 Think Tech Away. Civil engagement lives here. I'm welcome to stand the energy man on Friday. Thank goodness it's Friday. This week seemed like it was never going to end for me. I won't get any more details than that, but it was a tough week for me. Anyway, also ending up pretty recently is the legislature, which is kind of wrapping up its season right now. And so I've asked several legislators to come on and talk to us about energy bills and things in the legislature. And the first one to pop up was Senator Gil Rivera from the North Shore. And now I got to say that the legislature is full of all kind of great great folks and but I'm really impressed with the ones that reach out to the energy office and to my office and the university and ask questions about energy things because I don't know they're really engaged in the topic and they really care about what's going on in their community and helping their constituents. So thanks for being on with us. Appreciate it. Thanks Dan. Thank you for inviting me. No, my pleasure. And thanks for reaching out to us. We obviously want to give you the best information that we can for you to help make good decisions for the state. So yeah, thanks for being engaged. That's great. I was hooked on, we met because of the question of hydrogen. I was hooked on the product several years ago when I got to tour the Pearl Harbor Hickam and drive a hydrogen fuel cell car back in 2011 or 12 maybe. And I thought, wow, that's a product that we need to talk about going forward. So as I've been involved in the legislature, you know, I've asked you about that a few times and I'm always interested in alternative energies that are going to be useful and practical for us. Well, we're still pushing on the hydrogen button and we're hoping that we'll get that moving along pretty quick and things have been happening. It's a quiet kind of the old George Arreo should quiet, but effective story where there's a lot going on in the background, a lot going on internationally. We're pretty much aware of South Korea and Japan and China pushing into fuel cells in a really big way. I just found out this morning that Vietnam is very interested in hydrogen fuel cell technology and extending that way too. So there's a lot of going on in Asia, a lot going on in Europe, a lot going on in California, some stuff going on on the east coast of the U.S. and of course here in Hawaii, the University of Hawaii, our office, Blue Planet Research, we're all really heavily engaged in hydrogen. So we'll keep you informed. Yeah, that's great. I'm looking forward to that day. What's some of the things that have been going on in the legislature in terms of bills that you know, got through and I know they don't get all the years, but let's start off maybe with the process. I think a lot of folks don't really understand the legislative process here in the state of Hawaii and how bills move through. If you could give us a quick one-on-one on that, that would probably be really helpful. Okay, quick civics course. So we've got the House and the Senate, 25 members in the Senate, 51 in the House and we, when we introduce bills, sometimes a bill will be introduced in each chamber. It'll be the same identical bill, so it'll be called a companion. For example, I work with Representative Sean Quinlan in my area for some bills and Rep Keohokalole or Rep Matsumoto, the different representatives I work with, we may introduce matching bills. And then depending on the pace and the activity of the committees in either of the chambers, a bill may get some traction or it may stall out. So it's good to have those two sets of bills to get them through, yeah? So they have to pass through each House and so they cross over. So when the Senate is done working on a bill, we have to vote on it three times, plus it has to go to committee. It's in the committees where the public gets to testify and the testimony is actually very useful because we'll have these lofty ideas sometimes and we'll say, well, I think we can fix X, Y or Z with this bill, but we don't see all the repercussions. So the experts or the people that are involved in that business, that industry, that technology will come in and testify, help us punch it up and make it a better bill. And that's why it gets modified along the way. Yes. And so sometimes it's a completely different bill by the time it comes out the other end, notwithstanding the infamous gut and replace. But there's bills sometimes where it starts to do something and by the time it gets to the end, it accomplishes generally the same thing, but it may look very different. So the Senate will work on it for the first month and the House simultaneously. Then the bills will pass on to the other House and they'll go through the same process. So each bill theoretically has a real heavy vetting. In reality, sometimes they only get one or two hearings and they go through fairly quickly. But hopefully by the time it gets around to the last committees, it's in a form ready to roll. I serve on the Ways and Means Committee, which is the Senate Money and Budgeting Committee. So anything that has to do with money appropriations, etc., will come through Ways and Means. So I have a chance to have a broader perspective of all the bills moving through. Even if we do pass the bill and even if the House passes the same bill, it might be slightly different. And at that point, it goes into the Notorious Conference Committee process. And that is where good bills sometimes just die due to either budgetary concerns or maybe