History of Geothermal In Hawaii Part II - From Ancient Times to the Present
National Park Service image of Hawaii Volcano
By Michael Markrich RRH Copyright 2023
Hawaii has a distinct advantage in geothermal access because it is located directly over 70 million-year-old volcanoes relatively close to the Earth’s surface. The Kilauea East Rift Zone (KERZ) is said to have some of the hottest temperatures on earth. Archaeologists have found evidence that Native Hawaiians hundreds of years ago cooked food wrapped in leaves underground so they would be cooked in steam cracks at well-known sites such as Sulphur Banks, Kilauea Iki, and the Napau Crater trails. They bathed in the warm waters of a spring at Waiwelawela for health. The energy and the heat that came from hot springs was a natural part of their world.
But since then development has evolved slowly. While other countries with active volcanoes like Iceland, New Zealand, El Salvador, and Kenya make substantial use of their volcanoes for electricity. (90% of Iceland’s electric power comes from volcanoes) -at a maximum, only 31 % of the Big Islands’ power came from geothermal heat. Today as a consequence of the Kilauea eruption of 2018 the percentage is 17%.
What then has prevented geothermal energy in Hawaii from going beyond being the Island of Hawaii when it could potentially generate 1000 MW - enough energy to power the entire state? A number of social political, economic, and geographic factors. It has not been for lack of trying.
A key reason was that for many years Hawaii was a key coal and refueling station for the US Navy. Oil and coal were relatively cheap. Except for relatively isolated places where there was high transshipment by barge for loading and reloading there was little incentive to change things. In addition to this was the fact that Hawaiian Electric Company, which was founded in 1891, was a monopoly that based almost all of its power generation on coal and oil. During that colonial period when Hawaii was first a Republic and then a US Territory, control of Hawaii’s largest power company was controlled by the Missionary Descendant elite.
As Trask has said, the Hawaiian Electric executives were not interested in taking risks, diversifying their holdings, or sharing the production of power with outsiders. As for the Native Hawaiian people, Trask said that the Hawaiians received a pittance - what she described as a “ percentage of a percentage of a royalty” from power generated on their lands. They were essentially denied the development rights over properties that they considered rightfully ancestrally theirs.
The first efforts to extract energy from volcanic heat took place in Italy in 1904. By 1913, Italy inventors had developed the world’s first working commercial geothermal plant in Larderello Italy which became a model throughout the world. On the Island of Hawaii, where a volcanic observatory had been first developed in 1909, efforts were made to do similar energy development projects from Hawaii volcanos. However, these early projects were not successful and did not get the continued support needed.
During the 1960’s businessman and Kapoho land owner, Richard Lyman learned of Japanese geothermal energy projects that generated electricity. Dreaming of developing a power company that could deliver – geothermal energy via cable to the Big Island and other Islands he found investors and then dug exploratory geothermal wells in Kapoho. He called his business, Hawaii Magma Power. Unfortunately, his company did not have the right technology and it ultimately failed.
Then in 1970, the Hawaii legislature directed the University of Hawaii to try and diversify away from oil. In 1972, the state of Hawaii created a program called ‘Project Pele’ to develop volcanic energy.
Project Pele was granted $200,000 by the County and State government in the hope of getting matching federal funds.
According to the official history, as the digging was about to begin a Native Hawaiian advocacy group came forward and expressed objections that “1) the drilling might violate the religious and spiritual beliefs of the Hawaiian people and that the Native Hawaiian people should have been consulted before the drilling took place and 2) that if the steam generated by the plant was released the Hawaiians should benefit from it because the Hawaii constitution states that indigenous natural resources should be used for the betterment of the Native Hawaiian peoples.”
The objections were addressed by Keller who said 1) the drilling was not taking place on any known sacred land and 2) that the steam would never be used for commercial purposes The project stalled again.
There matters remained with scientists, government, and business people - still wanting to drill and the community unsure of what was to happen next.
Then in 1973, war in the Middle East produced the ‘Oil Embargo’ and within four months the price of energy per barrel quadrupled. In Hawaii, the reverberations were felt immediately. Gas became available to people only every other day. Under recently elected President Jimmy Carter who was a supporter of alternate forms of energy, there was a new urgency to develop geothermal sources of power and in 1976 with money from the federal government, the first geo-thermal well was given the go-ahead.
It was called the Hawaii Geothermal Project Abbott (HGP-A) and was 6,140 feet deep By 1981 after more grant writing the federal government supplied enough funding for the Department of Energy to develop a 2.5 MW plant that would feed directly into the Hawaii Electric Light Company (HELCO) grid.
At about this time, HELCO put out an RFP for a 25 MW plant and a new company came forward, to provide it, on 500 acres of Lyman land. The new company was called Puna Geothermal Ventures (PGV) As the drilling proceeded it ran into public opposition
Public friction
In order to develop geothermal energy, wells are drilled deep into the earth’s surface in search of hot water reservoirs. When the drilling reaches the heat source, the steam shoots upward which is then used by the power plant to turn the turbines in an electric power plant. After the steam has been used by the power plant, it is disposed of with the brine by either dumping it onto the ground and creating surface "ponds," as was the case at the former HGP-A facility, or putting it back underground via injection wells.
