SUBHEAD: The Draft Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan is deeply flawed by our desire to continue on as we have. That will not happen.
By Juan Wilson on 7 January 2010 in Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2010/01/kauai-energy-sustainability-2030.html)
Image above: "End of the Road". A burned out rental car on the beach at Poli Hale. Photograph by Richard Jarke from December 2009.
[Author's note: Fellow Island Breath editor Brad Parsons has posted a draft copy of the Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan (KESP) on his website at http://alohaanalytics.blogspot.com/2010/01/draft-kauai-energy-sustainability-plan.html . Due to its plans length Brad linked to its several PDF file sections. If you care to look at it, I have reduced its 33 page Executive Summary to less than 1600 below as the "KESP SUMMARY SUMMARY".]
After looking at the KESP draft report I conclude that, like so much in America's effort to adjust to the future... too little - too late. The KESP cites the KIUC 2030 Sustainabilty goal of 50% energy independence in 15 years as less that what is required to meet the Kauai's needs. I agree, but would add that we do not have until 2030 to be 100% self reliant.
World economic and natural resource restrictions will make us self reliant much sooner than that. The question is what will the quality of our lives be when we are limited by the oncoming tsunami of reality.
We will have to live under whatever circumstances we have created for ourselves prior to when oil is selling for $200 a barrel or is simply unobtainable here on Kauai. The KESP draft says we can reduce energy demand through conservation and efficiency, increase our clean energy supply, and make energy delivery more efficient, to meet the goal of 100% local energy sustainability by 2030. This "lofty" goal assumes that what is needed on Kauai are mere adjustments to energy delivery systems and practices to maintain our non-negotiable current life style. In short, it seems we need wind farms to keep the plasma HD screens glowing and we need bio-diesel to keep or Ford F-150's tanks topped-off.
The plan never really admits or seems to understand that our lives will be fundamentally restructured by a future that will not provide magical techno-fixes. This is likely due to the technique of using community-consensus-building-dialog to form the goals of the KESP. In other words, it expresses hopes that may be unachievable.
The plan does hint at the need for more self sufficiency in food production, but yet includes bio-fuel as a requirement to meet KESP goals. As far as I am concerned food production is the number one priority. We can live without residential electricity and driving trucks. We cannot live without food and to be food self-sufficient will require a ten-fold increase in food production on Kauai.
Once again, I will go back to an article I submitted in 2006 to the 2050 Hawaii Sustainability Task Force. It was published on Island Breath in three parts at the beginning of 2007 .
Part 2 covers the future of Kauai between 2007 and 2029 (http://www.islandbreath.org/2006Year/22-future/0622-07Part_2_2050.html). It looks past 2010 to a "Special Period" on Kauai similar to the jolt Cuba got in 1989 when the Soviet Union collapsed. It reads:
We will also suffer when the regularly scheduled tanker barge deliveries of JP4, diesel and gasoline become irregular. KIUC's Hanapepe power plant will at times not be able to deliver all power required. Steady uniform power 24x7x365 will be only a fond memory. The average home will live without air conditioning or even regular refrigeration. Those who have hooked up photovoltaic panels or small windmills with storage devices will be envied. They will have lights and satellite TV.
The rest of us will entertain ourselves telling stories around a fire and playing acoustic instruments. KIUC will be dissolved and a true owner operated cooperative effort will replace it. As Iniki illustrated, things can fall apart in a day, and be dark for a while.
Iniki brought Kauians together, but Iniki was a local temporary condition. We could get outside help from the State and Federal government. Volunteers flew in from around the world to help out. In our Special Period we will have to rely on ourselves." The definition that Island Breath uses for sustainability is:
KESP EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SUMMARY
The Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan Final Report integrates the results of community engagement with objective energy analysis. The KESP is being developed for the County of Kauai, as a result of a competitive solicitation awarded by the County of Kauai to the SENTECH Hawaii Team, consisting of SENTECH Hawaii, LLC, Kauai Planning Action & Alliance (KPAA), and Maurice Kaya, LLC. The Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan is an energy sustainability plan for the island of Kauai, not an energy sustainability plan for Kauai County government, not an energy sustainability plan for KIUC.