disagreements. Sometimes you get some personalities involved in the House and the Senate negotiators get mad at each other. So are you going to kill my bill? I'm killing your bill. And that's a tragedy when that happens. So we hope to have the decorum and the cooperation to come up with good bills, but sometimes personalities get in the way. And if it makes it all the way through the committee, the committees and that process, it goes to the governor for signature. And he either becomes law with his signature or over time without his signature or he vetoes it. And if he vetoes it, what happens? So on a veto, if the legislature convenes to consider that measure again and votes by two-thirds majority in both House, each House and both House have to be two-thirds, then the veto is over-ridden. Interestingly, I believe the first governor's veto override did not occur until towards the end of Governor Cayetano's administration. So up until then, if the governor vetoed it, the legislature just let it lie and maybe picked it up the next year. But since then, now anytime we hear veto, my colleagues, we start talking about we coming back, we coming back. So it's an interesting power play between the branches of government. Thanks for that quick civics lesson, because I know that a lot of us paid attention in school, but it's been a while and it's good to always look at the process again. And I'd like to emphasize too, like you said, getting down and submitting testimony is important. I have, for most of my life, underestimated the interest at not only the state legislature, or the county councils and stuff, but also the congressional offices have in hearing from citizens. You know, everybody thinks they're too busy, they'll never listen to me, they've got other stuff to do. But you'd be quite surprised if you haven't tried it already. Go talk to your legislator. They want to listen to you and they want to hear your input, so I'll definitely encourage them. I think most of us do. Sometimes you'll have a legislator with a plan. They got a plan. They get out of the way. We're going forward with this. And so sometimes the public can be frustrated, because they'll say, man, I gave them all these good reasons and improvements, and they just wouldn't listen to it. But again, on balance, you know, we're all trying to do good bills and get stuff through, and we take the input and hopefully come out with a good product at the end. And I know too, a lot of times I'll have a great solution for something, but I'm not seeing the finance side, or I'm not seeing the social implications side, or I'm not seeing the impact to people who have less income than me, or more income than me, or a business. And those things all come into play. So even though I might have a great idea and I bring it to you, you can go pat me on the head and say, Stan, I appreciate your input, but we can't do that. And that's okay too, as long as it's explained and people understand, they're not being ignored. They're just being told there's other factors that play there. And that's why it's good to go through two or three different hearings in each chamber to get the vetting to work on it. And here what other people are saying too, because I guarantee you, if five or ten people are all saying the same thing, legislature starts listening to that. There was a bill this year, early in the year, to more regulate homeschooling. Homeschoolers would have to pass certain checkboxes and background checks and things like that. So parents would now be subject to this new regime. Oh, the whole homeschoolers are very organized. They came down and said, no, that's ridiculous. We're taking care of our kids. You know, you can't, that's an overreach of government. And that was an example where people power quickly turned that question around and that bill just dropped off right there. So things can change if the public is united. So get involved, get involved with your legislature and your congressional delegation, especially you business folks. The congressional delegation wants to hear from you. So let's talk a little bit about energy things. You're in North Shore, so from kind of point all the way around to Kaneohe, and you work with your house counterparts. Jared Keohokalole has been on our show once or twice, and I think he's running for Senate now in the wound on Kailua side, isn't he? Correct, for the neighboring Senate district for the Kaneohe side. So I, you know, and I talk to him a lot too about hydrogen. He's very interested in hydrogen. And so what are some of the things that, you know, and like I said earlier, I don't want to talk about specific bills necessarily, but you have different categories of bills like tax incentives and things like that. Have you seen anything in those categories like tax incentives or standing up new offices or anything that actually made it through pass, I mean if it hits ways and means it's practically through the gauntlet. So things that made it at least pass your your committee that... A couple of bills that went through, there's a matching program now. We appropriated two million dollars for the HTDC, my attack, you guys, to match federal grants, so to double the viability of funding. So there's two million dollars this year to match programs to research alternative energy projects, because a lot of times we have, again, back to the great ideas, but you need a proof of concept. And so that's a bill, I think, it's not a giant infusion of money, but it's, I know it's going to help get some projects off the ground. We have