Is it smart—or crazy stupid—to rely solely on wind, solar, and hydro?
This past July, as Dawn Lippert surfed the swells at her home beach in Honolulu, a rogue board sprang up and slammed her between the eyes. It could have been a knockout blow. But Lippert, a former high school soccer champ who had taken up surfing when she arrived here a decade ago—fresh from Yale and working as an energy consultant to the state as it began to wean itself from fossil fuels—possesses a resilient athleticism.
Of course, not everyone is cheering. Fossil-fuel advocates warn of an all-too-serious challenge. “Hospitals, sewage treatment, clean water, industrial production, communications networks, iPads, etcetera, all require copious amounts of energy,” says Mike Krancer, anlawyer and consultant in Pennsylvania and prominent supporter of fracking and natural gas. “That is not going to come from renewables at a 100 percent level—not now, not ever.
The situation became so crushing that in 2008, the state set a goal to move to 70 percent clean power by 2030 through renewables and energy-efficiency savings like tougher building codes. Lippert, then working as a consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton in Washington, D.C., was among the specialists who flew in to devise a game plan.
As mainland academics, partisans, and politicians debate the go-green movement, the voyage is already underway in the central Pacific. “Clearly in our island community, we are much more aware of the effects of, global warming, and sea-level rise,” Governor David Ige said last June. “What we do impacts our environment because we know that leadership can start at home.” He concluded, “We here in Hawaii can make a statement and can lead the world if it’s important enough to us.
So one of the things Lippert’s entrepreneurs want to provide is the other 30 percent. She directs me to a hillside off Oahu’s North Shore, where a company called TerViva has planted 50 stunning acres of pongamia trees. A Southeast Asian and Indian species, the tree has wide green leaves that produce thick clusters of flowers. These become pods with very oily seeds that can be processed into a renewable fuel.
Shifted has retrofitted its grid-interactive devices onto water heaters at Kapolei Lofts, an affordable-housing complex. During the day, when there is excess solar on the grid, the devices can turn on the heaters to preheat H2O for evening showers. By equipping 1,000 water heaters with these devices, Shifted estimates it is creating up to 3 megawatt hours of storage from the excess solar.
It’s late summer, and Lippert and I are walking through downtown Honolulu. The sun is out, and the natural optimism of the climate is almost oppressive. Lippert is preparing for a three-week stint training a new set of entrepreneurs, in which she’ll stay up one night until 2 a.m. singing karaoke with them. Right now, she’s refreshed and enthusiastic. I ask the point of pushing to 100 percent.
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