 The state of clean energy. We got two hosts tonight. I'm Jay Fidel and that's Mitch Ewen on the other side of me. And we're going to talk about a very important topic, the status of TMT and how coronavirus has affected it. And for this purpose, we have Richard Ha. Richard, say hello to the people. E, how's it doing everybody? Right, right, right. And what's interesting is coronavirus and Earth Day, all the same day, there's a relationship. You know, you saw what happened to oil on Monday, my goodness gracious, there's a relationship between coronavirus, the economy, energy, and for that matter, TMT, it's all connected. And for this purpose, we have Shannon Tanganon from Hawaiian Electric. She can talk about Earth Day. Hi, Shannon, welcome to the show. Hey, Jay. Hi everyone. Happy Earth Day. Happy Earth Day to you too. For Earth Day, we actually put out our sustainability report, which is kind of Hawaiian Electric's report card. 2019, 2020 report card. So we just wanted to highlight some of the things that we're doing well. So we wanted to make sure that everyone knew like we're, our greenhouse gas emissions are down by 18% since 2010 baseline level. So there's just so much solar capacity is up. We're at 902 megawatts total solar capacity. We have 3.5 million solar panels in use right now across the five states and the five islands that we serve. So there's just a lot that we wanted to highlight in our sustainability report. Okay, how can I get one? I want to look at it. It's actually only online right now. So it's at our website, Hawaiianelectric.com slash sustainability report. Actually, it's just slash sustainability. Sorry. No, we've been, we've been, we've been paying attention to Earth Day. I mean, it's, it's, it's not a type of mind in the same way that coronavirus is, but you probably didn't know this, but three weeks ago, we had Miss Earth Day on the show, right here, right here. And in this group, there she was Miss Earth Day. She's actually from Texas, but she was actually visiting. So we were all happy to meet her. It's going to be a Miss Miss Earth Day Miss Earth Day 2020 is a pageant that goes on every year. It still goes on. So was there anybody in there? Did we have one of our Hawaii ladies participate? I don't know. There you go. The Texans are like that, you know, super. So Shannon, what, what message you want to leave with us about Earth Day? I mean, we, we can't forget the planet. You know, we had a show just a footnote to this, we had a show last, last hour with a fellow named Lewis Herman. He teaches political science at East Oahu. He's a North African, very interesting philosophical man. And he was talking about how, how, if you, if you don't pay attention to the earth, and you, you know, cram people into, you know, tightly woven cities and population centers, what you get is virus. So there's a connection. There's a connection between, you know, antigens. You know, and, and, and how you take care of the ecology. What message would you like to leave with us, Shannon, about what we should be thinking about what you should be doing about Earth Day, even, you know, in the midst of this corona crisis. Collectively, we should all be leaving a smaller footprint, you know, we have to do what we can, you know, if you're able, you know, drive an EV. If you're, if you're able, you know, go ahead and install rooftop solar, if you have, you know, all these little things that you can do just to, like I said, leave, leave a smaller footprint, make sure that we're leaving our, the earth, you know, a better place for our children and their children. We just want to make sure that we're all doing the right thing, you know, and, you know, people might think, oh gosh, you know, you're the electric company, but we are doing our best to reduce our emissions and reduce our collective footprint. Yeah, I really appreciate you doing the report and talking about it and coming on the show. Let me ask Mitch, we know what about you? Why do I feel that if I ask you the same question I asked Shannon, you would say something about hydrogen? Well, I would. I'm glad Shannon mentioned electric vehicles because electric vehicles are also vehicles that use hydrogen for their energy source and batteries as a combo. We're open-minded in the hydrogen industry. So, yes, very good. And Richard, I'm almost afraid to ask you that question because you're going to give me a long answer. What message would you like to leave, you know, with our viewers, you know, about Earth Day? Well, everything has changed, yeah? I mean, we're in a different time now. We're just trying to figure out how we manage in this pandemic. Yeah, right. And this is part of it. We can never forget this part. All right, Shannon, we're going to... The price of oil is less than zero right now. Although I hear it shot up again today, but you know, they're paying people $37 a barrel to store their oil, basically. Buy oil immediately. You'll be rich buying oil. Yeah, if you had a tank somewhere, you could make a bunch of money by filling that tank. That's the problem. We don't have tanks. Nobody has tanks anymore. Well, Shannon, okay, well, thank you for coming down. You know, in the good old days when we had you in the studio live, you know, in the studio. Yeah, so this