 Aloha, and welcome to the Ruderman Roundtable here on Think Tech, Hawaii, a program we host every other Tuesday on good government, environment, and local politics issues. Our guest today is Carl Kampania. Thank you for joining us, Carl. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate being here. Carl is also a host here on Think Tech, Hawaii, if his name and face looks familiar. Carl has over 20 years' experience as a construction and project manager, owner of his own business, Kamaka Green, that provides energy and environmental consulting services. He's also a foster parent and founder of a nonprofit called Olomea, which helps kids who are aging out of the foster care system. Carl has served as the regional chair for the Democratic Party of Oahu, and chair of the Energy and Climate Subcommittee for the Environmental Caucus of the Democratic Party. He's currently working on a resolution and a bill calling for the Hawaii Green Fuels Initiative, similar to the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative. Carl also ran for the state senate this year with a platform calling for improved education, food and energy security, and prison reform, and is married to Sherry Kampania. Together they have four kids, two of whom are adopted. Once again, thank you for joining us on the show, Carl. Thank you so much. I'm thrilled. So I'm very excited about your work on biofuels, which you've been very involved in the last year or so. Yes. Thank you. I think it's an important topic. I had the good fortune this summer, as well as running for office this summer. I got to work on a specific project through the university, the university applied research lab. And through that, we received a contract with PECOM in order to create at least the framework for a supply chain, a biofuels supply chain based here in Hawaii. So I got to spend three solid months devoted to exploring that, analyzing that, and coming up with what it would look like. So that's really where it got the basis, where I got the basis of understanding for really what can happen and what maybe needs to happen next to help. So let's start from where we are now. Where does Hawaii's energy status currently stand? Where have we made progress? Where have we yet to make significant progress? That's a big question with a lot of different ins and outs of that. So where we are now is finally, as a result of the next-era purchase not going through, which I was definitely not a fan of that one. So I was very pleased with that outcome. We now get to keep our own utility. That's one huge thing where we are now. However, what do we do from here and where do we go from here? One thing, I am involved in PV. I'm involved in the installation of photovoltaics for a number of years now. And I'm now currently working on the about six megawatts worth of construction in PV right now, helping to get it all built beginning in January. However, what that means is as a result of the next-era deal getting finalized so that it's not happening, the utility has now reopened up the opportunity for old fits and old NEMs and old commercial projects and old utility scale projects that were otherwise in the queue waiting. So now they've been released. Now there are opportunities to build them. So projects that I started developing five years ago, we're now about to build. So that's one new good thing. With that comes together the technologies that have advanced in that meantime, where we're including and incorporating storage capacity for that. And some of the, I guess there have been bills and resolutions in the past as far as trying to incentivize that as well. We need that. So we're incentivization for storage. For storage, not calling it batteries but calling it storage because there's a number of means. So where we are now is sort of a new beginning of how to continue down the path towards 100% by 2045. So that was another new thing that happened last year as you are more than aware. Passing that was important so that, okay, great, now we're still moving that way. How do we achieve that? That's where we go back to storage. Storage is necessary. And then also utilizing multiple means of electricity, storage and capacity. That includes electric vehicles. That includes, well, whether or not we want to re-engage the idea of an undersea cable, the idea of the amount of power that can come from a geothermal and be utilized by other locations is something that I think is still very useful and can still use some effort behind. So where we are now on that side is looking fairly good but we're not sure where we're headed as far as what the utility ultimately is going to need. One of the things some people want is to make sure that the utility still gets converted from the nonprofit that it is, we'll just leave it as a nonprofit that it is, a monopoly into a for, I'm sorry, the for-profit that it is into a nonprofit entity so that it's much more about the membership base which are the repairs. So trying to convert that, that's one of the things that's going to be hard to overcome but that's one of these steps as far as what else we can achieve. And full disclosure here, I'm a member on the Big Island of Hawaii Island Energy Cooperative, which is an entity that's hoping to be able to purchase our local utility from Hawaii. And you just received, I believe, your nonprofit status. Of course the big step was the denial of the next air merger. So I'm equally as happy as you are. I'm glad we get to theoretically retain local control over. For some period of time