 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Okay, bingo, we're back at the three o'clock block here on The Give It a Wednesday, Energy in America. And we are going to talk with Jeff Kissel. He's with E-Princk in Washington, but he travels around a lot, and he's the former CEO of Hawaii Gas, which is important for this show, because in this show we're going to talk about the 10th anniversary of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative with Jeff. Hi, Jeff. Thanks for joining us today. Aloha. Jay, it's nice to be with you. I'm speaking from across the ocean, but my heart is in Hawaii as always. We can tell from the beautiful aloha shirt. Anyway, so, yeah, let's talk about the history of the Clean Energy Initiative. I'll tell you my thoughts and recollections, and then you can disagree with me. So it was around this time of year, November, December, 2008, Linda Lingle got into an agreement through her DBED director, Ted Liu, with the consumer advocate, Laquette Alakuni, and the Hawaiian Electric Company, which was then managed by Dick Rosenblum as the CEO, and Robbie Ahm was the executive vice president, and they made a deal. They announced the deal in the ceremony room at the state capitol. It was a big thing that we had had Clean Energy to some extent in the past, but this was a governmental, you know, nod on that, and it was an agreement to build Clean Energy in Hawaii in every way possible, and all those parties to the agreement were supposed to bend their efforts in the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative. Oh, and one of the parties, as I recall, was the Federal Department of Energy, which was involved, and which at the time was funding a part of the initiative. So we're going to talk about what happened since then. What about your recollection, Jeff? Do you recall how it all got started in 2008? Well, it started, of course, as you recall, because Hawaii has a long history of working through alternative energy solutions. And of course, as we all know, Hawaii was one of the pioneers in solar energy starting back in the 1970s. But what happened in 2008, of course, was that oil prices spiked. They were headed above $150 a barrel. They effectively got to $200 a barrel at the retail level. So everybody was focused on what they could do to move away from petroleum, not just because it was expensive, but because the perception was that it was not clean. And we were and still are concerned about greenhouse gases. And even though Hawaii is a is a is a tiny little place with a small energy footprint, it is concerned actually served as precedent for what happened in a lot of other places in the United States and elsewhere in the world. Yeah. Well, so there we were in the ceremony room. It was a big deal and it went forward. And there was a lot of talk about it. There was a lot of newspaper coverage at the time. There were a lot of people rooting for it. And in fact, the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, which included members of those organizations and some representatives from industry. And of course, it was it was well represented by the Federal Department of Energy in those days who had said it would provide funds for Hawaii and the Clean Energy Initiative went about the business of of of of improving and sort of marshaling and utilizing clean energy resources. And over the years, I made a little list, Jeff, of all the possibilities I'd like to read them through because not all of them exist today. Solar energy, of course. I guess that includes solar water heater energy, because we had that, as you said, and there was more of it coming down the pike. Wind energy, we had some of that and we went on to have much more of it, including first wind, especially in Maui. LNG was under discussion. Linai, the big wind project in Linai, was soon enough was under discussion. As soon as the lindal legal term ended and Abercrombie came in, I remember Linai was a big deal and that was going to result in a cable from Linai and possibly Maui to Honolulu to deliver wind energy to other islands. Algae, there was a lot of algae research going on. Heidi Kundley and Kundley Agro Systems, they was called in the Minoa Innovation Center. She was developing algae that could be used to provide lipid oil and lipid oil would make fuel was the idea. And in fact, it was a farm of some substance in Kauai growing algae for that purpose. Otec, off the Big Island, which had existed from back in the 70s, I guess. Now, the possibility of having Otec energy at Nelha was under consideration. Geothermal existed in Puna and we're going to put that into our portfolio of renewable resources. Ocean energy, there was a lot of talk about ocean energy and there were experimental ocean energy devices in Kaniyoi Bay Marine Corps. But there was also an ocean energy machine that Cynthia Thielen was advancing and it actually was deployed off the northeast coast of Maui. And of course, biomass had been used by the plantations actually. It was being used and could be used in the future. That was under consideration and hydro power. There were actually hydroelectric plants in various places in remote areas, mostly around the neighbor islands that had been in use since the early 20th century. That's the only item on my list. I couldn't think of any other, Jeff, but all of those were in play right after 2008. Everybody was trying to