I hope it works out well for him. This kind of forward thinking is something that I think gets pushed aside too often here in the US. There are some really big sustainability projects going on in the UAE and Europe so its nice to see someone here proposing a project like this, even if no ground has been broken yet. We still live in a 20th century country, with 20th century (and some older) infrastructure while a lot of developed countries are changing with the times. If he can get it to work well maybe others will get more interested in creating similar projects in the mainland.

Too bad you have to buy the whole island to be able to make fast decisions and do whatever you want. I REALLY hope it works out and shows our federal government how it is done correctly.

I hope this work also, BUT the article also does say: "...in Hawaii, agriculture faces an uphill battle to be competitive and could require Ellison to continuously subsidize it to make it work on Lanai."

Don't misunderstand me, I really do hope this works - BUT we are pointing at the Governments as the reason this isn't done everywhere. I do hope the world goes to more eco-friendly solutions, BUT it's obviously not practical if the Governments of the world need to continuously subsidize them. :) I don't want to borrow money from China to pay for my power bill. :)

Mmm... roast peasant with pineapple sauce, that's some good eatin'

Sitting in the restaurant...he looks really baked. Probably grows some incredible ganja along with all the other organic goodies there!

Keen insight...

You gotta be kidding me! The sun is always out most of the time on lanai that's why the people are so dark there. Lots of people on Oahu turning to potovolactic because gas is ridiculous expensive here. You can trap the electricity for night time use if you invest on some batteries.

Ray Dan: You have some good points. He needs to consider the long haul. I am all for solar power, but not at the expense of the people of the island. I hope he "incorporates" their needs not just his.

JoHI: Yes, the sun is out most of the time there. Its a beautiful place, but I think we both know that is not the only reason why many of the people are so dark there.

Well, it shouldn't be all that difficult, there's only 3000 people living there. Average electrical power usage in Hawaii is less than half the continental US average. You could run this island on a couple big diesel generators. The storage capacity needed for night time use wouldn't be all that large and going solar thermal potentially offers some advantages as molten salt can be stored for off hour operations of the boilers. There are a number of operating plants today in the 10-15 MegaWatt range which should be more than enough for this little island. The current power Maui Electric utility owned oil fired plant there is only 10.4 Mega Watt and my guess is underutilized. They also already have a solar photovoltaic project plant there at 1.2 MegaWatt using batteries to help sustain energy production. This is likely the plant owned by Ellison as it was originally owned by Castle & Cook, former owners of the most of the island and the Dole Pineapple plantation. Sustainable energy experimental projects is nothing new there.

24/7 solar generation requires storage capability and there are different approaches. My guess would be that his intentions are at least initially going to be backed by the existing MECO plant, and over potentially decades they could expand and take over more of the total generation while in the interim selling any excess to the utility. I have little doubt that the utility companies in Hawaii would be more than happy to play and assist in developing the technologies. Electric power there today is pretty expensive at about 45 cents/kwhr so even relatively high cost solar has the potential to be very competitive and in the long run cheaper.

I think the article is somewhat overplaying things like he intends to start from scratch and bring power to where it doesn't already exist. That isn't the case. It isn't like this is some undeveloped "greenfield" island in the middle of nowhere. Not to downplay his goals, but he's talking more about transitioning from a much more traditional model. The existence of the island today is really a leftover from the Dole Pineapple days and the only real city is what was once the plantation worker's village, most being foreign workers brought in from a variety of countries. The Pineapple business died there about 25 years ago when it became unprofitable. Tourism supports the island today. In a lot of respects, trying to develop this concept there where energy costs are about 4 times higher than the continental US averages, has potential. Realistically, his intial investment was relatively cheap rumored to be about half a billion dollars.

It would be nice to see similar models develop here in the mainland, but without significant subsidies it is not very likely to be successful. The problem is there's no profit in it if it has to be self funded. It simply can't effectively compete with tradional power generation. But we should be doing this today to better develop the technologies instead of waiting decades until it is cost competitive. I doubt that Ellison ever intends to get his money back or even see it start to be profitable, but instead is probably just motivated by the desire to see sustainable clean energy developed. It is sad that today the GOP has no problem giving billions in subsidies to oil and gas but balks at any funding for green energy. Now is the time to work at developing these things and as fossil fuel costs rise and the technology gets better and cheaper, maybe we can meet somewhere in the middle as green energy builds to the half way of supply point. If we just wait until fossil fuel energy becomes so expensive that we have little choice, it will be too late.

