Hawaii Charges towards E-Cars

SUBHEAD: There is no question that electric vehicles are intrinsically superior to the current combustion engines. Image above: The soon to be available Nissan Leaf all electric car. From (http://wallpaper-s.org/17__Nissan_Leaf_Electric_Car.htm) By Sean Hao on 8 February 2010 in the Honolulu Advertiser - (http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20100208/NEWS01/2080351/Hawaii+charges+ahead+with+electric+vehicles) The state is driving the adoption of electric and alternate vehicles through a variety of mandates and grants, but the push could add to costs at government agencies and businesses already grappling with the worst economy in decades.

Starting this month, state and county agencies buying new vehicles are required to give priority to electric vehicles, alternative-fuel vehicles and hybrids. And by the end of next year, government and private parking lots open to the public must have at least one space for electric vehicles and a vehicle charger for every 100 parking spaces.

To offset the costs of electric cars and special parking, the state plans to spend $4.25 million in federal stimulus money by an April 2012 deadline on chargers and grants.

Vehicles that run on electricity rather than gasoline emit less pollution and are expected to be cheaper per mile to operate. They're under development by every major car maker, and certain models are scheduled to be available in limited quantities on the Mainland by year's end.

However, it's unclear when the vehicles will be available to Hawai'i residents, and how quickly they will adopt the cars, which need to be regulary charged with electricity. There are also questions about the durability, reliability and serviceability of this new breed of vehicles.

The state's push to spur the adoption of electric cars could be premature, said Lowell Kalapa, president of the nonprofit Tax Foundation of Hawaii.

"It's well-intended, but not completely thought out on the economic side," he said. "Not only does it cost us taxpayers additional money to purchase those types of vehicles, but then we're going to have to build in these facilities for the electric vehicles.

"I think a lot more research needs to be done before we buy into a lot of these things, and the electric cars is one of them."

According to the state, there's expected to be 1,000 to 3,000 electric vehicles in Hawaii in 2014.

So far, the private-sector interest in electric vehicles and chargers remains relatively small. In January, there were 179 registered electric vehicles statewide, according to the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. Those are mainly test vehicles, expensive high-end models, mini-cars and scooters.

Last month, green building and energy product retailer Green Energy Outlet installed the state's first public electric vehicle charger at its Kaka'ako store. GEO President Frank Rogers is banking on a rapid adoption of electric vehicles as they become commercially available .

"We're ahead of the curve, there's no doubt, but somebody has to jump in the pool first," Rogers said. "I really do think that you get that right car and you're going to have a hard time filling demand for it — it's going to be really flying off the shelf. "

Among the most anticipated electric vehicles coming to market are the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt. The $25,000 to $33,000 Leaf is expected to launch in December. The Volt is scheduled to launch in November, though no price has been announced yet.

Neither vehicle is expected to be widely available for a while. That's because General Motors expects to only produce about 10,000 Volts the first year, or about 200 vehicles per state.

The Leaf initially will be deployed in Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington state, where 11,210 charging stations are being installed under a $99.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Hawaii interested

Hawaii hopes to join those states that will get these vehicles first, said Maria Tome, renewable energy coordinator at DBEDT. Hawaii's small geography and warm weather make it an ideal environment for battery-driven electric vehicles.

In turn, these vehicles could reduce petroleum consumption, Tome said. The charging could take place during off-peak night hours to prevent strain on the electric grid, she added.

"The problem is there was a delay in what the automakers were doing on the cars and on the chargers," she said. "Everybody was promising 2010, and now they've all flipped that to 2011, although some are still saying late 2010."

Those launch delays could jeopardize a state plan to use $4.25 in federal stimulus money to drive adoption by, among other things, providing about 625 grants of $5,000 each to those buying electric vehicles. Half a million dollars would go to state agencies to help meet electric and alternative-fuel vehicle purchasing mandates.

Under the stimulus program, that grant money must be obligated by the end of September and spent by April 30, 2012. DBEDT plans to distribute the grants via a contractor agreement signed before October of this year.

"That does make it really complicated with the deadlines that are in," Tome said. "So we're discussing if we need to modify that."

Separately, Gov. Linda Lingle has proposed the state provide a general excise tax rebate to those buying or leasing an electric vehicle or install ing an electric vehicle charging system.

Even without the proposed state grants and tax rebates, electric vehicle purchases may be eligible for a federal income tax credit of up to $7,500.

The state wants to ensure that people who buy electric vehicles have parking spaces and charging outlets by mandating that parking lots with 100 or more spaces dedicate 1 percent of those spaces for electric vehicles. At least one charger must be installed in each eligible lot. Under the law passed last year, that figure jumps to 2 percent of spaces once the number of registered electric vehicles statewide tops 5,000.

It's unknown how many electric vehicle spaces the law will create. However, the figure could be in the thousands. For example, Ala Moana Center — which has the biggest parking lot in the Islands, has about 9,800 parking spaces. That means the shopping center will need to set aside 98 parking spaces for electric vehicles by the end of next year. Electric vehicle chargers can cost $2,000 or more, depending on features.

Dave Rolf, executive director of the Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association, said the group supports efforts to reduce petroleum dependency. However, the electric vehicle parking mandate that takes effect at the end of next year is "too soon (and) too optimistic, based on what we know of production runs and what we know of the ability to adopt the product," he said.

Adoption of electric vehicles will depend on vehicle availability, prices and the difference in the price of electricity and gasoline , Rolf said.

"There are a whole lot of issues relating to electric vehicles that are just beginning to be addressed," he said. "Those (parking) stalls are going to be empty for several years."

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Revisiting the Electric Car

By Tom Whipple on 3 February 2010 in The Falls Church News-Press - (http://www.fcnp.com/commentary/national/5746-the-peak-oil-crisis-revisiting-the-electric-car.html)

Last week the US Secretary of Energy loaned Nissan motors $1.4 billion to convert an existing Nissan plant in Tennessee to build electric cars. According to the Electric Drive Transportation Association, no less than 25 models of electric cars are being readied for sale in the next few years - most by major manufacturers.

Although the current crop of hybrids certainly runs some of the time on electric motors, the future of electric vehicles are those that plug into the grid and get all, or at least much, of their energy from this source. There is no question that electric vehicles are intrinsically superior to the current combustion engines that have dominated personal transport for the last century. They don't use any, or not as much, petroleum-based fuels. They use energy much more efficiently. They have no emissions. Their performance is as good or better than the internal combustion car, and they are much simpler to maintain. Most places in the developed world already have robust or at least an adequate electrical distribution system for the beginning of the electric age. The last 100 feet to the car, however, will be an expensive-to-overcome problem for many.

The overwhelming advantage of the electric car is that when the time arrives that gasoline and other fossil fuels become too expensive or scarce for widespread use, the electricity probably will be there. Currently the cost of electricity per vehicle mile is very cheap in comparison with gasoline and diesel. Should the costs of electricity rise dramatically or shortages develop, many people will have the option of conserving substantial amounts of electricity at home in order to use it in an electric vehicle.

There are, of course, numerous downsides to the widespread adoption of the electric car and in recent weeks the press and web have been full of stories casting doubt as to their future. The most profound criticism is that the whole idea of continuing with personal vehicles in an age of declining resources - oil, coal, minerals, and personal wealth - is simply nuts. It will never happen. We are better off concentrating on public transport. Given that the world is currently running on the order of 1 billion cars and light trucks, the chances of scraping up the resources (such as lithium and car loans) to replace even a tiny fraction of such a growing fleet is unlikely.

Much of the electricity that would be used to power electric cars comes from coal and natural gas that will not be around forever. Every now and then some environmentally minded soul takes a shot at proving electric cars would make more pollution than gasoline powered ones as dirtier coals are used to generate the electricity.

Then there are a range of criticisms based on the current technical conditions pertaining to electric cars, -- relatively small batteries means that real-world ranges will be shorter than we are used to; most people have no convenient place to plug them in; the batteries are expensive and there will not be enough lithium to build the hundred's of millions we will need. In fact outside of North America, electric power shortages are already a problem which is likely to become worse.

Many of the smaller technical issues however, such as range, where to recharge, and battery material have work-arounds or are likely to be overcome by the many technical advances in battery technology that are underway.

A lot of the answer as to whether we need electric vehicles lies in one's perception of what will happen to the global economy in the remaining decades of the 21^st Century. If one thinks the current economic difficulties will soon disappear and a new age of wealth and abundance is about to begin - then you probably won't want to buy an electric car. However, if you believe the age of petro-abundance is just about over and that oil and many other natural resources are going to be in very short supply within the next few decades, then you should start thinking about what would be useful in the transition from the 20^th century to whatever life will be like in the 22^nd.

