 Hey, you're welcome to stand the energy man Stan Osman here from the Hawaii Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies And we're coming to you live from Kukai A Ranch on the big island as you can tell by the background there It's a beautiful day over in Hamaquah and Hamaquah coastline Beautiful scenery up there just a great place to be that's God's country the big island I want to start off today talking a little bit about You know, maybe almost even apologizing for focusing a lot on the National Guard because I do in 1979 about two two weeks ago in 1979 I joined the Hawaii Air Guard Spent 35 years and a month in the Hawaii Air Guard and you know when you sign up for something in the military You really don't know what to expect. It's like is this going to be a career? Or am I just going to do the minimum time and and get out, you know And you're just kind of looking at it mostly as a job because that's what you're used to after coming out of Colleges you got a job, but what you find the longer you go in the guard is you actually find that you're a part of a family and A pretty big family. In fact in the air guard is 2,500 people big So you grow a big family and you get close to a lot of people And in the in the guard itself in Hawaii You actually get close to even the Army Guard guys as silly as they are as crazy as they are because they're a different breed all together So Today's guest is actually one of my my guard buddies I kind of think of him as a son Although he probably thinks of me more like a brother because he knows how young I am at heart but he's actually probably the same age as my real son and about the same height a little bit skinnier, but good good guys both of them and The nice thing about the guard is it builds a lot into you builds a lot of character into you it It helps you focus. It gives you the kind of The put the service public service heart that you need to get into politics and do things or our guest today is Kai Kaeli from the big island and hello to me. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me I know Kai for at least 15 years and he probably doesn't know this but We kind of we kind of sneak in and look at his resume when he starts off about second lieutenant first lieutenant time And he was on our radar as a leader in the guard from pretty early on But he's now stepped up to take his dad's place that in the state Senate And so it's it's it's a great that the governor appointed you because your dad I was a great a great guy and left some big shoes to fill but we're glad that you're on board Thank you, but we also had another family member Kind of depart us this this week and There he is Lieutenant Colonel Mark the Kai Great guy That's it in August in 2013 That's in our shop about maybe six or eight months ago when I'm talking to him about how fuel cell vehicles work and then He was actually here on think tech actually on my birthday on think tech So we took some pictures of them afterwards, but we're gonna miss up. We're gonna miss parked a guy Absolutely, so special man. Yeah, very special are working and like I say it's I think it's a guard thing to Be a public servant just to go to service before self-rout. So Mark was all that and even more so We've lost some Great men this year's that we really have you know, and if there's anything that that reinforces is that Life is short. It's very precious and we're only here for a Short amount of time and so the difference we make in people's lives The children we leave behind the legacies we leave behind are so important you know and What's special man mark the guy, you know my dad and Fortunate to have had them in our lives. Yes, and what an amazing man. They were and And I forgot them. They won't be forgotten. That's true. That's true Well, thanks for being here today We're here to talk about energy and energy on the big island specifically and got to work with you died a Lot on the big island with energy He was heavily involved with Blue Planet and the folks over there doing a lot of energy projects So today's a chance for us to talk a little bit about what the big island is doing from my perspective The big island is way ahead of a wahoo on a lot of energy things They're kind of cutting-edge. They're they're looking at things like co-ops. They're looking at You know, maybe a lot more off-the-grid stuff. They're looking at hydrogen. They're way ahead of hydrogen in fact Ford Fujikami's folks in DOT at the airports over there in Kona He's had to throttle his guys back and hold the reins in because they've they're so they want to have hydrogen flight line Like yesterday and so they'd love to see us doing more hydrogen stuff on the big island You got know how over there you've got University of Hawaii Hilo engineering department that they want to focus on energy So just lots going on in the big island So why don't you talk to us a little bit about what your thoughts are for energy on the big island? You know, like you said, my dad was a was a big supporter of renewable energy and and I think more importantly It was a big support of Hawaii's local families and one of the things that resonated year after year after year when my dad went out into the communities was the cost of utilities here in Hawaii and and how that Really really puts a stranglehold on our island families, you know, we live in a State that has the highest utility rates in the country and and you know We live in a beautiful place and we have a lot of resources that we can We can use to help bring those costs down But do it in a clean way and do it in a porno