 Welcome to Think Tech on Spectrum OC16, Hawaii's weekly newscast on things that matter to tech and Hawaii. I'm Jay Fiedel. And I'm Cynthia Sinclair. In our show this time, we'll go to Kauai to check out the radar station in Kauai, do a remote talk show with K-I-U-C, and visit N. Kalamura Farm Enterprises in Lihui. Kauai was, as usual, breathtakingly beautiful. Our trip was funded by the Annie Sinclair-Newtson Memorial Fund through the Hawaii Community Foundation. Our travelers that day were Think Tech's Eric Kalander and me and Stan Osserman, host of Stan the Energyman, director of the Hawaii Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies, and a retired Brigadier General in the Hawaii Air National Guard. From Lihui, we drove to the Hawaii Air National Guard radar station at Kauai, where Stan and Chief Vance Yamamoto toured us around the station. Aloha. I'm Stan Osserman. I'm on Think Tech Kauai as you might have seen my shows on Friday. And we're up here at Kokei at a very special place for me, anyway. I used to be in the Hawaii Air National Guard, and we're visiting a radar site that's run by the Hawaii Air National Guard up at the top of the island of Kauai, one of the highest spots on the island, and it's part of the state's air defense system. In fact, it's part of the Pacific's air defense system as you network everything together. The National Guard has a lot of visitors come in and a lot of competition. So behind me are a bunch of plaques and awards from visiting units or awards that the site got for doing good work in the federal system. You can see there's a NOAA plaque from the Weather Service, and then some other awards, state awards and federal awards that they've gotten. How do you like working up here at Kokei? Well, it's a beautiful place to work, and the work is interesting, and it's usually not too stressful, so all in all, it's a pretty good job. So what kind of work do you do? Are you actually on scopes, or do you just take care of equipment and things like that? No, I'm on the radar maintenance team, so we don't actually operate the radar. We don't spend our time checking the targets. We just make sure that the equipment is operational so that the people who are watching the targets have targets to watch. I was a traditional guardsman for the first seven years or so, and then I got a full-time federal technician job in 2001, and then just a couple of years ago they transitioned all the personnel here at this site to AGR. For those who don't know, an AGR is an active duty guardsman, so it's just like an active duty person except you belong to the guard instead of the active duty. This unit here has actually been here since the 1950s, believe it or not, and it's part of an integrated air defense system. Back in the 50s, there were actually Army Nike missile launching facilities around the state of Hawaii that were connected in this big system, and this was one of the nodes in that system now. It's part of the nodes in the air defense system that uses fighters to defend the island. Since 1956, the Hawaii Air National Guard has been manning fighters and radar sites in the state of Hawaii to do air sovereignty defense for the state of Hawaii. A lot of people don't realize that our Constitution was set up with a lot of checks and balances. He's really familiar with the executive branch, legislative branch, judicial branch. They taught that in civics in school, but most people don't think about the military. In the military, our founding fathers looked and said, you know, the teachers' union never overthrew a country. There was never a coup by the plumber's union. It was always an armed force that took over a government. When our founding fathers settled how they were going to set up the military in the United States, they needed to balance and not have a really strong, totally federal force oriented armed folks. That's why the Second Amendment talks about a militia, which is really all the civilians, but there's a formal militia in every state in all 50 states that's called the National Guard. It includes the Army National Guard, the Air National Guard, and in some states even a Navy National Guard. Those units, particularly the Army and the Air National Guard, are federally funded. So this building and all the equipment in it is federally funded equipment. We're talking to Chief Yamamoto, one of my buds from way long time ago from my fishing days over here in Kauai. I see all these awards in the back, and I started trying to tell people what they were, but just an idea of what some of these are for, visiting units or? Well, back when we were a full-fledged squadron up here, we used to do a lot of exercise and missions with other agencies and working with some foreign agencies and everything. So with that close knit exercises, we gained friends and pretty much a plaque show that the unit, as it was, did a really good job at it. So the guys over here in Kauai, they keep it a secret, but they're like killer fishermen and killer volleyball players. And so as proof of that, I have the trophy case here. It's high-tech and there's a lot of electronics here and a lot of functionality and a lot of relevance to air defense here in the state of Hawaii. Wouldn't it be a great idea to be in the National Guard? These guys have a sweet life. If you're going to be in the service, why not have a dual service arrangement? It sounds like it's better than being strictly state or strictly federal. You get the best of both worlds. Could you give us a little idea of what this PVRA is does? Well, so right now, they installed it. It's a 54-panel, max capacity is about a 15K initial response package. The thing is, it can be packed up on two 463L pallets, aircraft shipping pallets, looking at a three-man deployment set up fully operational about 24 hours. That is to give initial power to a bare-based site, waiting for the following forces to get there. So it really isn't specifically for a