In the last 100 years the U.S. and many other parts of the world have built "motorized" societies in which life would be nearly impossible without cars and trucks. People and the entire economy moves on the internal combustion engine. While returning to horses, mules, and oxen to move people and material is always possible - think of the sanitation problem and all the barns we would have to build.

If one thinks of the vast amount of infrastructure the developed world has to maintain - buildings, roads, water, sewage, trash disposal, public safety, power and communications lines - one soon gets the idea that even a relatively short range electric vehicle is going to be an awful lot better than an oxcart in preserving and rebuilding the facilities we currently rely on for food and shelter during the next 100 years or so.

There are of course ways to stretch out existing supplies of oil, perhaps for as long as a century or more, by rationing their use to only the most essential tasks needed by our civilization - farming, food transport, public safety, and utilities maintenance. This probably leaves the rest of us in the bus queue unless we find some other fuel for personal vehicles. For the immediate future, natural gas may be a substitute, but over the longer run only electricity, or possibly ammonia, made from renewable, non-polluting sources will be sustainable into future centuries.

So there is the argument. The quicker we build the necessary recharging infrastructure and start getting ourselves into electric vehicles, the better the prospects for our future.

See also: Ea O Ka Aina: Electric Boost for Bicycles 2/2/10

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How Nuts are Americans?

SUBHEAD: Those who believe they will be Raptured on Judgment Day plan to pay $110 to godless atheists who will adopt their pets. Image above: What is the fate of our furry friends in the hands of the raptured? From (http://www.clevescene.com/blogs/scene-and-heard/?page=3) By Mike DiPaola on 9 February 2010 in Bloomberg News - (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=akg9XZQ2Kq3M) A fair number of people in the U.S. - - estimates range from 20 million to 40 million -- believe there will be a Second Coming in their lifetime, a Judgment Day when the righteous are spirited away to a better place while the godless remain on Earth. Eschatology raises many troubling questions, but my immediate concern is what happens to the pets of the righteous? Bart Centre, a retired retail executive in New Hampshire, has concocted a plan to address this issue, and make a buck off the apocalypse to boot. Last June he started Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, USA -- “The next best thing to pet salvation in a Post Rapture World,” says the Web site -- a service that promises to rescue and care for the animals left behind by raptured Christians. “If you love your pets, I can’t understand how you could not consider this,” said Centre, 61, in a telephone interview. Crazy, right? Well, to date he has more than 100 clients, each paying $110 for a 10-year contract ($15 for each additional pet.) If the Rapture happens in that time, the pets left behind will have homes -- with atheists. Centre and a partner have set up a national network of godless humans to take on this mission. Centre told me he came up with the idea while working on his book, “The Atheist Camel Chronicles,” in which he says many unkind things about theists in general and Christians in particular. In a chapter on End Times and the encroaching Rapture, he writes: “With the economic downturn we’re in, I’m trying to figure out how to cash in on this hysteria to supplement my income ... Given the intellectual capacity of believers this could be a gold mine!” No Souls Not familiar with Rapture theology myself, I called Todd Strandberg, founder in 1987 of raptureready.com. His clearinghouse Web site for Bible prophecy and God’s endgame draws 250,000 unique visitors each month. Strandberg agreed that Fido and Mittens are doomed -- to remain on Earth. “Pets don’t have souls, so they’ll remain on Earth,” he said. “I don’t see how they can be taken with you. A lot of persons are concerned about their pets, but I don’t know if they should necessarily trust atheists to take care of them.” Centre has addressed that tricky issue. He needs to assure the Rapture crowd that his pet rescuers are wicked enough to be left behind, but good enough to take proper care of the abandoned pets. To resolve that paradox he vets the atheists on two grounds: They must sign an affidavit to affirm their disbelief in God, but they must also clear a criminal background check. Laura in Oklahoma “We want people who have pets and are animal lovers,” Centre said. He also insists that they have the means to rescue and transport the animals in their charge, and the network he has in place now comprises 26 rescuers covering 22 states. “They take this very seriously,” Centre said. I spoke by telephone with one of the rescuers. Laura, who didn’t want her surname published, is in her 30s and lives near the buckle of the Bible Belt in Oklahoma. She has two dogs of her own and has made a commitment to rescue four dogs and two cats when -- if -- the time comes. “If it happens, my first thought will be, ‘I’ve got work to do,’” Laura said. “The first thing I’ll do is find out where I need to go exactly.” The atheist-rescuers won’t know the exact location of the animals until the end of the world, at which time they will contact Centre for instructions. I expected to hear some hint of derision, but Laura is dead serious. “We’re all really into pets,” she said. “I’ve got to get to them within a maximum of 18 to 24 hours. We really don’t want them to wait more than a day.” A day she assumes will never come. Essential Goodness While Centre’s infrastructure seems real enough, of course there’ll be no one around to check that he honors his contracts. Still, there’s evidence of the essential goodness of the enterprise at his Web site, which directs proceeds from Google Ads to food banks in Minnesota and New Hampshire. Lately there has been more than $200 a month sent to those causes. He doesn’t believe he will ever have to follow through on the service he offers, but in a way he already has delivered something of great value: peace of mind, and for only 92 cents a month. “If we thought the Rapture was really going to happen,” Centre said, “obviously our rate structure would be much higher.” • Mike Di Paola writes about preservation and the environment for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own. .

