Down with Oil: Renewing Hawaii's Energy Future

     It must a dream to live in Hawaii for most people, but the cost of living and lack of space would deter people from doing so. One of the more costly expenses in Hawaii is the source of energy. Hawaii has the most expensive power rate in the United States due to our heavily dependence on imported oil. Governor Linda Lingle signed the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative that would achieve 70% Clean Energy in Hawaii by 2030. In order to promote clean energy and bring down the cost of energy, Hawaii has to change its way on getting its energy beside using oil, such as using renewable energy, use local resources and lower the overall power consumption of the state. By doing these tasks, Hawaii could become the leader in clean energy development.

     Using renewable energy will make Hawaii less dependent on imported sources of energy. In fact, Hawaii has almost every source or renewable energy such as wind, waves, solar, ocean thermal and geo thermal energies. The problem with this is that the state is divided into several islands and not all islands provide all these natural resources. For example, The Island of Lana'i would be a viral place to produce wind energy due to strong wind currents over the island, but the island doesn't need all the power. Other islands such as O'ahu needs this power, but the problem is how does it retrieve the power from Lana’i since the ocean is separating them both. The mainland consists of one giant main power grid and regions can produce or even sell its energy to other regions. In Hawai'i, each island has its own power grid and can't share it with others. If Hawaii can solve this problem and find a way to share energy with the other islands, using renewable energy will lower the over cost of power.

     Oil accounts for 77% of energy in Hawaii. This a very large portion of the energy consumption of Hawaii. Due to oil being imported, the cost to bring the oil to Hawaii effects the overall price of not just energy, but practically everything such as gas, food, clothes and jobs. When the price for oil goes up, the prices of all goods goes up along with it. By breaking this dependency on imported resources like oil and coal, the cost of living in Hawaii can be significantly lower if the state uses local resources just like the mainland.

     Local consumption of energy is high and will continue to grow, unless Hawaii finds a way to use energy efficiently. Currently Hawaii uses about 1000 Megawatts of energy everyday and is projected to rise to 1200 Megawatts in the near future. This would probably mean if Hawaii does indeed produce renewable clean energy but also increases its power consumption, the cost of energy might be less the same. If Hawaii can keep the power consumption at the same level or even decrease the demand for power, that's when the state can expect to see a decrease of price in energy. To promote lower power consumption, the state will have to work together and use power efficient devices such as replacing old lightbulbs with new CFL's or LED lights. It might be a small change for one person, but if everyone in Hawaii contributes, efficient use of power will lower the over power demand for the state.

     Hawaii has the potential to provide the state with most of its energy needs without the dependency of oil as an energy source. Using renewable energy, local resources and lowering the power consumption of the state, Hawaii can achieve it's Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative that would achieve 70% Clean Energy in Hawaii by 2030 and could significantly lower the cost of energy and consumer goods of the state.

Links:

Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative: http://www.hawaiicleanenergyinitiative.org/