HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0847.000 1976-1980 = HERBERT T. MATAYOSHI
* •d• * MAYOR
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11V(90r
June 21 , 1978
Council Chairman Stephen Yamashiro
and Members of the Hawaii County Council
25 Aupuni Street
Hilo, HI 96720
The Hawaii Geothermal Project Development Group (HGP/DG) has
decided to formulate a response to U.S. Department of Energy,
San Francisco Operations Office ' s Program Opportunity Notice
(PON) EG-78-N-03-2047 , "Field Experiments for Direct Uses of
Geothermal Energy, " with a closing date of July 18 , 1978 .
The PON response is to be prepared, in conjunction with EIC
Corporation of Newton, Massachusetts (see "Capabilities of
EIC Corporation" and "Manganese Nodules Processing in Relation
to Utilization of Hydrothermal Resources" attached) , to pro-
pose, for cost-shared DOE funding, the construction of an R&D
process facility or small pilot plant and make evaluative
trial process runs of manganese nodules beginning in mid-1980 .
There 'are to be four (4) candidate process routes to be evaluated
utilizing the Hawaiian geothermal resource (process steam,
process water, and geothermally generated electricity) .
This program is attractive to us for the following reasons :
(1) it demonstrates a significant commercial use of our geo-
thermal resource, (2) it may, with a successful demonstration,
establish further the cost effective reasons for locating
nodule processing on the Big Island of Hawaii , (3) it will
provide us with environmental data on the processes from actual ,
scaled runs of various methods under consideration, (4) it may
provide an R&D facility for future evaluations of other mineral
processing opportunities that may present themselves, and (5)
it may provide undersea mining, geothermal developer, landowner
and other commercial interest a means to indicate their support
and/or participate in the funding.
HGP/DG has taken the initiative to contact the various undersea
mining consortia to solicit their expressions of interest in
the program and to explore the possibility of their subscribing
P�-
Comrn No. 8./7
File No. M R y
M. BL Na,
Gate �t 11 1 1 q7R
COUNTY OF HAWAII • HILO, HAWAII 96720
,
Council Chairman Stephen Yamashiro
and Members of the Hawaii County Council
Page 2
June 21 , 1978
to it for the source of a test supply of manganese nodules. (See
listing of contacts attached. ) Further, the major Hawaiian land-
owners with geothermal potential and other commercial interests
have been solicited to subscribe to the cost-shared funding of
this estimated $3 . 3 million program and facility.
The envisioned program will take three years (1979-1981 FY) to
accomplish its objectives. The evaluation results of the
trial process runs should be available to guide first genera-
tion plant design criteria and environmental review require-
ments that are now expected to be considered in the early 1980 ' s .
The period to formulate an appropriate and acceptable response
to the PON is extremely short (effectively one month) and the
subscription requirements for test materials and partial fund-
ing are substantial , that it will take a maximum of cooperation
and quick response to accomplish timely and effective submission.
This letter is written to inform you of this program effort and
its potential benefits to our geothermal resource development and
to seek your support. Attached yoy, will find a proposed resolu-
tion that commitment this proposal that I hope you
expressing _
will favorably entertain and adopt. .
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MAT4YOR
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Attachments \A-,;•a-2e