Over the last two decades millions of public dollars have been spent to spur geothermal energy in Hawai`i. The Department of Business and Economic Development last year summarized expenditures in a report to the state House of Representatives’ Committee on Planning, Energy and Environmental Protection. DBED reported $15.6 million in state, $36 million in federal, and $36.4 million in private funds had been spent in “cumulative funding for geothermal and Hawai`i Deep Water Cable research, development, planning, permitting and exploration.”<\/p>\n
But DBED did not count 1990 contracts. These include the renewal of its lobbying contract with Cassidy and Associates ($100,000); a $500,000 contract with Merrill Lynch to review the responses of investor consortia to Hawaiian Electric’s request for proposals; and a $29,000 contract to review the scientific observation hole program. Also omitted was $250,000 that the Department of Land and Natural Resources contributed to an emergency relocation fund for people living near geothermal wells. Another $3 million was earmarked in the 1990 budget for geothermal research. Known commitments of state money to geothermal energy therefore come to roughly $20 million.<\/p>\n
Added to this should be the cost of the mammoth public relations effort over the last three years. In 1988, Patti Cook & Associates was under contract to provide public relations services to DBED; in 1989 and 1990, Hill & Knowlton\/Communications Pacific got the job. The contract does not specify what proportion of work is to be devoted to geothermal promotion. Still, to judge from DBED’s files, that percentage is substantial. (In mid-December, then-DBED Director Roger Ulveling told Environment Hawai`i<\/i> that the contract with Hill & Knowlton\/Communications Pacific had expired, but that a new contract would be signed in a few weeks.)<\/p>\n
Volume 1, Number 7 January 1991<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the last two decades millions of public dollars have been spent to spur geothermal energy in Hawai`i. The Department of Business and Economic Development last year summarized expenditures in a report to the state House of Representatives’ Committee on … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[202],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-january-1991"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}