Hawai'i's carbon footprint

Measuring our contribution to global warming

At first glance, Hawai'i's greenhouse gas output appears low to middling compared with the rest of the country. We rank 43rd among the states and 32nd in per capita emissions per resident. But our real carbon footprint-the releases of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide we're responsible for-is a lot bigger. That's because the rankings don't take into account Hawai'i's reliance on goods made elsewhere. The gases released in producing the food, fuel and building supplies we import are not counted against us. Nor are the fossil fuels burnt in transporting all this stuff to our shores.

As Pat Tummons writes in February's Environment Hawai'i, all these costs, or externalities, "are added to the balance sheet of some other state or coun-try."

Yes, we're islands. Hungry islands. And we've got big fat luau carbon feet.

Reducing Hawai'i's carbon footprint to its 1990 dimensions, as mandated by a state law passed last year, will be a challenge, as the following chart and in-dex, excerpted from EH, show.

At present, the most effective carbon reduction involves burning fewer fossil fuels by conserving energy and gasoline. For a quick look at the prospect of non-fossil-fuel energy in Hawai'i, read on.

Filling the renewable gap

State law requires utilities to have at least 20 percent of their net electricity sales generated by renewable resources by the year 2020. But nearly 90 percent of Hawai'i's electrical power came from petro-leum in 2005. Utilities are activating. Kaua'i Island Utility Co-op has committed to producing 50 percent of its electricity from renewable, non-fossil-fuel sources within 15 years. Wind farms have been built, refurbished, or are being planned on Maui, Hawai'i, and O'ahu. The City and County of Honolulu is planning to increase electrical generation from municipal solid waste. And HECO is planning to build a 110-megawatt biodiesel-fueled plant at Kalaeloa.But HECO's fuel choice is controversial palm oil. According to Greenpeace, some 1.8 billion tons a year of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is released as forests are cleared to make way for oil palm plantations. And a biofuel-spurred spike in demand is rendering this staple cooking oil unaffordable to the word's poor.

As for the cultivation of biofuels locally, William Steiner, dean of the University of Hawai'i-Hilo College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Natural Resource Management, has obtained a lease on Big Island land to undertake a demonstration project to grow varieties of oil palm here. But some oil-rich plants (switchgrass, for example) could turn out to be invasive. And in Hawaii, as elsewhere, more acreage put into biofuel crops could drive down cultivation of local produce and lead to food shortages. Plus, the burning of a E85, an 85 percent ethanol/ 25 percent gasoline mix, produces dangerous air pollution.

Still, Mina Morita, chair of the House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee, is optimistic about Hawai'i and energy self-sufficiency. "It's a very realistic goal because of the amount of renew-ables that we have," she told Environment Hawai'i. "We don't have to look at heating costs, we have minimal cooling costs - cooling is just a matter of good design, really." - Pat Tummons

How much have we already exceeded our 1990 footprint?

The Hawai'i Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism has done a rough recalculation of the 1990 figures, using updated calculations of the carbon-dioxide equivalency of several important greenhouse gases, including methane and nitrous oxide.

According to John Tantlinger, who last month retired from his position as manager of DBEDT's energy policy and planning branch, those recalculated figures show that in 1990, Hawai'i generated 24.925 million tons of CO2 equivalent.

By 2005, Tantlinger found, Hawai'i was generating 26.795 million tons of CO2 equivalents, for an increase of 7.5 percent over 15 years.

Top Source: Electric Utilities. Responsible for a third of Hawaii's carbon weight, utilities increased emissions by nearly 15 percent from 1990 to 2005.

Runner-Up: Ground Transportation: Responsible for 19 percent of Hawai'i's greenhouse gas emissions, cars and other road vehicles' share grew more than 28 percent from 1990 to 2005.

Air Transportation: While emissions actually declined here because aircraft have become much more fuel efficient, the future remains uncertain because Act 234 exempts airlines from greenhouse gas regu-lations. According to Robbie Alm, a member of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Task Force set up by Act 234 and senior vice president for public affairs for Hawaiian Electric Co., the exclusion "was done so we didn't burden the tourist industry in such a way as to drive away a portion of our economy, and therefore we exempted out aviation fuel."

With respect to military uses of fossil fuels, the data are silent.-P.T.

Energy Saving in Bulk

Kona Costco goes solar

Bulk retailer Costco has just completed installation of solar panels and skylights in six of it's stores in Hawai'i and California. The company reports it spent $745,000 to outfit each store - including including its facilities in Kona and Kaua'i.

REC Solar, the California company that installed the Mitsubishi panels, notes they are now the largest solar arrays in the state. The company says that together the two systems will generate enough electric-ity to power 250 homes, with an output of 680 kilowatts in each location.

"We recognize, like all business, that we must continue to conserve to solve the planet," Costco CEO Jim Sinegal told shareholders last month. He notes that the company likely wouldn't make it's money back from the investment for three to five years, but that other factors took precedence. "This is not something that's just nice to do anymore. It's imperative."

How Hawai'i Ranks

1. Ranking of residents of Hawai'i among all U.S. states in per-capita emissions of carbon dioxide in 2003: 32nd

2. Per-capita annual carbon dioxide emissions for Hawai'i for that same year: 17.78 tons

3. Ranking of Hawai'i in 2003 among all U.S. states in total annual emissions of carbon dioxide: 43rd

4. Millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide Hawai'i emitted in 2003: 21.5

5. Millions of metric tons emitted in 2003 by No. 1 ranked Texas and No. 50 ranked Vermont, respectively: 670.2, 6.5.

6. Countries with highest and lowest per-capita carbon dioxide emissions in 2004: Qatar (69.2 metric tons per person), Chad (.01 metric ton)

7. Ranking of U.S. per-capita carbon dioxide emissions among more than 200 nations in 2004: 10th (20.4 tons per capita)

8. Ranking of Italy (7.69 tons per capita): 52nd

9. Vehicle miles traveled annually per Hawai'i resident in 2005: 7,907

10. Vehicle miles traveled annually per Hawai'i resident in 2000: 7,048

11. Percent increase in Hawai'i per-capita vehicle miles traveled, 2000-2005: 12

12. The "emission intensity" of Hawai'i's commercial fishing fleet (carbon dioxide emitted per million dollars revenue generated): 1.596 million tons

13. The emission intensity of sightseeing buses in Hawai'i: 387.624 tons

Sources: 1-5, U.S. DOE, Energy Information Administration; 6-8, DOE Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center; 9-11, State of Hawai'i Data Book; 12-13, University of Hawai'i Economic Research Organization

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