On Apr 18, 6:15 pm, "Alvin E. Toda" <a...@lava.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Apr 2007, Dan Birchall wrote:
>> a...@lava.net (Alvin E. Toda) wrote:
>>> It's interesting that the Big Island has a huge
>>> store of Geothermal energy. It could support a whole
>>> lot of industry and businesses there at very low
>>> energy costs.
>
>> Yep, although it's tricky to make it work right (PGV
>> has had problems from time to time, and a problem
>> means a drop of say 10 megawatts of output, ouch!)
>> and worse yet, further development would have to take
>> place either in areas that are already protected, or
>> areas where there's significant opposition to it from
>> community/environmental groups.
>
> Opposition though is of a technical nature? The worry
> about sulfur emission? Operational problems? You'd
> think that the problems would have been solved by now.
> 10 megawatts is not much. I'm surprised that there
> aren't any 50 MW plants by now.
It's more of the "we're against all development" kind.
It makes noise sometimes, and it stinks sometimes
(even on Oahu you're not far enough away to not sometimes
get vog, so it stinks anyway), and sometimes it breaks
down (OK, so part of that is due to a design flaw).
Somebody makes money off of it. People live on having
actual jobs rather than getting their money from the
Government in form of handouts (people work there and
that's a dirty word in some circles).
They used to not hire local people because they had
to be afraid of sabotage. I'm pretty sure they do now.
<gd&r>
Maren
Renewable energy in Hawaii 