time we're just going to, what we're going to do is we're going to go to a break and then, you know, when we come back, you won't be in the matrix. I'm so sorry. It's okay. It's okay. Thank you for having us. Thank you, Shannon. Aloha. And wash your hands. Aloha, everyone. I am Libby Hill, your Miss Earth USA. Thank you so much for taking the time to watch Think Tech. This station is incredible because they are advocates for the environment and also for science. So I appreciate you tuning in and make sure that you keep up to date. Okay, we're back live with Miss Ewan and Richard Ha. I'm going to talk about TMT. So I guess the primary question, Richard, is what exactly is the status of TMT? You know, with coronavirus, we haven't seen or heard much about it. Why don't you bring us current? Yeah, well, they're wanting to go. But like you say, you know, it's complicated now. But to give an idea of how committed they are, they just donated $100,000 for food for the big island. And just last week, you know, because of this masks, N95 masks for the caregivers, I call Dr. Yang and ask him if there's any possibility of getting masks from the TMT folks. And so he put me in touch with the Chinese board member. And he didn't take a week. I got a letter back saying that from the Chinese National Astronomical Observatory, they got some people together and 6,800 masks are on its way. Wow. So I'm pretty happy about that. That's incredible. So the point was they're committed, I believe. You know, I mean, that's what they did. Right. Who gets the masks? The hospital folks, you know, we'll determine who needs them and how to displace it. And, you know, and so we'll work with different people to make sure it gets to the right people. But it's a hospital quality masks. Well, you know, there's a couple of factors working, you know, one is, there's not as much money sloshing around these days because the economy of, you know, the world is way down and going further down. So it's not like, you know, any one of the members of the consortium has a lot of money, but at the same time, this seems to be with the exceptions, there are some scammers around. There seem to be people coming out of the woodwork who are doing good things, who are doing good works, who are caring for others. And this is one of those biblical tests. Will humanity be good or what? I mean, maybe I should put it to both of you. You know, we have a biblical test on our hands. There are some people in the world who are going to do right, and they're going to try to save humanity or at least help other people. And there are other people in the world just see there's an opportunity to scam and get political advantage. What do you think is going to happen? Yeah, people, the majority of people are probably using this time to reflect on, you know, what the world is like. There was a really nice article by Lavinia Courier in today's civil beat about that sort of thing sitting back and looking at the environment, what you do, because once we come out of this, are we just going to go back to business as usual, are we going to learn some lessons and try to, like Shannon was saying, like reflect on what we do to kind of lessen the imprint of our footprint on the world. And I know that's what I'm doing. I'm looking at things like, for example, looking at issues of how we can restart the big island economy, what kinds of things can we do, what kind of shovel ready projects are there. You know, these projects have to be, I think, to kind of retool our whole, not just the environment, but the whole way we do business. And, you know, do we just continue to extract, extract, extract from an environment and don't care about what we leave behind, or are we going to be much more careful, are we going to become more resilient. There's going to be the big watchword. Already the military is looking at that, for example, for their basis, because, you know, what happens if they lose all their power, and they can't operate. So I think resiliency or resiliency is going to be a big focus. Do we offload all of our critical industry offshore? As we've seen, now we have to go and beg, borrow and steal masks from other people in the world where we kind of exported our manufacturing potential because it was the lowest cost option. But now it's turning out to be, if you look at all the people that have died, that is the highest cost option we possibly could have. Not just in terms of money, but in pain and suffering for people and their families and, you know, the grief that has happened and the upset to our whole way we do life. Here we are locked down for at least a month, month and a half now, maybe another month to go, and people are afraid. And is that worth it to save 10 cents on your mask when we could have had it here ready to go? I don't think so. And I think all of us, including the political class, have to look at that and say, look, we need to stock. We need to be really, you know, we do all these plans and we have them sitting on the shelf, but we don't take any action on them. Like, okay, we do a pandemic plan. Oh, the plan says we have to have X million face masks. Do we actually have them? Are they in a warehouse? Can we get at them? The answer is obviously not really or not enough. Yeah, yeah, we