@iNewDay...Your comments were excellent and your closing comment is something I have been preaching for years.

Thanks.

Can it be, New Day, that you are unaware that in only 3.5 years over $90 Billion has been invested in Green Technologies from the Public Treasury! Approxamitely half of that was a total lose! That represents over 50 years of the "Oil Subsidies"!

The slowest, least efficient, most expensive way to technological innovation is through the Government!

Ted,

I'm aware of what Romney said, but like most of what he says, it isn't true. First off Romney said in one year. False, it's across his term and some hasn't actually been spent yet. Second he said more than half failed. Super false. In fact out of the $90 billion, most in guaranteed loans. (not gifts), only slightly less than $1 billion is set to be sure failures. And one of those Romney mentioned, thought to be failing, is paying back its loans. In fact, out of the $90 billion, $2.4 billion was budgeted for failures.

If Romney had only chosen wrong slightly more than 1% of the time at Bain, he'd still be there as the all time worlds greatest investor and we wouldn't have to be listening to his lies. In addition, you need to realize that some of these "green" energy subsidies are just continuations of Bush policies like the ethanol subsidies.

Fact. In 2011 the government provided $24 billion in energy subsidies. Of that $16 billion was for "green" energy, of which $6 billion went to ethanol, a continuation of policy developed before Obama was even elected. These subsidies where in the form of grants and tax breaks. Some of these grants went to universities to support research and pilot projects.

Of the "failed picks" Solyndra is real, but is was a loan. $528 million. They won't pay it back. Fact is though that the loan was initiated under the Bush Administration. (Little minor fact many forget to mention.) Enr1, a battery company, was for $118 million. The technology and the company now belong to a Russian tycoon. Some portion of this may be recoverable. Fisker, (plug in hybrids), got a $529 million loan guarantee, they are still operating, not doing great, but still viable, it is now building their cars in Finland. Whether or not any of this gets repaid remains to be seen. Tesla borrowed $465 million. They've had their problems, but their high end $50,000 sedan is now out and has gotten great reviews. They are having trouble building to meet demands for both the new sedan and the original sports car. The sedan looks like it will be profitable and Tesla claims it will begin paying back its loan ahead of schedule. And there are two other relatively small companies that could be considered failures too that Romney didn't mention. But in total, all the anticipated losses are well under the $2.4 billion allocated for losses. I might add that the successful ones pay back their loans with interest, so it's still feasible that over time, the losses are a wash.

Also note that the $90 billion was not all money given or loaned to companies. $29 billion was in energy tax credits for efficiency upgrades as part of the Stimulus. This included tax credits to established business including big ones like steel, oil, and most manufacturing. Also some of it went to regular consumer energy credits for things like upgrading insulation, windows, high efficiency furnaces etc.

My guess is that you and Romney both have no clue where this $90 billion went and I'll bet you will be a bit surprised when you see.

www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/energyjpg_734781/

The fact is that just because Romney said it, it doesn't mean it's true. In fact the odds are that if he said it, it's a lie.

Now, Mr. Crawford, you can see that I am very well aware. It is you who doesn't have a clue and is getting suckered by Romney's BS. I might also add that neither you or Mr. Romney are very good at math. Even at it's current lower subsidy levels of about $2.8 billion. (Romney's number which is arguably light depending on what all you put in that category), would be only 32 years worth, not 50 as Romney stated and you so proudly posted.

So Mr. Crawford, educate yourself. I can assure you that I am far more knowledgeable about energy than you could ever hope to be and I damn well obviously know a lot more about policy than you do.

And your last statement is 100% completely false. The very reason we are communicating this way is because the government developed the concept and the backbone of the Internet itself. A very large portion of modern technology in fact had its roots in government backed projects. I've spent a 40 year career as an electrical engineer in a variety of industries, teach, train and consult on technology and other related topics. I know what I'm talking about. Do you?