Army intends 3 JHSVs for Hawaii

SOURCE: Dick Mayer (dickmayer@earthlink.net) SUBHEAD: The Army intends to prepare EIS in 2010 for the proposed stationing of 3 Joint High Speed Vessels (Superferries) in Hawaii. Image above: The primary client of the Superferry is still the Stryker Brigade based at Schofield Barracks (Oahu) and Pohakuloa Training Area (Big Island). Compiled by Dick Mayer on 9 February 2010 - The Army intends to prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement in 2010 for the proposed stationing and operation of joint high speed vessels (see http://aec.army.mil/usaec/nepa/topics00.html) . The JHSV is a strategic transport vessel designed to support the rapid transport of military troops and equipment in the U.S. and abroad. All interested members of the public, including native communities and federally recognized Native American Tribes, Native Hawaiian groups, Guam Chamorro Groups, and federal, state, and local agencies are invited to participate in the scoping process for the preparation of this PEIS. Comments may be sent to the mail: Public Affairs Office U.S. Army Environmental Command 5179 Hoadley Rd, Attn: IMAE-PA Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21010-5401; phone: (410) 436-2556; fax (410) 436-1693; email: APGR-USAECNEPA@conus.army.mil Federal Register: Notice of Intent for the Preparation of a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for the Stationing and Operation of Joint High Speed Vessels (JHSVs), Federal Register /Vol. 75, No. 24 / Friday, February 5, 2010 /Notices Press Release: U.S. Army seeks public input on stationing Joint High Speed Vessels From the "Federal Register" /Vol. 75, No. 24 / Friday, February 5, 2010 /Notices DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Department of the Army Preparation of a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for the Stationing and Operation of Joint High Speed Vessels (JHSVs) AGENCY: Department of the Army, DoD. ACTION: Notice of intent. SUMMARY: The Army intends to prepare a PEIS for the proposed stationing and operation of up to 12 JHSVs. The JHSV is a strategic transport vessel that is designed to support the rapid transport of Army Soldiers, other military personnel and equipment in the U.S. and abroad. The PEIS will assess the potential environmental impacts associated with the proposed stationing of JHSVs at the following military port locations: Virginia Tidewater area; San Diego, CA area; Seattle-Tacoma, WA area; Pearl Harbor, HI area; and Guam. These locations were selected based on the following criteria: sites have existing military port facilities that do not require new infrastructure construction or improvements; sites have existing maintenance facilities for up to, but not including, depot level facilities for major JHSV repairs and maintenance; and sites are capable of supporting the strategic needs of the nation’s Combatant Commanders. Not all of the proposed ports will receive JHSVs and other viable locations raised during public scoping may be considered as stationing sites. The Army’s Record of Decision will make the determination as to which of the potential sites will serve as home port locations. The Army intends to consider the following alternatives in the PEIS: (1) The stationing and operation of an Army-wide total of five JHSVs at military port facilities in the U.S. or U.S. territories, with up to three JHSVs at any one of the aforementioned locations; (2) The stationing and operation of an Army-wide total of up to 12 JHSVs at military port facilities in the U.S. or U.S. territories and overseas locations operated by the U.S. military, with up to three JHSV’s being stationed at any one location; and (3) The no action alternative which retains the Army’s existing transport fleet and does not equip the Army with JHSVs. Under the no action alternative, the Army would not be able to increase its expeditionary capability as discussed as a key requirement in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) nor would it meet the rapid deployment goals of Army Transformation. The JHSV will require fueling-at-sea training; aviation training (helicopter); live fire training; and high-speed, openwater-craft training. It is anticipated that the vessel will spend 150 days or more away from the home station. These home-station sites would only be used to support JHSV berthing and training requirements in and around the stationing location for 170 days per year. An annual maintenance cycle of approximately 45 days would occur at the home station or at another location, if appropriate maintenance facilities are not on site. The PEIS will include evaluation of the different locations which could reasonably accommodate, support, and sustain the JHSV and meet its requirements for live-fire training. The proposed action will require the Army to balance strategic, sustainment, and environmental considerations to provide greater flexibility and responsiveness to meet today’s evolving world conditions and threats to national defense and security. The PEIS will analyze the proposed action’s impacts upon the natural, cultural, and manmade environments at the alternative home-stationing sites. ADDRESSES: Comments may be sent to: Public Affairs Office, U.S. Army Environmental Command, Attention: IMAE–PA, 5179 Hoadley Rd., Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21010–5401. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Public Affairs Office at (410) 436–2556; fax (410) 436–1693; or e-mail: APGRUSAECNEPA@conus.army.mil. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The JHSV is a high-speed, shallow-draft vessel capable of rapid intratheater transport of Army units. JHSV stationing detachments consist of a 31 member crew and can accommodate up to 350 additional Soldiers. The vessel can reach speeds of 35–45 knots and has an equipment carrying capacity of approximately 700 short tons. It has a shallow draft of 12.5 feet for enhanced port access for the types of austere piers and quay walls common in developing countries. The JHSV includes a weapons mount for crew served weapons, a flight deck for helicopter operations, and an off-load ramp that allows vehicles to drive off the ship quickly. These characteristics make the JHSV an extremely flexible asset, able to support a wide range of operations including maneuver and sustainment, relief operations in small or damaged ports, flexible logistics support, or as the key enabler for rapid transport. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 (42 U.S.C. & et seq.) and the Army NEPA procedures, Environmental Analysis of Army Action (32 CFR Part 651), require the Army to consider the environmental impacts of its actions and alternatives, and to solicit the views of the public so it can make an informed final decision regarding how to proceed. The Army is working in close coordination with the Navy (which is scheduled to receive 10 JHSVs) in coordinating NEPA evaluations for this action. The Navy is completing a separate NEPA document to evaluate its requirements for the JHSV. The Army’s PEIS does not evaluate the direct and indirect environmental impacts of the Navy’s JHSV program. The Army’s PEIS will cumulatively consider the impacts of Navy JHSV stationing. The PEIS will assess, consider, and compare the direct, indirect, and cumulative environmental effects from the stationing of up to three Army JHSVs per site. The primary environmental issues to be analyzed will include potential impacts to air quality, airspace, cultural resources, noise, and marine life. In addition, the Army will consider those issues identified as the part of the scoping process. Scoping and Public Comment: All interested members of the public, including native communities and federally recognized Native American Tribes, Native Hawaiian groups, Guam Chamorro Groups, and federal, state, and local agencies, are invited to participate in the scoping process for the preparation of this PEIS. Written comments identifying environmental issues, concerns and opportunities to be analyzed in the PEIS will be accepted for 30 days following publication of the Notice of Intent in the Federal Register. There will be no on-site scoping meetings. Dated: January 25, 2010. Addison D. Davis, IV, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Environment, Safety, and Occupational Health). [FR Doc. 2010–2142 Filed 2–4–10; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 3710–08–M See also: Ea O Ka Aina: Superferry Rising from the Dead? 2/8/10 Ea O Ka Aina: Bill to Subsidize Superferry 2/9/10 .

Bill to Subsidize Superferry

SOURCE: Lanny Sinkin (lanny.sinkin@gmail.com) SUBHEAD: Hawaii legislature would subsidize Superferry service on backs of taxpayers. Image above: Hawaii Superferry mash-up found at MauiGoodness.com From (http://www.mauigoodness.com/category/oahu/) By Lanny Sinkin on 9 February 2010 - The State Legislature is being asked to fund the return of Superferry as a state subsidized service. KITV is hosting a poll on public sentiment. Cast your vote. Share this message with friends. Apparently the Legislature is being asked to engage in selective amnesia and forget that Judge Cardoza held a hearing and ruled that operation of the Superferry would cause irreparable environmental damage. The threat to the Whales, the likelihood of transporting invasive species, and all the other harms identified should have ruled out this particular form of interisland transportation. Lawmakers Consider Interisland Ferry Revival By Staff on 8 February 2010 in KITV.com - (http://www.kitv.com/politics/22504587/detail.html) State lawmakers on Monday advanced a bill to consider restoring high-speed ferry service between the islands and having state taxpayers foot the bill. The House Transportation Committee looked at establishing a Hawaii State Ferry System and creating a special fund to buy or lease at least one high-speed ferry to start an interisland ferry system. The bill suggests buying or leasing the Alakai and Huakai, the former Hawaii Superferry vessels, or buying another similar high-speed ferry. Maui's Rep. Joe Souki authored the bill. A number of Maui residents protested against the Superferry traveling to the Valley Isle. "I do believe in a ferry system, and I think we do nee one as an island-bound state," Souki said. Former Superferry passenger Bob Liljestrand is among those who yearn for a return of the ferry. "It simply doesn't make sense the only way we can travel interisland is by plane," Liljestrand said. The state was left holding the bag for millions of dollars after the Superferry declared bankruptcy in March and left. The state said it has a lot of information from the Superferry experience that could help with the start up of another ferry operation. It is a challenge, the state said, but still worth exploring. "We definitely need some sort of surface transportation between the islands," Department of Transportation Deputy Director Mike Formby said. The Superferry vessels may no longer be available. Formby said the Army is preparing an environmental study on bringing ferry vessels to Hawaii to transport soldiers. "We just know they are looking at the possible positioning of one or more vessels at Pearl Harbor," Formby said. Not everyone at the hearing on Monday was eager for ferry service. Competitor Young Brothers wanted assurances. "That any competition under the act would be done in a fair way," said Roy Catalani, of Young Brothers. Another competitor warned high-speed ferries endanger whales. "I am stating categorically Hawaii is not the right place for that type of vessel," said David Jung, of Sealink. The committee asked the Transportation Department to report back in a year with a study on the feasibility of a state-run ferry system. The transportation department says it would take at least another two or three years to get such a service going. See also: Ea O Ka Aina: Superferry Rising from the Dead? 2/8/10 Ea O Ka Aina: Army intends 3 JHSV for Hawaii 2/9/10 .

Superferry Rising from the Dead?

SUBHEAD: A Quick Analysis - Some things noticed in HB2667, the Hawaii "Ferry Bill"


 
Image above: Divers from the Philippine Coast Guard approach the burnt SuperFerry 14 on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2004 in Mariveles northwest of Manila.

By Brad Parsons on 8 February 2010 - Quoting in order from the measure at http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2010/bills/HB2667_.pdf: 

"While the Hawaii Superferry operation had its shortcomings, rocky start, and questionable financial forecast, it proved to be a very successful mode of transportation of both persons and property between the islands of Maui and Oahu."

 Actually, it did not. The financial failings were because of the amount of fuel consumed by these particular vessels, the distances involved, and low ridership partly due to conditions. These were intrinsic to it's failure. Also, why the lower case on "superferry" and why the slang "rocky." Already we have indications that this bill was not professionally written, out of Souki's Office?

 "At minimum, the authority shall operate one high speed passenger and vehicular ferry vessel, with a minimum capacity of four hundred passengers and __ hundred vehicles, capable of operating at thirty knots or more, for the carriage of passengers and property between the major islands, and other small vessels, as needed, for service to the between the islands of Maui, Molokai, and Lanai and other routes." 

Interesting key limitations and exclusions in this paragraph. First, notice that this has to be a "high speed" ferry. Also notice that it has to be able to carry "vehicles." The high speed, vehicular ferry is an uncommon combination throughout the whole U.S. There are only a few vessels in the U.S. that meet that requirement. It also goes to the crux of two of the key points of contention with the HSF vessels. But further, notice the requirement of at least "four hundred passengers and __ hundred vehicles" capacity requirement. That differs from the unconstitutional Act. 2 that required 500 passengers and 200 vehicles capacity, a key point that made it unconstitutional.

The 400/100 opens it up to more vessels in the U.S. that meet that requirement, but none of them are high speed ferries except for the Akakai, Huakai, and The Cat (The Cat not made in the U.S.). The 400/100 requirement might though qualify smaller fast ferries (outside the U.S./or yet to be made) that might better match the operational requirements of the fuel consumption/distances travelled between the Hawaiian Islands.