haven't even started talking about the test kits. That's even more critical. So Richard, you know, let's talk about, you know, the state of affairs on TMT. I mean, obviously there's no construction going on. And I would imagine that there's no protesters either. I think there's a Supreme Court order that allows construction to go on. I'm not sure what David E. Gay last said. But, you know, where are we? Can they go up there at six feet apart or 12 feet apart and actually build the thing? I think there was an agreement until the end of last month. And then after that, they can go or not go. It's kind of in limbo at this point, as far as I can tell. But I, you know, all the people I talked to at the TMT folks, they're waiting. They're in an uncomfortable position because they're an educational group. And so they're not the type that pushes themselves on people too much. They're just hoping things work out and they're just waiting. So that's how I see what's going on right now. They're waiting. Okay. So what fact, how does coronavirus play into all of that? I mean, I suppose to answer that you probably want to discuss how much economic activity there is on a big island. Yeah. And we know, you know, there's so many people that applied for unemployment. And so it lasts for six months and maybe a little bit of extension. But at six months, those folks will not have any income at all. So we're like looking at six months and then what? So it's pretty critical. And what we're waiting for really is a vaccine and that's 12 months and 18 months off. And then also we depend on tourism so much. And we need the testing so that we're sure that if tourists come back, that we're safe. So that's anticipated to be 12 months or so out. You know, there's a lot of different possibilities, but nevertheless, you know, that's kind of where we are. So if we did come back, if you know, the economy on the big island anyway was opened up, there'd be a lot of jobs for TMT, wouldn't there? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, you know, just recently they were trying to take a survey of how many shovel ready jobs of projects there are. And they didn't have DMT on the list. You know, and that's the biggest thing going. The DMT should be on the list. It's so interesting, sort of out of sight out of mind. They figure it's still tied up somehow and not going to happen so they don't even put it on the list when it's the biggest job that could happen on the big island. Absolutely. Absolutely. So how do people feel on the big island? I mean, I suppose it's be similar to how people feel here, but are they optimistic, pessimistic? I mean, I think the big question is how do they see us coming out of this and what is life going to be like when we do come out of it? You know, nobody really knows what's going to happen. We're just trying to get from here to there and trying to get to some normalcy because right now we're locked down for another two weeks or so. And actually one more month beyond that. And they're going to start to relax a little by little and watch it. But nobody really knows how this is going to be. It's everybody's best guess. So it's a matter of what is our long term vision. You know, so I'm a big optimist. So I think this is an opportunity for us to do some things we probably didn't have an opportunity to even think about. Absolutely. So how are you individually? I mean, how's your daily life? Are you changing your pajamas twice a day? You know, I ended up shaving at two o'clock to get ready for the day. My wife is real on time. Shucks. How are you spending your time Richard? Are you reading? Are you doing internet? Are you talking to people? What are you doing? Absolutely. So I do a lot of reading and I also am trying to do exercising, you know, trying to get myself, you know, this is an excuse to force myself. Okay, if the virus attacks you, if your immune system is not good, then maybe if exercising would help. So I'm like that. But I still cannot lose weight. Oh, join the club. You know, so I'm just, I'm just wondering that, you know, when it's over, we come out the other side, we have an economy again. And let's assume that, you know, the members of the consortium and the TMT come back and that they're, you know, equally determined to continue the project. And people are willing to work on the project. What about the protests? You think that the protesters will get right back up there in the mountain and try to stop it in the same way they tried over the past couple years? You know, I'm thinking that if we get together and sit down and considering where we are today with this pandemic that we could probably agree on a path forward. You know, so that's what I'm hopeful about. Yeah, that's that's sobering, isn't it? It means, you know, it sort of forces us. It reminds me that Earth Day cartoon. Can we show that Earth Day cartoon? Can we show that Earth Day cartoon? Because I think, you know, it helps us understand. And there it is. So Earth Day actually has a very positive effect. We've got less industrial pollution, less pollution from cars, less pollution from airports, less litter on the street. And all it took was a global pandemic shutdown to sober us up about Earth Day. There you go. So, you know, I mean, a lot