Grasshopper, everything is not always what it seems.

Yes, there are hawaiians living there. I live on Hawai'i Island, I tell you what. This sounds great from a science point of view but from a natural point of view, I dont trust this. O'ahu has already been wrecked from industrialization and the Military, our ecosystems are extremely fragile and We have seen this many times where an outsider will come with a big do good'er idea that will benefit us all only to have us recieving the bill and negative effects. Till any good comes out of this, Im extremely skeptical.

Yes, there are Hawaiians there. And I'm with Dougles. If this trashes the ecosystem and further destroys the people it is just another invasion in my opinion. I don't trust it either. I hope he will work with the people. The people should be considered above the money aspects. Would that be too much to ask just for once?

Seems like industrialization and science will not be happy until all Natives and all the land has been destroyed. I hope in this case it won't end that way, but only time will tell.

It is part of Hawaii, just that about 97% of it is privately owned.

I don't see much environmental risk in switching from burning oil to make electricity, to green energy sources like solar. If they eventually develop some economic base, it is still going to need to very energy efficient to be profitable. It is highly unlikely that much traditional industry ever takes hold in Hawaii simply because energy costs are so high and there are little captive resources. Food based industry is really about the only thing with any real potential. Even that needs to be fairly unique stuff if it is for export because transportation costs make it tough to be competitive. Agriculture needs to be low energy consuming and most likely using organically based methods. It's all about energy costs.

I don't see Ellison doing this to make money, but more to advance technology and lay the groundwork for a cleaner, greener society. I think in reality, his goals are really humanitarian based.

I have little doubt that the presence of the military has had its negative environmental impacts, but they aren't there for profit either. Unless you can grow it, almost everything has to be brought to Hawaii from somewhere else. I can understand the Hawaiians being skeptical and that's probably a good thing. I think Ellison's goals are noble and he has no desire to exploit the people or the area.

Only way it will be competitive is if the cost of other energy triples in price. Then you have the new problem that the poor can no longer afford you nice clean power and start heating their house by burning whatever they can find with no pollution control.

Besides nobody seems to include all the environmental costs of production of photovoltaic cells they just ignore the problem since its the Chinese people being poisoned

You mean other than giving millions to charity?

Yea, there is this ''myth'' that ALL rich people are evil, republican, greedy, etc. There's even a joke that the ''shortest book in the world is titled: Republican Philanthropists". :)

Obviously, some rich people are evil and greedy, but the general truth is, rich people tend to be rich because they were industrious, forward thinking, lucky, hard working, smart and they took a risk that worked out. The other truth is that the lists of the top philanthropists is pretty much the list of the richest people and of the largest corporations - so not ALL rich people are evil. :)

Warren Buffett,(Berkshire Hathaway), Bill & Melinda Gates (Microsoft), George Kaiser (Oil, Gas, Banking, Real Estate), Gordon & Betty Moore (Intel), Walton Family (Wal-Mart), Michael Bloomberg (NYC Mayor), Denny Sanford (Banking)

Bloomberg was rich well before becoming NYC Mayor; you should have had "Bloomberg" as his claim to fame, since that's the name of his business.

Hunter: And the rest of the United States doesn't? Hmmm.....

Your not alone, but maybe its time to go pick up a fishing pole and a Rifle and learn how to fish and hunt pig.

This is "pie in the sky" bull crap.

Many things we take for granted were called "pie in the sky bull crap" in the past by people like you.

There have been many "whack jobs" in the past, including all the ones that developed the "horseless carriage". Don't many of our electrical-generating plants in the US also carry the name "Edison" in some form? I think there are plenty of Edisons out there, and they will never see your comment, they're too busy being creative to waste time reading "pie in the sky bull crap", and the day is still young.

... but then forget Edison ... how about the fellow that invented all of those generators ... and the three phase current they all work with ... Tesla ... but we are with your point ... all those wackos like Arthur C. Clarke and his ludicrous idea of communications satellites ... and those nut jobs the Wrights ... imagine ... man .. flying ... ridiculous ...

Thank you for an insight into your education,bye

true, but is there a volcano on that island? ... how can you have a secret evil lair without a volcano?