BlueEarth - Not Sustainable

Proposed BlueEarth Biodiesel Plant (To supply MECO & HECO with 120 million gallons of generator fuel per year)

BlueEarth BioFuels is a shell company created by a Texas ethanol man and a former marine turbine employee at the time that HECO gave them a no-bid contract to build their refinery on the Maui Waena land. They have never built a bio-diesel plant. They have no knowledge or experience on Maui. They appear to be under the impression that Maui is like Texas with unlimited water and land.

The Maui Waena land was set aside for renewable electrical generation as a negotiated compromise for MECO to get permission to build yet more diesel generators.

MECO's diesel generation is already well above the industry's normal practice and is one reason our electric rates are so high.

The advantages of biodiesel generation to MECO are:

1. MECO can charge ratepayers not just for the capital costs but for the fuel costs which will escalate over time, driving our electric rates up.
2. MECO can easily control the generators to meet demand
3. Biodiesel will cut down on the EPA fines MECO has to pay because of their over-use of diesel generation.
4. Unlike the diesel fines, MECO can pass the ever-increasing cost of biodiesel on to its rate payers and actually increase their profit as the cost to ratepayers increases.

BlueEarth will import "sustainable" palm oil. But Duff Badgley, who heads a Seattle-based group called One Earth which staged a protest outside of Imperium's downtown Seattle offices, calls sustainable palm oil "an industry-financed hoax."

The alternatives to building more diesel/biodiesel generators are:

1. Wind turbines coupled to pumped storage (to meet peak)
2. Solar PV coupled to pumped storage or battery backup
3. Decentralized Solar photovoltaic (which is currently cost effective for home owners and has rebates, loans and tax credits)
4. Solar Hot Water (quick payback, financially lucrative to homeowners)
5. Conservation through sensible building design
6. Interruptible power to nonessential air conditioners and other nonessential loads

The advantages to Maui ratepayers from the alternatives are:

1. Cheaper electric rates that don't increase as fast
2. More sustainable
3. Dual purpose pumped storage reservoirs help with our water shortage
4. No huge bio farms draining our aquifers
5. No 24,000,000 gallons per year of waste glycerin from the refinery
6. No ongoing ever-escalating fuel charge for imported palm oil or diesel
7. The knowledge that we are benefiting our land instead of misusing it.

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In a move that has international environmentalists horrified, NRDC has "greenwashed" the HECO-BlueEarth palm importation with a so-called "sustainable" palm oil importation policy. Importing oil be it palm or fossil is not sustainable. When we cause a huge increase in palm oil demand and take it from older plantations, that simply displaces the rest of the demand to slash and burn plantations. Increasing demand drive slash and burn regardless of any old plantation policy.

HECO/NRDC Palm Oil Procurement Policy Draft Position (June 2007)
Procurement Policy Final Position (August 2007)
RSP Palm Oil Policy (more stringent than HECO/NRDC)

BlueEarth Testimony Before Legslature 2006

Authorization for $55,000,000 in State Revenue Bonds HB1912, 2007
SB1718 SB1718 HD2 CD1 (CCR 171)

List of International Organizations and Individuals Opposing Use of Palm Oil to Make Biodiesel for Electrical Generation

Sawit Opposition to Maui Importing any Palm Oil

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Advantages

• Biodiesel burns 60% cleaner than regular diesel
• Fossil Fuel supplies are dwindling

 

Initial areas of concern:

In our good intentions, we may be increasing global warming and paying higher electric rates

1. Imported biodiesel that encourages rain forest destruction is net contributor to CO2
2. Although its contracts are with suppliers who guarantee the palm oil plantations have not destroyed rainforest or wetlands, it still increases palm oil demand so other buyers will obtain their supply from non-ecological sources. See the Oil Palm page.
3. To supply oil for 120 million gallon Maui plant will require 206,000 acres of Oil Palms, 650,000 of jatropha or 530,000 acres of Kukui. Only 140,000 acres of biofuel land has been identified in all of Hawai'i. 37,000 acres is in sugar cane. This means most or all of the feedstock will be imported - not grown on Maui
4. See the jatropha page for more info on this drought tolerant oil plant.
5. If foreign palm oil stays lower priced than locally grown feedstock, then no local feedstock will be used unless price supports or tariffs are imposed. Given Maui's higher land, labor and water costs, it is unlikely that Maui can produce feedstock even a double the cost or more.
6. 24,000,000 gallons of glycerin waste product will be produced each year by the Maui plant. Unless a plant is built that burns glycerin or it is used to create methanol for the biofuel system, this will be dumped in our landfill.