Fwd: proposed biofuel project in Pahala

[Kim CS Chang]

 
Aloha Kakou,

My friends are asking help because this biofuel project is in there community.

Some of us having similar experiences.

http://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2011/09/20/video-aina-koa-pono-faces-concerned-pahala-community/

 

They are plan to use 13000ac of ag land...how can we protect our ag land from them???

 

 On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 2:26 PM, <lynn...@aol.com> wrote:

( I know this is rather extensive...use it however you think is best.)

Kim, 

Where to begin?

In January 2011  Aina Koa Pono LLC (AKP), announced signing a 20- year contact with HELCO. HELCO agreed to purchase the synthetic fuel AKP proposes  to produce.

This fuel would be produced in a $350 million biofuel refinery located.15 miles from the center of the small town of Pahala on Hawaii.  The proposed refinery would use a process called Microwave Depolymerization. This process was developed by a German company Bionics Fuel Technologies AG (BFT) in Dec. 2008.  To date, this process has not been  commercially used anywhere in the world.

The feedstock is to come from 13,000 acres AKP has leased. The feedstock will, at first, include ‘invasive’ plants which will be cleared from the lands, and then ‘sterile’ grasses will be planted.  AKP has assured the public that the ‘sterile’ grasses will not spread. To insure this containment, every field will be surrounded with a barrier.

I’m going to include: 

1. A portion of article which appeared in the Big Island Weekly 2/2011. It gives an overview.
2. A letter written by a local rancher in Jan. 2011 following the first of the three public meetings held in Pahala with AKP.
3. A recent letter written to the newspaper in response to an article.
4. A link to a video of the last meeting with the community & AKP

1. “By Alan Decker Mcnarie

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 10:52 AM HST

even as a committee appointed by the state legislature was telling it that Hawai'i Island should convert to Geothermal as its main source of power last month, Hawaii Electric Company was heading in a different direction. The company signed an agreement with Honolulu-based 'Aina Koa Pono to create an "energy farm" on 13,000 acres of former cane lands and ranch lands in Ka'u; grass and wood from those lands would be trucked to a new plant that would use microwaves to cook organic matter into synthetic diesel, which then would be trucked to Kona to fuel the Keahole power plant -- and eventually, possibly, shipped to power plants on O'ahu and Maui as well.

To cover the cost of starting the farm and constructing the plant, HECO is asking for a rate hike that could add $1.55 to $1.86 per month to a typical residential customer bill on all three islands. But the company claims that in the long run, the home-grown diesel should cost less than fossil fuel, given forecasted increases in the price of oil.

The 20-year contract calls for the new facility to deliver 14 million gallons per year in 2014, increasing to 16 million gallons per year in 2015. The company estimates that it would generate 300 short-term construction jobs; once the refinery is operating, it would run three shifts of 20 people each and employ 12 maintenance workers, 13 administrative staff, six truck drivers and 70-90 agricultural workers -- all while cutting down on the island's dependence on imported fuels, reducing greenhouse gasses, and helping to free the island economy from the sticker shock of soaring oil prices.

Just what species of plants would constitute the main feedstock for the refinery was also unknown as of press time.

"We're looking at three or four perennial grasses," including "sterile napia grass and bana grass," 'Aina Koa Pono chief engineer Alexander Causey told BIW. His company would not grow any genetically modified organisms, he added.

In the short term, Causey said, his company could get started by clearing such species as Christmas berry, guinea grass, albizia and eucalyptus from the land that it was renting from the Ed Olsen Trust and the Mallick family.

"We have enough of that on the existing land that we have leased to last us three or four years," he said. "We'd love to take those invasive species and process them."

Once the invasive were cleared, he said, the selected grasses would be planted in large paddocks and harvested, 30 acres a day, 900 acres a month, by mowing (not by bulldozing, as the cane company used to do). The harvested grass would then be hauled to the plant via former cane haul roads. About 30 trucks a day on average -- one truck every 20 minutes -- would make the journey from the fields to the processing plant.

At the refinery, microwaves would "break down complex molecules into shorter chain molecules and release them as vapors," said Causey. "What's left is the char. We capture all those vapors. We don't release them." The char, mostly carbon, would be used as fuel for the plant or recycled as a soil amendment. The vapor would be condensed into what Causey called "synthetic crude oil," then refined into synthetic diesel. There would be relatively few byproducts of the refining process, he said, because "this synthetic crude is closer to diesel than it is to crude oil."

"We would have at that point, a very small amount of waste, which I think would be landfilled," he said.

The synthetic oil would be shipped by fuel tanker truck to Kona. Six trips a day, one tanker every two hours, said Causey. But when BIW asked him if the tankers would be semis or tandem (double trailer) rigs, he said that was yet to be determined.

How could he say, then, how many trips would be needed?

"It's a guestimate at this point," he admitted.