now. Let's see if that changes. We need to keep that. What do you see as the greatest challenges to clean green energy generation in Hawaii? The first challenge in my mind is that the utility is a for-profit entity that does not control renewable energy. They have no ability themselves. On Kauai it's a little different how they're structured. And there are some good things I think in on Kauai and some not so good. But the first biggest hurdle that we have is trying to make sure that the utility is not just saying they're working with us, but actually working with us to achieve the goals. Not slowing us down, not shutting people down because... I heard a story actually, someone who works in your office just told me a story today about his mother who has a system that was installed over a year ago. And now she's being told that may not be able to interconnect it. Well, that puts a heavy burden on someone who was promised something before. And those things can't happen. Is that fair? No, it's not. And we need a better way of addressing that. So I see the still the biggest challenge is what the utility does and how they're doing it. The rest of it is technology, which we can overcome technology. We can implement it. Interesting. Can the costs be easily managed if we transition to more green fuels? More easily? I don't know, but more easily. Because with more renewables in multiple different areas, how it's being done with the EVs and so forth, it can actually become more complicated because you've got more different sources to manage and maintain. So that puts an incumbent on the utility to be able to receive, compile, and manage the grid appropriately. They should be able to do that. There are talks about what's needed in order to make that happen. Some inflated numbers that have been thrown around in order to make that happen. But it's really a control system utilizing what most of the inverters that are used, and just to go through that, you've got the PV panel, you have the inverter, and then you have your home. The panel draws the sunlight and converts it into electricity. The inverter converts it from DC to AC, which you then use in your house. The inverters, many of them have latent ability to do demand response. They just need to be turned on. So adding storage in some areas and a range of storage capacity from circuit to circuit, really on both sides of the grid, goes a long way towards helping to achieve that overall scope. So we're talking right now about more renewable energy and storage capacity on the grid. Do you think there's a place here for microgrids? Yes, yes. In fact, distributed energy, and there could be pockets of distributed energy that still connect and still tie in, but have the ability. And if the system is done the way some suggest it could be done, I don't want to say should, but could be done is you have pockets of distributed energy that if there is a wave of blackout or brownout, you're able to disconnect and they exist without having to be impacted. Like an island. Exactly. So you create small, little distributed islands so that you don't have to worry about blackouts going right across the island. So that's a positive and that's something that is being worked on and some development has happened on Maui already. And there's a really you go across our country a little bit, but then you go into Europe. You had other locations around the world where you see they're already doing these things. So that's an important thing. As much as we think we're leaders, there's many people who have done what we've already been trying to do. So let's talk about biofuels. What are the obstacles and development of a biofuel supply chain within Hawaii? What are the challenges? How can we make it happen? Sure. Okay, so biofuels, to jump into that, first of all, in rough numbers, in rough numbers, every barrel of oil that is purchased and imported into the state, 30% of that goes to electricity. And that's what we're trying to achieve when we say 100% clean energy. We're attacking 30% of that barrel. We're selling electricity. Electricity, yes. So 70% of that barrel is transportation, which means fuel in one form or another, whether it's diesel for your vehicle, for your farm equipment, for jet fuel, and everything in between all the opportunities. So 70% of what comes in is still going to be for that. So how do we address that? And how do we go after that? And that's what the conversation of biofuels is, or alternative fuels, whether it's hydrogen or whether it is biofuels itself and whether that is done through oils or algae or utilizing plants and plant matter and its conversion opportunity. And there's a range of other possibilities. So the biofuels supply chain requires several steps. First is the growing of the feedstock through one mean or other, whichever category of algae or so forth. Once it's grown, you need to harvest it. And harvesting it can include a processing or a pre-processing of itself. The next step after that would be converting it. Now that we've processed it, harvested it and got it ready for conversion, we now convert it into a fuel. That's a technology. That technology exists in some capacities for some feedstocks and not so much for others or is in development for others. And so as we're looking at each of the paths, those are some of the challenges that we already have is okay, what do we need in order to make it happen? So once we can get it converted, then we get it redistributed, put back into all of the pipelines that we have throughout the island