figure out where we were going to get these renewables from. But as you know, some of them advanced and some of them didn't. Well, some of them didn't, but a lot of them did. Most of the most important point that I just heard you make, Jay, is that this was not an initiative of big business. It was not an initiative of small business. It was initiative. It was a community based initiative supported by our government, of course, but really there were dozens and dozens of businesses that that were and are contributing greatly to Hawaii's clean energy future. Now, our friends at Pacific biodiesel have been an important part of the success of the energy initiative, both in terms of transportation fuels and power generating fuels. On the on the negative side, of course, the change in the regulatory environment or the purchase of electricity has been devastating to Hawaii's progress forward in clean energy, because no longer can people sell electricity into the grid. You know, so the incentive for putting rooftop solar has been greatly diminished. So so it's a balance going forward. And collectively, as a community, we are better educated. We've learned a lot more about our energy future. We've learned what it means to be truly clean, what it means to think we're clean and what it means to invest in our clean energy future. And that collective knowledge is beginning to pay off. It's going to be giving dividends in the years to come in a number of ways. Yeah, we we learned a lot. I remember I was involved in the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum and I and I watched you across the street in Hawaii Gas. We were learning a lot. We were, as they said, we were picking the low hanging fruit. And that was namely identifying the sources that were most attractive, both in efficiency and cost and also in political acceptance. And what happened over over the few years that followed was that we seemed to select over everything else on the list that I that I mentioned, solar photovoltaic and there was a race by by companies that had not been involved in it before to get in on it. Young young business entrepreneurs were selling solar all over town. They had the benefit of the net energy mirroring regulation statute, I guess, and they could present packages to homeowners that were pretty attractive since the excess energy would be sold back to the PUC, excuse me, sold back to Hawaii, Hawaii Electric at a pretty good price for the homeowner. And that went on for several years. And while that was going on, we had trade associations building of the installer companies, some of whom were really getting very big and doing very well and all functioned on these spreadsheets that they would provide to homeowners about how how they could save a lot of money, not spend really anything inside the connection costs by having PV installed on their roof. It was a it was a bonanza for a lot of people that made a lot of money. And then someone wanted to line. I think it kind of caught up with them. And the notion was she was that it means the people without solar are supporting the people with solar for those that energy metering return prices. And so I think there was some resistance there. And that began that began an era of controversy. You do remember the controversy, right? Well, not letting you I remember the controversy. I have a very firm position on it. It was an incredibly foolish decision to eliminate net metering overnight. You know, you can certainly make a change in energy policy, any public policy, whether it's health, energy or education. But the key is to implement it in a way that allows us to adjust to it gradually. That didn't happen with net metering. And it was devastating to the companies who employed a lot of people who lost their jobs, but it was also devastating to our progress forward on the clean energy initiative. Well, the government, the government, the government has decided to take certain directions in energy policy. And they've done it in an open and transparent manner. Some of us agree. Some of us don't agree with what they they've done specifically. But to do what they did so suddenly acted actually against their all of our best interests. And I'm very disappointed in that. And now, you know, you look at what's happening with wind right now. The maintenance of the wind turbines is beginning to increase the cost of wind substantially. And again, because we are are starting to be dependent rather than diversified on single sources, we're vulnerable. When we were dependent on oil, the economy was hugely vulnerable to oil price changes. Now we're dependent upon a large scale of renewable energy as opposed to distributed renewable energy. That's very sad. It's not good for the economy. Yeah, it's been moving from distributed to a utility side. And I guess one interesting point you raise is the fact that the wind turbines are getting old, some of them, and they're failing. This happened with at least one that we know of in Ulapalacua, where the wind, the cupola on the top fell down. And that particular turbine, you know, doesn't function even now. So I guess, you know, I guess it's important point to make that these are not only expensive at the beginning, but they get expensive in the middle. And as you go forward by having to maintain them. And a very interesting question is, is the solar panels when the solar panels were first