way I saw you know the island of Hawaii is is a great example of You know different types of renewable energy and you mentioned several of them Yeah, the other thing that people kind of lose lose sight of is the fact that when you import so much oil for transportation energy and for your electricity, you're Importing that means your money is leaving Just for the energy you're bringing in and you mentioned we have tons of ways to make electricity in Hawaii on the big island There's a lot of even hydroelectric You know, you've got water running the old flumes on the sugarcane. Absolutely. You've got Ocean thermal you got geothermal you've got tons of solar you got wind You know, what are some of your thoughts on different energy technologies you'd like to see us focus on well, you know we just Came off a great, you know several over a year debate with next era and and he co-merger and and We really learned a lot from from that process and I think there's a misconception out there that I that I want to set and make clear is is that The the oil that we import largely comes in from Foreign oil from Indonesia. Yeah, that represents about 70 percent of of The utilities that are that are coming in, you know, and so it's not Hawaiian Electric is a great company. It's a family-owned company and A lot of blame is is put on Hawaiian Electric, but it's it's it's not Hawaiian Electric It's the imported oils that are coming into the refineries here in here in Honolulu and on at Campbell That drive up the cost of utilities. So how do we get off of that? You know, there's been different Solutions, you know liquid liquefied natural gas geothermal wave energy hydro PV wind But it takes leadership to bring that together, you know, it takes out of the box thinking to To bring that technology to our state, you know, but Something has to be done. You think with the the results we've gotten from the from the PUC this week on the next era Merger and and that's pretty much being the end of the possibilities for that merger happening Do you think it's gonna have a positive effect on Bringing people to the table and really talking in Turkey about some of the possibilities and what we need to do You know, if you look at liquefied natural gas, which was part of the large part of their proposal That's cheaper than imported oil, right? Right, but at the same time you could almost compare that to geothermal and say Hey, that's that's that's fracking. You know, how do you compare it to liquefied natural gas versus geothermal, you know So is that the answer? It was a cheaper answer than then importing oil from Indonesia but I Think we can do better, you know, and and I think but you got to take baby steps at the same time, you know, I had a chance to tour the helco facilities in Hilo and Had a great opportunity to look at the grid Got a great presentation by J. Ignacio and and looked at what was being generated real-time Hydro PV the wind farm An untapped resource that is on the table right now is the who-who-no bioenergy plant out at Pippa Kale You know, which has a opportunity to provide maybe 20 to 25 megabytes to the grid by Burning eucalyptus trees that have been growing for the last 20 30 years on the Hamakua coast. That's an option And so, you know, I'd be willing to look at everything out there that can help bring utility rates down for local families Speaking of trees I was actually approached this past week by a couple folks who are looking at the albizia trees that they need to get rid of on the Big Island and actually that's another DOT Focus because the trees come down on the highways the roadways and and so again State DOT for Ford Fujigami and his folks They'd like to get rid of albizia trees and there's some good technologies gasification technologies I'll take those trees and not just not burn them. It's more pyrolysis. It converts it converts the trees into synthetic gas Captures a lot of the there's no emissions It just captures them all and then burns the synthetic gas in the engines that run that are designed to run off of the Sin gas and make electricity and so there's some folks looking at that too So aside from the eucalyptus trees that are there You also have the invasive species you can get rid of there. They're a real problem Especially we got hurricane Darby rolling in this week You know if we have a bunch of winds on the east side of the big island like we did last year Knocked down a bunch of albizia trees. That's that's he go at work putting power lines back up and things like that So so there's there's a got a lot of symbiotic Benefits to look at those kind of technologies to help he go not have to put their lines back up because the trees are Not going to down and using those trees to generate power absolutely I'm excited about wave energy, you know, that's something that is I think an untapped resource. We've talked about it in the past It's my understanding that off-shore Connor and Marine Corp base they're experimenting with that type of technology, but I think that's something that Possibly could be explored as well Yeah, they've gone through a couple generations and the way it works is they tether a buoy to the bottom and As the buoy rises up and down with the swells going by it's like a yo-yo pulling on a string And it runs a generator But there's actually several different designs out there one of the great designs that I've seen from a gentleman named John Petrie He's a local designer and inventor was an array of Buoys that just float and they're all connected by hydraulic arms and every time one goes into a trough and the