• Speak up about the proposed rate increase • Laboratory breeding Speak up about the proposed rate increase I am troubled by the direction in which our electric co-op is headed. We already pay the highest electric rate in the
• Speak up about the proposed rate increase
• Laboratory breeding
Speak up about the proposed rate increase
I am troubled by the direction in which our electric co-op is headed.
We already pay the highest electric rate in the state and KIUC has the audacity to ask for a 10.5 percent rate increase when many Kauaians are having trouble paying the electric bill now.
Do you know that KIUC wants to invest in a $70 million gas/oil turbine (Gen X)? Could there be a connection between that costly purchase and their proposed rate increase? Another revelation: KIUC now gets an incentive (money taken) from the extra money that we pay for oil on our bill (ERAC) each month. An increase in oil price means more money for KIUC. But they are willing to drop the incentive if they get the rate increase.
A renaissance of renewables is sweeping the globe. Whole countries, cities and communities are priding themselves on “going green.” They understand that dirty air, health issues and the potential catastrophes of global warming are all exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuel.
They are investing in a clean future — renewable energy, for themselves and for our planet. The state and HECO (provides energy for much of Hawai‘i) have resolved to build no more new oil power plants. Guess what? KIUC has been exempted from that ruling.
Which renewables is KIUC planning and promoting? According to the charts they displayed at the August informational meeting, only one: biofuels. Oh yes, they say, biofuels can be burned instead of oil in the existing turbines as well as the proposed GenX power plant and that will fulfill our sustainable energy quotas (along with 6 percent from the longtime, existing Wainiha hydro power plant).
What about energy from the sun on Kaua‘i? No shortage of that. Where is the plan for a photovoltaic power source with battery back-up?
Good luck on biofuels! The PUC just turned down HECO’s request to import biofuels. How does that relate to KIUC? We don’t have enough biofuels available on the island now and would have to import them at a much higher cost than oil (if the PUC allowed it) so that means we would be stuck with oil for energy. And we all know that the oil prices can hit the ceiling at any time, as it did last year when our electric bills doubled. It’s inevitable: the question is when?
So you can see that this proposed rate increase is just the tip of the iceberg and some of us are trying to chip away to find out what’s at the core. We need your help. What do you want to say about a 10.5 percent increase for your electricity?
Please send in testimony or show up at the public hearing to testify at 6 p.m., Tuesday, at Wilcox Elementary School cafeteria, 4319 Hardy St., Lihu‘e. All written statements should refer to document No. 2009-0050.
E-mail: hawaii.puc@hawaii.gov. Mail: Public Utilities Commission, 465 So. King St., Room 103, Honolulu, HI 96813.
Gabriela Taylor, Kapa‘a
Laboratory breeding
Interspecies, pesticide-producing food, “just a modern method?”
Every living thing has some miraculous way of bringing together two sets of blueprints to make a new and unique offspring. Nature’s design has gone to great measures to prevent the crossing of unrelated species.
What is disliked about corporations is that they lobbied for the ability to patent life. Corporations now own and control resources like grain, soy and seed oil crops. They can charge as much as they want for something farmers used to get for free.
As biotech corporations manipulate genomes, they do very little to protect the traditional varieties.
Healthy farms thrive on diversity; each seed/each plant varies a bit. They are a diverse community of genes. Open pollination is a sharing of genes. It is better than identical twins pollinating each other, over and over. Ever notice how that gmo corn across from Kukui Grove is all the same?
Cell invasion with viral promoters and antibiotic resistance markers is completely different than traditional breeding and comes with many unintended consequences. You cannot tell a gmo seed from a non-gmo seed just by looking.
Thoughtful groups of people across the world have created bans on genetically modified fields and we should too. Consumers avoid genetically modified food and farmers cannot afford the ever-rising cost of gmo seed and chemical inputs.
The byproduct of small, sustaining farms is healthy soil, clean water, diverse genes and pure, vitamin-rich food. It’s a win-win for Kaua‘i. Many lucrative jobs will be created when we move towards replacing that 95 percent of imported food that we buy, with food and value-added products that we grow and sell locally.
Jeri Di Pietro, Koloa
