“HECO plant switch to biofuels a good move.”
That headline appeared over an editorial in the <iHonolulu Advertiser on December 15, a few days after Hawaiian Electric, the utility serving O`ahu, came to an agreement with the state consumer advocate calling for a new 110-megawatt plant to be fired exclusively with biofuels. The Advertiser’s editorial writers greeted the news with unalloyed joy.
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s editorial reception of the news was favorable, but tempered. The development, it said, “should serve to blunt some criticism of its proposal [for a rate increase], but … ethanol is not a panacea. Problems like water allocations needed to grow feed stock, agricultural chemicals, use of fossil fuels to make ethanol and the efficiency of the fuel could shrink ethanol’s advantages.”
Tad Patzek was having none of it. Even before Hawaiian Electric (HECO) struck the agreement with the consumer advocate calling for exclusive use of biofuels in the new plant, Patzek, a professor of engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, ridiculed the notion. “If biomass is the answer, it makes more sense to burn it directly,” Patzek said in testimony before the state Public Utilities Commission, whose approval Hawaiian Electric needs before it can build the plant. “To convert biomass to a finished liquid transportation fuel at an incredibly high fossil energy cost and damage to the environment and then burn this fuel in a stationary power plant is the most nonsensical proposition I have heard in many years. This proposition is utterly indefensible on scientific and common sense grounds.”
Patzek appeared before the PUC as a witness on behalf of Life of the Land, a community organization that was admitted as an intervener in the PUC docket that will decide the fate of HECO’s proposed plant.
(The PUC’s decision is still months away. After the evidentiary hearing in December, preparation of a transcript was expected to take several weeks. Once the transcript is delivered to the parties, they will have three weeks to prepare post-hearing briefs. Each party then is given two weeks to reply to other parties’ briefs. Following that, the members of the PUC begin their deliberations, with no set time by which their decision must be made.)
Uncertain Source
The formal agreement, in the form of a stipulation signed by the consumer advocate and HECO, states that the consumer advocate has no objections to HECO’s plans for the new plant and ancillary facilities (a transmission line, substation upgrades, and the like), “provided that the Proposed Project uses one hundred percent (100%) biofuels.” HECO’s original position was that it would use up to 100 percent biofuels “only after a trial period of up to five years using a fifty percent (50% by volume) ethanol-naphtha blend.” Under the stipulation, though, it agrees to use biofuels from the first day of operation.
In an attachment setting forth details of the agreement, Hawaiian Electric commits to “selection of a biofuel provider and completion of a contract by the end of 2007.” Among other things, the contractor must demonstrate to HECO “that a vibrant, multi-sourced national and international market supply exists in such fuels.”
In what seems a tacit admission of the lower energy content (and potentially higher costs) of ethanol over more conventional fuels, HECO says it will seek PUC approval “for the negotiated contract with the selected biofuel supplier, and recovery of all reasonably incurred costs associated with the design modifications and use of the various biofuels, including the significantly lowered CT [combustion turbine] Unit output (about 15%) that is currently expected to result if the selected biofuel is 100% ethanol.”
Henry Curtis, executive director of Life of the Land, told Environment Hawai`i that when HECO seeks approval for the fuel contract, it can expect, as before, to face Life of the Land as an intervener.
Articles of Faith
Robbie Alm, HECO’s senior vice president for public affairs, insisted that the decision to go with biofuels for the new plant is environmentally sound. “We’ve looked at the literature that suggests that both biodiesel and sugar-based ethanol, certainly, are fairly positive,” he said in an interview with Environment Hawai`i. “We’re aware of the literature that suggests corn-based ethanol is not as positive.”
Aware of it, perhaps, but, according to Curtis, HECO’s sworn testimony before the PUC was that the company had done no analysis of the risks or benefits of biofuels over petroleum-based fuels, or of the net atmospheric carbon output resulting from the use of biofuels as opposed to fossil fuels. Curtis noted that much of the source of biodiesel today is Indonesia and Malaysia, where rainforests are being clear-cut to make way for oil-palm plantations, which provide much of the raw material for biodiesel.
HECO’s request for proposals from biofuel vendors does not discriminate between fuels generated from sustainably grown crops and other types. Alm said: “We’re putting out an all-comers RFP for biofuels. In the best of all worlds, biodiesel is a better product for us. From our point of view, biodiesel has far fewer negatives, and that’s what we hope to be able to use. The question for us is, will biodiesel be available to us in sufficient quantities by 2009, in time for the [new] unit?”
Because of the uncertain availability of biodiesel, Alm said, the initial contract for biofuel suppliers is relatively short. If ethanol is to be used at all in the plant, he said, it would probably be just for the first few years, as a “transitional fuel” until biodiesel supplies are adequate. “Then we’ll see what biofuel we get at the end of that contract, how many options we have available, and where they’re from,” Alm said. “We’ve also stated that we’d vastly prefer to get our product locally.” Alm added that he had no particular knowledge of whether Hawai`i could generate sufficient biodiesel – between 7 million and 15 million gallons a year – to fuel the new peaking facility (to be used only when needed to meet peak power demands).
Alm dismissed critics of HECO’s biofuels proposal as heretics – or worse. “We were fascinated when Henry’s expert [Patzek] was asked, would you prefer fossil fuels to biofuels – and he said he’d prefer fossil fuels. We’re not there yet. We believe biofuels are better than fossil fuels… If we’re going to have a fuel running a combustion turbine, we’re saying our preference is to have biofuels. I say biofuels are better than fossil fuels. Some people say they don’t think they’re a great idea, but they’re a minority.”
A Contrary View
Life of the Land has had a long and distinguished history of protecting Hawai`i’s environment. Under Henry Curtis’ leadership, it has put itself at the forefront of energy conservation issues as well. If Curtis and the other leaders of Life of the Land are harshly critical of HECO’s proposed use of biofuels, does that mean they’ve turned their back on some of the most critical environmental issues of the day, such as global warming and climate change, generally seen as the result of burning fossil fuels?
Far from it, Curtis says. “There are several types of biofuels, with the most common being ethanol and biodiesel,” he said. “When we asked about other types of biofuels, they expressed total ignorance. So when they talk about biofuel, the really mean only ethanol and biodiesel.
“It’s our understanding that biodiesel is worse than naphtha. Look at the destruction of rainforests in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brazil. Rainforests are being cleared to grow palm for palm oil. To claim that biodiesel is carbon-neutral is out and out wrong. If they’re going to buy biodiesel from Indonesia after rainforests have been decimated, that is not remotely environmental.”
In a phone interview from Berkeley, Patzek made much the same point: “If you want to burn biofuels, especially biodiesel, you’ll end up burning soybean or oil-palm-based biodiesel, which will be produced in Malaysia and Indonesia. The carbon costs of these fuels is remarkably high. In order to clear the land for plantations, they are actually burning and removing virgin forests. Those forests, especially in Indonesia, often stand on very thick layers of peat. The peat dries up and oxidizes, usually through burning, releasing vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere. If you look at a single burning event – say, in fall 1997, which I’ve documented – emissions from that event equal half of all emissions from the entire global population.”
As to his comment that it would be better to burn biomass directly in the HECO plant instead of biofuels, Patzek said, “I do not think that biomass is the answer to insane energy consumption. It could be the answer if we use one-tenth of the energy we use today. If we do that, then I’ll talk about biomass.
“But if we’re going to be insane, we’re somewhat less insane if we convert biomass directly instead of going through the long route of using fossil fuel and other resources to arrive at a fuel that we then burn. That’s actually insanity squared.”
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 17, Number 8 February 2007
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