radar site. It's any initial set up for an initial bare-based type site. Exactly. It'll provide power to basically any site. Yeah. I told them I had my military boots on and they didn't believe me. Just for the record, mine's the cleanest. Behind us, we have the photovoltaic array that the Air Force Research Lab brought out here to test as part of a mobile power generation system. It's 15 kilowatts, which is 15,000 watts of power at one time. They would have to attach some storage to it to use it at night or whatever. But this basically boosts the power and gives them immediate power when they need it up to 15 kilowatts. Two different systems. One here right behind us is the more rigid, sturdier, traditional system. The other side is the Armageddon panels, a little more flexible, a little more durable. It can take direct impact and it should keep still function as advertised. There should be no depletion in energy intake or output due to dust, dirt, clouds. So that's why Kokei is a good site for the testing because of the ever-changing climate and weather conditions. Then we drove back to Ele Ele, where Stan did his Friday energy man talk show by remote. His guest also by remote was Brad Rockwell of Kauai Energy Utility Co-op, K-I-U-C. Today's show is all about looking at a utility grid that's, I want to say, pretty unique in the whole wide world. Over here in Hawaii, we have Hawaiian Electric running most of the grids in the state of Hawaii. But we also have one island and it happens to be the island of King Kamehameha and never really captured because he couldn't get his canoes over here without sinking his fleet. He lost half his fleet on two tries and gave up trying to take over the island of Kauai. So the folks here in Kauai are really independent and they have their own independent power source now and it's Kauai Island Utility Co-op. Can you tell us some of the challenges you have working with the utility scale operation that has this much intermittent renewable in it? You know, I mean, a lot of people can't appreciate the challenges there because you not only have to be able to carry the average load of the systems on your grid, but you have to be able to handle the spikes and the peaks and valleys and keep everything smooth because your customers demand good power and you're obligated as a public utility to give them good power. But I know that's pretty challenging. Can you explain some of those challenges? Yeah, I'll do my best, Dan B. The challenges are a few different, can kind of be spoken down a few different areas that first is the intermittent to get a resource like solar and, you know, for solar specifically here in Hawaii, we get typical trade one weather out there always moving across the, you know, between the sun and the solar panels and causing large swings in the power output of these solar panels and these utility scale solar farms. And so that basically that means frequency around all day long on the grid. So we have to mitigate that variable frequency in order to deliver good power to our customers supplying the band, just balancing out all these, you know, this excess of resources that you will supply assets and with our demand at every second of the day and making sure that if we have an excess, we're appropriately storing it or work her tailing as necessary and we're managing all those assets. I tell you what, we're coming up against our end of time here, but I really, really, really want to thank you for being flexible today. This has been a real adventure for all of us over here in Hawaii, trying to pull on everything together. We spent the morning up at Kokei at the radar site talking to those folks. So thanks again, Brad. And I definitely want to have you back on the show sometime when I more settled down and less air on fire and talk to you a little bit more about the future of Hawaii Island energy co-op. So thanks that you totally co-op. So thank you so much for your patience and we'll be talking to you sometime in the future. Yeah, sure thing. Let's do it again. Thanks, Dan. Kauai is considered by many to be one of the best places on earth to live. Sustainability is considered a requirement and it's the only Hawaiian Island to have its own electrical co-op. But Kauai is much more than clean and green. It's country and it's friendly and moves at an enviable, easy pace. Kauai has one of the most advanced renewable energy grids in the U.S. with two huge solar and battery facilities, among other things. It also has some of the best and most friendly transportation infrastructure, giving residents and visitors alike many choices when moving from place to place. Then we drove back to Lihui to meet Ed Kawamura of N. Kawamura Farm Enterprises, an enlightened and multi-generational equipment and feed supply business in Lihui. We toured his shop and said hi to some of his family and customers. We met Ed at the SBA awards ceremony in Honolulu the week before when both Kawamura Farm Enterprises and Think Tech received awards. Great family owned company, long time business, three or four generations, always giving back to the community. Up until the time that Pearl Harbor got bombed, it was a Japanese school. So after December 7, 1941, they closed the Japanese school and we became a military headquarters. September of 1945, it became my kindergarten. And then... You were in kindergarten then? Yeah, all right. I came here, a kindergarten, and I guess we stayed here about the late 50s and the school moved. And then my father started the business, you know, right around the 60s. He ran the business and then I retired from the military in 788, came back here and I said, I want to help my dad. And so here I am, you know, giving back to the community. You know, it's something that I grew up with from my grandparents. Folks, you know, they came from Japan and they grew rice. They taught me all the old traditions of the Japanese, right? You're here shopping. What are you