 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Well, and welcome to Stand on the Energy Man here on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Stan Osterman from the Hawaii Center for Advanced Transportation Technology, and this may be a brand new year and nice, quiet, beautiful, cool Hawaiian day, but it's the start of the red-hot legislative session coming up soon. They just, they're kicking things off. We get notices of, you know, meetings coming up and update hearings coming up, so I'm really fortunate today to have snagged a really great guest who's high on the I Want to Meet with you list, and that's our representative Mark Nakashima from Hilo, and he has got a key position now. He's the Vice Speaker of the House of the Hawaii State Legislature. So, Rep Nakashima, so thankful you could join me today. I know how busy you are. And just wanted to talk about, hey, what's new in energy and things, and what's new in the legislature, but especially things going on in energy, and particularly things going on in the big island, because that's, you know, your backyard, and hopefully soon to be my backyard. And we'll check on things there, but what's up? Well, you know, I think this coming year is looking to be different and exciting in some ways. There have been some minor changes in the legislative lineup in terms of our chairpeople. A long time, Energy and Environmental Protection Chair Chris Lee has moved to the Judiciary Committee. And Nicole Lohan, who has served as Vice Chair of the Committee for a number of years, succeeds as Chair of the EEP. And so, you know, I'm looking at not too much of a policy change in terms of direction, but you know, I think your new eyes and thinking in the committee. So, you know, hopefully we'll see some good things coming out of Environmental Protection, Energy and Environmental Protection this coming year. You know, on the big island, we are looking at completing the fueling station, the hydrogen fueling station at NOHA. And so that's kind of exciting. And once that's done, you know, I guess we're waiting for the deployment of tree hydrogen fuel cell buses to the big island to start their demonstration projects. I've heard that National Park isn't sure if they're going to take theirs or not, and how we might redeploy those to Hawaii County or others. But you know, I think that will also be a game changer having the first hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on Hawaii Island. So, you know, that's really exciting to look forward to. That is exciting. And it's also exciting. I mean, we're going to have Rep Loan here as a guest next month. I know she's going to break away, you know, being the brand new chair of that committee and getting nowhere, but she's committed to a show already. And yeah, I'm very familiar. In fact, the bus was delivered, the Helion bus was delivered about two days after Christmas. It got off the ship and cleared the port. And the U.S. cyber guys took it up to Kunien, they're fine tweaking it and just fine tuning it and ready to ship over to the big island. I know the station's pretty much been ready to run. And Mitch has just been holding off to make sure the bus is ready and timing. It may actually be a really good thing that volcanoes not sure they want to take the buses or not, because those two buses are just ready to rock and roll. And they could easily get over there and jump in the mix as another pair of Helion buses, depending on how the financing works out. So, well, Mitch Ewen is also a host on the shows here at Think Tech. And I think he'll probably, when the decision's made on that, we'll finally find out. But it'd be really good if we could get three hydrogen buses running around Kona on the big island. That would be awesome. And Mitch's station is a game changer for a couple reasons. It has a fueling station for cars or buses, but it also has two refueling posts and two trailers. The trailer hydrogen, which we're supposed to be for up at the volcano. But if those things are now available, that means that he could actually move hydrogen anywhere on the big island to a station or to help support the transportation sector. And that would be awesome. I also understand that in the plans for NOHA's continued development, there is a vendor that is coming in to provide a restaurant, grocery and filling station. And there is also interest in actually putting a hydrogen fueling pump on a commercial property in NOHA's boundary. So I think that's kind of exciting too, where all of a sudden we have the first station and three buses, and suddenly there's a commercial opportunity also kind of almost immediately available. So we're looking forward to seeing how that plays out. And I think that as this grows and develops here, it will really set Hawaii Island and especially that West Hawaii side kind of ahead of the game in terms of hydrogen fuel technology. And the big island is the perfect place for all this because the distances, the mountains, the things that make electric transportation a challenge, the things that hydrogen kind of shines in in that electric transportation area. The big island has all those things where, you know, putting an electric bus in a while could be battery, could be hydrogen, but on the big island, it's going to be hydrogen. You know, it's like battery buses and things like that just are probably not going to hack it because of the ranges that you have to cover and things like that. So we're looking forward to the hydrogen really growing up there. And