Hawaii Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) Import Options?

The following resulted from a recent Kauaians for a Bright Energy Future conversation with Victor Cloutier on Kaua'i [have edited it down to take out sensitive information]:

Subject: Hawaii natural gas import options

Hi Brad,

Here's the State of HI LNG import options report...

https://www.eere-pmc.energy.gov/states/Hawaii_Docs/FGE-Evaluating_Natural_Gas_Import_Options_for_Hawaii-Revised.pdf

Here's the pdf document on the natural gas report I mentioned. Seems to me that Hawaii is aligning to import natural gas down the line. That would fit well with the very high concerns the state has for the future of energy on the the islands, and the slow pace of renewable development. From my earlier research years ago, the U.S. in general was preparing to move into natural gas to supplement the drop in available petroleum... Seems to me it's inevitable that LNG will be shipped to the U.S. in very large amounts beginning within a few years, 5-10 years max. It would work well to help stabilize the price of petroleum, and keep the U.S. economic engine on life support longer. Looks like Hawaii is doing some ground work on it. I got the idea that it would be interesting to look into the ship builder companies and see what kind of contract they have for LNG tankers -- are they starting to build more of those (which would support the theory)... As you can see from the report below, Hawaii is taking a clear and realistic view of it, quietly. Did anyone say LNG vehicles, micro-turbines, generators, bicycles, household appliances??? It's not totally clear to me if KIUC is planning for LNG although their turbines can burn it...

Availability of LNG on Kauai and micro-turbines could enable large users to go off the grid (cheaper to produce their own energy, easy to get permits due to low/no emissions)... With high-end glassmat batteries (http://www.dcbattery.com/agmtech.html, fast charging, wide discharge range); I would run a small 10k micro-turbine (small silent turbines that run on air bearings) for a few hours per day, store my power to batteries, run off batteries for whole day; my net rate would be lower than KIUC, probably. This plan would work well for groups of homes (i.e. village power) where we have distributed micro-turbine power (running all day), store excess power in batteries for higher loads in evenings...

By the way the State of HI has also done some studies on how much bio-renewable energy we could produce in Hawaii, and using all available lands there still would be a shortage of energy for the current energy consumption -- and we are Hawaii, a place very rich in renewable resources! Like peak oil people keep saying, it's nearly impossible to replace petro with renewables... the only close option is LNG, which is in the works as far as I'm can tell. Apparently there's a 40+ year of supply, based on current liquid fuel consumption, assuming with would replace petro by 5-10% per year over 10-20 years, then level off as the main fuel for some 20 years (as per plans), lasting some next 40 years in all before starting to drop off in favor of new tech renewables. That is the plan how I read it in 2002. With a lot of research, new tech, and investment in renewables, there may be some changes in the long term plan for energy in the U.S. Nonetheless, as evidenced in the pipeline development in Europe, LNG is very likely still in the mix for the U.S. and good chance for Hawaii as well. I figure that over the next 5 years we'll start seeing some stuff in the media about it, feeds into the mainstream.

Here's the State of HI LNG import options report...

https://www.eere-pmc.energy.gov/states/Hawaii_Docs/FGE-Evaluating_Natural_Gas_Import_Options_for_Hawaii-Revised.pdf

Victor Cloutier