installed? Well, you know, they were brand new. Nobody really knew what the useful life of the solar panel was. I recall in the solar panels that were installed by Murdoch and Lanai, there were a lot of failures in those panels and Toshiba had provided those panels. And Toshiba bellied up to it and replaced them free of charge. I guess it was a warranty basis, but it brought home the point that they don't last forever. Sometimes they break and right now, to your point, I think we are in many ways relying on the long term life of solar panels without knowing exactly how long the average solar panel is going to last. If we come to a point in the throw where they going to give it up, you know, and they go out of commission at a certain point, you know, in a widespread manner, we're going to have a price to pay at that point. Well, the fundamental of the problem is that we are still 80 percent dependent upon imported petroleum for all of the energy we use, whether it's trans transportation or electric. And as I've said before, if you own a Tesla, your Tesla is using 80 percent oil to run around Hawaii and the equivalent miles per gallon that the Tesla gets or the other electrics or even the Mirai, which I happen to drive, are oil miles per gallon until we move away from oil as an electric base. I brought a little slide for you that actually shows here on the continental US where I am, what the true impact of my renewable vehicle is on the environment. I don't know whether you can put that up on the screen. It's on there now. How green is your, how green is your driving? True zero charging. Follow these simple, six simple steps. Can you tell us what this is about? Well, if you're, if you're looking at the alternative fuels, obviously gasoline being the main fuel, it tells you in terms of grams per mile of greenhouse gases, what you are producing and putting into the atmosphere today in California because of the significant amount of natural gas in the electric. The, the pollution from the, or the impact in greenhouse gases is, is minimal on an electric vehicle. It's 117 grams per mile compared to 412 for a gasoline vehicle. In Hawaii, however, it's almost 400 grams per mile because we make so much of our electricity with a lot. And again, my, my passion as, as you know from my time at Hawaii gas is fuel cells. And so you, you look at the greenhouse gas emissions of a fuel cell vehicle today. It's 158 in California because such a large component of the hydrogen is made directly from natural gas, but, and, and some of it is actually made from petroleum. But ultimately, when it becomes renewable, just as electric cars will be, the amount of greenhouse gas it emits will be de minimis. And that, that bleeds through if, if I may use that expression to electric vehicles and the other vehicles that will be used in, in Hawaii's transportation system. And I think it's important to further our knowledge base by understanding these concepts. And of course, if you look at the bottom line, you look at tailpipe emissions and, and there are substantially none or everything except for petroleum-based vehicles. Well, you know, but at the generation level, it certainly appears that Hawaiian Electric and for that matter, KIUC are moving with some alacrity to, to reach the 2045 goal, or even earlier, of 100% clean energy. And you know, they might, they might do it. That's another discussion, of course. So what we, what we have is the low-hanging fruit was picked, or at least considered, it focused in this 10-year period on solar and to a lesser degree on wind. LNG, as you know, is something Hawaii gas wanted to see. And for that matter, I think Hawaiian Electric wanted to see that too. But David Ige stamped that out one day, and he's, and he's done it since too, by saying he didn't like LNG. And then his government seemed to follow him on that. So we never really got off the ground in LNG, even though such, you know, such detailed plans were made, especially by Hawaii gas. The Lanai project failed because of activists on Lanai, and Hawaiian Electric could never really put that together. Murdoch could never put that together on Lanai. And Larry Ellison never followed up after he bought Lanai. So the Lanai idea about the cable, not happening. Algy, I haven't heard about it. I don't think it's happening. Otec, there were problems in the, in the materials. They were too expensive. They were using titanium, as I recall, as the optimal material for the exchanger, but titanium was too expensive. So I don't know if they really have a, you know, a future here. They're still working model at Nelha. But, you know, after all this time, it's hard to believe that they're, they're going to be able to do it. Geothermal is under a political ceiling. Those people who believe that geothermal is piercing Hawaii, piercing Pele's breast as a cultural, a native Hawaiian cultural issue have, have, have held it down. And it's still operating at way less than what it could operate at. And I'm not sure that it has a future either. Given what has happened with the TMT issue on top of Mauna Kea, native Hawaiian activist objecting, I think, I think it falls in the same category. And it doesn't have, it doesn't certainly have a lot of support that could, that could push it through. Biomass, as you mentioned, is, you know, Hawaii biodiesel, Pacific biodiesel is doing pretty well. They got all kinds