Your Questions About Solar Generators Hawaii
Sandy asks…
Poor planning ? Power crashes on Oahu ?
In my opinion, the systems are far from terrorists proof ! Look when most of the N. east crashed….8 reactors simultaneously shut down also ! Is this what happens when we give these contractors/engineers a blank check ? By the way do the Hawaiian islands have any nuclear reactors ? Obama is crazy if he thinks coal is the ticket out of our energy shortage !
admin answers:
He doesn’t think that coal is any kind of solution, someone has totally mis quoted him to you. But to your question in the case of Hawaii, why not solar, wind and ocean current generators?
Jenny asks…
Is this a good essay?
In the 21st Century we use oil and gas for transport, to produce electricity, as well as for many other things. We would not be able to survive without oil and gas, and when the supply runs out civilization as we know it may fall apart. People don’t know how to live without oil, we use it for everything. Hawaii is the most oil-dependent state in the nation, according to the US Department of Energy, we use imported petroleum for 90% of our energy. We pay the highest prices for electricity and fuel.
When oil was first discovered there was so much of it that people thought we would never run out, but of course that was wrong. We know now that the world’s oil reserves will run out soon. The oil in our earth was formed by natural geological processes which happened millions of years ago. Oil consumption is over 30 billion barrels a year and demand continues to be out of control.
The only solution is to find different resources that are renewable that we can rely on. Almost all renewable energy comes either directly or indirectly from the sun. Sunlight can be used for heating homes and other buildings, generating electricity and hot water heating, and all different kinds of uses for homes and businesses.
Energy from the sun can be used in many ways but usually people have a “solar thermal hot water” system that they use to heat water. Also you can install photovoltaic “PV” panels to produce electricity. The solar panels have solar cells that convert the sun’s energy into electricity. In Hawaii there are rebates and tax incentives for installing both, solar hot water systems and PV panels.
There is a endless supply of wind in Hawaii. The Department of Energy says that, “Good-to-excellent wind resource areas are fairly evenly distributed throughout the islands.” Wind holds unlimited potential as a clean, renewable energy source. Wind turbines can be used to power individual homes, or they can be connected to a utility power grid. When utility’s use wind power they build “wind plants”, which are large numbers of wind turbines built close together. There are already some wind plants supplying electricity to people on Maui and the Big Island, and there are plans to construct more wind turbines on Lanai, Molokai, and Oahu.
Geothermal energy uses the Earth’s internal heat for all kinds of uses, including producing electricity, and heating and cooling buildings. You can also use plants as a source of energy. Organic matter that makes up plants is known as biomass. Biomass can be used to produce electricity, fuels, or chemicals. Geothermal electricity production is used in Hawaii, a HELCO power plant supplies 20% of the Big Island’s energy needs and they plan on making it bigger.
Biomass is used all over Hawaii, H-POWER (Honolulu Project of Waste Energy Recovery), runs a “garbage to energy” power plant in Honolulu, it burns garbage to produce electricity, which it sells to HELCO. Materials that do not burn are recycled. The plant produces 8% of Oahu’s electricity and lowers the amount of trash going into the landfills. In Hawaii we use agricultural waste to produce electricity as well.
The ocean is a very powerful thing that can produce energy from the sun’s heat and mechanical energy from the tides, currents, and waves. A process called Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) uses the heat in the Earth’s oceans to generate electricity. Tidal turbines look like wind turbines, they are used to convert tidal energy into electricity by forcing the water through turbines, moving a generator. We don’t use this resource as much as we should here in Hawaii. Wave power devices extract energy directly from surface waves, some systems are in deep water, and they use the bobbing motion of the waves to power a pump that creates electricity.
Hawaii‘i has all kinds of natural energy sources, we have lots of sunshine, strong winds, fast-growing plants, raging rivers, geothermal heat, and warm and cold ocean water. All of these resources have the potential to help make energy and lower our dependence on imported petroleum. I think Hawaii should use more hydropower. Hydropower is using the energy in moving water to produce electricity. The force of a waterfall, river, or wave spins a turbine that turns a generator that produces electricity. We live on an island, we are surrounded by water!
admin answers:
You need an adult to proof-read this…
I saw some grammatical errors. You have good organization, but you need to make sure you have transitions between paragraphs!
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