 Hey, welcome to Admissions Day, Standard Energy Man here. We're here to talk a little bit this week about the great event that happened on Tuesday, which was the Hawaii Energy Policy's forums, Hawaii Clean Energy Day. And I was fortunate enough to be on one of the panels and I just got an email today with some of the unanswered questions from the panel. So I thought I'd start off today by answering a couple of the questions. The first one was what kinds of batteries are most in use right now? And I'd say mostly lithium iron is real popular, but there are also some lead acid type batteries and some other liquid batteries that are being used in residential settings. There's advantages to both. The lithiums are actually pretty capable and quick responding, but if you don't need that in a house, it might be cheaper to go with other batteries, other battery types, but there's actually a full range of everything from nickel to liquid to lead to the new lithium iron phosphate, the new blue batteries that some of the companies are putting out, including Sony, that are really great batteries and the technology's getting better and better, but what we're really waiting for is something like graphene or something like that that's gonna be kind of like breakthrough technology for batteries in general. Let me see, are you encouraging individual home storage for energy? And I'd say yes. We had a guest on the panel named Luke who actually was a kind of, what would you call him, a recovering off the gridder. He decided to go off the grid a few years ago and has had anxiety since then because it's a lot more work to maintain your own grid than you think until you really learn about it, but I'd say at this point, he understands it and he knows it, but he also sees the value of being connected to a grid, but I'd say that the technology's come along where if you have a professional set up your household with your own energy storage and you're far enough away from a regular utility line, off the grid storage is right there and it's affordable and it's good, so look into it if you need to. One that was sent just for me is how would I reconcile methane storage and climate risk with methane being a really big greenhouse gas? And that was because one of my charts that I put up there showed methane and hydrogen as a great energy storage. Well, in actuality, methane is a great source for hydrogen because it's a CH4. There's four hydrogen molecules in methane and so it's a great place to get your hydrogen and if you take the methane and convert it into and basically sequester the carbon, you actually do two things. You can pull carbon out, which gives you that graphene for the new batteries that they're working on and it also gives you pure hydrogen which when you burn it or you use it in a fuel cell just gives you water. So it's much better for the climate and the environment and the atmosphere. Let me see, one more question for me. Where's the new hydrogen fueling station going to be in Oahu? Well, actually, we just installed, in fact some folks are working on my Cook Street location. We have a miniature one that's for in-house use only that makes two kilograms of hydrogen a day right on Cook Street that stores eight kilograms of hydrogen at 5,000 PSI. But Toyota Surf Coast is putting in a station at Mapuna Puna for their Marais and we're working with DOT on a station that will be either on the Lagoon Drive or by the airport someplace that should be on mine in about three years. And we just sent a note to the Federal Department of Transportation in conjunction with the folks at the State Energy Office on putting a corridor between the airport and Waikiki and calling it a hydrogen corridor and also a plug-in electric vehicle corridor. So we're actually looking at putting three stations along Nimitz and Alamoana between the airport and Waikiki and those things are actually, looks like we have some folks that maybe want to privately fund those. So I would look for those to be coming in the future. Nothing solid yet, but some great things on the horizon. So there's some quick answers to some of the questions that came out in the forum. I'd like to thank Sharon Moriwaki and the folks at the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum for putting that together. And that leads us right into one of our guests today. Actually, our only guest today, we got Maria Tom. Tomi from, she actually works at the PUC, but we're not gonna say she's working the PUC for the show. We're saying she's the transportation chair for the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. That's the capacity she's visiting us today and talking a little bit about transportation. So Maria, thanks for being here with us. I appreciate it. It's great to have you on the show. I've been working with you for three years now and I always see you at our forums and our working groups. And you always have great contribution and you're doing a great job as the new chair of the Transportation side of the Energy Policy Forum. So welcome to the show and tell us how you kind of got into doing what you're doing with the Energy Policy Forum. Well, I was with the State Energy Office for many years and in