of things going on, including sunflowers now in Maui. We visited them a week or two ago. The hydropower, it's, it's stable. I think there's some hydro being developed actually in Kauai. I think a hydro, a battery, a hydro storage system is also underway in Kauai, but there's not a lot of it. So what we're left with is solar and to some limited lesser extent wind as the, as the sources of renewables going forward. And the issue has become not necessary to look for the elements of the portfolio, but they have to incorporate the renewables into the grid to find the right technologies to make it efficient, to connect the homeowner and, and the, and the utility. One interesting thing is that if you look back, there were a lot of people who wanted to use renewables in the blush after 2008. They wanted to use them to get off the grid. But getting off the grid hasn't been all that popular. Not that many people have gotten off the grid. And I think in the foreseeable future, it's likely that we'll be dealing with a utility and we will be connected both in the KIUC and in Hawaiian Electric. I guess the big question is, is, you know, how has this changed the way people think energy efficiency is part of it? In fact, I think energy efficiency is a bigger part of it than it was in 2008. And so people are more conscious about those issues. They're probably more conscious about, as you say, the green and climate, you know, climate change and, you know, taking care of the environment. But the big question to me is whether we can make a goal or whether we will, you know, step on our own shoelaces and get tied up in distractions. You know, government is always on a federal level, too. It's a question of the initiative versus the distractions. You haven't thought about that. Well, the government, when it makes policy, oftentimes overlooks the obvious. How do you double the miles per gallon of a sheep by a vehicle? Very simple. But two people in it. This is not difficult to figure out. Right. But the question is, how do you get two people in every vehicle? Right. Well, there are some people who say, you know, no problem, we have transponder technology. You you make a congestion charge or a usage charge. You want to use your vehicle alone. You got to pay by the trip or pay by the mile like they do in Singapore. Yes. If you want to use your people, your vehicle with more than one person, then you get a discount or you get it for free. That's a solution. I'm not suggesting it's the solution, but it's an example of government overlooking the obvious in favor of the complex, which, you know, sometimes it's a lot sexier and easier to sell. The side benefit is you as you reduce the congestion when you have two people in the same vehicle. You certainly do. And there, you know, but, you know, is there the political will to do that? Yeah. In, you know, in New York City, I work in New York a lot. And I can I can pick up a bicycle and ride from Grand Central to Penn Station, which is three or four miles. It would cost me ten dollars to take a cab. It would cost me two seventy five to take a subway. But it's it's practically no charge to take a bite. And assuming I survived the trip, I'm healthier for it. So, you know, there are there are ways to do it. Yeah. And we have you've seen that. If you're looking back on the history, we've seen the complete streets program, you know, become more robust. More people are interested in it. I think the infrastructure has improved. There are bike lanes where there weren't bike lanes before. But it's a long way. I think, Jeff, before we, you know, get to a complete streets program that encourages, you know, the grand mass of people to take bikes to work. There are signs of that with Biki, you know, the Hawaii Biki program. But I think it'd be a while before we get everybody on a bike. And as you say, it's cheaper, better and healthier to ride a bike. And this is the perfect environment to ride a bike. So maybe that will come up. I think I think one of the most important things that you've mentioned is the thing about the cars. And right now, obviously, we're in, you know, a transformation about cars, about electric cars, hydrogen cars. I'm impressed that you have a what is it? You're right, you're right. Mariah, that is that is a very that's a very advanced car in terms of energy. And of course, Tesla is coming up with new models and with longer range. And so is Nissan with new models and longer range. And Hawaiian Electric is putting in charging stations. And, you know, there seems to be a push in that direction. But what I what I suggest to you is that ultimately that is going to be a big determinant on how we proceed with energy in general, especially when the autonomous cars come around and they may come around pretty quick, because as a matter of fact, who is it? David E. Gay said recently that he wanted Hawaii to be a testing ground for autonomous cars. Wow, that is something. If that happens, you know, things will change, don't you think? But some of my fellow drivers in Hawaii, autonomous cars would be a great improvement. But that's a that's a personal opinion and line up. You know, the idea, though, of of becoming energy independent and becoming a renewable energy showcase, I think needs to be separated from a hundred this kind of dogmatic goal of 100 percent renewables. It doesn't really matter whether you're 60, 70, 80 or 90 