 "§ -4 Initial operations. (a) The authority, as soon as practicable, shall engage in communications with the United States Department of Transportation and the United States Maritime Administration relating to federal funding assistance and the possible purchase or lease of the former Hawaii superferry vessels Alakai and Huakai or other ayailable suitable vessels to commence its operations." 

First, notice again the lower case "superferry."

Also notice the sloppy misspelling of "ayailable" from the original. But also a point to be clear on about the quote, "or other ayailable suitable vessels," at present there are no other qualified fast ferry vessels made in the U.S. that meet the requirements of this bill, other than the Alakai and Huakai, so that last open-ended statement is intentionally vague and deceptive. But also it is clear from the above paragraph that the drafters of this in the Legislature hope for some sort of sweetheart preferential treatment and maybe even funding from the U.S. DOT, MARAD, or the Federal Government in general. That's the Obama Federal Government that just proposed more than a trillion dollar deficit for the coming year and the foreseeable future, not having included pork projects like this in their proposal thus far. This is just "passing the buck" on fiscal responsibility by those who vote for this. Either that or we are talking about state subsidies for a money losing service over properly funding things such as public education...

"The authority shall have access on a priority basis into all harbors and small boat facilities operated by the department and the department of land and natural resources...

 So a key aspect of this bill would be subsidizing a state run ferry service, most likely at a loss, to compete with a number of private sector companies by water and air...

The authority shall have all the rights, obligations, and duties of a common carrier of persons and property in its ferry system operations, including the right to a certificate of public convenience and necessity..." 

Who is to determine that? The Legislature or the PUC? Will you study that to determine if there is really 'need'? Or just vacantly declare it so in this bill? "SECTION 5. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2010." Good LUCK with THAT. Status of this bill: HB2667 Status Written testimony thusfar: HB2667_TESTIMONY_TRN_02-08-10_ Testimony

Copy of the bill: View PDF of measure text See also: Ea O Ka Aina: Bill to Subsidize Superferry 2/9/10 Ea O Ka Aina: Army intends 3 JHSV for Hawaii 2/9/10 .

KIUC moves to increase already high debt levels

SUBHEAD: In preparation for buying another fossil fuel generator, KIUC relies on out-dated demand forecasts, a setup for bad decision-making. Image above: Political cartoon by Michael Ramirez altered with addition of "KIUC". From (http://townhall.com/cartoons/cartoonist/MichaelRamirez/2010/02/1/) By Coco Zickos on 8 February 2010 in The Garden Island - http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/article_477142b2-147b-11df-b4ff-001cc4c002e0.html) "Long-term plan doesn’t account enough for efficiency." - Ben Sullivan, KIUC Board Member Consumers are changing the way they utilize energy, says Brad Parsons of Kauaians for a Bright Energy Future. This is exactly why he agrees with Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative first-year Board of Directors member Ben Sullivan’s decision to vote against the co-op’s 10-Year Financial Forecast at the board’s meeting January 26th. The forecast was approved by a 6-to-1 vote. The load growth forecast was part of the required application process for KIUC to qualify for a $168 million loan that follows a four-year construction plan, KIUC President and CEO Randy Hee said Sunday. The Construction Work Plan includes transmission line work, renewable energy projects and a Kapaia facility which would have the ability to generate energy from petroleum or biodiesel fuels. “It is far more than paperwork but is procedural in nature,” KIUC spokesperson Anne Barnes said regarding the forecast. “It does not constitute a commitment. It does allow for the necessary opportunity for access to capital, something that is critical to a utility.” The additional loan amount would bump KIUC’s debt limit up from $350 million to $525 million. Predicting continued load growth “assumes the trends of the old economy from two years ago and beyond,” Parsons said. “The long-range forecast relies more on historical trends,” Barnes said. “The short term relies more on current trends.” Two years of “considerable input from staff” and the knowledge of consultants from Black & Veatch, R.W. Beck, Stillwater Inc. and Energy Resource Planning led to the current decade-long forecast, or Equity Management Plan. Collectively, they studied the Integrated Resource Planning for capital projections, fuel forecasts, load forecasts, construction works in progress and long-range engineering plans, Barnes said. “The incorporation of these studies became the financial forecast,” she said. Lower sales throughout the next four years were reflected “due to the recent bad economy.” Parsons and others continue to point at how people are historically changing their ways. They are using their cars differently, development is not “continuing like it did in the past,” and visitor numbers have been declining, he said. Last week Reuters reported that industrialized, wealthy countries “will never return to 2006 and 2007 levels” of oil use “because of more fuel efficiency and the use of alternatives,” according to the International Energy Agency’s chief economist. “What we’ve seen over the years is Kaua‘i is growing,” Hee said when asked on what basis the forecast was measured, adding that the co-op “did account for a little dip to some extent.” “Our history on Kaua‘i has been fairly constant growth,” he said. The projection assumes pretty aggressive growth, Sullivan said during the board meeting. The question is what will happen if the growth does not actually occur as planned? The impact of efficiency is not entirely being accounted for, he said. “KIUC recognizes there is considerable risk in predicting the timing, extent and duration of economic recovery,” Barnes said. “But planning horizons in the utility industries can be as long as 10 years for capital improvements, renewable or otherwise. Hence, the necessity of long-range planning and access to capital.” If plans follow through to build a proposed 10-megawatt solar thermal farm, as well as a 20-megawatt biomass-to-electricity plant on the Westside, “a substantial amount of power for the island” could potentially be supplied within the next decade, Barnes said. However, “due to capacity factors and other issues, determining actual output is not necessarily a simple mathematical calculation.” KIUC’s loan application was submitted soon after the January 26th board meeting and could take up to a year to be approved, Hee said. .

Corruption, Culpability & Short-Termism

SUBHEAD: A culture of endemic corruption is likely where we will find ourselves for much of this century. Image above: Take-off of Grant Wood's "American Gothic" for bookcover of "The Great Housing Bubble". From (http://www.thegreathousingbubble.com) By Stoneleigh on 8 February 2010 in The Automatic Earth - (http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/02/february-8-2010-corruption-culpability.html) People are increasingly collectively horrified at the extent of the fraud and corruption that lies at the heart of our financial and broader governance structures. They seem surprised, as if this were something new, when it has actually been growing in tandem with our credit hyper-expansion for decades. Corruption in complex systems never goes away, it merely waxes and wanes, and goes through phases where it is more or less visible. During long manic periods, all manner of abuses occur, but no one notices while the party continues, because no one wants to notice. As long as people generally have access to easy credit and the illusory wealth effect it brings, they don't ask hard questions and are largely oblivious to risk. Even if they lied on their own mortgage application, in order to qualify for a larger loan than they could really afford, and know others who did the same, they cannot seem to imagine what the consequences might one day be, both for themselves and for the financial system as a whole. To paraphrase one journalist who commented on the national pyramid bubble in Albania in the mid 1990s, when people feel they are operating within the bounds of properly structured criminality, they feel no personal responsibility and do not fear consequences. Both the predators and the prey are complicit in the development of a mania. Predators lent money into existence without regard to risk, since they were selling that on to Wall Street investors through securitization. Just like those they preyed upon by actively enticing people into loans they could not afford, they turned a blind eye to the blatant lies on mortgage applications, inflated assessments and other fraudulent aspects of the developing bubble. They made their money through fees anyway, but did not contemplate the creation of systemic risk which would ultimately bring them down as well. Both sides had an interest in the party continuing because it benefited them personally in the short term. The prey were insisting on being handed the empty bag, which is all that's left at the height of a bubble, while the predators were only too pleased to oblige. Of the two, the predators were certainly in a better position to assess the situation and must be regarded as the more culpable party, but without the greed of the prey, the exploitation would not have been possible. When times have been both relatively good and stable for a long time, people's time horizons lengthen, and they feel they have the luxury of the longer term view. Economists would say that their discount rates (the extent to which they value the present over the future) have declined. Humans are never collectively very good at taking a long term view, but in stable times, where they don't have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, they are at their best in this regard. It is in times like this that environmental movements arise and humans start collectively valuing other forms of life (many individuals do this anyway, but for it to become a collective movement requires a human herding element that is only present at certain times). The height of a mania is a very unusual time that combines the best of good times for a majority of people, illusory though it may be, with a rapid rate of change. People begin to manifest mixed messages, for instance environmentalism tinged with fear. As discount rates steepen, people make more and more short-term decisions and ignore the longer term risks. They throw caution to the wind, with predictable consequences, first through euphoria and then in desperate denial. That is how we became the authors of our own present debt predicament. Eventually, as the mania comes to an end, the rapid rate of change mostly to the upside will be replaced with a rapid rate of change to the downside, combined with a significant contraction in material wealth, as excess claims to it are extinguished. The confluence of circumstances that had led to a longer-term view will reverse sharply. Unfortunately, the result will be a state of crisis management, just when cool heads and rationality would matter most. We who have had the luxury of the long term will find out what it is like to worry about where our next meal is coming from, and just how short our time horizons will become under those circumstances. In many parts of the world, instability has been a chronic condition for decades. There are huge disparities between haves and have nots, and one's position of fortune or misfortune is often determined in relation to personal connections with those in power, when power itself can be a very ephemeral thing. These are conditions that promote very high discount rates, not just among the have nots who have to worry about feeding themselves, but also among the haves whose benefactors could be out of power tomorrow, ending their privileged position. Under these circumstances, governance is often appalling, because those in or near power have a direct incentive to loot the public coffers while they have the chance. Where power structures are clan-based, the incentive is even stronger, as losing power could easily lead to persecution by the incoming group, and the consequent need to escape with portable wealth. What this engenders is a culture of endemic corruption, which we would do well to study, as it is likely where we will find ourselves for much of this century. We think we live with corruption now, as we hear about fraud, ponzi schemes, bailouts combined with epic bonuses and a revolving door between Goldman Sachs and the US Treasury. As self-evidently corrupt as this is, it is nothing in terms of the impact on daily life compared with the top-to-bottom corruption other peoples have to live with. We have not had to pay off every public official for the performance of his own job, pay bribes to secure contracts, pay to have legal standards waived, pay protection money to the police or pay a high enough political 'roof' to prevent our property from being claimed by the better connected. We have not had to live where life is cheap, authority figures at all levels are completely unaccountable, abuse of arbitrary power is rampant, the legal system actively undermines the rule of law and casual violence abounds. This is what happens when people feel that they have no long term. Our media, when it focuses on unluckier parts of the world at all in our infotainment bubble, tends to do so with an air of superiority, as if we were somehow innately better than those who live under corrupt regimes. They fail to note that our position at the centre of a globalized world has allowed us to cream off the surpluses of the periphery, giving us the stability required for the luxury of the long term while actively depriving others of the same. Our boom has been an aggravating factor in the culture of corruption that has taken root in so many places, but our coming bust will see these same tendencies develop in our own countries. .