what kind of things in the legislature, do you see any incentives or anything that, you know, we've been working on a couple of proposals over the last few years, things like trying to make sure that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are counted as electric vehicles under the law so that we don't have to change every law that affects electric vehicles to also say hydrogen vehicles, things like that. Are there any pieces of legislation you're aware of that are coming through? Well, I know that, you know, I think we're going to revisit that issue again, especially since, you know, now for this year, for the first time, we actually have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles available in state here on Oahu. And I think that, you know, that in itself is really exciting. That, you know, that Toyota has provided the Mirai car here on the island. And with that, I believe that, you know, we definitely need to address the hydrogen fuel cell technology that having that platform included, you know, in the state laws to provide some incentives for those owners. All right. I noticed there was an article, and I get it from, it's from a really small newsletter, but it talked about Hawaiian Electric getting a lot more on the grid with energy storage, kind of leading the charge in the utility world for energy storage for renewable energies, particularly intermittent renewable energy. And they're kind of touting that Hawaii actually has more grid energy storage, or is scheduled to be shortly to have more energy, grid energy storage than the rest of the United States combined. And I found that, if that's factual, and I haven't checked that fact, but that's a huge thing. But the number they put out there was just over a thousand megawatts, which isn't anywhere near what he goes going to need just to get a Oahu covered by 2045 for energy storage. So from my perspective, that looks like hydrogen to me. That's the sweet spot for hydrogen on the grid. And what do you think the chances are of finally getting the PUC at Hawaiian Electric to start taking hydrogen seriously as energy storage on that scale? I think that it's really important for that to be seriously considered. A number of years ago, as I was pushing the hydrogen economy and trying to expand it out, one of the things that we did is we met with several of the power producers that were using the intermediate energy, the solar, the wind energy folks, and met with them to discuss the possibility of manufacturing hydrogen during the off peak hours, storing that and using that as their backup to provide energy onto the grid when the demand was there. Many of them already had a battery storage and they weren't looking at changing that technology that they had already invested in. But I think as we move forward, it's a good time to start looking at hydrogen manufacturing as a method for that fuel storage now because not only is it more transportable than the batteries, but I think it will prove to be a cleaner long-term solution for Hawaii. I agree with you 100% and I'm looking forward to it, especially on the Big Island. One of the things that happened this past year that I think got everybody's attention, and I'm not sure whether it's in a good way or a bad way, is in your area, the volcano, pumping out a bunch of lava over in Puna and that affecting Puna geothermal. And on the good news side, when people saw how much of the power was gone when that Puna geothermal closed during the eruption, they got their attention that that was producing actually a lot more power than most people really anticipated. And number two, the fact that in Puna, a lot of land was covered, but Puna geothermal wasn't covered. It was touched, but it wasn't really inundated. And there's been a lot of talk about, is Puna geothermal going to come back and when? Can you kind of enlighten us on maybe the discussion in Hilo area and the Big Island on geothermal in general? Can we look forward to geothermal as a future energy source, clean renewable energy source in Hawaii to go along with solar and wind? So I think if we can include geothermal, and by the way for the audience, I'm not just talking geothermal only on the Big Island. There's geothermal on Maui, there's geothermal on Oahu. But geothermal in the state as a potential baseline energy firm power that the electric companies need to generate, is there a future in Hawaii for that, or are we kind of bogged down in not here, it's not going to happen here? Fortunately or unfortunately for nuclear as well. I don't ever see nuclear happening in Hawaii, just don't see it happening. But how about geothermal? You kind of lived in that world for a long time. Yeah, you know when put a geothermal flows down, the Hawaii Island lost the source for 30% of its base power. And up until that point in time, Hawaii Island led the state in terms of renewable energies being used for electricity. As we speak, I know that put a geothermal is looking at how they might reopen. Put a geothermal, when all of this inundation occurred and they couldn't get to their plan, they continued to keep all of their staff on payroll, on standby, working to make sure that the equipment was being maintained, that everything that could be worked on was being worked on, keeping it safe. And the latest update that we had is that they were looking at reopening. What we understand is that reopening is not going to be a quick thing either, it's probably going to be a year process for that to occur. But once they reopen, they