another project, you know, the GEMS, remember the GEMS project, this green energy systems, and a few years ago the idea was let's set aside 50 million dollars and we're going to support people who cannot afford to put solar on the roof. And it was a great idea that was just a little bit late, because as solar penetration hits certain thresholds, point electric got a little anxious about the stability of the grid, they imposed some new restrictions and suddenly the solar roof installation has, has, has dropped off a lot. So now we've got this 50 million dollars that we're paying off, we're borrowed and we're paying money on it and it's been sitting there for a few years without any good use. So I think this year we did something that's wise under the circumstances is we've turned it now and not just for private or individual lending, but we can actually now use that money for schools, for example, buildings, government buildings, 52% of the electricity used on this island is by commercial and government. And so now if we can use this money to help put solar on every school roof, for example, we can save as much as, you know, 38 million dollars is spent on electricity by the Department of Education, so that money's now getting reappropriated or now being made available. So it's more available for, it's more available for larger users to do a bigger impact on getting to renewable services. Yeah, that always made me wonder, initially, they were talking about $20,000 here and $25,000 there, $15,000, I'm like, that's going to take a long time to get to 50 million. That's, that's a pretty small bite out of that apple every day. So going to the larger projects is probably a good idea. So I think so. Let's, let's support that. Okay. And then the monies that are saved through the utility savings, the electricity savings, can then go back in to refund the program. So let's hope this gives it a kickstart and it's not just 50 million bucks sitting, doing nothing. And then we had another bill, if I remember, that was talking about something going to the PUC on on a performance-based rate, you know, structure for the electric company. What's that one about? There's been, you know, the, the utility companies get paid based on how much stuff they own and how much money they got to spend to maintain their system. So there's been this perverse incentive where if they have a little bit of extra money at the end of the year, they go buy more trucks or something because then they have a bigger base to maintain and therefore they need greater rates to support that. So the whole purpose of the public utilities is provide a stable, in this case, electricity. The incentives are in the wrong place. So over the last several years, the Public Utilities Commission has been working on performance-based programs to try to unhitch that adverse incentive. And this year we passed a bill that will actually expedite that and then require the Public Utilities Commission to get to that day sooner where they break the cycle of revenue and spending altogether, but more like stable electricity generation and more alternative renewables. And so I think that it's going to go in the right direction. At this point is that then just kind of directing the PUC to get the study done faster or I mean is it actually going to direct the PUC to implement or is it more to just do the homework and make sure we're doing the right thing? Well the PUC is already working on certain modules of this bigger and complicated grid and energy production and reliability and resiliency. So they're working on parts of it. This one requires them to get it done on a bigger, on a holistic level and then give a path forward on how are we going to break that cycle of just spending irrespective of, you know, our energy change because I think most people understand and most people support going to renewable energies. But having said that, there's a very short fuse on this bill. This bill targets a year and a half from now for the PUC to render this report. It's a very aggressive timeline. So I'm hoping that it's not too short that they have to make quick answers. I hope that they've got enough background information. Yeah, I hope they got enough background time, information, resources and they can put it together in that time. Okay. We're going to take a quick break here and let some of the other folks talk about their shows here on Think Tech Hawaii. We'll be back with Senator Averi in a few seconds. I'm Jay Fidel, Think Tech. Think Tech loves energy. I'm the host of Mina, Marko and me, which is Mina Morita, former chair of the PUC, former legislator and energy dynamics, a consulting organization in energy. Marko Mangostorf is the CEO of Provision Solar in Hilo. Every two weeks we talk about energy, everything about energy. Come around and watch us. We're on at noon on Mondays, every two weeks on Think Tech. Aloha. Hi, everyone. I'm Andrea Gabrieli. I'm the host for Young Talents Making Way here on Think Tech Hawaii. We talk every Tuesday at 11 a.m. about things that matter to tech, matter to science, to the people of Hawaii with some extraordinary guests, the students of our schools who are participating in science fair. So Young Talents Making Way every Tuesday at 11 a.m. only on Think Tech Hawaii. Mahalo. Hey, welcome back to Stand Energy Man on my lunch hour as usual because I'm a state worker, so I got to do this on my own time. But we've got the state senator here watching me. He's got oversight of where my lunch hour and I've got state senator Gil