Post Peak city living

SUBHEAD: Cities are the very apex of imperial living, and they function by extracting resources from surrounding areas in exchange for waste. Image above: Shinjuku district of Tokyo on a rainy night. From (http://wallpaper-s.org/63__Shinjuku_at_Night%2C_Tokyo%2C_Japan.htm)

By Guy McPherson on 3 February 2010 in Nature Bats Last - (http://guymcpherson.com/2010/02/city-living-in-a-post-peak-world)

This headline at today’s version of Energy Bulletin caught my eye: Are cities sustainable in a post-peak oil world?

The editors at Energy Bulletin, reflecting contemporary culture, clearly do not understand sustainability. At every level, from the individual through the culture and even through the species, ours is a transient existence. We should be focused on developing a durable set of living arrangements in the few blinks we have between trips from and to the void. We should not waste our time chasing the impossibility of sustainability, regardless of corporate green-washing to the contrary.

But enough about that particular pet peeve. If you follow the headline’s link, you’ll land at a set of five articles excerpted from longer articles by five authors. Each article discusses the prospects of surviving in the post-carbon era.

As you can imagine, that takes me to yet another pet peeve. We should be developing a set of living arrangements focused on thriving, not merely surviving. If I believed the future was truly Hobbesian, I’d simply save a bullet for myself.

Well, maybe two. I’ve never been a very good shot.

And finally, the focus of the headline, as well as the tone of the articles, ignores a central tenet of this blog: morality. The focus on survival at the expense of consideration of the immorality of cities is not surprising. Imperialists are loath to consider the morality of empires, so our national conversation rarely turns to morality beyond the hand-wringing of what to do with a person for an individual act.

The larger and considerably more important issue of how industrial culture destroys people from every non-industrial culture as well as the living planet simply escapes the attention of Faux News (the most-trusted network in the U.S., according to this poll). Cities are the very apex of imperial living, and they function only by extracting resources from surrounding areas in exchange for various forms of waste. But cities are embedded within, and emblematic of, industrial culture, which apparently is beyond our ability to discuss. As should be clear, reasons to abandon cities extend far beyond survival, as I’ve described repeatedly (recent examples can be found here, here, here, here, and here).

Maybe I’m just peevish today.

Toby Hemenway is the most adamant defender of city living. Writing in 2005, he concluded that we’re in for a long descent. But, as became clear at least five times during 2008 and 2009, industrial culture can reach its overdue close quite abruptly. Simply because it didn’t happen yet — saved by unprecedented illegal actions by the federal government — doesn’t mean it cannot happen. Peter Goodchild posts the definitive warning with this line: “Those who expect to get by with ‘victory gardens’ are unaware of the arithmetic involved.”

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We're Weimar

SUBHEAD: In the wake of the Tea Party expect to see a political vortex form that will suck the little remaining coherence out of American life. Image above: Still fram from Fox News publicity coverage of Tea Bagger demonstration. From (http://www.uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=94963.msg1969538#msg1969538) By James Kunslter on 8 February 2010 - Kunstler.com - (http://kunstler.com/blog/2010/02/were-weimar.html) Future historians who try to chart the unraveling of the USA's political tapestry might point to two events of the past week. The obvious first one was the Tea Party convention at Nashville. It was held not accidentally at the ridiculous Opryland Hotel and resort in the city's outer suburban asteroid belt, right next to the circumferential freeway, and next door to the defunct (1997) Opryland USA theme park, an attraction based on the cute idea that Tennessee rubes were too dumb to spell the word opera -- so the symbolism was perfect.

Behind the incoherent cargo of conflicting complaints that makes up Tea Party doctrine -- like "keeping the government's hands off our medicare!" -- stands the more basic dissolution of the Sunbelt's miracle economy, along with the pain and bewilderment of the southern peckerwood political nexus that rose out of the dust after World War Two to build the suburban nirvana of universal air-conditioning, happy motoring, Jesus tub-thumping, over-eating, and Friday night football that defined Sunbelt culture. They sense now that history is about to thrust them back into the okra patch, with the hookworms and the chiggers, as the economy whirls down the drain, and the car dealerships close up, and the idle production homebuilders succumb to methedrine addiction, and the price of Reba McEntire tickets exceeds their dwindling resources, and they are none too happy about any of that.

Of course this Sunbelt political culture has tentacles and outposts all over the USA, wherever a few generations of laboring folk enjoyed debt-fueled parabolic rises in living standards during the cheap oil decades, and now find themselves in foreclosure hell, indentured to the very WalMarts that they welcomed with open arms (and allowed to destroy their local businesses) -- and, of course, it's yet another paradox that these are the same folk who will still defend the big box masters to their deaths. The America they stand for is a weird contradictory mish-mash of Confederate nostalgia, hyper-individualism that really owes allegiance to nothing, racial enmity, religious paranoia, and potemkin patriotism -- especially involving anything in the constitution that allows them to wriggle out of obligations to the public interest at the same time that they get to push other groups of people around.

The Tea Party people are the corn-pone Nazis I have been warning you about. They are gathering strength in numbers as President Obama and congress fritter away their remaining legitimacy in a manner of governance that more and more resembles an endless Chinese Fire Drill. The delusional craziness of the Tea Partyists exists in direct proportion to the wimpy deceit of the government, especially in matters of money and statistics reporting. Our political leaders are resorting to wholesale deceit because the truth of our situation -- comprehensive bankruptcy -- is too painful to dwell on and for the most part they are too chicken too state it.

This brings me to the second telling event of last week when President Obama said, kind of off-hand, apropos of the US economic situation, "You don't blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you're trying to save for college. You prioritize. You make tough choices." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (of Nevada) was all over Mr. Obama like a cheap suit for that. I'm sorry that the President didn't slam back the craven Mr. Reid and pull his upper lip over the top of his head. Fuck Las Vegas and fuck Nevada, and fuck all the casino operators in every pulsating gambling venue around this country. The last thing we need is to continue believing that it is possible to get something for nothing, or an industry based on that false principle. I'd go a lot further and shut down legalized gambling all over the USA, send it back to the margins, to the alleys, to the berm between the WalMart and the Target Store, to the basement boiler rooms, to the public bathrooms, to wherever it will be identified as indecent, shameful, and not healthy.