other one goes up It it's pushing on something and it can be used for reverse osmosis to desalinate water It can be used to generate electricity. It can be used to do a lot of things So yeah, you're right ocean power, especially you're you're a water guy, you know, you've been on the ocean You know how powerful it is and and you know, I tell we're surrounded by water Yeah, this is an island state You know and we have our near shore that that drops off to deep ocean, you know So that potential is there and you got ocean thermal at know, huh? But that's that's pretty Otec producing and a doctor crock from the University of Hawaii He invented the Otec system out there. That's amazing. I mean you just have a temperature differential of a few degrees Between offshore and in top surface water and you can generate electricity from that Wow, so one of the great things that I started to appreciate when I came into the job here was that Energy's all around us and it's just a matter of looking for it recognizing it and figuring how to put it into application And so I think that Hawaii has more renewable energy options Then probably any other state in the US and we need to be ready to use all of them at the same time we also have The most pristine Environment and ecosystems on the planet, you know, and we live in a very special place And so it's trying to to walk that fine line between renewable energy and lowering utility rates But also doing it in a in a way that respects our environment, you know We can afford to be picky. Yeah, because we can choose. We've got plenty here We can choose from I think we can leave the we can leave the country and renewable energy We have the potential to be a model for the rest of the world. I agree. I agree We're gonna take a quick break here and we'll be back with Senator Kai Kaheli and talk more about energy on the big Pumped hydro. That's the word. We just had a great show on Hawaii the state of clean energy with George St. John and Ray Starling and we're talking about how how how pumped hydro or hydro in general could affect Our clean energy initiative. So what do you guys had to go for you? George One girl look like George Great. I think it's that's it one of my favorites. I seem so excited about this I was just gonna say he's been at it for a while and he knows more than that We will ever know about Clean energy where we got him to tell us to we got information out of him and we got his true You know his true thoughts and now he's gonna tell us how he really thinks Go for it. That's what you said before Anyway, thank you Ray. Thank you George. You're welcome. We'll do this again Aloha Hey, welcome back to my lunch hour Stan energy man here with senator Kai Kaheli from the big on from district one in Hilo and he's Stepped into his dad's shoes Governor was I think wise enough if I can use that that adjective for the governor to pick you because you're as a guard officer Like I said, we've been watching you for a while. You're a natural leader. You're good to go So it's it's great to have you in the seat there and look forward to working with you again in the future in the legislature But let's talk a little bit about transportation Two of the projects that we're working on with University of Hawaii are some buses for Volcano National Park that runoff hydrogen And I get to talk to a lot of people about I get into the middle of the battery versus hydrogen It's kind of like taste great less filling we get in these arguments all the time What's better batteries or hydrogen and really what somebody pointed out to me that most of the hydrogen folks like batteries And we understand them, you know because we know that we need them even in hydrogen vehicles We need the batteries, but most battery people are really there must feel threatened by hydrogen because they get almost like Elon Musk who does the Tesla he hates hydrogen doesn't like it at all But the there's a lot of different characteristics when you get into the energy business Besides energy into energy out for storage and things like that. So one of the things that I like to point out to people is One of the properties that we struggle with here in Hawaii is that a lot of the energy requirements are on a wahu But a lot of the energy potential for production are on the neighbor. So we've had the discussion of laying undersea cable and What does that do that puts all those wind turbines on Maui, Molokai and Lanai and it's does exactly what you said We shouldn't do take up our beautiful skyline and put a bunch of windmills up to destroy You know our natural beauty for the sake of bringing high electricity to Honolulu So there's there's other ways to do it and one of the ways that I like to propose is That we use hydrogen for some of the energy storage It's not as efficient like a battery in and out, but it's very transportable You can take the hydrogen that you if you if you use like geothermal or wave energy on the big on to make electricity I mean and made it clean Make hydrogen from that and either chill it down to liquefy it and ship it to Honolulu turn it back into electricity on this end You can actually transport the energy. So that's one of the advantages of things like hydrogen is the trans Transportability piece. It's not just the energy and in energy out So a lot of people come up to me go Stan. I'm gonna do a business case. Why should we do this? Or why should we use that? It doesn't pencil out. It's too expensive or it's not as efficient They go when you got to take the full cradle to grave like batteries have to be mined lithium is a