Weighted so to speak on the mainland, but now you're here And it's not just because the energy accelerator is because you find Hawaii attractive in some way Yes, it's because for the tree we need a good climate which is a hot climate Pongamia is like really well suited even for drought but not for cold So we try to have a look at these climates that suits our tree and Florida was part of it And Hawaii is also part of it and then we also try to see where there's land where we can plant the trees and We want land that is underproductive or even marginal here in Hawaii There's a lot of abandoned land after the sugarcane and the pineapple Plantation that stops so that's why we're here for those two two big things and also because we just fit in this Ecosystem of you know wanting to do more for renewable energy. Yeah, so you could actually have a huge facility here ultimately Yes, it's the right climate. We would like to have a big impact and you could give us an awful lot of Biofuel out of this. So I have a question for you Ray. How do you spell Pongamia? P-O-M-T-A-N-I-A. Yes. All right good Sorry that was so unfair Okay, so now you won an award. Yes, what did you do to deserve this award? What project? You know what what what happened to make to make the light the hot light focus on you? Yes, so it was as you said the award for transformational achievement. Yeah, so it's what we achieve that has been Awarded which is our 50 trees in Kunia that we harvested this year and the 50 acres that we planted in Haleiva And it was also the award for integration of sectors And it's all it's because we're working with a lot of different partners nurseries farmers. Oh, you have relations and owners Yes, exactly. Yeah, so what who who are your partners? so as I said we were working with nurseries and farmers and Landowners and then also down the line downstream markets So we also like talk with renters with a Pacific biodiesel and different companies that are really here in Hawaii Okay, and you were recognized by by the energy policy forum for a transformational achievement in the sense that you you are showing Showing this could be done here, and you are suggesting it could be done in scale here Yes, and it could change things around yes, so what stands between where you are now and Disruptive changes as you said it's it's the word scale and that that would be the difference like we're showing that we can do it and This award just reinforce our intention to do more and to keep on proving what we want to prove and now it's a matter of scaling Okay, Ray your witness. I've got one quick question and and You know because we're out here in the middle of the Pacific we often worry about sort of having a new species come in To maybe you know take over What's naturally here, and have you looked into that at all in terms of the bringing a new tree in and cultivating that? Take it that you have and there's not any issue with that As you said yeah, it's a very very important question especially in places like Hawaii where conservation is so important and Pongamia has actually been introduced 150 years ago by Polynesian, so they are So there are already some Pongamia trees in some botanical gardens here Oh, really and there is even one in UH so this tree has been introduced a long time ago, and yeah It's not a new tree so to speak for Right well, I got a second question. What what do you see I take it Read somewhere that takes about eight years to get to where the trees are producing a lot, right? And when you get there What do you what do you expect to see if your all your plans go according to? Schedule in terms of being able to provide how much could you provide per acre of The stuff that we're really interested in the biofuels. Yes, so at full maturity We expect 400 gallons of oil per acre, which is 8 to 10 times more than soybeans per acre That's what we it's a good answer Well, this could be the magic the magic tree then this could provide us with I mean The big question is can we make? Transportation run on this stuff can we build enough to grow enough trees to? Fill the existing cars somebody told me recently. I don't know if it's true. Maybe you know that you can you can take biofuel You get the process it you can take biofuel and put it in an existing gas fossil gas car And it will run so if that is true that means we could all those cars out there would be the natural recipients of the oil that comes off this Pamela ganja Right, am I right about this? So you're right with the difference that with the Pongamia oil We produce biodiesel so we can feed cars or any diesel car that runs on diesel Can you convert it into substitute for gas? For gas. I mean gasoline gasoline. No, not for gasoline just for diesel. Okay time to So tractors on the Honolulu bus for example But we're gonna have you driving an electric vehicle and we produce the electricity with the bio diesel Right, so, yeah Well, we don't want gasoline But if we can make biofuel work like gasoline that would be good and if we can make cars You know like we can incentivize electric cars There's actually a very interesting in I saw today that a bill was introduced in Congress to give tax credits Equal to solar tax credits to batteries That's gonna change things. I mean assuming it gets passed because then the other question is well How about a tax credit for a bigger tax credit for electric cars for cars that use biofuel? You in order to change human conduct You have got to give people incentives or disincentives. It doesn't happen by love as much as we want You're absolutely right. It doesn't happen. I love it depends How you know when you want it to happen well right after this break if we want it to happen fast It's a barrier to having okay We're gonna take a short break now now that you said that Hey everybody, my name is David Chang and I am a new host for the show the art of thinking smart I'm really excited to be able to share with you how to get the smart edge in life We're gonna have awesome guests in the military business political nonprofit world So no matter what background you're from we have something for you Please join us every other Thursday at 10 a.m. At think tech Hawaii comm or on the art of thinking smart I'll look forward to seeing you You're watching think tech Hawaii on think tech Hawaii comm which broadcasts six live talk shows from 11 a.m. To 5 p.m. Every weekday and then streams earlier shows all night long great content for Hawaii from think tech Hey, how you doing? Welcome to about you talk. My name is Andrew landing. I'm your co-host and we have a nice program here every Friday at 1 o'clock Think tech studios where we talk about