shopping for? Well, I always get all my equipment worked on here. I buy my equipment here. We have, you know, five acres. And right now I bought a bunch of weed cloth and I got to put it in and I got to get rid of the weeds. Five acres of what kind of business? Actually, I own a tiki bar, tiki iniki, but I grow a lot of. Did you say tiki iniki? Yeah. So I thought iniki was a hurricane, no? I know, but it also means a pinch or a nip like the pangs of love. OK. You see, they take this here and they split the logs to make firewood. We're just getting ready for our lawn and got in power equipment next floor. What is that? What is that? What is that about? Where is it? Is it here? It's done here in the backyard there. As you can see, you have a field over there. Tents going up there. But all this equipment here will be on display out there. The idea of sharing the knowledge of quality equipment, state of the art equipment, came to me way back when we started because you have people buying all these other equipment and don't know anything. And yet the hotels, the tourist industry, they want something and they get to get to view it once a year. They get to see the upcoming thing of the state of the art there. Whatever brand you would like that we have here, we have everything from lawn mowers, chainsaw, blowers. We have some battery powered equipment. You know, now with the ecosystem, the way they are. Yeah, yeah. It's zero turn mower, you know, zero turn mower. By far the most popular one now because it cuts down in time cutting. So we go to the other side of the shelf. This side equipment side, the other side is what they call animal feed. You know, we have the chicken, the sheep, the horses. This is an old faithful hand truck. I don't know that you have a seen one, but this is older than me. You know, but it looks like it's going to last forever, actually. Yeah. Yeah. So we have here on this side of the house, we have animal feed. Chicken, duck, Gamecocks, goat, sheep, horses, cattle. And you go as far as having fish food, too. This is the idea that we started way back when, when we first started the story. You know, it's about sharing our knowledge of that, right? You know, people come. They're looking for advice and one, so that's what we do. That's three generations. That's great. Working here. That's great. At one time, we had four generations. Well, when my my my father passed, you know, they went to three and hopefully we can get them all get coming up up the line there. We get a teaching of senior and the Buddhist teaching that says you're on this earth for the sake of others. It's true, doing things for other people that bring joy into your life. And I think that that plays an important role there. And I'm happy to say that my grandparents taught me the other thing, too, which is making glutinous rice there, called mochi rice, you know, where they pound the rice and it comes into a ball. New Year's Day rice. New Year's Day rice. No matter how much difference you have, when you pound mochi and you put it apart, it always comes back to the middle. And that's what you want about family. It's having them be the difference. But they're there when the call is come. Turn the key. OK. Now. Break off. Close it up. Now you go forward, you push forward, you go back. You come here, stop, then you come back. OK. Now to go to the right, you push the right first, this way here. Then you go that way there, then you push the left, you go straight. This is the pathway. Do the hula. Thank you, Ed. OK. Great to see you today. I'm so glad we connected. Then we drove to the airport to make our flight back to Honolulu. It was a long, lovely and memorable day, kicking around in Kauai. Thanks to Stan for arranging the trip and to Eric for filming it. To Vance Yamamoto for touring us around the Kokei radar station. To Brad Rockwell for doing the remote talk show with Stan. To Ed Kauamora for showing us his business and to the Annie Sinclair-Newton Memorial Fund for making this trip and this show possible. Want to know more about Kauai? See kauai.gov. Want to know more about the Hawaii International Guard? See dod.hawaii.gov. Slash H-I-A-N-G. Want to know more about K-I-U-C? See k-I-U-C dot co-op. Want to know more about N. Kauamora Farm Enterprises? See KauamoraFarm.com. And now let's check out our ThinkTech schedule of events going forward. ThinkTech broadcasts its talk shows live on the Internet from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. Then we broadcast our earlier shows all night long and on the weekends. And some people listen to them all night long and on the weekends. If you missed a show or if you want to replay or share any of our shows, they're all archived on demand on thinktecawaii.com and YouTube. For our audio stream, go to thinktecawaii.com slash audio. And we post all our shows as podcasts on iTunes. Visit thinktecawaii.com for our weekly calendar and live stream and YouTube links. Or better yet, sign up on our email list and get our daily email advisories. ThinkTech is a high-tech green screen studio at Pioneer Plaza. 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Remember, you can watch ThinkTech on Spectrum OC16 several times every week. Can't get enough of it, just like Cynthia does. For additional times, check out oc16.tv. For lots more ThinkTech videos and for underwriting and sponsorship opportunities on ThinkTech, visit thinktecawaii.com. Be a guest or a host, a producer or an intern and help us reach and have an impact on Hawaii. Thanks so much for being part of our ThinkTech family and for supporting our open discussion of tech, energy, diversification and global awareness in Hawaii. And of course, the ongoing search for innovation across our state and wherever we can find it. You can watch this show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important ThinkTech episode. I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Cynthia Sinclair. Aloha, everyone.