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February 26, 2008
At last Thursday’s Haiku Community Association meeting, the hot topic was a proposed Wave Energy Project to be located off Maui’s North Shore. Mike Gagne, President of the Ha‘iku Community Association (HCA), opened the meeting.
HCA, by the way, currently has five board members – Gagne, Tim Wolfe (who videotaped the meeting), Sandy Pflug, Daniel Grantham and Richard Lopez. They’re currently looking for two more board members; if you’re interested, you can find out more at www.haikumaui.org.
First on the meeting’s agenda was Lee Hoxie, Chair of Haiku School’s Community Council. She read an academic and financial plan that they had developed for the school, and commented on how hard people were working to prepare for the annual Ho‘olaulea and Flower Festival for Saturday, March 8.
The rest of the evening was pretty much devoted to a presentation by Ed Reinhardt, President of Maui Electric Company, and Neil Shinyama on the Oceanlinx Wave Energy Project.
Most people have just recently heard about this project; a press conference with Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle was held on February 4, 2008, formally announcing plans for Oceanlinx Limited, an Australian-based company, to provide electricity to Maui Electric from Hawaii’s first wave energy project.
Oceanlinx plans to put two or three floating platforms about half a mile due north of Pauwela Point on the northeast coast of Maui, providing up to 2.7 megawatts of energy; it could be operational by the end of next year.
The initial cost, estimated to be $20 million, will be borne by Oceanlinx and its investors. A press release says that, “Oceanlinx has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Renewable Hawaii, Inc., an unregulated subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric Company, for possible passive investment in the project.” In the same document, Ed Reinhardt is quoted as saying, “In preliminary discussions with government and environmental leaders, we have heard nothing but strong support for this project. Representative Angus McKelvey in particular has been instrumental in bringing this ocean energy project on Maui. We are planning additional meetings with community and ocean groups on Maui to assure them that this project will have a low profile and address any concerns they may have.”
And there he was at Haiku Community Center, meeting with the community.
Reinhardt began by saying that it probably seemed odd that Maui Electric Company was doing presentations on behalf of a privately owned company based in Australia; many audience members nodded in agreement. He said, “We look at ourselves as their business partner; we’ll be buying power from them. It’s part of the decision that we’ve made. We’re here to get feedback.” He mentioned that Maui Electric has looked at the idea of using electricity produced by alternative methods “for the last twelve years or so,” but that “Oceanlinx stands out.”
An audience member asked whether an EIS, or Environmental Impact Statement, would be done. Reinhardt said that yes, an EIS will be done, adding, “I think it’ll be out in a few months.”
He spoke a bit about Oceanlinx and about the whole idea of harnessing energy from the ocean, saying that this was a “completely clean” process of generating energy. The discussion turned to the subject of wind energy, and someone mentioned that Kaheawa Wind Farm windmills have to be powered by diesel generators when the wind is low, but that waves never cease.
Reinhardt then showed a short video made by Oceanlinx, showing a prototype wave energy platform that‘s operating in a bay near Sydney, Australia. The film showed a diagram of the platform, explaining how it functions.
Reinhardt mentioned that they would be “boring into the ground” in order to install the platforms; they are secured by cables anchored to the bottom of the ocean. He said they would be in 90 to 150 feet of water, about half a mile to a mile offshore, and that the platforms are about 90 to 100 feet long, 65 feet wide and about 30 feet high, but you only would see “the top portion.” They would be “about as loud as a vacuum cleaner, but you probably wouldn’t hear it from shore because of the wave action,” Reinhardt said. “We’ll probably have three units together to start with, and will probably need additional permits to add more.”
In answer to more questions from the audience, Rienhardt said that if they expanded, not all the platforms would be off Pauwela; there is another location they’ve been discussing, “near Kapalua, past Honolua Bay,” but that “the infrastructure there would have to be underground; it would cost millions just to connect the platforms to shore.” He said, “we’re looking at tying into an existing line we have here (near Pauwela), we’ll have to use larger cables and will probably change out the poles.”
There was some discussion about the visibility from shore of lights on the platforms at night, about the possibility of large amounts of fish being attracted to the platforms, and about the possibility of using this technology to desalinate water.
The meeting ended with Reinhardt inviting more questions; this is only the beginning of the public discussions regarding wave platforms.
For more information on this, visit www.oceanlinx.com or www.mauielectric.com.
For information about the Haiku Community Association see www.haikumaui.org.
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Jan Welda
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