Island Voices
Energy resource could lie in sugar

By Ed Flavell
Resident of Kihei, Maui

Here in our Hawaiian Islands, we have a renewable-energy resource that might be made economically viable by modifying our mindset and existing facilities: Change the operation of a sugar plantation and its associated processing facility to optimize for the production of energy rather than having sugar yield come first. Modifications that might be considered are:

• Don't burn the cane in the field. Harvest the leaves as well as the stalk. Burn the leaves in addition to the bagasse that is now burned to produce steam and run electric-generating equipment. A&B's Maui Mill now furnishes a significant portion of Maui Electric's power.

• Ferment cane juice and produce high-proof ethanol. Some of the ethanol might be shipped to an Island oil refinery to be blended into gasohol. It could be sold to the refinery at prices competitive with imported oil. With suitable modification, some might be used in existing power-generating facilities. Low-pressure steam discharged from turbines would be available for distillation.

• Convert the engines on trucks and agricultural machinery to run on ethanol.

• Analyze agricultural practices to optimize energy production. Consider other varieties of cane, time between harvests, fertilizer types and amounts, watering, plant spacing, etc. There is probably much to be learned by a review of the considerable data in the files of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association.

Sugar production would of course not be ignored. It would simply have a partner sharing administrative and overhead costs as well as equipment. A dual facility might have sufficient advantages from scale to enable to sell sugar into the world market profitably.

There would be considerable capital investment associated with an operation of this type just as with other renewable-energy sources. This one can put former sugar-growing acreage into operation with no land acquisition costs. Mill sites can be reactivated and field and mill operating personnel re-employed. Farm machinery can be put back into use. Fallowed topsoil can be re-anchored with a viable crop.

From an environmental standpoint, the operation is a zero-sum proposition with regard to greenhouse gasses. The plants take carbon dioxide from the air, we manipulate the carbon to serve our interests, and the eventual burning or fermentation puts the same carbon back into the air as carbon dioxide.