However it has specific recommendation for actions to be taken by Kauai County government, by KIUC, by state government, by local businesses and by individuals to achieve energy sustainability for our island. The purpose of the KESP is to facilitate Kauai`’s production and use of local, sustainable energy in the place of imported oil by the year 2030.
DEFINE SUSTAINABILITY
To begin to define energy sustainability, the SENTECH Hawaii Team engaged the community to analyze the term “sustainability”. Several outside groups have tried to define the term “sustainability”, but the basic definition for sustainable development from the Brundtland Commission may be the simplest and most profound: Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
A possible weakness of this definition is that development is assumed; not all groups of people would agree that development per se is a given. What if a group doesn’t want their land, society, and/or way of life to change? The Brundtland Commission, formally the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), is known by the name of its Chair, Gro Harlem Brundtland, and was convened by the United Nations in 1983.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
A more objective and scienctific definition of sustainability may be useful in examining energy generation, delivery and use on Kauai. It’s hard to imagine finding more objective, scientific foundations on which to build guiding principles of energy sustainability than the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics:
1. All the matter that will ever exist on earth is here now. (First Law).
2. Disorder increases in all closed systems and the Earth is a closed system with respect to matter (Second Law), except that Earth receives energy from the sun.
Sunlight is responsible for almost all increases in net material quality on Earth through photosynthesis (for plant growth), solar heating effects (warming of the planet, evaporation of ocean water for fresh water production, creation of ocean currents and wind, etc.). In the realm of sustainable energy, sunlight can create electricity through photovoltaics, and solar heat can be used to drive concentrating solar power, as well as solar thermal heating and cooling systems.
This flow of energy into our ecosystem from the sun essentially creates order from disorder, making an exception to the natural trend of entropy (disorder) in a closed system. Signs that modern society is not sustainable include the fact that we are mining and dispersing materials (such as oil and coal) faster than they are returned to the Earth's crust. In the process, we are increasing the concentration of harmful emissions (such as carbon, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides) and heavy metals (such as lead and mercury) into our ecosystem. To become a sustainable society, TNS starts with the premise that sustainability means preserving all forms of life on Earth.
So, the first three of four TNS Principles of Sustainability focus on interactions between humans and the planet; while the final principle addresses the basic needs of humans. In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing: 1. Concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth's crust; 2. Concentrations of substances produced by society; 3. Degradation by physical means and, in that society, 4. People are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.
The SENTECH Hawaii Team believes that the fourth and final TNS principle is compatible with the definition of sustainable development proposed by the Brundtland Commission, but without including the assumption of “development”.
By using TNS principles to define sustainability, Kauai has the best of both worlds so to speak. TNS led a two-day workshop on Kauai in June of 2006 for about 40 leaders from the government, business and nonprofit sectors. The workshop focused on providing education and awareness-building of the sustainability challenge, provided an overview of TNS and the business case for sustainability, and discussed how the TNS framework can be applied at both the individual and corporate levels.
The group performed a visioning exercise and developed a series of strategies to move Kauai toward sustainability. The results of the workshop laid the foundation for subsequent dialogue and efforts related to sustainability. The Big Island of Hawaii is also reviewing and implementing an energy sustainability plan.
In June of 2009, advisors from TNS visited the Big Island of Hawai’i to provide a series of public workshops and a two and a half day session with leaders from various Island businesses and organizations. The public workshops included audiences from the business community, municipal government representatives, and high school students attending the “Student Congress on Sustainability.” The session brought together 32 potential change leaders to focus on putting theory into practice through the completion of both baseline and visioning exercises specific to the Island of Hawaii.4 http://www.thenaturalstep.org/en/canada/tns-hawaii-opening-minds-closed-system
KIUC GOALS
The “default” goal for Kauai’s energy sustainability goals may be KIUC’s 50% renewable energy goal as mentioned in their 2008 Strategic Plan: “KIUC is committing itself to generate at least 50% of its electricity renewably without burning fossil fuels within 15 years.” This goal was derived from Green House Gas (GHG) legislation that mandates a reduction in GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. To achieve that goal, KIUC would need to generate 50% of its energy from carbon-neutral or non-carbon sources.