finite in source Resource it comes mostly from South America like 90% of the world's reserves are in South America We're back in the same boat again importing a resource from one place in the world And you know that would be just like doing the oil thing all over is the military doing any type of hydrogen here Yeah, they have such a big presence In fact the Hawaii Air Guard is going to start doing microgrid at the fighter side across the field from where you're flying and We're going to be doing hydrogen as a primary energy storage We're going to look at other energy stores like flywheels and pumped hydro and things like that But but hydrogen will we're like trying to make it into the flight line of the future Where when the Air Force deploys some place if they take the renewable wind turbines and solar and things like that They can make their energy on base store it in hydrogen and when they're making their hydrogen They're making oxygen for the flight line for the liquid oxygen in the aircraft They're making medical grade oxygen for the medical people. They're making oxygen for the welders You can disperse all your energy assets, so you're not one big target for the guy on the hill with a mortar The hydrogen is quiet when it's used in a fuel cell. It doesn't make any noise You have silence which is important when you're trying to mask what you're doing Likewise heat signature when using hydrogen there's very low heat signature So the the thermal imaging at night the enemy can't sit there and thermal image what you're doing because he can't find the hot spot Things like that the Air Force appreciates that so so there's a lot of other things to add in We have a waste energy project at Hickam and everybody goes. Oh, it's too manpower intensive I go yeah, it is but it gets rid of all your hazardous materials They just go in there and they turn into energy So you don't have to pay these huge fees and and pollute the environment it gets rid of that You don't have burn pits So you've got to actually quantify those other advantages to your energy pieces and not just go energy and energy out Which is more efficient. How cool would that be if we could have a aircraft jet aircraft that were operating with hydrogen? Yeah, actually It's not quite ready for primetime and the folks on the big island at Blue Planet Research are working with the University of Phoenix And I'm hoping that early next year Paul Pontiou can come on this on this show and start talking about a new Synthetic fuel that they're working on that could go in airplanes and it's and everything only thing would come out The exhaust of your engine is water. Wow, and it's just awesome So we're kind of keeping tabs on that and watching how it goes And we're hoping that that stuff will pan out because if it does again How I'd like to take the lead on that how I'd like to be out in front and lead the world on that stuff Yeah, it's my understanding that the oil that's imported from Indonesia The bulk of it goes to jet fuel. Yes, it's refined and then the The sludge I guess or the byproduct of that is what gets sold to Helco and Hiko to burn their plants, right? Is that correct? Yeah, when this when the oil comes in on the tanker It's actually made into a bunch of different things that a lot of people don't realize that that That the Hawaii gas that does all the propane and things for the island here they actually take some of that oil in the form of naphtha and That's what they end up refining into their natural gas pipeline and turning it into propane So if there's there's a lot of things that that go through that system that If you have a change in in the oil ecosystem, it actually has a ripple effect through a lot of different industries you know the governor Set a bold statement when he took office that he wanted Hawaii to be 100% Clean energy by 2045. I think that's something that's possible. I think it's possible I think you know and you said at first Hiko's a great company and a local company but they've been making electricity probably longer than most public utilities have been in business and The problem with that is sometimes you you kind of can't break out of that mold you know you you only see your system one way and They need to have some some different thinkers coming in and I think they're actually opening up and Beginning to think more about different business models in different ways They can adopt different technologies to to come into their system and With renewable energy you got to have storage Battery storage is one reason one answer. They got to look at other things like hydrogen and other ways to store energy otherwise, they can't handle all the renewables and The nice thing about the hydrogen piece and people out there know I'm the hydrogen fanatic so I'm gonna stick on that theme, but If we can get Hiko to store energy and hydrogen that hydrogen is also available for the transportation sector We talk about storage and one of the things that I That I remember from my tour at Halko was when they have an excess amount of power that gets generated whether it's from PV or from Say the hydro the rivers are pumping after a heavy rainfall More from the wind farms. They don't have a capability to store that exactly just gets done gets wasted They call it curtailed power and and that's why a lot of people say well stand if you do Electrolysis to make your hydrogen is too expensive because electricity is too expensive And I go yeah, but as you absorb more and more renewables intermittent renewables on your system You're gonna end up dumping power at times because you