Rivera. Thanks again, Gil for being on. Let's talk a little bit about your neighborhood. You know, you represent actually by square miles or acres. You probably have a lot of territory in your district. You went all the way from Kuhuku actually around into Kanioi. Not quite into Kanioi town, but to Heia. Go to the fish pond is more or less the boundary. And going the other way around to Kaena Point Wailua and all that in Kuhuku, but goes through Schofield Barracks. That's almost all of Schofield Barracks and around to Kunia Village. So we've got agriculture lands in Kunia, you know, the North Shore, Whitmore, we got Kahuku, Punaluu. We've got Ag lands all the way around conservation lands. And we do have a lot of alternative energy now too. Let's talk a little bit. I mean, obviously everybody's familiar with the wind power projects because they're all in your area. And I'm curious as to what the folks in your district think about the wind power. And, you know, are they in favor of it? Do they kind of concern about it? Do you have the full spectrum of some folks love it, some folks hate it? Can you give us a picture of what your take is on the wind power? When the wind mills, the wind projects were proposed back in 2010, they're about, I think our community was full in full support. We said, this is great. Let's get off. Let's get off of oil and if wind mills help, they provide alternative energy. That's great. Some questions were asked about the visual effects of it. And frankly, the guys selling the wind projects were not very forthright. They said things like when asked, hey, how's that, what are the wind mills going to look like from Pupukea? And they said, oh, they're going to have a special view. And as it turns out, it's a horrendous view. And there's people that live up the top of Pupukea that can't, they have to close their sheet, their blinds at night because the wind mills have a big red light blinking in their window. So what used to be this glorious view to Mount Kuala and all the agricultural fields now, they got this blinking red light and wind mills by day. So the visual impacts have been great. I think once they went up, they went up quickly, people started rethinking and say, wait a minute, what's going on there? So we felt a little bit cheated on the visual aspects of it, especially when you go through Waimea Bay. It's pretty off-putting. The other thing is they only generate the Kahuku, or the Kuala wind farm, only generates about between 20 and 23 percent of its projected energy. So when they say 69 megawatts of capacity, they don't hit that on day in and day out. They hit about 20 to 23 percent. So there's a question as to whether it ultimately has been worth it. So when they talk capacity, are they talking like 20, 30 knots of wind, or what does it take to get a wind mill to get into that capacity? Well, okay, now that's a better question. They can start to spin at what's called three and a half meters per second, which is, I think, 10, 11 miles an hour. The wind mills can start to spin. However, they do their maximum damage on endangered species up until the wind is really blowing. So there are now requirements that the wind turbines do not start operating until they get to five and a half meters per second. I used to say they lock them up until the wind's strong. They have to wait. So even though they could be spinning in the low wind speed, in most cases they're not allowed now because of the damage they're doing to our endangered species. So they can operate up to, now they generate a certain amount of energy when they're going at full speed. Right. But once the winds drops, just a little bit, their production drops off substantially. So if the wind drops off maybe a quarter, they're only producing about an eighth of the energy. That makes sense. The wind turbines that we've used at Hickam, the folks that designed them tell us that they did power output is exponential. It's not a straight line. No. When you start getting into the real productive zone, it goes up quickly. Every increase of a mile per hour kilometer per hour just really pushes it, pushes the power output greatly. But does Hawaiian Electric talk about any future plans out there or are you aware of? There's the Kauai Law Project, which has 28 or 30 windmills above Waimea. And then there's the Kahuku Project, has another 12 right now. Okay. And there is another proposal for eight or nine even taller turbines, 656 feet, which is 50 percent taller than the buildings. 50 percent taller than the tallest building downtown. Yeah. Or basically, if you put one at the base of Diamond Head, it'd be about the same size as Diamond Head. That's how big these things are that are now proposed to surround Kahuku. So the people in our district are very concerned. I guess I can leave it at that. Is the energy productions out there? They're killing endangered species. They're a visual blight. Very few people think that they look great. So there's kind of been probably a transition from initial acceptance to a little bit more skeptical look at these things now. A lot more concerned. And in the Kauai Law area, Kahuku, Haula, Laie, that area, they're very concerned because they're worried that with the addition of another energy production that even though it's not direct competition against solar, rooftop solar, they're worried that the grid may not be able to handle it might be taken up. Well, it's another intermittent renewable. And the intermittent part of solar and wind is what destabilizes HIKO's grid. So any addition of