Other solutions such as demand side management, improved efficiency, and carbon cap and trade could improve efficiency and reduce the 50% estimate while still meeting the GHG target. While admirable and commendable, this goal runs counter to the Vision statement from the Kauai community since the biofuel would have to be imported (not a local resource), and doesn’t take into account the costs and externalities of transporting the fuel from thousands of miles away.
COMMUNITY GOALS
Based on feedback from the Kauai community, the community wants to set new standards of clean, sustainable energy within the KESP. The community has indicated that it wants to achieve: 100% local energy sustainability by 2030. Kauai needs to close a 94.2% gap over the next 20 years to reach their local, sustainable energy goals.
The SENTECH Hawaii Team will endeavor to help Kauai meet this laudable goal through the energy sustainability plan development process, while acknowledging that meeting this goal will depend on many variables over which the Team has limited influence. For example, the goal of 100% local energy sustainability for Kauai could be met within a few months if unlimited funds were available to buy down the (usually) higher upfront capital costs for renewables, or if the price of oil skyrocketed and stayed high for several months causing renewables to look more attractive financially, or if wind regulations changed that permitted the development of this cost-effective renewable option, etc.
I. Defining Objectives From understanding many of the technical, economic, marketplace, policy/regulatory, and environmental factors affecting energy, the SENTECH Hawaii Team presented to the community the following three general objectives of:
1. Reduce Demand through Energy Conservation and Efficiency,
2. Increase Clean Energy Supply,
3. Make Energy Delivery More Efficient. ...to meet the Goal of 100% Local Energy Sustainability by 2030. END OF SUMMARY
See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan 1/5/10
By Juan Wilson on 7 January 2010 in Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2010/01/kauai-energy-sustainability-2030.html)
Image above: "End of the Road". A burned out rental car on the beach at Poli Hale. Photograph by Richard Jarke from December 2009.[Author's note: Fellow Island Breath editor Brad Parsons has posted a draft copy of the Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan (KESP) on his website at http://alohaanalytics.blogspot.com/2010/01/draft-kauai-energy-sustainability-plan.html . Due to its plans length Brad linked to its several PDF file sections. If you care to look at it, I have reduced its 33 page Executive Summary to less than 1600 below as the "KESP SUMMARY SUMMARY".]
After looking at the KESP draft report I conclude that, like so much in America's effort to adjust to the future... too little - too late. The KESP cites the KIUC 2030 Sustainabilty goal of 50% energy independence in 15 years as less that what is required to meet the Kauai's needs. I agree, but would add that we do not have until 2030 to be 100% self reliant.
World economic and natural resource restrictions will make us self reliant much sooner than that. The question is what will the quality of our lives be when we are limited by the oncoming tsunami of reality.
We will have to live under whatever circumstances we have created for ourselves prior to when oil is selling for $200 a barrel or is simply unobtainable here on Kauai. The KESP draft says we can reduce energy demand through conservation and efficiency, increase our clean energy supply, and make energy delivery more efficient, to meet the goal of 100% local energy sustainability by 2030. This "lofty" goal assumes that what is needed on Kauai are mere adjustments to energy delivery systems and practices to maintain our non-negotiable current life style. In short, it seems we need wind farms to keep the plasma HD screens glowing and we need bio-diesel to keep or Ford F-150's tanks topped-off.
The plan never really admits or seems to understand that our lives will be fundamentally restructured by a future that will not provide magical techno-fixes. This is likely due to the technique of using community-consensus-building-dialog to form the goals of the KESP. In other words, it expresses hopes that may be unachievable.
The plan does hint at the need for more self sufficiency in food production, but yet includes bio-fuel as a requirement to meet KESP goals. As far as I am concerned food production is the number one priority. We can live without residential electricity and driving trucks. We cannot live without food and to be food self-sufficient will require a ten-fold increase in food production on Kauai.
Once again, I will go back to an article I submitted in 2006 to the 2050 Hawaii Sustainability Task Force. It was published on Island Breath in three parts at the beginning of 2007 .
Part 2 covers the future of Kauai between 2007 and 2029 (http://www.islandbreath.org/2006Year/22-future/0622-07Part_2_2050.html). It looks past 2010 to a "Special Period" on Kauai similar to the jolt Cuba got in 1989 when the Soviet Union collapsed. It reads:
"The delicacy of our situation in Hawaii lies in our dependence on that far off US economy. The financial stumble Kauai makes when tourism tanks will only be a prelude to life after cheap oil.