can't absorb all of it That's where you take the electricity to make your hydrogen Not when you're trying to provide a repeat power at dinnertime when they're cooking dinner watching TV and doing their computer You take it at the time when you've got all this PV out there making electricity and Hiko can't use it You take it and make hydrogen and the hydrogen can be made out in the community So imagine you have Kai power plant generating all this power and pushing it through a line to substations and Transformers all the way across the island Well, what if you put the hydrogen generation and the hydrogen ability to generate power back into the system out in the community in Dispatchable power put it in Mililani put it on North Shore put it in Kanioi put it in Kailua So now you have to push the power from the big station all the way across the island The power that you make from the the renewables in that area you turn back into electricity in that area You lose all of the loss the line loss and all the power that you normally would lose pushing it through Telephone or for electric lines all and you don't have to have all that extra equipment like transformers and stuff to all along To boost the power so there's there's a lot of things that I think Hiko will start looking at now that They're back in the next terrace out of the picture and they're out there looking at the next steps And I know that they'd love to work with the legislature and PUC and come up with some great solutions. So sure One thing I wanted to mention and you touched on it in the beginning We haven't had a chance to address it maybe we can spend a few minutes as co-ops right, you know Kai has its own co-op and its utility and Richard Ha and other individuals on Hawaii Island have been talking about a co-op for quite some time now What are your thoughts on I think that on an island like Hawaii all successful has it been on the island of Kauai The folks from Kauai love it. Are their utility rates lower? They're a little bit lower I don't think it's as dramatic as most people had envisioned But you have to look at the different geography, you know, Kauai is still fairly compact You know like Oahu it says but the big island is a whole different animal You have people that have a ranch or something and there's only four or five houses Around and that power line is going six miles to those four or five houses Those four or five houses should be having their own little power generation and a co-op can be pretty small I mean off the grid community can be should be something that Hiko or Helco says Hey, we'll design that grid off the grid system for you and we'll help you maintain it And and then we don't have to run a power line all the way from the main line up to your ranch You can you can actually have Helco or Hiko help these smaller companies or smaller co-ops Do their maintenance and keep the linemen employed and do all those kind of things If they just have to change their vision of how they do business and and there's also the possibility that You know as photo ticks become more and more a part of the community You could take parts of the community and leave the Hiko Helco lines in place And maybe have one or two people that have a lot of PV on their roof Generate for their whole community and the power company still sells everybody power and uses that transformer lines to move Move power around their neighborhood not necessarily across the whole island But they can help manage in that way, too So the whole idea from a co-op all the way down to some little community off the grid models are things Utilities should probably start to consider Like I've always said I support Hiko local family a lot of great workers you know local island company, but they're the only Company in the state that provides power and sometimes competition is a good thing You know I'm a airline pilot in the airline industry and it's a highly highly competitive industry And you're always trying to improve your game. You're always trying to make your product better you know for the customer and I don't think we've had that as far as our utility company and so I'm not saying they're not trying their best But it's a challenge Makes people better it does it does and the PUC is there to kind of help even the field and make it competitive But even then politics gets in there and you know things happen So as good as it can be it's still not as competitive as like you say the airline industry We're now the the gloves are off and you really pension pennies and and and cutting rates and doing the best you can And still taking care of your employees, which is important too I mean you can't just get so cutthroat in your business where you don't take care of your people That's absolutely not there's a lot of local families that I think if you approach with the mindset of Families are first oh Hanna, you know we are we're all in this canoe together That's right. Oh my dad used to always say we're all in this together and We got to work together, you know, and if we have that mindset then Things will be okay. I think we got to be like the big guard family, right? Yeah Well center, it's believe it or not a whole half hours buzz by us amazing And I know you got some traveling to do right away here So I'm gonna let you race a hurricane and get back to Hilo to my family Thanks so much for being on the show of this today And thanks for your time with Stan energy man have a safe trip over to Hilo and we'll see everyone next week I'm Stan energy man here on think tech boy. Aloha. Stay dry. Have a safe weekend