and each island and then put it into all the various places in order for it to be a drop-in, what's called a drop-in fuel. To be clear on that, a drop-in fuel just means no change is needed to your equipment, to your car or anything else. It's just a complete replacement. So you mean the biofuels would be simply mixed with our gasoline at the gas station? Yes. Okay, so there's no separate gas station, separate pump, it's the same stuff. Exactly. But now it's 30% local biofuels or whatever we've achieved at that point. Exactly, exactly. And if you consider H-Cat and what they're doing as well, you recognize that there's opportunity to have, at the same gas station, hydrogen fuel with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, biofuels, biodiesel, as well as standard, if you really wanted standard petroleum-based fuels. Tell me, I can see you're a big advocate for biofuels. Do you like that better than, let's say, the vision of electric vehicles or hydrogen fuel vehicles? I don't like it better. You like all the above. They're all necessary. I see. There are actual percentages of what is really subject to, I guess, what we need to learn, but we need all of it. We need all of it. Certainly gonna be a long time before any jet is flying on biofuels or electric, part of the electric batteries. Electric, yes. A long time before a jet would do that, but jets are already, there are already a number of airlines, Hawaiian Airlines are looking into it. Alaskan Airlines is already purchasing biofuel, jet fuel. Really? Absolutely they are. And what they say, their motto is, if you make it, we'll buy it. And that's coming in at all different price points because they're motivated themselves towards that. An important group with regards to aviation is CAFI, commercial alternative aviation fuels initiative. That's a, I'll call it national, it's potentially a global organization that is looking into and trying to find ways of working with USDA on the federal level, as well as all of our Department of Ags and everyone from state to state in order to help the opportunities to develop more biofuel growth from state to state. Very nice. And is Alaska Airlines an outlier? Are there other airlines doing this or are they the pioneers? They're one of the first to really make that strong commitment, but there are several others that are out there that are doing that and they all want it. And the reason is simple. It's always follow the money, right? And the reason is simple. One important number to know is at the moment to get a barrel of biofuel for jet fuel or for ever purposes, it's about $80 per barrel. That's not bad, but it's high compared to what we are currently paying for petroleum fuel, which is about 55. 50% of that. So as you see that gap is not huge, but if you remember a couple of years ago when we were paying 140 per barrel, all of a sudden 80 looks amazing. So what is needed to go forward is a bit more understanding, a bit more guidance, some more education community-wide from all levels, including up into government, understanding what is really at stake, yes, but more what is needed in the way of what needs to be grown, how it can be grown, where it can be grown, how it put side-by-side with food actually can create a more vibrant agricultural and manufacturing sector for both biofuels and food securities. Carl, that's a perfect stopping point because I want to touch on that subject in a little bit of depth there. We're going to take a short break and we'll be back with the Ruderman Roundtable in just a minute. Thank you. I'm Gordon of the Tech Tsar here on Think Tech Hawaii, where we co-host Hibachi Talk, where we talk about technology and bring in all kinds of cool guests. Also, my co-host with me today is Andrew... Andrew, the security guy. Thanks for watching. Thanks for watching Think Tech Hawaii and thanks for watching Hibachi Talk. We also have Angus. How do you know that in lab? There's Angus and bringing in all kinds of wee things. Oh, look, you can see my lips move. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Hi, Aloha, my name is Chris Letham and I have a host of show called The Economy and You. The show plays every Wednesday at noon and on my show I bring on guests who are interested or are working in the technology space. And so I'd like you to come and watch the show and learn with me about all the sort of exciting things that we're doing in Hawaii to build and grow our economy ecosystem. So I'd like to say Aloha and I look forward to seeing you on the show. Thank you. Aloha and welcome back. I'm State Senator Russell Ruderman from the Puna and Kau District on the Big Island. Here at the Ruderman Roundtable, we're talking today with Carl Campania, talking about biofuels and other energy related issues. Thank you once again for joining us, Carl. My pleasure. So we were starting to talk about how biofuels, you know, the demand for biofuels is obviously going to be there. Some people, when they hear the word biofuels, they think, oh, we're going to be growing fuel crops instead of food crops. And we can't afford to lose any more food production land or food production capacity. Whether, what do you say to those folks? How can we address that? It's an important question to begin with to make sure that we're not losing food, but instead finding ways to grow it. One important thing to know is last report I saw we have about, and this is substantiated through Sierra Club as well, we have approximately 250,000 acres of ag land that is not being used. Not being used. That