Hawaiian Coal-Fired Plant Being Converted to Burn Biomass

August 28, 2008 | 7 Comments

U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka and U.S. Representatives Neil Abercrombie and Mazie Hirono helped launch Hawaii's newest renewable energy project at a Hawaiian blessing ceremomy for the Hu Honua Bioenergy Facility in the community of Pepeekeo, on the Big Island's Hamakua Coast.

Financed, operated and majority-owned by MMA Renewable Ventures, the 24-megawatt (MW) power station will convert locally grown biomass into electricity, supporting the state’s target of 20% renewable energy by 2020.

Local union leader Rickard Baker, division director of ILWU 142 Hawaii, said that more than 95% of the area’s residents approached have signed a petition in support of converting the coal-fired plant into a biomass-to-energy facility.

“Like its name, which means ‘to come out of the earth,’ Hu Honua turns to the land to effectively and sustainably meet Hawaii’s power needs,” said Dan KenKnight, director of Hu Honua BioEnergy LLC. “Projects like the Hu Honua Bioenergy Facility play an important role in shifting Hawaii’s energy mix away from imported petroleum toward renewable sources. Our partners at MMA Renewable Ventures bring to the project the management and operational expertise needed to ensure that Hu Honua continues delivering reliable clean energy for decades to come.”

Supplying energy directly to the regional utility grid, Hu Honua will deliver enough for approximately 7-10 percent of the island’s total energy needs. Employing plant materials that otherwise go unused, the power plant will stimulate the local agricultural industry and prevent tens of thousands of tons of green waste from taking up scarce space in Hawaii County’s landfills each year, according to Hu Hona BioEnergy. The project is also expected to create hundreds of local jobs.

"Projects like the Hu Honua Bioenergy Facility play an important role in shifting Hawaii's energy mix away from imported petroleum toward renewable sources." -- Dan KenKnight, Director, Hu Honua BioEnergy LLC

7 Comments

Cecil Marks
June 9, 2009

This plant is all wrong! It does not take advantage of the current Biomass gasification technology which is 70% efficient in producing electricity. The process they are using, burning wood to heat steam to turn a turbine, is only 20% efficient. So Hu Honua is wasting half the trees they are cutting. At the rate Hu Honua is planng, the Eucalyptus forrest on the Big Island will be depleted in 2 years and take eight years to regrow. The current oil plants are 50% efficient, so they are just creating more pollutants. Also, Hu Honua is trying to get exempted from clean air standards because the plant has a grandfathered permit. The plant would put out over 5000 tons/year of pollutants when the new standard would require less than 250 tons/year.

I am in favor of Biomass and other renewables, but this one smells ...literally. Hu Honua is just doing this for the credits.

Amy Charles
June 3, 2009

This plant is a crock! See www.KeepOurIslandClean.com to find out the real truth about Hu Honua trying to reopen this plant. They have used dirty politics to get started up, starting with Senator Akaka and other politicians. Their blessing ceremony was closed off to the local community including a guard at the gate to the plant. They have not considered the impact on the island at all. The supposed biomass will come from other parts of the island, trucked to this plant to make energy not needed here but on the other side of the island. How efficient is that? They have lied and told half truths to get this rusted-out old relic from the sugar plantation days to reopen. None of the stories about Hu Honua are accurate. Our community has finally started to realize that and are taking action. Please go to our website. Mahalo.

jae ires
January 1, 2009

These guys are re-starting an aging power plant within 200 yards of children. The parent company of MMA renewables, MMA - has been delisted from the NYSE and there are several class action lawsuits for insider trading and cheating stockholders. The company's stock went from $25.50 a share to about a dollar.
You can readc about it in an article at
http://www.bigislandweekly.com/articles/2008/08/06/read/news/news08.txt
part of the article
"So who is Hu Honua? According to Tim Lasocki, MMA Renewable's vice president of wind and bioenergy business development and project finance, Hu Honua is co-owned by ERH and MMA, with ERH being the technical side and MMA being the financial backer.

This is another thing Pepe'ekeo residents are concerned about.

Between June 8 and July 16, Muni Mae's stock plummeted from $25.55 per share to $1.25, allegedly due to claims of filing false earnings reports and insider trading. The company has been de-listed from the stock exchange, and is now being sold over the counter with pink slips. According to Business Week magazine, Muni Mae is embroiled in nine different class-action lawsuits based on claims of Securities and Exchange Commission fraud and insider trading.

Additionally, the asphyxiating lender has retained the services of Bermuda-based Lazard Ltd., a specialist in mergers and acquisitions, to "consider strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value, including but not limited to the raising of capital through the sale or recapitalization of business units and additional asset sales." ("Municipal Mortgage Mulls Options," press release, 6/26/08).

In short, Muni Mae is having a fire sale."
Not exactly the type of people you want to have as neighbors or to tie your energy future to.

Jon Reese
August 29, 2008

"Projects like the Hu Honua Bioenergy Facility play an important role in shifting Hawaii's energy mix away from imported petroleum toward renewable sources."

-- Dan KenKnight, Director, Hu Honua BioEnergy LLC

Which is nice and all...but the article refers to a converted coal fired plant. Last time I checked, coal ain't petroleum.

David Sofio
August 29, 2008

@Mark: though there were plans ready for a garbage-to-energy project for the urban center of Hilo, the Big Island council voted to kill it early this summer, baffling many residents, since there aren't any viable long-term plans to deal with burgeoning landfills (short of letting them get bigger). In the much bigger urban area of Honolulu on O'ahu, something similar took place - the evolving "plan" is to contract to barge our garbage to the Northwest, up the Columbia river, to commercial landfills there.

Mitigating this offensive plan to pay top dollar and use fossil-fuels to ship our trash "somewhere else" is a very late plan by the city to expand the existing H-power garbage-to-energy plant to allow it to accommodate our growing waste stream.

Sadly this key issue receives attention approximately in proportion with its political sex-appeal. Unlike the absurd, mind-bogglingly-expensive fixed-rail plan the mayor is determined to force down our throats [sexy as hell since everyone is directly affected by daily traffic] - but very much LIKE the issue of our ancient, sieve-like sewage systems, all but abandoned until, say, a record-setting spill makes national news - it's a matter of what area of focus gets city politicians re-elected.

When you can't get around because of traffic-jams and your touted solution is like buying buggy-whip futures, and you have to ship in 80% of what you consume and now you're looking at paying to send it out again, and your sewage system is held together by bubble gum and bailing wire, what you have is the antithesis of "sustainable."

Yet that's still the favorite buzzword.

Kim Hanna
August 29, 2008

I hope they are using the system that produces char as the byproduct; so they can sequester & return carbon back to the soil

mark windsor
August 29, 2008

I wonder what they're doing with their municipal waste on the Big Island?
It's great that less biomass is going to the landfill but why not burn household waste as well (once it's had all recyclable and reuseable things removed) - many countries are too slow off the mark in this area and need to learn from countries like Denmark where they have no landfills.