Should electricity generated by geothermal or other renewable sources ever be distributed outside of the local electrical utility?
Many years ago, during Gov. Waihee’s time, there was the idea of the undersea cable. There was a 500-megawatt cable project that was to tie in the Big Island geothermal to Maui and then to Oahu, ultimately, and the cost of this thing was staggering. I think ultimately the economics just didn’t work out. I mean, who’s going to pay for that cable? Because the way I look at it, there’s a problem of chicken or the egg. Because to make this project viable, you had to have geothermal developed so that you could have 500 megawatts of geothermal and then you use the cable to transport the electricity you have generated. But for a geothermal company to go and invest the funds here to make 500 megawatts, you’ve got to have a market. Now, you don’t have a cable yet, so you’re not going to develop here. Then again, you’re not going to put in the cable unless you have your electricity to generate, to sell to these Islands, because you’re going to end up with a white elephant, because there’s nothin