is not being used. What's it doing? It's sitting there waiting for someone to use it. Some of it needs infrastructure to get to it, water and so forth, but otherwise it's just sitting there not being used. So there's opportunity for growth there. As far as food versus fuel, because there's so much extra land, we don't have to worry about that aspect to it. So now it becomes down to, well, if I'm growing fuel and I'm making a lot of money selling my fuel products, my fuel feedstocks, why would I grow food? Well, that's a valuable point, except for the fact that most of the farmers that I have spoken with, and I've spoken with a number of them through the White Farmers Union United, their passion is food. And to them, a biofuels line for them to grow would be an additive to what they're trying to achieve, which is the growing of food. I see it similar to, well, looking at it from the perspective of, if I'm growing this, what I'm doing is creating a baseline revenue. So if I take, if I've got three plots of land, three gardens, and one garden is gonna be for biofuels and the other two are gonna be for food. Well, that biofuels is gonna be sold at this amount and I'm gonna be able to get money which is going to stabilize my revenue source. Same thing comes for, if we're utilizing, we know that we've got the food hub that's being developed out in Oahuwa. We need more of those and we need them on each island. We are, I also know that as a KCC is trying to develop a food processing plant. Well, we need that as well as soon as we do that, then all of these farmers get to sell their seconds, which they currently put back into the ground, giving them another baseline revenue. So if we're giving the farmers baseline revenues, then that means we're giving them incentive and opportunity to grow, not just grow their land, but also to grow more of their food. So that's how you would want it to work and have it coincide with just growing both. You would never want to, and I would actually, if there's opportunity to advance legislation, I would wanna make it clear that you're only allowed, I will call it 30% or whatever, some percentage of biofuel growth compared to food growth. We just wanna make sure that we don't ever lose ground on that. I see, which would be a very welcome control, in my opinion, because when you talk about the passion-based small farmer, which I think we were talking about here, they're gonna grow food. But let's say you're a large corporation, there's no passionate farmer involved. You got a thousand acre lease and the accountant says you're gonna make money more with biofuels than with food. They're not gonna grow food because they're passionate about it, they're gonna grow 100% or so. So we need some, in my opinion, we need something like the mechanism you just mentioned to prevent the loss of food farmland to fuels. Are there any crops that would do both in the same plant? I'm not aware of any crops that you can grow and at least not in first stage. In second stage you can. So what I mean by second stage is once you have harvested whatever you're getting out of that particular crop, whether it's a fruit or whatever it is, once you've harvested it, oftentimes you end up with trash, you end up with rubbish, ag waste. So that ag waste can be converted and can be sold as a feedstock as long as we have the conversion technology on island ready to receive it and process it. And is that conversion technology, is it fairly simple, is it fairly complicated? Could we have it on each island? Is it ready to go? Is it available? That's one of the areas that needs a little help. There are conversion technologies that exist, a number of them. We've got, I'll do a little bit of plugging here. There's PVT land, they do construction waste and they convert that into energy. And that's excellent. We have a Taraviva that creates, that they have their pangamia trees and they utilize that oil and that oil gets converted into fuels. So there's a number of ways of just harvesting something from that. Then there's the, we need, I'll ask you, can we save the algae, the Kauai algae farm? That is a big thing. That is the, it's one of the largest and one of the two or three algae farms of its size in the world. And if we can save it, algae has a, I guess, conversion process value of 40% greater than every other biofuel feed stock. Well, I confess ignorance about this farm. What are they growing the algae for now? For, for life? The intention was, it was a, it's been a research and study facility. I see. But now it looks like it's possibly going to be lost because the economics aren't there anymore. I don't know why the economics aren't there. There's a number of questions, a number of offers that have been made as far as can we keep it? We need to find a way to keep it. One important thing about algae is it doesn't care what your ag land classification is. You can grow algae on Class D land. You can grow it on concrete. It doesn't matter. It just needs to have the pond and needs to be able to have the process. So this algae farm is a pond. It's not in the ocean. It's in a land-based. It's a land-based pond. It's in the middle of Kauai. Very nice. I need to learn about that. I was embarrassingly ignorant about it. Now you mentioned legislation. I know you've been working on preparing a bill and a resolution that you hope to introduce this year. Tell me about that. Yes, thank you. Spending the summer learning about what it will take in order to create a fleshed out supply chain for biofuels or alternative fuels here in Hawaii. One of the things that came up over and over and over again in all of our summits and all of our meetings and conferences was we don't have enough friendly local policy to help support it. So the conversion technologies that are kind of there, not quite there, they need a little help. They need a little support. And that comes in the way of incentives or potentially revenue bonds or things along those lines. So what I did was I, we took notes and we wrote up reports and we created this whole thing and I realized, okay, if the one thing everybody says we need is some more local policy, what occurred to me is we already have the Clean Energy Initiative. Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative from 2008, 2009 is still in place and it worked. So why can we not take that type of structure and put it into the biofuels framework? There'll be some changes that need to be made to accommodate what biofuels are and where those incentives can be placed and how many incentives and so forth. But that's what occurred to me. So I sat down and said, well, okay, I'm gonna start writing up what I understand and put it into a resolution format and get it vetted through a number of different groups that make sure that everybody kind of agrees in general with what we're trying to achieve and then see if I can get it presented. And so that's what I did, they wrote it up and it's calling for the Hawaii Green Fuels Initiative. I also like to title it as the manufacturing incentive program because what we're talking about is creating more manufacturing jobs throughout the state as well. Manufacturing jobs would be great, because they stick around, they don't get outsourced and they're good paying jobs. If we want to replace, and this is what I said, if we want to replace the sugar cane industry, this is how we do it. Well, that's certainly a timely contribution. Tell me, why did not the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative incorporate everything that would be needed to promote biofuels? Because at the time it wasn't very well understood. A lot of this research that has been done has been done over the last seven or eight years. At the time it began, at the time that the Clean Energy Initiative was implemented. So that would be one reason why. The biofuels question has been looked at for 30 some years. So the challenge has been, we understand what we want to do, we don't always know how to do it. So we've been researching and testing and doing all of these things and what products what's the best feedstock to grow and where and in order to get the yield you want. So that's what has been worked on for year after year after year for 30 plus years really. So we are now, I believe, at this stage where just a little extra push, a little extra support here or there. And we can bring that $80 per barrel that I was talking about down a little bit more. And we've got the Defense Logistics Agency, they literally said, I need operational volume, you grow it, you make it available, we will buy it as long as an operational volume. That's huge. That's huge, obviously, if the Defense Department is wanting to buy whatever we can grow, that's almost endless market. And if it's centered in Hawaii, that means that our farmers benefit, our developers benefit, the technology developers benefit as well and the state benefits because all that money stays here. Carl, let me interrupt you about out of time. Tell me if people want to get more involved in the work you're doing on biofuels, how can they support what you're doing or how can they contact you, please? Thank you. Well, first of all, a couple of different things. Yes, we do have a resolution and a bill that is going to be introduced. And I'm very grateful for that. I believe it's going to be introduced in the House and in the Senate. The bill is calling for a pilot project in order to help this along. So I would first ask that everyone who wants to participate or is interested in participating keep track of the bill and the resolution through the legislative process. It's going to be introduced probably in early February and then it'll go through each phase of the whole process, which there are three or four steps of the process and just staying with it, following up on it and submitting testimony for it, either in person or through the internet. You can do it that way. That's one of the best ways to make sure that you are staying on top of it, see what it is and what's going on. Another way, if you wanted to contact me, I can give you my email address. It's Carl.Campania at Kamakagreen.com. That's a whole lot. But that's another way I can make sure to forward you the information, forward you what the resolution is and what the bill is. And I am very open, it's not about me, it's not about my bill, it's not about my resolution. It's about what I've had conversations with farmers, with virtually every stakeholder as we sit down in roundtables and discuss what we're trying to achieve and how we're trying to achieve it. Thank you. And if anyone needs help tracking that bill or resolution that Carl just mentioned or getting ahold of Carl, you're welcome to contact my office, Senator Russell Ruderman. Once again, thank you for joining us. This is the Ruderman Roundtable. I'm Senator Russell Ruderman from the Puna District on the Big Island. We're here every other Tuesday afternoon. I want to thank Carl Campania for joining us today and Think Tech Hawaii for hosting us. We'll see you again in a couple of weeks. Mahalo.