will be able to come back into the mix and again provide power for Hawaii Island. One of the things that we are looking at is other opportunities to expand geothermal beyond that put an area where it is into other areas of the island that have been identified as having some potential possibility for geothermal. And as you've said, as we look at various research and surveys, there have been identified areas on every island except Oahu for geothermal opportunity. And so I think we need to continue to investigate that, to look at that possibility, because it is definitely clean energy, it's definitely renewable. I think in terms of the environmental needs and desires for Hawaii, it's one of the best opportunities available to us. Now there are those detractors that have concerns over the current operation of the current plan. And I think that if we are able to really go with the newest technologies available, that those kinds of concerns can definitely be mitigated. We're going to take a quick break here and let some of the other programs here on ThinkTech tell you about themselves. And we'll be back with Reb Nakashima in about 60 seconds. Aloha. I'm Wendy Lo, and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at 2 o'clock. Live from ThinkTech Hawaii, and on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about. Whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means, let's take healthy back. Aloha. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of ThinkTech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea is on ThinkTech Hawaii every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join me where my guests talk about law topics and ideas and music and Hawai'i Ana all across the sea from Hawai'i and back again. Aloha. Hey, welcome back to Stand and Energy Man on ThinkTech Hawai'i on my lunch hour again. And we're talking to Reb Nakashima for the State Legislature. He's the new Vice Speaker of the House for the State House of Representatives. And he's from the Big Island, represents the Big Island. In fact, right in his backyard is Pune Geothermal and all the volcanic activity. So he's definitely up to speed on what's been going on over there for the last six months or more. And we're talking to him about renewable before we went on break and about geothermal power. So I'd like to pick up where we left off there and just kind of keep pulling that thread a little bit. Where are some of the other places on the Big Island, if you can talk about it, that people are looking at maybe tapping into geothermal. It's not all right in Pune, correct? It's not all in Pune. There are potential spots closer to Ka'u on the saddle between Mauna Kea Mauna Loa. By PTA? By PTA, they've identified a spot. There's been some mention that Huala Lai over in Kona might have a potential. The potential has been identified, but whether or not there really is a source, a sufficient source of energy remains to be seen. And that would require some investment and exploratory drilling to make that determination. And at this point, no one has put that kind of investment up to see whether or not those potential resources would pan out. Yeah, and right now just an observation. I don't see the state legislature having a big appetite for doling out a lot of money for surveys and things like that and trying to do that kind of work. But to bring a big company in, there's got to be potential for a business proposition for them to do something. So we could potentially get a large company in that would front the money to do something like that. But is Hawaii ready for that? Is Hawaii ready for a large-scale geothermal having a big company come in and take over the money part of it? I think a lot of it would depend on the location selected and whether or not there were a lot of population in the area being looked at. Right now, with the geothermal, it is kind of in the middle of a very populated area, at least up until the lava flow. It is a very populated area. And unfortunately, a lot of the folks that have been complaining a lot of this came to the area after the plant was already there. So I think we'd have to look at also land use planning in the area if we're going to explore geothermal further to ensure that we don't have that kind of conflict between neighborhoods and really an industrial zoning area. Well, one of the things that I've been made aware of over the years, in fact, I was made aware of it keenly last year when Louis Salveria, head of D-bed, was at a budget hearing. And he was asked what the status was of Hawaii's spaceport on the Big Island because the state has applied for a spaceport license or something from the FAA and NASA or whoever. And I know that activity would be on the Big Island. Are you familiar with what the spaceport entails and things? Because from my perspective, if we did go as far as liquid hydrogen on the Big Island and producing it from geothermal, that would be another customer or another market for liquid hydrogen. Is some vertical launch like rocket, small rocket space exploration? Well, the spaceport application that the state of Hawaii made was for Kona Airport. It was the horizontal taking off where it would take off and land like an airplane and then shoot up into the space. So it was really more of the space tourism type of model that we were pursuing for Kona. Right now on Hawaii Island, we are also looking at the possibility of small satellite launches. 