The specter of double-trailer tanker trucks loaded with volatile fuel navigating the South Point and the South Kona serpentines is only one of several concerns that the community raised. Some have wondered why the company has not done an environmental impact statement on the project. Others have raised questions about the newness of the technology (residents say they've been unable to locate a single currently operating commercial facility that's using this technology); about the project's impact on other agriculture and on local housing prices, about possible emissions and noise; and, especially, about its proximity to the village, which may miss the sugar mill's jobs, but not its noise and smoke. The company had originally proposed to put the refinery in a former vehicle maintenance shed at the old cane mill.”

2 . Michelle Galimba runs Kuahiwi Ranch in Ka’u with her dad, where they produce hormone free beef for the local market.  Michelle is a former Hawai'i Cattleman's Association President and currently serves as a member of the State Board of Agriculture. 

 

“Thursday, January 13, 2011

Biofuels in Ka’u

“Yesterday I went to a public presentation of a biofuels project in Pahala. A company called Aina Koa Pono wants to come into Ka'u and harvest biomass from 13,000 acres for a biofuel processing plant that will involve microwaves. The presentation was held at the Pahala Clubhouse, a graceful meeting space built during the plantation era. There were approximately 100 people there and two video cameras. It was a warm afternoon, and there were plenty of mosquitoes taking advantage of the crowd. 

The chief engineer Sandy (Alexander) Causey stood in front of the group and gave a fairly detailed explanation of the process by which the organic matter would be vaporized, filtered, re-vaporized and distilled into synthetic crude (aka biodiesel)l, kerosene (aka jet fuel) and gasoline. The byproduct of this process – char- would be put into a boiler to create electricity to run the plant.

 Everyone was very polite, but the questioning that ensued was decidedly skeptical in tone. Sandy Causey is not PR guy, which is a good thing for the people of Ka'u because they get to see what the real deal is on this project. 

To be blunt, there are big gaping holes in their business model as far as their agricultural/harvesting expertise. They really don't know what they are doing, especially in respect to the actual physical costs of growing and re-growing biomass.

 It's not something I hold against them very much. Ignorance of biological reality is rampant. On the other hand, ignorance does not inspire confidence. Is it okay for them to blunder into our neighborhood armed with a HECO contract, federal funding, and an amorphous plan? I really don't know. 

On the one hand, no one knows what they are doing when it comes to facing the transition from away fossil fuels on the ground level. We absolutely need to have alternative energy processes being developed, even if it not particularly efficient or knowledgeable production, just so that we can learn to be efficient.

 On the other hand, there is a good chance that the project will fail because of the project designers ignorance of some very basic realities of Ka'u, the kind of experience that regular people have, the ranchers, the farmers, the loggers, the bulldozer operators. Unfortunately that kind of experience does not seem to be getting into the spreadsheets for this project.”

 http://ehulepo.blogspot.com/2011/01/biofuels-in-kau.html) “

3.Biofuels are no bargain

“Jay Fidell’s column on the biofuels plant has a lot of Kau residents hot under the collar.(“Rejection of biofuel plan is a huge setback for isles.” Star-Advertiser, Think Tech, Oct. 25)

He calls the Aina Koa Pono biofuel plant a “dream deal” while most of us considered it a nightmare.

It is just plain arrogance to claim that Aina Koa Pono’s plan would ‘resurrect’ agriculture in our district. For one thing agriculture never died here. For another thing, it’s growing stronger day by day, with or without Aina Koa Pono.

Aina Koa Pono’s oil was going to cost us somewhere around $170 per barrel, about three times the current price of oil, with no hint of ever becoming less expensive in the long term.

A rate hike would make not only our personal home electric bills more expensive but drive up the cost of  goods and services around the state. I don’t think it’s a good idea to give a private corporation the power to  skim the cream off our entire state’s economy.   Malian Lahey, Pahala”

1. Coverage of the September meeting!

http://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2011/09/20/video-aina-koa-pono-faces-concerned-pahala-community/

So you can see, the concerns include:

the use of a technology never commercially tested, 13,000 acres of land to be used for synthetic fuel rather than food,

growing 'sterile' grasses, importation and transportation of 4.5 tons of zeolite needed daily, the dispersion of 'cooked' zeolite over the land, tanker fuel trucks daily using two-land public roads, locating on an earthquake-prone island, water use in a drought area,

chemicals, emissions, and financing.

 It has only been 15 years since the plantation closed after 120+ years of growing one crop over and over again. The land was abused and the task of restoration has been monumental. To go back to this land with a one-crop system is unsettling.  The only assurance that the feedstock plantings will not impact a larger area is AKP's word that this crop will be ‘sterile’ and won’t spread because of their plans to surround every field to keep it contained. 

Placing public funds into this project will divert attention and financial resources away from other possible solutions.  We can reach our goal of sustainability without the extreme financial and environmental cost this proposed project would impose.

Thank you for your interest. Lynn Hamilton