Hawaii To Be First With Statewide Electric Car Charging Stations
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY 
on 12. 3.08
The electric car infrastructure race is on! A short while ago several mayors in the San Francisco Bay Area announced that they would be partnering with Better Place to bring electric vehicle charging stations to the area. Now Hawaii is going to do one better and become the first state to have Better Place charging stations across the entire state.
Considering that the Bay Area has a population of about 7 million and Hawaii about 1.3 million, some semantic one-upmanship is at work here, but nevertheless this is great news. Here are the details:
Statewide Charging Stations by 2012
The first of the charging stations will by open by 2011, with between 50,000-100,000 charge spots put into parking lots and alongside streets by 2012.
Hawaii was chosen for the first statewide rollout by Better Place for some rather obvious reasons: The islands are a contained environment with limited imports and exports of cars compared to other states. Better Place hopes that Hawaii can serve as a blue print for other states, to show how building green infrastructure can lead to greater job creation
Renewable Energy Will Have to Expand As Well
Currently Hawaii imports oil for about 90% of its energy needs—at a price of $7 billion annually—one third of which is used for transportation. Considering that if electric cars are going to genuinely reduce carbon emissions and other pollution (and not just shift the source of it) that the electricity will have to be generated from renewable sources, Hawaii’s going to have to get a move on tapping into its wind power, solar power and wave power potential.
via: Washington Post
images: Better Place
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It makes sense. I'm not a Hawaiian or an economist, but I've gathered that even though Hawaii is a Pacific Ocean crossroads of sorts, importing fuel is expensive and would be unusually easy to disrupt.
I've also heard that the wind is pretty steady there -- so steady that there's a windward and leeward side of the islands and quite a bit of residential wind-energy. Plus, islands are of finite size, so maybe the planning would be easier?
So, a wind-powered electric-car infrastructure might really make a lot of sense there. I can't wait to hear how it works out!
With all the wind, wave and solar power Hawaii has they would be damned fools to get sucked into the OPEC oil barons schemes! For a reasonable investment they can be oil free Quickly! It is good to see people going sustainable, renewable electric for transportation! The word that nobody likes to use when speaking of Solar power generation is "PERPETUAL" but it is true! Once a solar/electric power station is constructed, aside from maintenance costs, it is a source of perpetual, or renewable power! Yes! Like in the Holy Grail of Physics, "perpetual Motion"! We have it now, but have been thrown off by the term "renewable". Perpetual is a better word to describe wave, wind and solar power isn't it! Especially in Hawaii!
wind, wave and solar ? They have an active volcano. Why not geothermal?
The Hawaii State Government presently has no plans for developing renewable energy on the island of Oahu. Even though the electric company (HECO) has been receiving 19.2 million/year for this purpose for a number of years, HECO says that the funds have instead been used to support "pole installation". The only renewable energy plans are to build an underwater cable linking Oahu with Maui, Moloka'i and Lana'i.
Maui already has a wind farm but the power is being used for the Maui grid system. It also has plans for an Aussie company to install wave power. Lana'i has plans for a wind farm but people there say that they would like the electricity for their own island. Moloka'i would be an ideal place to install wind generators as it has the highest sea cliffs in the entire world.
Oahu needs to seriously look at producing its own renewable energy. There are good wave energy sites on the North Shore where some of the worlds best surfers come to compete. Oahu also has some good wind sites (near the Pali lookout and atop Mount Kaala at a 4,000 foot altitude) might be good to consider. Both sites are accessable by road.
If Oahu depends only upon cable power from other islands, the planning and construction of this 60-70 mile cable system will probably take another 5 years.
adrianakau2aol.com
awesome! California next?
Hawaii first to have hover-car landing pads!!!