technology and we have a little bit of fun with it So join us if you can thanks. Aloha Okay, we're back. We're live. We're here with Ray Starling my co-host Laila Haley from Taraviva who explained to us, you know, the circumstances around her a transformational achievement award when she got with William Kush the Hawaii manager of Tel Taraviva and now we're gonna go to another awardee Namely the County of Kauai which is such a prominent and you know great contributor to clean energy day. It's really wonderful and David Bisseau was there he spoke a couple of times and I listened to him because I had to edit the movie and Everything he said was like gold and it was so interesting and you work with him Don't you although you're in the county engineer's office Lee He's he's a CEO of KIUC. So you must see him at least from time to time. Oh Yeah, so actually I'm in the planning department. My office is in the Department of Public Works, but I'm in planning But yes, we work with KIUC all the time And they're a wonderful partner in the things that we're working on yeah, can you explain to me? Why Kauai seems to be so clever about everything Is it the water it is water Yeah, maybe it's the water the air. Yeah, I That's a great question Gosh, there's so many things we have Well our award was about partnership and collaboration So first of all, we have fabulous partners that we work with which makes our job easy and fun We have fantastic leadership with our mayor our council are there this week What a great man is I really like I admire him so much Bernard Carvalho And I mean he's he stood on the right side of so many issues really appreciate that and he's been very good to us Sarah Moriwaki and I went out there one time we interviewed him. He was so kind and gracious to us He's just yeah, he's a fantastic mayor. He he really Does a lot with leadership the again the word that we got was about partnership and he that is what he's all about is Working together on things and that just makes it a lot easier. I think you know another Honestly another advantage that we have is we're small and so some of the bureaucratic hurdles that Larger places have we're able to overcome more easily. I think just because of our our size and our scale and You know you get a few people on board and watch out. You can really accomplish a lot What about this nimble thing? I shouldn't say the nimble thing What I want to ask you about is whether the fact that you have a utility with members Makes you more nimble You know on the one hand on one hand More membership and transparency can lead to greater collaboration greater When I call public support on the other hand, it can also lead to greater protest Which tends to stop things. So how does that work? I mean, is it an asset or a liability to have the utility? You know respond so directly to the members in Kauai Well, I feel like a million expert on the area of our utility, I mean I can say as a member of the cooperative that I Think there is a huge value with the utility being directly accountable to You know, everybody on Kauai all the members of the cooperative So it's not like a corporate structure that is perhaps nationwide or larger than just Kauai I mean their accountability is to the people of Kauai and I think that is That is a huge advantage. I also think as Community as a county that there's a very strong environmental ethic here. So The kinds of things that KiUC is trying to do in terms of renewable energy I mean, they've they're so over the top in terms of achieving their renewable energy goals and there's There's really strong community support for that. So I Don't know it seems to work really well here. Yeah, but you know what? You're also realistic It's not just pie in the sky I was very impressed when David Bissell got up in the storage panel He took his cell phone out of his pocket and he said got lithium batteries in this thing and You and I know that this the batteries in my cell phone are not going to be as good in a year as they are today and You have to recognize lithium batteries in that light Of course, he's right. And so, you know, you can get batteries and you can do storage But you may you were on that panel Yeah But you also have to recognize that you know batteries don't solve all the problems and there are other ways to skin that cat So, I mean it's the practicality the sense of dealing with the realities that I really enjoy About KIC. Anyway, so let's talk about your award exactly. What did what did kawai do to deserve this? What I know the mayor is talking about Fashioning partnerships and as a building a team and all that. Well, what was the project that everybody worked on? So that the project itself Is revitalizing Lihui town and there's several steps that have gone into doing that it started I Would say with what it started with our Lihui town core urban design plan Which really set the stage for rethinking? What our town looks like and how it functions and it set up? And I'll get back to why this is related to energy, but it really set up creating a walkable bikeable transit friendly town and Really looking at what would that look like so it looked at increasing density of uses Creating rice street our main street as a as a really thriving commercial center Having good transit connections to other part of the island That was kind of the initial planning document that we started with that was approved by council We had some other really important planning documents along the way The county of Kauai was the first County to pass a complete streets resolution after the state required counties to do that Really saying that as we design our streets We're going to look at all users not just cars, but also look at people biking people walking all All the needs of different users and incorporate those into our streets. That's your favorite area, isn't it? Yeah, and then we also passed what's called our multimodal land transportation plan that set some goals for mode shift of getting people out of cars and having other types of transportation for short trips So for example, you know setting up our town so you could live close enough to walk to the store live close enough to walk to work You know, they seem like fairly simple concepts, but it actually gets really complicated when you try to actually Change a town or make that make that happen. So those were some of the policy documents that we had to work with are they being implemented way? Yeah, so what happened most recently is we applied for a federal tiger grant which Is it as a grant from the United States Department of Transportation? there was about 500 million dollars available nationally and they received