Things will get dark when the US economy moves past a failure of confidence and moves into an extended depression sometime around 2011. Then we will be facing our own "Special Period". For Kauai the Special Period is likely to begin when it is uneconomical to fly a head of lettuce by jet plane to the middle of the Pacific Ocean for consumption on an island that can grow its own lettuce. Over 90% of our food is imported, and we have only about a week's food supply."
We will also suffer when the regularly scheduled tanker barge deliveries of JP4, diesel and gasoline become irregular. KIUC's Hanapepe power plant will at times not be able to deliver all power required. Steady uniform power 24x7x365 will be only a fond memory. The average home will live without air conditioning or even regular refrigeration. Those who have hooked up photovoltaic panels or small windmills with storage devices will be envied. They will have lights and satellite TV.
The rest of us will entertain ourselves telling stories around a fire and playing acoustic instruments. KIUC will be dissolved and a true owner operated cooperative effort will replace it. As Iniki illustrated, things can fall apart in a day, and be dark for a while.
Iniki brought Kauians together, but Iniki was a local temporary condition. We could get outside help from the State and Federal government. Volunteers flew in from around the world to help out. In our Special Period we will have to rely on ourselves." The definition that Island Breath uses for sustainability is:
• Using unrenewable resources no faster than they are recycled.Sustainability is not, however, a means for the continuing the status quo. Getting ready for the future you want to live in is your job. Get to work. Below is the...
• Using renewable resources no faster than they are replaced.
• Restoring the variety and balance of living species.
• Enhancing the art and knowledge of human cultures.
KESP EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SUMMARY
The Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan Final Report integrates the results of community engagement with objective energy analysis. The KESP is being developed for the County of Kauai, as a result of a competitive solicitation awarded by the County of Kauai to the SENTECH Hawaii Team, consisting of SENTECH Hawaii, LLC, Kauai Planning Action & Alliance (KPAA), and Maurice Kaya, LLC. The Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan is an energy sustainability plan for the island of Kauai, not an energy sustainability plan for Kauai County government, not an energy sustainability plan for KIUC.
However it has specific recommendation for actions to be taken by Kauai County government, by KIUC, by state government, by local businesses and by individuals to achieve energy sustainability for our island. The purpose of the KESP is to facilitate Kauai`’s production and use of local, sustainable energy in the place of imported oil by the year 2030.
DEFINE SUSTAINABILITY
To begin to define energy sustainability, the SENTECH Hawaii Team engaged the community to analyze the term “sustainability”. Several outside groups have tried to define the term “sustainability”, but the basic definition for sustainable development from the Brundtland Commission may be the simplest and most profound: Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
A possible weakness of this definition is that development is assumed; not all groups of people would agree that development per se is a given. What if a group doesn’t want their land, society, and/or way of life to change? The Brundtland Commission, formally the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), is known by the name of its Chair, Gro Harlem Brundtland, and was convened by the United Nations in 1983.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
A more objective and scienctific definition of sustainability may be useful in examining energy generation, delivery and use on Kauai. It’s hard to imagine finding more objective, scientific foundations on which to build guiding principles of energy sustainability than the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics:
- The First Law of Thermodynamics (the “law of conservation of energy”) states that the total amount of energy in a closed system remains constant. A consequence of this law is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed.
- The Second Law of Thermodynamics (the “law of increasing entropy”) is an expression of the universal principle of increasing entropy (basically, disorder).
1. All the matter that will ever exist on earth is here now. (First Law).
2. Disorder increases in all closed systems and the Earth is a closed system with respect to matter (Second Law), except that Earth receives energy from the sun.
Sunlight is responsible for almost all increases in net material quality on Earth through photosynthesis (for plant growth), solar heating effects (warming of the planet, evaporation of ocean water for fresh water production, creation of ocean currents and wind, etc.). In the realm of sustainable energy, sunlight can create electricity through photovoltaics, and solar heat can be used to drive concentrating solar power, as well as solar thermal heating and cooling systems.
