2024-10-30 Tawn Keeney MD Testimony GP 2045

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embraced in converting waste to energy, placing hydrogen energy paradigms and waste management into County energy policy direction for the 20+ year interval until 2045 is inappropriate. There is no question that controversy exists over these energy strategies. It is not inappropriate that the current administration would take initiative toward careful examination and even endorsement of a perspective on these strategies. However, before enshrining their perspective as foundation for County policy over a 20 year period, a pedestal that the General Plan offers, that administration must undertake explanation and education of the Public of the desirability of their endorsement. None of this has taken place. The administration has not explained to the public how Hydrogen will be used in a ‘net power’ strategy. The inefficiency of Hydrogen fuel cell for vehicular power is well known and is approximated at one-half to one-third the number of vehicular miles traveled per life-cycle energy consumed when compared to battery electric vehicles. A vehicular hydrogen infrastructure would be exceptionally expensive and a commitment which the 2000 Hydrogen vehicles as opposed to over 900,000 electric vehicles (and rapidly becoming less) cannot justify. The inefficiency and infrastructure demands have led to abandonment of the vehicular hydrogen model. Whether Hydrogen should be visualized as back up grid storage, with longer capacity than current battery technology, is questionable and the subject of significant debate, particularly with the advance in battery storage capability. Any ‘Green Energy’ produced on this island should be applied directly to the grid with battery back up before diverting it to ‘storage’ in the form of Hydrogen production at a significant loss of efficiency for grid purposes. Producing Hydrogen from, for instance, virtually unlimited geothermal might make sense as an export product, but for grid back up on this island converting ‘firm’ geothermal energy to Hydrogen would be superfluous as well as inefficient. And geothermal may become a realistic energy resource on all islands. Hydrogen may have certain acknowledged applications in replacement of fossil fuel power such as maritime shipping, fertilizer production, possibly mass transit or trucking, and high heat applications such as foundry or steel production. These applications are in contention also. However, before Hydrogen is advocated as a basis for societal ‘net power production’ at the level of directives of the General Plan, the administration should be transparent and vigorous in its explanation to the Public of how this application of Hydrogen’s potential will take place, well before its endorsement in the General Plan. Waste to energy strategies need clarity for the Public also. Perhaps the administration has been convinced of the desirability of a waste conversion strategy involving a pyrolysis process. This has been opaque to the public consequent to a non-disclosure agreement made by the County. However that opacity should preclude this process as being foundation for Waste to Energy commitment enshrined in the General Plan, which should be available to the assent of the Public. If the Waste to Energy commitment in the Draft Plan (I use the term commitment because the General Plan should not be a document of Advocacy) is the more traditional burning of trash (most likely at the Pepeekeo Hu Honua facility) then this needs to be clarified. It is my limited second hand understanding that the Hawaii County Council has twice considered and rejected endorsing proposals of a waste to energy strategy, once in the Kim administration and once in the Kenoi administration. It would not be appropriate to place this in the General Plan if such controversy exists. Its presence