Economy
Liquefied 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 MoreHawai‘i’s Environmental Response, Energy, and Food Security Tax (aka Barrel Tax)
By Sherilyn Wee and Makena Coffman The one-dollar increase in Hawai‘i’s environmental tax from five-cents since its inception in 1993 to $1.05 effective July 1, 2010 was a stepping stone in Hawai‘i’s clean energy progress. While in theory it serves to discourage fossil fuels (internalizing the negative externality), its major impact has been as a […]
Read MoreIs inequality actually lower in Honolulu?
By Jonathan Page and Tim Halliday The outlook for inequality and poverty in Honolulu is not as rosy as it might seem at first glance. On the 50th anniversary of the ‘War on Poverty’, poverty and income inequality are major policy issues facing President Obama’s administration and driving public policy analysis and debate. The Business […]
Read MoreHawaii’s Minimum Wage, Poverty, and Job Creation
By Carl Bonham Ten different bills have been introduced at the legislature this session to raise Hawaii’s minimum wage. According to proponents, raising Hawaii’s minimum wage is necessary to help the working poor whose buying power has diminished. In the past, UHERO briefs and blog posts have argued that the minimum wage is not an efficient […]
Read MoreIn Search of the Glass Ceiling: Deciphering Data on Gender and Wages
By Inna Cintina and Natalie Schack The gender pay gap gets a lot of attention, but what can we learn about it by looking at the wage data? The Hawaii Equal Pay Dashboard compares female salaries to male salaries over time. It breaks up the workforce into a few dozen occupation groups, and uses American […]
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