of things about energy actually, Mitch, that, you know, they've gotten locked up over the past few years. They haven't moved, for example, as fast as you and I would like to see them move. Do you think a global pandemic? Do you think, you know, the threat and the trauma of having an epidemic all around the world and also in Hawaii will loosen things up ultimately and make it easier to do innovation, creativity. So, give us a new freedom that way. Well, I absolutely do because, you know, as Richard said, you know, our tourism economy isn't just going to snap back overnight. I mean, first of all, people are afraid to fly. They don't have a lot of disposable income now because a lot of people are getting whacked pretty hard in their pocketbooks. Coming to Hawaii is not like on the top of the list for them now. I mean, they're in the survival mode. So what that does for Hawaii, it gives us a chance to look at our economy and say we've been talking about this for ever since it came to Hawaii. Like 18 years ago, we've talked about diversifying our economy and getting into the high tech kind of sector. And we've dipped and dabbed at it. We've pumped a little bit of money into it, but we've never really got after it. And now I think this is the chance, as I was saying before, for us to kind of sit back and reassess and say, okay, look guys, we really do have to diversify our economy. We can't just rely on tourism to carry the water anymore. And the one thing we do have is we have brain power. So anybody with a laptop and thank God that Hawaii Electric keeps the lights on and keeps their power flowing. Amen to that. You can be creative and you can make things. Now, we may not be a state that does like mass manufacturing, but we can hit a button and send it to a company on the mainland that does do mass manufacturing. But we come up with the intellectual property, you know, the really smart stuff. So we get patents, we license them out. I mean, really get the university going on their intellectual property development and some of the smart companies that we have here in town that are already doing it. Like name for ocean ocean it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're having we're having that sold out of the show next week. Yeah, these guys are awesome, you know, so we have the brain power here. We just have to get after it and be more committed to diversifying that economy, not just being our comfort zone where we, you know, we pump, you know, $4 million out to have an NFL football team come out here. Like what could we do with $4 million to to get our kids going in robotics and all that kind of stuff right on the university just outside my office like is the College of Engineering. I come out of the office like seven or eight or nine o'clock at night, and you see one of their workshops filled with about 10 or 15 students making stuff. You know, they got the grinders going they got the welders they got like these cars and they build all these contraptions. I mean, it gives me great hope when I see this kind of stuff that hey look you know they're not bogging off at 230 and heading down to the bar and skiving off they're out there doing stuff and that's what we have to do we have to do stuff. And then we have to set up that kind of corporate culture that we need to develop a new type of economy for Hawaii. Hawaii Valley, you know, and not just tourism. And the other thing is we have to look at our tourism and make it maybe higher quality. So the Greeks did this they found out that they had all these low cost tourism packages coming to and they were overrunning their facility like their features like we hear about now. And so what they did is they started jacking the price up charging admission to some of these attractions and then reinvesting that money into the actual attraction making it better. So what happened is they weaned out the guys that only go to, you know, the ABC store and buy a sandwich and live for a month on it to a higher income level. We're willing to pay the extra money come out here and see a quality attraction or willing to pay for it. So anyway, but this is the time we have to think about this. We're not through the certainly that the health, the health issue yet. And we may not be through, as Richard said for several months or a year or even more, but this is the time to think about what it's like at the end of the tunnel. And as I see it, Richard, there are three possibilities. One is, we do what Mitch and many, many others have talked about over the years, we diversify the economy. We get creative. We use our human resources to develop new ideas, and we shunt aside all the bureaucracy, you know, and the, and the backward momentum. That's one possibility. The second possibility is we want to go back to the way it was. Let's have a mono economy with tourism. Let's let's put all our effort, all our resources into developing tourism, just as it was. And the third possibility, which is a real risk as far as I can see is complacency. People say, that's your problem, not my problem. I'll just stand aside. You know, if I get a chance to participate fine, but I'm not going to do anything. And I'm not going to help anybody and, you know, I'm not going to make myself useful in this, this three