Blogs
UHERO 101.12: What is the Value of the Environment?
By Cheryl Geslani The Earth’s environment is divided into different combinations of living organisms and their nonliving surroundings: air, water and soil. These different organic communities are called ecosystems. Humans receive benefits from these ecosystems in the form of “ecosystem services”, a term that covers a range of benefits from artistic inspiration to soil detoxification. […]
Read MoreHow Do We Manage Our Interdependent Environmental Resources?
By Christopher Wada Managing water resources requires an understanding of the linkages between key hydrologic factors and direct human influences. The problem is further complicated by the fact that water resources are often interdependent, which suggests that management should also account for ecological interlinkages. For example, a forested upstream watershed may replenish an underlying groundwater […]
Read MoreIncome Inequality in Hawaii Since Statehood
By Jonathan Page and Timothy Halliday Thomas Piketty’s best-selling tome on the evolution of inequality in the US, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has inspired us to ask—how does the distribution of income in Hawaii compare with that in the country as whole? And how has that distribution changed over time? To answer these questions, […]
Read MoreLiquefied Natural Gas: A cleaner fossil fuel that’s cheaper than oil and pairs well with renewable energy
By Sherilyn Wee and Michael Roberts Spurred by low natural gas prices and a maturing market for liquefied natural gas (LNG), Hawai‘i Gas received their first shipment of LNG in containers in early April. In phase one of the gas utility’s plan, LNG serves as a backup fuel for locally produced synthetic natural gas (SNG). […]
Read MoreManaging a Grid with Green Energy
By Michael Roberts The calculator in the last post shows that installing solar is an incredibly valuable investment for households and businesses with the physical and financial ability to do it. The gains are so large that some wonder why the state is nearly breaking its budget to subsidize what would still, even without the […]
Read MoreThe Costs and Benefits of Installing Solar PV
By Michael Roberts Renewable energy presents many new challenges at the system level. Before we get to that, it helps to first look at things from a homeowner’s perspective. The Homeowner’s Solar PV Decision If you’re a homeowner, and you haven’t already installed PV solar, you may want to look into doing it very soon. […]
Read MoreIs Monopoly a Barrier to Hawai’i’s Ascent?
By Michael Roberts In 2012 Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winning economist and Columbia University Business School Professor visited Hawaii to give the Stephen and Marylyn Pauley Seminar in Sustainability. Stiglitz discussed sustainability within the context of our depressed national economy and ongoing struggles with debt and unemployment. For our economy to fully recover, we […]
Read MoreWhy are Hawai’i’s Electricity Prices So High?
By Michael Roberts Excluding rooftop solar, Hawai’i residential consumers pay an average of about 37 cents for a kilowatt-hour of electricity. Taking refrigerators, water heaters, stoves, air conditioning and other uses into account, the average Hawai’i household uses about 18.5 kWh each day, for a monthly bill of about $205. That’s a lot, between three […]
Read MoreChanging climate conditions threaten groundwater recharge. The potential benefits of conserving it are substantial.
By Kim Burnett and Christopher Wada Results from a recent statistical exercise suggest that by the end of the 21st century, Hawaii will likely see a 5-10% reduction in precipitation during the wet season and a 5% increase during the dry season (Timm and Diaz 2009). Given that approximately 70% of normal precipitation falls during […]
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