Notice, by the way, that the Tea Party people have never made an issue about the disgusting gambling "industry" -- not even the Jesus thumpers among them, for all their pretense about decency and propriety. I suppose this is precisely because a cardinal article of Tea Party faith is that it should be possible to get something for nothing. You should be entitled to collect social security even while you inveigh against the intrusion of big government into your life and the horrible prospect that it will get its mitts on your Medicare! And when Jeezus comes to take you home, that place will be just like Opryland USA was in its heyday, with Dolly Parton in every suite and all the pulled pork sandwiches under heaven's dome....

As the contest heats up this year between Tea Partydom and the Weimar-like remnant of the party in power expect to see a political vortex form that will suck the little remaining coherence out of American life. Personally, I'd like to see Mr. Obama have a little fun with his adversaries, even if it seals his fate as a one-term president. I'd like to see him start by using the just-proposed national forum on health care reform as a rope-a-dope moment to expose opponents to reform as the bought-and-sold errand boys they are.

In the meantime, it appears that nothing will stop the epochal forces underway in global finance from spinning out of control. Illusions are getting hammered hard now and nations are lining up for the long trip home out of modernity to something that will look more like the seventeenth century, if they're lucky. .

The Myth of Self Reliance

SUBHEAD: When we create a web of interdependencies, we grow richer, stronger, safer, and wiser.

By Toby Hemenway on 7 February 2010 Pattern Literacy -
(http://www.patternliteracy.com/selfreliancemyth.html)

   
Image above: Self -sufficient? In 1971 a small group of Stone Age people, the Tasaday, were discovered in the Phillipines. It was believed they may have been totally isolated for a 1000 years. From (http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth210/tashyp.html).  

A mass emailing went out a while back from a prominent permaculturist looking for “projects where people are fully self sufficient in providing for their own food, clothing, shelter, energy and community needs. . .” There it was, the myth of “fully self sufficient,” coming from one of the best-known permaculturists in the world.

In most US permaculture circles, the idea that anyone could be self sufficient at anything past a very primitive level was abandoned a while ago, and the softer term “self reliant” replaced it. But even self-reliance is barely possible, and, other than as way of expressing a desire to throw off the shackles of corporate consumerism, I don’t think it’s desirable. I took a Googling cruise around the internet and found that “self sufficient” shows up as a desirable goal on several top permaculture websites.

I’d like to hammer a few coffin nails into that phrase. My dictionary says that self sufficient means being “able to maintain oneself without outside aid.” Who lives without outside aid? No one. Let’s unpack that a bit further. The meaning of “self sufficient in food” is something most of us can agree on: supplying 100% of your food needs from your own land and efforts. I have never met anyone who has done this.

I’m sure there are a few people doing it, but even subsistence farmers usually raise, alongside their food, a cash crop to buy the foods that are impractical for them to grow. I hear people say they are growing 30%, 50%, even 70% of their own food. What they usually mean is that they are growing fruits and vegetables that make up some percentage of the total cost or weight—but not calories—of their food. Vegetables are high in wet weight, but low in calories. If you are growing 100% of your own vegetables, they provide about 15-20% of your daily calories, unless you are living mostly on potatoes or other starchy veggies. Most daily calories come from grains, meat, or dairy products.

So if you’re not raising large-scale grains or animals, it’s unlikely that you are growing more than one-quarter of your own food, measured honestly by nutritional content. In that case, it’s not accurate to claim you are “70% food self sufficient.” If you are getting most of your calories from your land, you’re almost certainly a full-time farmer, and I salute you for your hard work.

Now we begin to see how difficult, and even undesirable, self sufficiency is. You won’t have time for much else if you are truly food self sufficient, even in a permaculture system.

But even if you grow all your own food, can you claim you are self sufficient if you don’t grow all your own seeds? Provide all your fertility? Where do your farm tools and fuel come from?

Permaculturists understand as well as anyone how interconnected life is. At what point do you claim to be disconnected from the broad human community in anything? Is there really a way to be “fully self sufficient” in food? Let’s take a quick pass at clothing, shelter and energy. Even if you sew all your clothes, do you grow the cotton, raise the sheep? If you milled all the lumber or dug the stone for your home, did you forge the glass, fabricate the wiring? In the off-the-grid house, what complex community of engineers and factories assembled the solar panels? We’re reliant on all of that.

Claiming self sufficiency in almost anything insults and ignores the mountain of shoulders we all stand on. US permaculturists are a pretty politically correct crew, and it became obvious to some of us that “self sufficient” was not just impossible, but was a slap in the face to all those whose sweat provides for us, and was another perpetuation of the cowboy ethic that puts the individual at the center of the universe.

So the term morphed into “self reliance,” to show that we know we are interdependent, but are choosing to be less reliant on others. At its best, self reliance means developing skills to provide for basic needs, so we can stop supporting unethical and destructive industries. But I see much less need for self-reliant people who can do everything themselves, and much more need for self-reliant communities, where not everyone knows how to weave or farm, but there is clothing and food for all.

There is still a deep prejudice in permaculture, as websites and emails show, that doing it all ourselves, and on our own land, is the most noble path. And insofar as our skills make us less dependent on corporate monopolies, developing the abilities that we think of as self-reliant is worth doing.

However, the more we limit our lives to what we can do ourselves, the fewer our opportunities are. Each connection outside ourselves enriches us. When we create a web of interdependencies, we grow richer, stronger, safer, and wiser. Why would you not want to rely on others? To fully probe that would take us down a psychological rabbit-hole, but some of it is grounded in a belief that others are unreliable or unethical, and that we weaken ourselves by interdependencies.

But the old saying “if you want a job done well, do it yourself” simply shows poor management skills. If you’re still skeptical, I’ll resort to scripture: a quote from the Book of Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture, page two:

“We can also begin to take some part in food production. This doesn’t mean that we all need to grow our own potatoes, but it may mean that we will buy them directly from a person who is already growing potatoes responsibly. In fact, one would probably do better to organize a farmer-purchasing group in the neighborhood than to grow potatoes.” 

As veteran permaculture designer Larry Santoyo says, go to the highest generalization to fill your needs.

Thinking “I must grow my food” is painfully limited. Thinking “I must satisfy food needs responsibly” opens up a vast array of possibilities, from which you can choose the most stable and appropriate. Individual efforts are often less stable and resilient than community enterprises. And they’re bad design: self-reliance means that a critical function is supported in only one way. If you grow all your food and get hurt, you are now injured, hungry, and watching your crops wither from your wheelchair.

That won’t happen in a community farm. And for those worried about an impending collapse of society, the roving turnip-bandits are much more likely to raid your lonely plot while you sleep exhausted from a hard day of spadework, and less likely to attack a garden protected by a crew of strong, pitchfork-wielding farmers who can guard it round the clock.

Creating community reliance gives us yet another application of permacultural zones: Zone zero in this sense is our home and land. Zone one is our connection to other individuals and families, zone two to local commerce and activities in our neighborhood, zone three to regional businesses and organizations, zone four to larger and more distant enterprises.

Why would we limit ourselves to staying only in zone zero? We can organize our lives so that our need for zone-four excursions—say, to buy petroleum or metal products—is very limited, while our interactions with the local farmers’ market and restaurants are frequent. This builds a strong community. Self reliance fails to grow social capital, a truly regenerative resource that can only increase by being used. Why would I not want to connect to my community in every way that I can? If we don’t help fill our community’s needs, there’s more chance that our neighbors will shop at big box stores.

An unexamined belief in self reliance is a destructive myth that hands opportunity to those who are taking our community away from us. If you love being a farmer, then yes, grow all your own food. And sell the rest for the other things you need, in a way that supports your community. But is there really a difference between a farmer exchanging the product of her labor—food—for goods and money, and me selling the product of my labor—education—for goods and money? We both are trading our life energy within a system that supports us, and I’d like to think that we are both making wise ethical choices.

A good permaculture design is one that provides for the inhabitants’ needs in a responsible and ecologically sound manner. But there’s nothing in permaculture that says that it’s important for all yields to come from the owner’s site! If I can accomplish one thing in this essay, it is to smash that myth. Permaculture design simply says that our needs and products need to be taken care of responsibly in our design, not on our own land. That design can—and must—include off-site connections. If you are an acupuncturist whose income is provided by your community and you are getting most of your needs met from mostly local sources you believe to be ethical, then that’s excellent permaculture design.

Your design will be stronger if your needs and products are connected to many off-site elements and systems. It’s very permacultural to develop skills that will connect you more deeply to land, home, and community. And sometimes the skills that we gained in search of self reliance are the same ones we need to be more community-reliant. But self reliance, as a goal in itself, is a tired old myth that needs to die. It’s unpermacultural.