part possibility. Richard, how do we prevent ourselves from going back to the way it was, which was not sustainable? How do we prevent ourselves from becoming complacent and let the complacent people take over, you know, as they have in the past? How do we force ourselves to do what Mitch is talking about? And what you've been talking about, how do we make that happen? You know, back in the old days, we used to have a gift economy. The gift economy is where the more you gave, the more you receive. And that's kind of different from the market economy. The more you get, the more you get. It's a little bit different when you're talking to each other. You have a different point of view. But you know what is really interesting is what we have is aloha, you know, and aloha. The way I look at aloha is like this. You know, this economist, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, he said, in order for an economy to be sustainable, he needs to be social, environmental, as well as economically sustainable. And the part that's the most important is the aloha part, the social aspect, the social equity aspect. And that's, I think, is what differentiates ourselves from exponential growth. You know, on our exponential growth on a finite planet, don't work, right? And we have, we've been able to do that in the old days where we live and take care of the land and all that kind of stuff. So I think that's the key. Yeah, I do think that. Yeah. Well, one other, you know, sort of the central question here of our discussion is, let's assume we all agree, and I think all right-minded people would agree. That's my view. The TMT should go forward. It's good for the state. It's good for science. It's good for our brand, if you will, good for the people, the big island, all that. How do we make that happen? How do we keep focused on that? What steps do we take to make sure that we don't lose it and that it goes forward in an appropriate rate of progress? What do you and I do? What does Mitch do? What do we all do? Yeah. Well, you know, I was talking about talking to everybody because we got to make sure that we're all together because we got to take care of each other. That's a big key. So if we took a step back and looked at the opportunity we have, you know, I'm looking out my window and I can see Mauna Kea. I can imagine a cultural center above the clouds. That's what Pueo has been advocating for. Besides advocating for the TMT, the second advocacy was for a culture center above the clouds. And that was to educate, to promote Hawaiian culture, to use the University of Hawaii as a pipeline of education. And it needs to be big enough and respectful enough so when you go up there, you can see that that symbol represents the moral authority of what takes place on Mauna Kea. And which is what we're talking about, aloha, and all the time we are looking at things. And then we just developed the curriculum to do that. So that's one thing, the culture center above the clouds. The other thing is when you look at Mauna Kea, you see on the base of Mauna Kea the potential for geothermal. Now if you did geothermal over there, part of that you don't have to pay the Hawaiian Homes Commission, you know, they're going to have a hard time because of budgetary issues. They're not going to get any more money than they're getting now. They're going to get less as for sure. This gives an income stream. And can you imagine now, if you had geothermal up there, you're generating electricity, in that climate zone you could grow apples, pears, nectarines, stuff that you don't really see around here. Can you imagine how much that would be worth? And if we branded ourselves, instead of branding sun and surf, that's a real problem. We know that too many people. But if we branded ourselves as science, then you put yourself at a real high level, then you can start charging a good amount for the stuff you produce over here. I just got started. No, there's plenty more to go. Well, Mitch, we're kind of out of time, but I don't envy you this, but I'd like to ask you to summarize this really interesting discussion we've had. Could you do that? Sure. Happy to do that. So first of all, we had a very good report from Shannon from Hawaii Electric of the fantastic, actually really commendable progress they've made over the last 10 years. I mean, I looked at the report before we came on here and they've gone from like 10% when some of the stuff they're measuring, they're almost up to 28, 29%. They say they're going to meet their 2020 goal. So that's really, really good. And plus they're keeping the lights on for all of us guys working at home. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And then we had a very interesting discussion with Richard Ha, about 30 meter telescope and also how we can maybe just rethink how we do things in Hawaii and just not be complacent and think somebody's going to do it for us but get up off our rear ends and go out and get stuff done. Let's get off our rear ends and get stuff done. And with that, Aloha. Okay, all right. Great summary. Great comments, Richard. Thank you, visionary. Thank you, Mitch. Thank you, Richard. Great to have you on the show. Hawaii, the state of clean energy, doing well, running fine. Thank you so much. Aloha.