KAUMAKANI — The role coal may play in a proposed Westside ethanol plant remains a divisive point as the multi-million dollar project edges closer to its goal of breaking ground by year’s end. Lt. Gov. James “Duke” Aiona Jr., said
KAUMAKANI — The role coal may play in a proposed Westside ethanol plant remains a divisive point as the multi-million dollar project edges closer to its goal of breaking ground by year’s end.
Lt. Gov. James “Duke” Aiona Jr., said he is “pleased” with the commitment Gay & Robinson and Pacific West Energy have demonstrated in their partnership to transform a 118-year-old company from a commodity raw sugar producer to a state leader in alternative energy.
But after meeting with stakeholders yesterday at Gay & Robinson’s Kaumakani office as part of a multi-stop visit to Kaua‘i, Aiona said he remains concerned about the project’s debated coal use.
“It’s not something you automatically agree to,” he said. “There’s a matter of balancing it.”
During the hour-long afternoon discussion, Gay & Robinson President Alan Kennett defended the use of coal as a supplemental source of power to fire the boiler that will produce the steam needed to run the plant.
Some community leaders have prodded the companies’ presidents to prohibit coal. Others, such as Apollo Kaua‘i Chair Ben Sullivan, take it a step further.
“Recognizing that there is in fact a need for liquid fuels to supplement the diminishing supplies of oil available globally, it remains our position that looking for alternative sources of fuel must be made secondary to looking for ways to reduce demand for energy,” he said in a recent interview.
Aiona linked coal emissions to global warming, but said he understands the
security argument.
“We know what coal has done and is doing,” he said.
Aiona listened as Kennett and land owner Bruce Robinson touted coal as cheap, efficient and domestically produced.
“We need a backup fuel that is secure,” Robinson said, adding that he sees coal as the only option not subject to risk of terrorism or natural disaster.
“With so much coal already coming here, why deny it?” Kennett said. “It’s a shame when people cut off a potential source of energy.”
Pacific West Energy President William Maloney was more reserved, saying that he does not advocate coal, but is not against its use either.
“We’re trying to be all green,” he said, but if the company moves away from coal as the community wants, it must find another reliable supplemental power source. “That’s oil.”
The company’s state air permit, granted in April after a year-long effort, currently allows for multiple fuel sources, Gay & Robinson Director of Environmental Compliance Howard Greene said.
“Consistent with the commitment I gave the Apollo Hawaii group at a recent public meeting, our board of directors has been evaluating options to using coal as the fuel source for the ethanol plant,” Maloney said in an interview. “The most attractive option may be to modify our fuel source to bagasse and cane trash. How we might do this from an operational standpoint has been evaluated, and the timing ramifications of such a modification are now being evaluated.
“It is our desire to implement this more desirable alternative, and we are hopeful that we can physically do this and that we can count on public support for such a change,” he said. “If we can accomplish this, it would be bagasse and cane trash (tops and leaves), which are currently burned in the field prior to harvest, as the primary fuel, supplemented probably by waste oil, glycerin, a byproduct of biodiesel production and wood chips or pellets.”
It would be a “business sacrifice” to eliminate coal use at the plant, Maloney told Aiona, and the island’s energy prices would not be lowered as a result.
Although the plan is to power the plant with green matter and bagasse, a fibrous sugar cane residue, Kennett said an alternative source is needed so the company can reliably supply electricity to the utility.
The plant is designed to annually produce up to 12-million gallons of ethanol, a grain-based fuel. A later expansion into an alternative “energy plantation” will include solar power and biodiesel refineries, he said.
The feedstock supply for the plant will come from a 7,500-acre sugar plantation the Robinson family runs on the Westside. Gay & Robinson and Pacific West Energy committed to keeping the agricultural land in agricultural production while preserving 230 jobs at the plantation.
The plant will supply about 25 percent of the state’s needs for 10 percent ethanol blends, Maloney said, and a planned expansion will double this.
“Our ultimate goal is to not burn any fossil fuels,” Kennett said. “We’re working feverishly to accomplish that.”
But in an endeavor to “grow all our own energy,” he added, “Don’t stop our efforts to get there” by eliminating coal as an option.
The Pacific West president said if all goes well, they will break ground in late December or early January.
“We are hoping to have the ethanol plant in operation by the second quarter of 2008,” he said. “Engineering work in support of permits is ongoing.”
The ethanol plant will involve an estimated 15 to 20 new jobs and the cane expansion and cane processing expansion will involve 75 to 100 new jobs, Maloney said.
The cogeneration and anaerobic digesters part of the project should produce some 100 million kilowatt-hours per year in green energy in the early years, he added, increasing its capability to some 200 million kwh annually in later years.
Aiona said when he visited Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative earlier that morning, discussion included a possible partnership between the island’s largest electric supplier and the Gay & Robinson energy plantation.
KIUC has a state mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, he said, adding that the energy plantation will “help us with our commitment to the environment.”
The state offers a tax credit of 30 cents per gallon of ethanol for up to eight years. This translates to $3.6 million annually once Gay & Robinson’s 12 million-gallon ethanol plant is in production.
• Nathan Eagle,
staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or neagle@kauaipubco.com.