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Ka Loko Dam Culpability

SUBHEAD: Kauai County's willful inactions precipitated the state’s liability in the fatal dam failure. By Andy Parx on 5 February 2010 in Parx News Daily - (http://parxnewsdaily.blogspot.com/2010/02/lyin-dog-and-sleepin-baby.html) Image above: Immediate aftermath of Koloko Dam failure traces torrent of water that killed seven. From (http://archives.starbulletin.com/2006/03/15/news/story02.html) Our Monday ridicule of the county’s explanation for why they paid $7.5 million in the Ka Loko Dam tragedy (3/14/06) lawsuit while the state only paid $1.5 million elicited two quite opposite responses from readers. While one close to the story said we pretty much got it right another challenged our interpretation asking for specific references. In attempting to debunk County Attorney Al Castillo’s contention that “the difference between the state’s portion of the settlement and the county’s had little to do with culpability, and instead reflected financial realities and state law regarding immunity” and show it had everything in the world to do with culpability we noted that there had to be some kind of gross misconduct or even malfeasance on the part of the state to override any general immunity. So we turned to the Hawaii Dam and Reservoir Safety Act (DRSA [§179D]) and found yes, the state has a pretty much blanket immunity regarding dams and reservoirs in that “no action or failure to act under this chapter shall be construed to create any liability in the State” [§179D-4] . And yes that can be overridden by “willful acts or negligence by the board or its agents” [§179D-6] in certain situations- the precise situation that occurred between the state and the county in failing to “enter upon such private property of the dam or reservoir”. In other words it’s even worse than we suspected in terms of culpability of the county because it seems it was indeed the county’s willful inactions that precipitated the state’s liability in the case. Those that sat through the marathon year-and-a-half “Developers Gone Wild” Kaua`i County Council grubbing and grading investigations will remember that a good deal of it dealt with asking then-Acting County Engineer Ian Costa and Chief of Engineering Division Wally Kudo why the heck they didn’t just go onto Jimmy Pflueger’s (and Tom McCloskey’s) properties and inspect them. Though they had the legal right to do so they claimed it was a lot more difficult for them to do it than the state, needing assistance from the county attorney’s office and the courts. At that point members of the council got them to say they would try to work with the Department of and Natural Resources (DLNR) which oversees the DRSA and is specifically “authorized to enter upon such private property of the dam or reservoir as may be necessary in making, at the owner's expense, any investigation or inspection required or authorized by this chapter”. Presuming that, under pressure from the council- and despite the interference of then Mayor Maryanne Kusaka who according to an internal memo from one of Kudo’s underlings squelched any action against landowner Jimmy Pflueger- Kudo and Costa contacted DLNR to have them assist them, and again presuming that the DLNR failed to assist them- as evidenced by the fact that it eventually took the federal EPA to come in and enter the property- it would seem that the state’s liability consisted entirely of a small ancillary amount of grossly negligent culpability in the county’s malfeasance and misconduct. That, if anything, makes Castillo’s contention that:

While the County believed it had viable defenses, joint and several liability applied in this case. Had the County lost at trial with the other defendants, we could have ended up having to pay almost everything, not just the percentage the jury assigned to us.

even more absurd because it would seem that if anything it was the state that gambled that, by virtue of having even “deeper pockets” than the county, paying their relatively small share was better than trying to show it was entirely the county’s fault in that any “negligence” was primarily purely driven by the county’s actions and inactions. The responsibility for the whole debacle- and therefore the deaths of the seven people who died primarily due their concerted effort to obstruct justice- seems to sit squarely in the laps of Kusaka, Coast and Kudo. According to the DRSA [§179D-8b]:

Any person who negligently or after written notice to comply, violates this chapter or any rule, order, or condition adopted, issued, or required under this chapter, or knowingly obstructs, hinders, or prevents the department's agents or employees from performing duties under this chapter, shall be guilty of a class C felony.

Why the trio are not facing criminal charges along with Pflueger is a question that must be addressed by Kusaka’s fellow Republican Linda Lingle’s Attorney General Mark Bennett who is selectively and personally prosecuting Pflueger in a trial scheduled for this summer. But the question one person who knew the seven who died rhetorically asked us recently -

“How does Kusaka sleep at night”

- is one only she can answer. Only a true sociopath could. .

Entropy Revisited

SUBHEAD: Our nonnegotiable way of life, which is based on inexpensive and rapid movement of humans and materials, will no longer be possible. Image above: Typical scene of racing traffic on US Interstate highway. From (http://www.nextautos.com/highway-travel-declines-by-14-billion-miles-april-gas-prices-blamed) By Guy McPherson on 5 February 2010 in Nature Bats Last - (http://guymcpherson.com/2010/02/entropy-revisited)

You can’t win, you can’t break even, and you can’t get out of the game. Those kernels are my favorite descriptors of the Three Laws of Thermodynamics. Respectively, the clauses mean (1) energy is conserved (First Law), (2) entropy never decreases, thus precluding perpetual motion machines (Second Law), and (3) it is impossible to cool a system to absolute zero (Third Law). The Second Law in particular puts insurmountable, irreversible constraints on everything we do. Without the Second Law, there would be no heat losses in energy systems, and electricity would be far too cheap to meter and commodify.

One way of looking at our current set of predicaments is that we’ve been on a binge, consuming energy considerably faster than it can be captured and stored by Earth’s ecosystems. While fossil fuels once appeared limitless (and still do to deniers of peak oil), and though we’re literally bathed in energy (in the form of sunlight), the disappearance of the fossil-fuel storehouse accumulated over millions of years isn’t something that can be replaced with anything nearly as convenient as fossil fuels. Solar, wind, wave, geothermal, nuclear, and hydropower simply don’t pack the same punch as fossil fuels, either singly or in combination. In short, we’re falling off the net-energy cliff, and there’s no lifeline to grab onto, no known technology to break the fall.

Long before the Industrial Era, work such as growing food, manufacturing goods, and distributing materials was accomplished via the limited power of human muscle (the monuments of the ancient world all being built with slave labor) and draught animals. Later, water wheels and windmills enabled us to convert force into mechanical power. The steam engine and combustion engine now allow us to tap the huge energy storehouse represented by fossil fuels and perform work we could not have done before, which translates into the sudden, exponential rise in human population and rapid destruction of the natural world. The differential between muscle power and simple mechanical power versus that harnessed by the application of fossil fuels can hardly be overstated. The trend from animal slaves (including humans) to fossil-fuel slaves seems like a one-way street, considering the paucity of draught animals and sanctioned slavery relative to the human population, but it isn’t. Enslavement to fossil fuels ends when the now-abundant supply turns to scarcity, at which point radical austerity sets in.

Three attributes of fossil fuels are particularly noteworthy. First, fossil fuels — especially crude oil — have amazingly high energy density. If you’ve burned oak in a wood stove, you have witnessed the heating power of 6,000 Btu per pound. Depending on the type, coal contains 8,000–14,000 Btu per pound. The devil’s excrement blows away wood and coal at nearly 20,000 Btu per pound. Once found, coal and oil are much more convenient to extract and deliver than wood, which explains in part why so many more railroad hopper cars are filled with coal than with firewood.

The second characteristic favoring consumption of fossil fuels is energy return on investment (EROI, sometimes expressed as EROEI for energy return on energy invested). Charles Hall is the primary authority on this subject, and his primer at The Oil Drum illustrates the importance of EROI while also showing how rapidly EROI has declined for U.S. oil. Specifically, average EROI of U.S. crude oil dropped from 100:1 in the 1930s to 30:1 in 1970 and down below 20:1 today while EROI for coal has varied from 40:1 to 80:1 during the same period. Meanwhile, firewood has an EROI of about 30:1, much higher than nuclear or solar photovoltaic (PV) and about the same as hydropower (we’ve nearly run out of rivers to dam, at least in North America).

The third big issue regarding fossil fuels is their potential energy. Coal and oil are just lying underground, containing dense sums of energy, begging us to gobble it up for our own immediate use, leaving nothing behind in the quintessential capitalist game of heedless maximization (e.g., Daniel Quinn’s theory of leavers and takers). There’s no need to turn a turbine with the quaint use of wind or water to generate electricity. There’s no need to bust apart atoms through exotic, risky, and expensive means that produce the nastiest of all wastes. Insatiable vampires, we jam our fang-like straws into the ground to extract easily combusted ancient sun-blood.

It’s easy to understand why we committed to crude oil early in the industrial game. Its energy density, EROI, and convenience of combustion are irresistible. It’s small wonder, then, that we developed an entire civilization based on fossil fuels. The physics underlying the conversion of energy into heat, power, force, or work is a tangle of interrelated concepts not easily sorted out by nonscientists. However, whether various inputs and outputs are measured in watts, Btu, calories, joules, newtons, or volts, what’s clear is that civilization is currently engorged, literally feasting on fossil fuels. But it’s not anything close to a zero sum game, where resources stay constant and are only shifted around over time. Rather, the Second Law guarantees there is always a diminishing return.