that capacity back in 1995 or so, we did a transportation energy strategy. And since then, transportation energy has been a topic of interest and it's shifted from electric vehicles to biofuels and back to electric vehicles and hydrogen. And so there's always an interest in diversifying the fuels used in transportation and also energy efficiency and modes of transportation, including bicycles and walking and whatnot. And so it never falls off the radar completely but the emphasis will shift from one to another. And so over the years, I've seen quite a bit of different topics succeed and move forward and others seem to just lose a little steam and then later they'll pick up again because there will be a new breakthrough, a new technology, a new price, price point for them. So, exactly. So the Energy Policy Forum then gives you a chance to kind of keep helping encourage all these along, all of the above solutions along. Yes, and as you know, the hydrogen is a new and exciting area with your battery electric vehicles. Finally here, after many times that they were just demonstration, now we have a wide variety of vehicles that can be selected, not just personal size vehicles, but also your buses and others in hybrids as well so that you've got your batteries or your fuel cells and then you've got some kind of auxiliary power and then of course you start looking at, well, how do we fuel them? How do we get our infrastructure and to support these vehicles? On the other side, you've got folks who say, wait a minute, every vehicle contributes to congestion. So what about the alternatives that will reduce congestion? So that's another area very important for transportation energy use. So we're looking at what the different folks are working on. We've got the State Department of Transportation that has their sustainability working group. You've got the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative and the ICCT efforts there that involve many folks in the community and came up with a list of strategies addressing both fuel side and efficiency side. And then of course you've got the fact that jet fuel is a very important transportation fuel for Hawaii. What's happening there? So a lot of the different folks have been coming together this year in particular to talk about how to develop plans to move forward on all these fronts in an integrated fashion. Okay, I want to make a comment too about the jet fuel piece because a lot of people mention that. A big chunk of Hawaii's bio, or excuse me, fossil fuel is transportation and a big chunk of that is aviation fuel. But I wanted to point out to people that for airlines and for the military, we're a terminal point. So you don't want airlines flying full tanks of gas in here so they don't have to fuel here because that means they're actually wasting energy flying here with full tanks of gas. So in a funny way, we have to have the fuel here for those jets, otherwise they're gonna pollute more and burn more getting here with reserve fuels that can get them to their next place because we're 2,500 miles away from everyone. So that's gonna be a real trick. And I think there's gonna be, well there's already a lot of work going on in the aviation community between the airlines, the military and the engine makers for the aviation community to get the fuels down. And it's really exciting to watch that work. But we've had discussions like with ICCT, we talked about winglets and things like that. And those are great solutions for long-haul aircraft. But I did an experiment one day, I sat down and watched how many airplanes came in that I knew flew long distances like the widebodies and stuff. And I'd say about 70% of them already had winglets. But there's still room to work. Even some of Hawaiian airlines didn't have winglets yet and we need to get there with those. What were some of your takeaways from the Tuesday's event? Well, our panel was on transportation. And so we had the city, the state and federal government represented. And so just to finish up on the aviation fuel side, we heard from Ross Rowley, who is with the Department of Defense's PECOM. And he was talking about some of the work that had been done with the recent... Drop-in fuels and things, okay. So they had their RIMPAC, not only American ships using blends of biofuels and petroleum fuels, but also the other partners participating in RIMPAC used those blended fuels. And so that was one new development. What a great way to showcase that technology. Just across the board, blended, drop-in fuel. The other piece was price. And they were able to get it at price parity with petroleum fuels. And so that was even more significant from a practical point of view, was to be able to report that. So maybe I don't want to speak too much about what his topic was, but that was one of the takeaways on the jet fuel piece. Now, the State Department of Transportation was there in force with airports, harbors and highways discussed. And there is progress being made on all three fronts. And their sustainability working group involves a bunch of folks who are looking at not just what Department of Transportation does as their mandate, is build and maintain facilities