Above all, burning wood for power emits 1.5 times more greenhouse gases than burning coal for equal electricity generated. (IPCC Taskforce – Greenhouse Gas Inventories)
Hu Honua will emit 300,000 tons greenhouse gases per year, according to the Hu Honua Clean Air Permit. This is almost 1,000 tons per day of green house gases adding to climate change. Regrowth of harvested trees may later re-sequester the CO2 released, however, a government of Canada computational tool shows — factoring rapid regrowth, fuel used harvesting and transporting logs — Hu Honua’s cumulative greenhouse gas balance will be worse than coal for at least 50 years.
Second, Hu Honua will withdraw 21 million gallons of cooling water per day from the aquifer, add chemicals and heat, then inject it back into the aquifer at 88 degrees near shore (Department of Water Supply total usage, including agricultural, from Waipio to Wailuku River is 19 million gallons per day).
Third, Hu Honua will send six logging trucks per hour down Highway 19 from Pahala and Waiakea and Hamakua to Pepeekeo. Fourth, 60MW solar farms with battery storage near Kamuela will sell power to HELCO at 11 cents per kWh. Hu Honua will sell power at 21 cents per kWh.
In September, the UN Secretary General addressed the leaders of more than 100 nations. He stated, “Climate change is the defining issue of our time — and we are at a defining moment. We face a direct existential threat. Let there be no doubt about the urgency of the crisis. If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change, with disastrous consequences for people and the natural systems that sustain us.”
Write the mayor, your councilman, your state representatives, along with the Sierra Club, 350Hawaii.org, the Democratic Party of Hawaii, Pepeekeo Fishermen’s Association and Malama Hamakua. Resist the opening of Hu Honua.
Tawn Keeney is a medical doctor who lives in Honokaa.