What happened in Kapoho was that people living near the PGV area during the 1980s became concerned by the smells and emissions generated during the normal drilling exploration process. As part of the drilling process hydrogen sulfide and brine containing silica and heavy metals are released.
The technology works in two ways. If it is direct then hot steam powers comes up through the well and turns the turbine. If instead, it is a binary system, a secondary fluid inside a sealed metal tube is used. This secondary fluid usually uses a fluid with a lower boiling point than water to maximize steam to turn a turbine. The chemical that was used initially was Pantene and it is toxic. (However, this is for relatively shallow wells, when deep water wells are used - there is enough heat that ordinary salt water can be used to generate steam for turbines).
When the drilling started on the Lyman land there were few living in this largely rural area but by the mid 1980s, three subdivisions had been established.
In the meantime, PGV secured a contract with HELCO to supply 25 MW of electricity. An RFP was put out. It was won by OESI Power Corporation- an American subsidiary of the Israeli Company Ormat. Ormat promised improvements but the drilling issues - which were likely typical for their kind of work continued - and so did the community complaints.
Neighbors began to complain about the drilling on the 500-acre parcel about the constant noise and the smells. They became outraged when they discovered that no EIS had been filed.
Then to make matters worse, drilling accidents took place in 1991 at drilling well KS-7 in February at a depth of 1600 feet and then at KS-8 in June 1991 where the release of steam for 32 hours resulted in more anger by the surrounding community.
Soon, people living near the area where the wells were being drilled said they suffering from respiratory and other health problems connected with the chemicals and hydrogen sulfur in the air. The concern was also expressed about fracking which could cause earthquakes.
Eventually, these complaints generated from community groups coincided with the complaints of Native Hawaiian groups that they were being excluded from the process
The community groups that raised opposition included Hui O Puna and Kia’I Pono O Puna These groups which came to be known as Puna Pono Alliance all have expressed concern about geothermal energy, particularly on the possible threat it created as a source of pollution to land and water. They filed suit. There were demonstrations. Over the years complaints have continued.
Geologist Floyd McCoy recalls that opposition grew to geothermal drilling throughout the state and kept increasing until it reached the point where discussion of the issue could not even take place in public forums.
He recalled that in the early 90s’ University of Hawaii Professor Don Thomas, who was then the State’s foremost geothermal expert was giving a presentation when he was shouted down at a public meeting at the University of Hawaii by people protesting geothermal drilling.
In the meantime, efforts were made to fulfill the original developer Lyman’s dream of sending power to other islands via underwater cables from the Big Island to Honolulu. So great was opposition to geothermal politically because of the ongoing problems that Hawaii’s legislature failed to support it. Demonstrations took place outside the PGV which Milliani Trask recalled being part of demonstrations outside the fence of the PGV plant. She said that she was not against drilling but the way it was done had to be improved.
However, the construction of the plant continued and by 1993 the PGV was operational. Complaints, Lawsuits, and demonstrations continued into 2013 when two incidents resulted in the release of Hydrogen Sulfide the Environmental Protection Agency fined PGV $76,500.00.
Despite all these problems the PGV plant would grow to what it is today a 38 MW plant. It would supply 31% of the island’s electricity until its geothermal wells were covered with lava by the eruption of Kilauea volcano in May 2018 Then it shut down.
According to the Ormat website “On Sunday afternoon, May 27th (Hawaiian time), the approaching lava from the erupting Kilauea volcano, blocked the main access road to the power plant, covered the wellheads of two geothermal wells, burnt the substation of the complex and an adjacent warehouse that stored a drilling rig,”
After this occurred some wondered whether the plant would ever operate again. The occurrence made some aware of the enormous financial risks taken by Ormat to develop the plant. PGV would take two and a half years to bring back online. In 2023 PGV continues to operate but only supplies 17% of the power on the Big Island. The cap for geothermal energy on the Big Island is currently 60 MW.
The idea of Green Hydrogen is born
By the year 2000, the promise of sending power to all the Neighbor Islands from the volcanoes on the Big Island had stalled. There was no certainty that geothermal energy would further develop
Green Hydrogen expert Stan Osserman former director of the Hawaii Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies (HCATT) says that some of these problems that affected the development of the plant could have been avoided. He said that in terms of financial arrangements with Native Hawaiians, he says “: 1) The financial arrangements between the Power Producer and the Hawaiian Land Owner should be a straightforward one, The state has a bad habit of taxing, regulating and scalping funds that should go to Hawaiians! “
In the meantime, another dream began to emerge. Some dreamers began thinking that green hydrogen might be the answer to Hawaii’s problems.
