Here’s a great study.. lots of people living far off the grid, and only a few seem to understand they ‘are’ off the grid. Will this Island make the right decisions, and what are the right ones?
My thoughts, here’s a place that really needs a nuke..
http://olelo.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=30&clip_id=33347
GB
Pretty rare idea of putting an engineer in front of a reporter and talking about societal problems. Normally it’s a lawyer, politician or a grassroots artist/activist. Maybe an actor or musician or conflicted lobbiest.
Never heard of the Jones act. Like I needed another stupid government regulation to offend my libertarian sensibilities.
I wonder if they could do pumped Hydro storage on some of those mountains. Do some of them have nice valleys between arms of the mountain that could be damned off And pumped with seawater? Bath West Virginia has a massive pumped Hydro storage facility. It has five 500 MW Siemens turbines. I believe total capacity is 30 GW hours.
Uh, 6 500 megawatt turbines, not 5 and made by Allis chalmers and upgraded by Siemens. 3002 gigwatts capacity. 75-78% round trip efficiency. Just trying to be accurate.
I like how he was critical of tax credits and his neighbors subsidizing his solar, sort of.
It does seem like Hawaii should consider energy harvested locally. We don’t know how the world or at least the us economy will implode exactly. Will they have goods to trade mainland or other nations for gas, oil or LEU when the paper economy is gone? At least they won’t freeze.
3002 megawatts.
Bill,
The real battle that Prof Panos fights (as per my measure) is the people of Hawaii and their world has been so clouded by subsidies that the average voter believes in magic! We will watch as those subsidies will no longer be afforded.
While Panos rightfully beats the drum and warns about the realities of Island life (off the grid). Others stay in power by promising magic, and the easy road. This Island is very small, and there will be a huge fight if any of the land above sea level is used for water (energy) storage. another item to note is elevation or head, you need a huge storage facility WHEN the head is not there, and this island is small and not so tall. tidal machine and low head answers require huge investments per MWH of capacity.
Panos in my opinion is likely to be run off the Island soon, the majority of the Islanders here desperately want to believe in magic. I think they would rather live with the dream and risk poverty and even starvation as seen on Easter Island.
All that may stand here some day are dead wind turbines, and they may be ittle different than the statues found on Easter Island, a reminder of what mistakes humans make.
Little doubt there was a Panos on Easter Island too, and likely just as ignored.
We need ask, Is Hawaii little more than one big plantation? Of course I enjoy being controversial..
Panos is likely one of the few there who clearly understands that he lives in a Petri Dish, and great experiment, and we all get to see whether the people will listen to a Panos or to those Politicians who promise magic through the application of fairy dust.
As Nero fiddled, do the Hawaiian’s do the same passing the day recalling when Primo was …”The More Better Beer?”
Count on one thing.. Panos will always be a piss poor politician because the truth is far more important to him than the power of elected office! it’s just the way his head is wired, and we DIYers like that 🙂
I encourage you to find the Panos face book page and subscribe, and from there his blog. This is a most exciting study, we get to see fairy dust battle reality. If we go to youtube and review all those free energy machines and the countless views, we needs ask.. are they all views from the Islands?
GB
I don’t know every much about the Hawaiian Islands. I thought they were very tall though, much taller than the mountains in West Virginia. The bath Hydro facility has an upper reservoir of 1.1 km² and a lower reservoir that’s 1200 feet below. Maybe they’re kind of plain cones that don’t lend themselves to damming up large areas between arms. If I lived there I would want to take advantage of every kind of progress in technology to get off grid as is humanly possible. Especially when they have the cards stacked against them by things like the Jones act. It becomes an interesting question if government would relax regulation of the Jones act as things fall apart. I believe the answer is no. They’ve allowed our industrial economy to completely destruct rather than relent on regulation. In fact they’ve increased it. For too many people a failing industry only means it didn’t get enough regulation. If Hawaii found itself impoverished and unable to produce goods for trade I imagine the response would be that they don’t have enough taxation and regulation.
I guess I should be a lot more specific. Oahu has a point at 4000F but the mountains here are not rolling hills with places for lakes, maybe a trip via Google earth can help one view the Island for what it is. If there were places for lakes and dams, they’d have been placed some years back I think..
Here’s a taste of this islands mountains.. http://100peaks.com/2010/04/30/mount-kaala-a-slippery-climb-to-the-highest-point-on-oahu-hawaii/
Here’s one Island that does have bit of hydro.. do note the reference of a ‘BILL” as to how Hawaii will be 40%renewable by 2030.. will that make it look like Easter Island ?? Big monoliths where ever we look?