that work to get the planes in and get the boats in and get materials moved and people moved and highways to connect the centers that the local roads, the city handles the roads in the towns and the Department of Transportation does the R2 levels. So that's their mandate. And they've really saved a lot of money in operating those facilities. So he gave an excellent presentation. Yeah, that was interesting too. He made the comment that people always look at DOT to solve all the problems, but they don't tell people what kind of cars to buy and they don't tell people what kind of fuel to use. And they don't have a whole lot of leverage there, but what they did right off the bat, what Ford did right away as soon as he came in, as director was, he started whacking away at inefficiencies in the harbors, lighting and the airport lighting and highway lighting that really saved the state, you know, millions and millions of dollars right off the bat. And he's won some awards for that. So hats off to our DOT, they've done some great stuff. But it's kind of up to us too. Like I said, it's an all of the above solution. All of us play a role in picking the right cars, driving the right kind of cars and picking the right kind of technologies that'll help us save fuels, or just driving less and using your bike more and things like that. Yeah, and I think we all take transportation systems for granted to a certain extent, and the transportation system takes fuel for granted. You know, they say, well, we'll make sure that, you know, we've got all the facilities for vehicles, boats and planes to use, but since they're not the ones fueling directly the equipment, they kind of assume that the fuel will be there. Now what we saw when the fuel prices went up between 2006 and 2009, basically, was a mode shift in ground transportation, particularly people drove less and took the bus more, used more bikes and so forth. So there is a mode shift. Now when you're doing your transportation plans, if you're assuming that fuel will always be as available and affordable as it is at this moment, then you're not sensitive to the fact that there may be a need for shifting of loads. And of course, we're talking not just with the state on that, but also the city, because the counties are the ones who manage the bus system and are putting in the bike lanes and they have an excellent complete streets effort so that it's designed for where people live to be able to commute to where they need to get. Ford also made the point that he doesn't issue building permits and he doesn't do urban planning. So when somebody builds a big community with a whole bunch of people and he doesn't have the roads there, that's not his problem. He didn't design that community. Well, it didn't start off as his problem, it's not his fault, but it winds up being yes. Very important. So land use, the decisions that we make about what goes where. And also our capuna, as folks get older, they still need to get around and maybe driving is not their first choice. If there were safe alternative modes of travel, that would be something that would allow them to be more mobile. So we talk about mobility, that's a key word I think that we'll be focusing on more because some areas have great mobility, not just for commuters who are going to work every day, but also for the kids going to school and the elderly folks going about their daily activities and people who don't want to have a car necessarily to be able to do what they need to do. And also delivery of goods because we do need to be efficient. You understand the construction industry needs to get their concrete trucks from point A to point B in time before the concrete hardens. And so there are many users who all need to get places efficiently and affordably. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break here and we'll be right back with Maria and we'll talk a little bit more about some of the discussions at the Energy Policy Forum's Clean Energy Team. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, meeting people we may not otherwise have met, helping us understand and appreciate the good things about Hawaii. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Aloha, how you doing? Welcome to Yvacitak. I'm here at Gordo the Tech Star on Think Tech Hawaii and I'm here with my good old buddy, Andrew the security guy. Hey everybody, how you doing? Aloha. Thank you for watching. Good to have Andrew here in the house. Please join us every Friday from one to 130 and follow us up on YouTube. And remember, as we say at the end of every show, how you doing? Aloha, I'm Kirsten Baumgart, Turner, host of Sustainable Hawaii. Thanks for watching Think Tech this summer. We have a lot of terrific shows of great importance and I hope you'll watch my show too every Tuesday at noon as we address sustainability issues for Hawaii. They're really pertinent as the World Conservation Congress approaches in September and the World Youth Congress that's focusing on sustainability next year as well. Have a great summer and tune in at noon every Tuesday. Hey, welcome back not only to my lunch hour but to my holiday here, Stand Energy Man on Friday at Think Tech