Letters to the Editor
August 10, 2007
Biofuel refinery, plant need
PUC approval
Only part of the story was told in "HECO biofuel generator gets OK"
(Star-Bulletin, Aug. 7). The $143 million price tag covers only
engineering costs and excludes interest payments.
Eighteen would-be parties have requested getting into the new Public
Utilities Commission wheeling docket, which will look at leasing
arrangements for electric grids to transmit renewable energy. Energy
efficiency programs are being taken away from the utilities and
transferred to a new Energy Efficiency Utility in January 2009, which
might sharply reduce demand and flatten the load. Either of these might
eliminate the need for the proposed power plant.
By law, Hawaiian Electric Co. can bill the ratepayers only for
construction and interest costs if the plant is built, used and
necessary for utility operations. If the plant is PUC approved and
built, but not required, the stockholders and not the ratepayers would
pay for it.
Life of the Land sponsored the only biofuels expert at the PUC
evidentiary hearing last December. Tadeus Patzek testified against the
proposal and HECO refused to cross-examine him. In uncontested
testimony, Patzek noted, after accounting for all effects, that burning
biofuels at the plant was environmentally worse than using some fossil
fuels.
Both the proposed power plant and the proposed BlueEarth Biofuel
Refinery need further PUC approvals before either of them can be built.
Henry Curtis
Executive director
Life of the Land
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