percent renewable, as long as you keep moving in the renewable direction. And on the plus side, the clean energy initiative has has a lot to stimulate that and make it happen. On the negative side, the politics that have overshadowed the initiative have kind of held back progress and are right now with the destruction of the photovoltaic industry, really eliminating the opportunity for diversified sources of energy. And that's what we, you know, what everybody benefits from because technology blesses certain areas of the of the industry at at various times. So we don't know whether wind is going to have a breakthrough or a photovoltaic or some other technology. And if we've eliminated a whole industry, which we have, we're we're really doing ourselves and the country of this service because they look to us as an example. Yeah, that's that's true. You know, we have figures from Marco Mangostorf, one of our regular guests on energy, with regard to the number of installers that are out there and how many have failed and how many installations are going on these days. And it's a fraction of what it was a couple of years ago. So yeah, the change from that energy metering has effectively decimated the installer industry. And and then when you put on top of that, the fact that the federal government is imposing tariffs now on Chinese photovoltaic cells, that adds another wrinkle of complexity and difficulty to moving it ahead. So I think we may have seen all the low hanging fruit or most of it. And it's not clear exactly how that's going to expand going forward. So going forward, you know, looking forward, well, looking now, Jeff, as we as we sit here now with the 10th anniversaries, there is a symbolic significance to the 10th anniversary. What is what is your take on it? Where are we relative to where we were? Where are we relative to where we want to go? How should we see this 10th anniversary in your mind? We've been investing in clean energy for 10 years, really more, but collectively under the initiative for 10 years. That investment is paying off. It's paying off not just in the improved quality of life in a way from 20 or more percent renewables in the system. It's paying off in terms of our ability to make good decisions going forward. And even though I may disagree or agree with today's policy, I'm really confident that the initiative itself is helping all of our decision makers make better decisions that will impact the future. One last question, and that is my favorite subject of managing offshore investment. I'm sure you've thought about that in connection with Hawaii Gas and LNG and all these other issues. But we had we had a very tumultuous time a year and a half of PUC process over the next era attempted acquisition of wine electric. How important is offshore investment in the utility and I mean large investment in these projects? What how important is that to Hawaii? How important is that to moving forward in an efficient and, you know, ultimately successful manner? Well, it's it's important if you're going to limit the ability of the individuals in Hawaii to make onshore investments and the elimination of net metering has taken the Hawaii man in the street, person in the street, forgive me, out of the picture as an investor. That to me is an incredibly short sighted view. And so, you know, when you eliminate onshore investment, you got to be dependent on offshore investment. When we eliminated the plantations as a source of renewable energy, we became dependent upon imported oil even further from basically, you know, 40 percent to 90 percent. Yeah. Well, what would you do? What would you do now to, you know, make a better pathway? Well, I'd open up the the process for sharing electrons so that if I wanted to share my electrons with my neighbor, I could legally do that as long as it was safe. You can't do that now. You can't put in a cable between the Fidel residence and the people who live next door to the Fidels. It's illegal. You can't use the grid because they've made it uneconomic. So I'd find a way to reopen the process for sharing electrons. And then you have to incent conservation in terms of behavior or more people in a car, a good quality investment in rapid transit. You know, I've always advocated for the rail or even the subway, but I've advocated for it in a unique way. You know, you could make that a very popular project. I've said this before, if you went from Eva to the university and rebuilt the Termite Palace, everybody would be fooled. So you can't advocate for rapid transit or mass transit in a way that's politically unpopular. Look at Maui. Maui's roads are congested. They're a miserable experience for the Maui visitor. You know, Maui had a train system that worked really nicely. You don't need expensive high-speed, high-technology devices to offer the opportunity for people to go places inexpensively and pleasantly. The trolley system still works. So much of energy is about transportation because we're using so much fossil fuel in transportation. Well, Chuck, we're out of time. I have to say farewell. Thank you so much for joining us today and participating in the discussion about the 10th anniversary of Hawaii Clean Energy. There's more to come, and I hope we can get together again soon and talk about energy in America and especially in Hawaii. Thank you. You're in a car for you, Jay. Okay. Talk soon. Aloha.