Hawaii. And just to point out to our background today, we're coming to you live and direct, I would hope, from the big island. That's Blue Planet Research's facility with the photovoltaic array on the back. That's a 85 kilowatt photovoltaic array that they run their whole ranch off of without any kind of, they're basically off the grid with 10 facilities. And it's a pretty amazing setup they have with batteries, hydrogen storage and fuel cells to run if the batteries get low, charge them up and run the rest of the facility. So beautiful place. If you ever get up to Poova Vaan, the big island, go check out Blue Planet Research. So Maria, thanks again for being here. Thank you. What else struck you about the discussions we had on Tuesday? Well, there was a lot of talk about how we want to improve our transportation systems and those take resources. And that reminded me of a humorous cartoon I had come across and I had been joking with someone that the Department of Transportation might want to put up new signs. It was this cartoon that's, the folks are looking at this old rickety bridge and there's a sign next to it says bridge ahead. Good luck in Godspeed. And the thought bubble is the guy saying, my opposition to the gas tax is starting to soften. I don't know, maybe they need some new signs or something. Yeah, there's, in fact, we talked about that with renewable energy vehicles with plug-in electrics and hydrogen vehicles, there's no gas tax. So how does DOT start balancing their revenues or the revenue they use to fix our roads and our highways if all of a sudden their revenues or tax revenues are tailored off because of the structure. Although that's tiny. The real bite out of the gas tax has been inflation because the last time it was raised I think was in 1996, 16 cents. If that had kept pace with inflation, gas tax at the state level would be 24 cents a gallon. Of course it hasn't, right? So the buying power of those dollars has reduced. So between the vehicles becoming more fuel efficient, alternate fuel vehicles or alternate fuels and electricity not actually being taxed in the same way and then inflation taking a bite out of it constantly, the real revenues going into those less. Doesn't that speak to writing good law? Yeah. I mean if you built that into the law when you wrote it that it would keep up with inflation or it would be tied to the rate of inflation so that we didn't have to keep going back and actually going in for legislation. Can you imagine how controversial it is if Ford goes in and goes, hey I need an extra 10 cents a gallon. Oh, he's gonna get beat up by everybody. But if it was built into the original law, that would make it so much less painful. Right, so yeah and it's not just the state, it's all the states and federal have the same problem. If it's not indexed to inflation, then it just gradually gets less and less over time and then somebody comes in and says, hey, we need more and people say, no, you can't do that. Just like when my retirement pay gets lessened. Yeah, I don't. In my 401. Yeah, inflation, and the thing is you don't really notice it from year to year. It's like traffic. You know, I mean, we're looking 30 years ahead for our transportation energy system and transportation system and the energy to power it, okay? Now, I think you need to look 30 years ago and say, well, what were they saying 30 years ago? What were the debates, what were the decisions and did all the stuff that they thought would happen and it turns out that they were projecting population increase and they were projecting congestion increase and lo and behold, it happened. It's here. It's really hard though for people to imagine 30 years of population increase and increase in congestion. It, you know, we just, even if we've been there, it's been such a gradual change like with inflation that it's not as big a difference between now and 30 years ago or now and 30 years in the future. It's the frog in the water thing. Yeah. Where you heat the water up slowly and the frog doesn't notice, is it? Yeah. When you put them in boiling water, it's an insidious onset. Right, right, right. So we're trying to build systems, not only in communities that enable the mobility that people need at an affordable rate, but also between population centers and between islands as well. So the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum's transportation group is not trying to come up with a separate projection or a separate set of priorities. What we're trying to do is work with the folks who are developing these and find ways that we can help make it more public, you know, the fact that this is going on and also what's required for it to succeed. And a lot of it is public understanding and, you know, not just that they have mode choice, but also that they have fuel and vehicle choice and that their input matters onto the, in these areas. So it's not just thinking about tomorrow, but also thinking about the future. You know, what you, we want. Are there any particular pieces of legislation or any particular goals you're gonna be setting for the Transportation Committee at the Policy Forum this year? So we've, so we looked back at the lists of strategies