industrial-scale solar or industrial-scale wind is going to mean rooftop solar is going to probably be pushed out of the picture because they can control the big stuff. It's harder to control everybody's individual rooftop. So it sounds like we have some work to do with everybody involved to come up with some good solutions. And there's a bit of an equity question too. And I've talked about this. There's a concept called environmental justice. The folks in Kahuku, I think, are overwhelmingly opposed to any additional wind turbines because they've already got them. Right. And now they're going to be expected to take more. And I think it's unreasonable for their position to be ignored. Yeah, I agree. And so I've been a real strong advocate to advocate downtown here. And it's not right for Honolulu to tell everybody else where, you know, what they have to do. Well, I'd like to push to your constituents, again, make yourself available. Come down and do some testimony in the legislature. Don't let your state senators sit there and take the brunt of the fight by himself. You folks are the one he's fighting for, so get down there and help him out. That's important. What the people show up makes a difference. And I think people underestimate their power. Well, that's one thing, Stan. We've got a very great community. We do stand up. And, you know, we do protect the North Shore and the windward side. So we're strong in that. But you're right. Your point is still well taken that we do need to make ourselves heard. And unfortunately in the past we have been very good at that, you know, protecting the North Shore. What are some of the other good things going on in your area? Are you familiar with what's going on at School Field with the military? There's a new 50 megawatt. When's that? The opening is coming up. It's pretty soon. Yeah, it's real soon. And we were talking to HECO recently and they're excited about that project coming online. Yeah. Is that being pretty well accepted in the neighborhood? Uh, yeah. That one's not being talked about too much. It's on base. It's, you know, it's base load, right? Firm power. So that's, that's pretty good. And back to one more thing on the windmills. Okay. And solar for that matter is you have to have a base load somewhere for wind that wind. Even when the windmill is spinning at full speed you've got to have right now oil, fire, generator spinning in neutral burning oil. Just in case. But not making electricity. Just in case. So we look at the windmill, we say, wow, that's clean, green, and wonderful. And we don't think about the the oil we're burning. Just a suggestion. This comes from our Michael Gritz and HECOM. We're looking a lot at flywheels. And I know HECO's got a project with with one of the local companies that's doing the flywheels. That's your absolutely your spinning reserve. Instead of running a generator whenever you have surplus electricity you spin up that flywheel. And you keep it spinning and when it's in neutral it's got it's got zero friction bearing. So once you get it spinning it just keeps spinning. And then when you have that load that's unexpected that thing kicks in really fast. And takes up the load. So you don't have to run a generator in conjunction with your wind turbines to do that spinning reserve piece. And so that's that's something that I would say maybe your constituents and yourself could ask HECO to look more into is yeah spinning reserves that that are actually more mechanical than battery or generators. That's great. That's exactly the kind of solution that we need to to fill that load. And we need some sort of storage and because we can generate a lot of solar power during the day. Right. We've talked about this and I think it's really important. I think with the surplus solar we should be making hydrogen. I agree. We take water and we make oxygen and hydrogen. I mean that's pretty good. And then we can fire that up in our cars our fuel cell cars and turn the lights on. We cook whether we knew a lot of things with hydrogen. And not only that but you're making oxygen. Do you have any aquaponics or or like shrimp farms and things? I mean I've been told by the folks that raised fish that if you put oxygen into the system where the fish are rather than just air and air eat the water but put oxygen you actually accelerate their maturity their growth patterns. So you could even take the oxygen which we normally from our electrolysis just throw it away we put in the air and say great we're cleaning up Hawaii's air but if you could actually employ it as a byproduct as a product your fish farms and stuff and your shrimp farms might actually help. I always thought it was ironic when the the submarines have always done this right. So they would keep the oxygen and throw away the hydrogen and now here we are doing exactly the opposite. We're trying to tell the Navy to keep some of the hydrogen from some middle hydride storage instead of lithium batteries on their subs and they're starting to listen to that too. Good idea. Well believe it or not Senator we're at the end of our show and I appreciate you being on and I hope that all all of you will join us next week for Stanley Energy Man and we'll try and get some more folks from Legislature on to give us their side but remembering you know your voice means a lot down at the Legislature so don't hesitate to write your your representative or your senator and especially when it comes time for testimony show up down there and show the committees exactly what you think until next week Allah