This flow of energy into our ecosystem from the sun essentially creates order from disorder, making an exception to the natural trend of entropy (disorder) in a closed system. Signs that modern society is not sustainable include the fact that we are mining and dispersing materials (such as oil and coal) faster than they are returned to the Earth's crust. In the process, we are increasing the concentration of harmful emissions (such as carbon, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides) and heavy metals (such as lead and mercury) into our ecosystem. To become a sustainable society, TNS starts with the premise that sustainability means preserving all forms of life on Earth.
So, the first three of four TNS Principles of Sustainability focus on interactions between humans and the planet; while the final principle addresses the basic needs of humans. In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing: 1. Concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth's crust; 2. Concentrations of substances produced by society; 3. Degradation by physical means and, in that society, 4. People are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.
The SENTECH Hawaii Team believes that the fourth and final TNS principle is compatible with the definition of sustainable development proposed by the Brundtland Commission, but without including the assumption of “development”.
By using TNS principles to define sustainability, Kauai has the best of both worlds so to speak. TNS led a two-day workshop on Kauai in June of 2006 for about 40 leaders from the government, business and nonprofit sectors. The workshop focused on providing education and awareness-building of the sustainability challenge, provided an overview of TNS and the business case for sustainability, and discussed how the TNS framework can be applied at both the individual and corporate levels.
The group performed a visioning exercise and developed a series of strategies to move Kauai toward sustainability. The results of the workshop laid the foundation for subsequent dialogue and efforts related to sustainability. The Big Island of Hawaii is also reviewing and implementing an energy sustainability plan.
In June of 2009, advisors from TNS visited the Big Island of Hawai’i to provide a series of public workshops and a two and a half day session with leaders from various Island businesses and organizations. The public workshops included audiences from the business community, municipal government representatives, and high school students attending the “Student Congress on Sustainability.” The session brought together 32 potential change leaders to focus on putting theory into practice through the completion of both baseline and visioning exercises specific to the Island of Hawaii.4 http://www.thenaturalstep.org/en/canada/tns-hawaii-opening-minds-closed-system
KIUC GOALS
The “default” goal for Kauai’s energy sustainability goals may be KIUC’s 50% renewable energy goal as mentioned in their 2008 Strategic Plan: “KIUC is committing itself to generate at least 50% of its electricity renewably without burning fossil fuels within 15 years.” This goal was derived from Green House Gas (GHG) legislation that mandates a reduction in GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. To achieve that goal, KIUC would need to generate 50% of its energy from carbon-neutral or non-carbon sources.
Other solutions such as demand side management, improved efficiency, and carbon cap and trade could improve efficiency and reduce the 50% estimate while still meeting the GHG target. While admirable and commendable, this goal runs counter to the Vision statement from the Kauai community since the biofuel would have to be imported (not a local resource), and doesn’t take into account the costs and externalities of transporting the fuel from thousands of miles away.
COMMUNITY GOALS
Based on feedback from the Kauai community, the community wants to set new standards of clean, sustainable energy within the KESP. The community has indicated that it wants to achieve: 100% local energy sustainability by 2030. Kauai needs to close a 94.2% gap over the next 20 years to reach their local, sustainable energy goals.
The SENTECH Hawaii Team will endeavor to help Kauai meet this laudable goal through the energy sustainability plan development process, while acknowledging that meeting this goal will depend on many variables over which the Team has limited influence. For example, the goal of 100% local energy sustainability for Kauai could be met within a few months if unlimited funds were available to buy down the (usually) higher upfront capital costs for renewables, or if the price of oil skyrocketed and stayed high for several months causing renewables to look more attractive financially, or if wind regulations changed that permitted the development of this cost-effective renewable option, etc.
I. Defining Objectives From understanding many of the technical, economic, marketplace, policy/regulatory, and environmental factors affecting energy, the SENTECH Hawaii Team presented to the community the following three general objectives of:
1. Reduce Demand through Energy Conservation and Efficiency,
2. Increase Clean Energy Supply,
3. Make Energy Delivery More Efficient. ...to meet the Goal of 100% Local Energy Sustainability by 2030. END OF SUMMARY
See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan 1/5/10
No comments :
Post a Comment