Ten billion dollars worth of applications So they were only able to award about five percent of the applications that they received too bad They should have had more money allocated for that Yeah, absolutely, and that's actually something that Government's looking at now, but anyway the County of Kauai was fortunate to be one of the five percent that received a grant We received about 14 million dollars. So now we are implementing We're implementing these goals and policies and redesigning our streets. We also did our first street reconstruction, which is Hardy Street, which now has Wide-in sidewalks kids can walk to school will clock school is right on the street We've slowed down traffic on the street added a roundabout which really makes for It slows down traffic, but it keeps the traffic flowing really well And we've added bike lanes. So we have a street model now that It's kind of like our first street that people can see and now we'll be expanding and Doing the rest of Luhui town with with the tiger project. So so we're moving into implementation now and The reason for our word is all the partnerships that were created as we move through this process from planning into implementation So local community groups Working with Hawaii Department of Transportation federal highways working with our congressional delegation to actually get this grant That's so great. We have really wonderful if you put it together make a plan get the money execute the plan And it just seems to be it's a leadership thing as far as the state is concerned. We should all be watching you We should all be flying over with our bicycles Getting out of Luhui airport there coming downtown riding around taking a look at what it looks like. So anyway Congratulations on your transformational achievement award. I I really think you deserve it. I think Hawaii is very special So Layla, do you have any cross-examination cross-examination questions? You want to ask Lee now? No, I'm good. She's good How about you you Ray? Lee, I don't want to put you on the spot But do you I know you must be familiar with what we're trying to do here in Honolulu and I was wondering if you were suddenly whisk over here and put in charge What would you do any differently from what we're doing? What what do you think we're not emphasizing enough that? You would change if you if you were here Wow, that's a really great question. I mean I think the steps That Honolulu is going through is Fantastic, I mean working on the rail. That is you know, that is a huge project. Oh, it's fantastic It's I mean, it's it's something that you know, it it needs to be done and I think it's you know, great I hope there will be the political will to To get it done get it through I And I also like how the city is looking at transit-oriented development So where the stations are going to be? Really looking at redeveloping those areas for kind of the same things that we're doing on Kauai But at a much higher scale much higher density that people can live and work and play near those near where the The light rail stations are going to be and then really be able to live Without a car or needing a car much less in all of the daily activities That's really huge. I think City County of Honolulu has had some of the same issues that we've had of You know, it's when you're looking when you're at the policy level, it's kind of soft and fuzzy and everybody says Yeah, let's do it. That's the direction we want to go But then when you start building and having to make tough financial choices of how you're going to spend your money Then people start to go. Hey, wait a minute. That isn't really what we want or said so It's really important to keep moving forward once you you know once you start so I know there's been some Some pushback for example on the protected bike lane Some things like that But I think as those infrastructures get developed more the bike infrastructure the walking infrastructure that people will really Will really grow to appreciate those things and it it takes time you start to build, you know When you start to build something you can't Visualize the whole network, but as it grows then then you start to see that so I don't know that I would do anything differently. I think it's just like push forward. You got to got to keep going Yeah, that's a great answer. That's absolutely true. We hope you'll spend more time here and You know show us what you're doing in Kauai so we can see and learn from it I think So Laila I want to offer you the opportunity to speak to the people you can do this in English or French We had somebody doing it in Chinese the other day Tell them what you want them to remember about this whole discussion. I would really like if you would do it Well, you know We're here It really give us strength to to keep on working hard and Yeah, it's really important to us. Thank you want you to do that We are so happy you're here doing it and we see great promise it in the energy policy forum. Thanks. You're terrific Thank you so much. Thank you Laila. Good luck and leave what what what would you leave with our audience? Well, okay, so first of all the same. Thank you I think of the county is so appreciative to be recognized and have this award and as I mentioned the mayor is so much about Partnership that to receive an award specifically about partnership. He and really the whole county is so thrilled about that To get on my soapbox just for a moment I Enjoy the What was that? You have 30 seconds to do that. Okay. I just wanted to say that I think talking about types of energy and fuel types is so important, but if we add the thought of Reducing the number of car trips by looking at other ways of getting around that that will also advance our our energy goals So much and it brings in a lot of other partners to talk with health education Business chambers of commerce. They all want to get on board of revitalization and and it expands the conversation Expands the group that we can reach out to and have support these clean energy goals Yeah, I never never forget Energy efficiency always have to crank that in and the other thing is never forget Multimodal you have to crank that into so as we go out. I'm gonna hold the I'm gonna hold the award For the camera so you can see the beautiful award that standouts have been made for Hawaii clean energy day Ray. Why? Why don't you? Why don't you close? well tune in next week, you'll see a couple more warties and we've got a great batch of warties this year and all doing great things for the for this day. So tune in next week and Next week. Thank you Ray. Thank you. Layla. Thank you. We great to have you guys. Thank you so much