and topics that had been developed by DBED during the ICCT work and so we're thinking that that's a good starting point. There were 22 measures on there addressing not only your ground transportation, but a little bit on your harbors and air as well and not just the fuels and vehicles, but also the mode choice. And some of those have progressed since a couple of years ago when they were developed and new ones have been added. So the next step is to say, okay, of all those tactics and strategies, who's in charge or who can support it? You know, what role can each of you play? Who's gonna take the lead? Yeah, and what's missing? What's important but missing, especially in the short term? So we'll have that list to go forward. Just to give an idea of where the emphasis was, vehicle efficiency was an important one in the ICCT work. There was a lot of fuel that could be saved through vehicle efficiency. And there was another piece that's actually even more important than vehicle efficiency. It was vehicle miles traveled. And that's when you're not getting into your carbon, instead you're using another. A bus or a bicycle. Using another way, yeah. And then we had the aviation marine and the electric drive vehicles as well, yeah. Yeah, I think that we've got a big challenge ahead of us, because I'm on the transportation committee too with you. And there's a lot for us to look at. But again, it really, it's an all of the above. It's not just one thing or another that's gonna take us to that 30-year point and get us there without all wanting to shoot each other in road rage incidents. I mean, it's gonna take everybody working together to reduce fossil fuels, to reduce some of the traffic on the highways. And Department of Transportation, I gotta say, they've really stepped up to the game and they have their working group going. It's got some great membership in it. We'll see what kind of traction we get from them, but Ford and his team have really stepped up and that's really refreshing to see a state agency. I mean, a lot of areas that aren't his. He goes, but I'll take it, we'll do something with us. And he's doing it, so it's great to see him do all that. Yeah, it's very inclusive and cooperative. And another topic that came up at the Clean Energy Day was 30 years from now, what types of vehicles will be out there? Now I know the hydrogen has been covered quite a bit in some of the electrics. But what we did was we looked at the EIA, Energy Information Administration's annual energy outlook, and they went out to 2030 and they said, okay, well by then we're gonna have, what is it, about 12 or 13% electric plug-in hybrid or pure electric vehicles on the road. And they were projecting that they'd have about 17% flex fuel vehicles, ethanol flex fuel vehicles. Now that's a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. And if anybody's curious, why does it have to be gasoline in there? It's because when they build these vehicles, they need to be able to be used all across the country. Some areas are very cold. And so you add the gasoline in so that you have the proper vaporization so that the vehicle can operate at really cold temperatures. So it's just a standard. But that's an interesting point. You know, we had a few months, weeks ago I guess, not quite a few months ago. We actually showed a film at the Capitol. You were there for that. And it was about choice. And it talked about flex fuel and E85. And much to my horror, I have a flex fuel vehicle and I had no idea that I could actually run on E85. But the question is, where do you buy E85 in Hawaii? You know, I mean, even though I could do it, I could be cleaner. I can't get the fuel because the choice isn't there. How do we address some of those issues? It actually would be possible if fuel suppliers decided here we're gonna make a publicly accessible E85 station. So if there was enough demand, hopefully in a particular area, so they'd know where to put the first station and that first station would be successful in selling the fuel, you know, that could be a project for somebody. Great. I think there's plenty of projects out there to go around. And believe it or not, we've hit our time limit and 30 minutes is up already. That goes fast. That means you're gonna have to come back and talk to us some more. Maybe you can put your PEC hat on next time and come back and talk if they'll let you. And you can come back on Think Tech and we'll talk some more about transportation. But thanks for being here today. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. And I'm looking forward to meeting you, working with you at the Energy Policy Forum on your committee and also with the E85. I'm gonna sign you up for that project with the E85 fuel. Okay, got it. I got it. Every project needs a leader. I'll be there. So thanks for joining us this week on Stanley Energy Man. And next week I think I'm gonna have a Rachel James sit in for me and I'm not sure who her guest is gonna be, but I'm gonna be hiding on the big island by that PV array behind us now and getting some R and R in. Cause it's been a heck of a month. But thanks for being with us on Stanley Energy Man and we'll see you next week along.