Ultimately, all this points to a future in which we will be energy poor because we’ve used up the storehouse of cheap, convenient energy. In the not-so-distant future, the purportedly nonnegotiable American way of life, which is based on inexpensive and rapid movement of humans and materials via conversion of stored energy to mechanical power, will no longer be possible. Put in more immediate terms, there will soon be a time when old folks say with some nostalgia, “Oh yeah, I remember warm showers.”

Renewable Energy Stories

SUBHEAD: The ten essential renewable energy stories this week.

By Nathanael Baker on 5 February 2010 in EnergyBoom - 
(http://www.energyboom.com/policy/ten-essential-renewable-energy-stories-week-14) 


 
Image above: Solar thermal power generation. Tower collects heat to run generator from mirror array. From (http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-vine/solar-power-24-hours-day-heres-how)  

Big winds were blowing, fast wheels were spinning, and good grades were flowing for renewable energy this week.

Early in the week it was announced that global wind power increased 31% in 2009. Although this growth was spurred by the European Union, United States and China, it was not limited to the industrial giants. Turkey, Chile, and Morocco each increased their capacity by at least 30%.

The transportation sector had some hot news with Ferrari's hybrid announcement, and electric bikes showed they are an exponentially growing market that is worth US$11 Billion worldwide.
Other renewable sectors had eye-catching news as well, and that is why we have developed this article--so you don't have to miss any of it. So, without further ado...

Here are this week's 10 Hottest Renewable Energy Stories You May Have Missed:
1. Caterpillar Delivers First Hybrid Bulldozer - The Cat D7E is Caterpillar's first hybrid bulldozer. This beast is more powerful that traditional bulldozers and also 10%-30% more efficient.

2. Wind Power Up A Whopping 31% Worldwide in 2009 - By adding 37.5 GW of new capacity in 2009, the global wind industry pushed its net worth to an estimated US$63 billion. One notable, yet unsurprising fact--China installed the most wind capacity of any country last year.

3. Ferrari Will Unveila Hybrid Model: Crazy Fuel Economy, Crazy Power, Crazy Thought - At the Geneva Auto Show in March you will be able to feast your eyes on Ferrari's first attempt at a hybrid vehicle--a lithium-ion battery powered 599 GTB Fiorano. The car has the same pop, 0-65 MPH in less than 4 seconds, but gets nearly twice as many miles to the gallon.

4. Ted Turner and Southern Company Announce Alliance for Renewable Energy Ventures - Ted Turner and Southern Company have joined forces in an effort to get in on the renewable energy bubble. The partnership's first focus: developing solar photovoltaic power in America's southwest.

5. 55 Countries Pledge Their Copenhagen Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets - The Copenhagen climate conference has been deemed a failure by many. However, that has not stopped UN member states from following through on their commitments to the Copenhagen Accord, and submitting their national greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. Hope for a global deal to cut emissions remains.

6. European Union Beats Expectations, Grows Wind Power Capacity in 2009 - A new report from the European Wind Energy Association shows that the EU installed more wind power than any other source of energy last year. 39% of all new capacity installed in 2009 was wind power followed by gas (26%) and solar photovoltaics (16%).

7. Global Investments Brighten Outlook for Geothermal Energy - It looks as though 2009 was just the beginning of a sweet era for geothermal energy. Investments in geothermal grew more than any other sector last year, and it looks like the investments will continue to rise as President Obama has proposed to increase funding for geothermal energy 25% in 2011.

8. In-House Live Extraction for Algae: Turning the Corner on Biofuels - OriginOil has developed a breakthrough technology that will allow businesses and institutions to convert their carbon dioxide emissions to algae-based biofuel on their own premises.

9. Eight Teams Move on to Semi-Finals in Clean Energy Prize Competition - Colleges and Universities throughout Michigan are competing to develop business plans that promise to move their new, renewable energy technology from the laboratory to the market place. Out of 32 teams, eight remain in competition for the US$100,000 prize money.

10. Look Out: Electric Bikes Are an $11 Billion Industry - From geek to chique, electric bikes have gone from a fringe method of transportation to one of the largest growing markets in the world. China is the prime example: in less than 20 years, electric bikes have grown in number from a few thousand to 120 million.

Well, there we go, you are caught up...sort of. There have been numerous articles on EnergyBoom that did not make the cut, but are nonetheless fascinating reads. You can find them by browsing any of our technology channels or our Finance section.

Wainiha residents' legal action

SUBHEAD: Hawaiians whose building was bulldozed to take legal action against Kauai County.

By Paul Curtis on 6 February 2010 in The Garden Island - 
(http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/article_d0ef11d0-12f6-11df-abb4-001cc4c03286.html)

 
Image above: Shorebreak along Wainiha Bay looking east. From (http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulkelly/2990547523/)

Native Hawaiian Wainiha Bay land owners tried to obtain a temporary restraining order preventing the county from demolishing buildings the land owners say are on their land, countering the county’s claim they were illegally placed on county property.

The Native Hawaiian land owners were not able to secure the TRO in time to prevent a county bulldozer from destroying one structure Thursday that has been on the property for years, said Eleanor “Lady” Haumea and Deilon Haumea.

Their families share ownership of the beach-front land, around a third of an acre, and said more legal action is forthcoming.

Beth Tokioka, executive assistant to Mayor Bernard P. Carvalho Jr., said Friday the county stands by its Thursday actions.

“We stand behind the due diligence we did,” and the county is fulfilling its responsibilities to take care of its lands, she said.

“If we’re in the wrong about where the (property) line is, our door is open to the Haumeas to show us otherwise,” said Tokioka, adding that county surveyors determined the demolished structures were on county land, not private property.

The Haumeas and other owners of the property have support from representatives of the Kingdom of Atooi, said Ka‘imi Hermosura, North Shore konohiki (customary chief) for the kingdom.

“They (the county) told me that the land is not ours,” said Lady Haumea, adding that there appears to be discrepancies in separate surveys conducted for the family and county.

The family survey indicates the family land is not partially underwater, as the county claims, verifying what Lady Haumea said she has known for years: that the shack that had housed family boats and fishing nets that was destroyed by the county bulldozer Thursday was and always has been on family land, not county property.

“We never moved anything. That’s the original,” there from her father’s time at least 40 to 50 years ago, said Lady Haumea, adding that the owners are current on their county real property taxes.

“I can’t understand why the county would do this. Where do we go? I don’t know where we’re going next,” she said.

“I lived here all my life. I know that land. Nothing moved,” she said. Yes, the trees have matured, she said.

Lady Haumea said she told the county officials to do what they felt they had to do on Thursday, but did say, “It’s illegal what you guys are doing.”

In addition to the fishing shack that was destroyed, also removed was a tent where her daughter had been living, she said. Lady Haumea lives in Wainiha on another piece of land near the bay, but not the same parcel where the bulldozing took place.

She said her family uses that ocean-front parcel for recreational purposes.

Deilon Haumea said he asked the county for a few more days to try to locate pins marking the four corners of the property, and that surveyors contacted to do a survey of the property didn’t arrive in time to do the survey which may have stopped the county action.

County surveyors also didn’t find the property pins, he said, a comment disputed by Tokioka.

“They just didn’t want to wait,” said Deilon Haumea, involved in real estate and foreclosures in Los Angeles but on the island now. He is Lady Haumea’s nephew, she said.

The action Thursday was all based on the county’s survey, not on any court order or judge’s order, he said.

It was an “illegal eviction, the wild, wild west way, not the way it should be done,” said Deilon Haumea, adding that the county crew treated those on the property as campers and not as land owners.

“Are we in the wild, wild west, or are we in a place with law and order?”

When told of the county’s description of Friday’s return to the property as a cleanup action, he characterized it another way: “Destroy the evidence.”

He knows the county has property adjacent to his family’s property. “It’s all hau bush. It’s a jungle,” he said of the county property, which he said was never maintained as a park.

If a portion of his family’s property is underwater as the county claims, he may seek retroactive rebates of real property taxes paid on property that if under ocean water is also uninhabitable, he said.

Hermosura said the Haumeas have asserted their mineral rights that come with the property, and a formal written request to cease the bulldozing process was given to the county and signed and sealed by Dayne Aipoalani, ali‘i nui of the Kingdom of Atooi, and signed also by Hermosura and other customary chiefs.

They have also drafted a petition in support of the family, he said.

There was no mediation, no discussion, no writs, no legal procedure involved in Thursday’s action, said Hermosura. “The county’s supposed to be for the people.”

Further, Hermosura and others in the kingdom are working to get legal representation and other help for the families, he said.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Count razes Hawaiian homes 2/5/10
.