40-foot, 50-foot size spaceport. Using the smaller rockets. And that might be another potential. I think it was just recently announced that they're going to begin the environmental assessment process, which is required by the FAA before they issue the license for a spaceport. And so we're on the very infancy of that public proposal. Well, just something to think about as a former aviator and doing a lot of flying out of the state of Hawaii. Hawaii is very unique and Hawaii Island is specifically more unique in that there's very little FAA traffic that goes anywhere near the southern part of the Big Island other than tourism kind of stuff. I mean, in terms of jetways that crisscross, there's probably few places in North America, including Alaska, where you even could launch vertical takeoff rockets. Even Florida is, you know, they're in a saturated area with some traffic. But the pluses for space launches is being close to the equator. And South Point of the Big Island is farther south than Florida. So we kind of win there. We're in an area where there's very little, in fact, zero. There's zero FAA traffic over South Point of the Big Island. I can guarantee you there's no jet routes that go over there. There's one jet route that comes close and it goes between Honolulu and Tahiti, and they only use it a couple days a week. So even that one is, and even that one is still probably 100 miles away from South Point of the Big Island. So there's a lot of great geographical advantages for space operations in Hawaii that are found nowhere else in the United States. And that would be a great thing to, I think, focus on to help our economy. Not just from the tourism side, but from the overall high-tech job side, space exploration side, and the commercial satellite industry side. I think it'd be terrific if we can do something like that. The one exception, I think, to that is we do get a lot of helicopter traffic from tourism. And I think that a benefit to the residents of having the rocket launching in your area is that there's a zone that has to be kept clear of any traffic during a period of time. And that may lead to relief to a lot of these folks that are tired of the helicopters. So that may be a trade-off for them. Well, yeah, they'd put out what they call notums, notice to airmen, and shut down airspace. Because we did it in the military all the time, where we had military working areas where anybody could technically legally fly through there, but you wouldn't want to fly through there with a bunch of military airplanes flying around. So we would put a notice to airmen, and they would basically tell all the commercial and civil aviation, hey, this area is going to be worked by the military during that time, or NASA. So, yeah, stay out of there. And I don't think legally they could stop somebody from flying through there, but you have to be kind of silly to want to fly through there during that time. So it definitely would help to tell some of the traffic. So this one is FAA, so I think that when something happens, then they do have control of our aircraft, right? Yeah, if something happened and you got in an accident, it would be your fault. Definitely your fault, because you've been warned not to go in there. Yeah. So we covered the big island a little bit. We covered geothermal. Another big piece of equipment that's over on the big island that is right next to Mitch's Hydrogen Station, as a matter of fact, is the OTEC. And have you been tracking their technology and where it stands right now? Well, yeah, I remember as a schoolboy, you know, that's the first time we did OTEC. Gary Yoshi was governor back then, and they started that first OTEC plan. And it ran for a number of years. And since then, it's been kind of underground, not really making a lot of noise. However, I know that in the last several years, several companies have been pursuing the OTEC technology and seeing if they could make it work. I know we have a working prototype plant at the Nelha right now. You've got kind of stones throw away from the hydrogen cooling plant. And I know that they are looking at going to try to find a way to get to the next level and bring a larger plant online. Yeah, because that would be another source of really firm base load power for the utilities to use on the grid and help them with their grid stabilization. Yeah. And every year, annually, there is an OTEC conference held at Nelha. And I believe it's with Okinawa, where we've had this energy partnership and technology sharing partnership to kind of discuss and advance that OTEC technology as well as other grid efficiency type of program. Okay, great. Well, believe it or not, we kind of blasted it through 30 minutes or anything. All right. I don't want to cap it up, but I want to thank you for your support, A, of clean energy in the state because you've been a champion for your whole time in the legislature and before. And especially your support on hydrogen. I know you're probably the first legislator I talked to when I moved into HCaT and you're trying to beat me up over when hydrogen was going to happen. So thanks for your support in hydrogen. And we hope that this year during the legislature, you can make a difference in why it cleaned and greened and get us off of fossil fuels. So thanks for being here with us today. All right. Thank you. We'll be watching for a big eye on things and what's going on in the legislature with your leadership. All right. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thanks everybody else for joining us today. And we'll see you next week on Stam Energy Man. Aloha.