[ OUR OPINION ]

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Ethanol mix will help
limit imported oil

THE ISSUE Governor Lingle has signed rules to implement a requirement that most gasoline sold in Hawaii contain ethanol.

GOVERNOR Lingle has signed regulations that will put Hawaii on the road to produce ethanol to lace gasoline and reduce dependence on foreign oil. While corn is most often used for ethanol on the mainland, sugar's byproducts will be the source of Hawaii's ethanol, providing a boost to the state's struggling sugar industry. While ethanol has its detractors, the advance is overwhelmingly positive.

Ethanol's use nationally has increased significantly. Production in June was up 23 percent from a year earlier, accounting for 12.5 percent of the nation's corn crop. The country's 81 ethanol plants expected to produce a record 2.8 billion gallons this year, up 91 percent from 1999. They have a capacity to produce nearly twice that amount, and 10 more plants are under construction.

Sugar cane is the source for ethanol in Asia and South America. State officials expect a potential Hawaii market of 41 million gallons a year. Studies have shown that plants in Hawaii will be able to produce more than twice that amount before ethanol begins to be mixed with gasoline in April 2006. The rules provide that at least 85 percent of gasoline sold in Hawaii contain 10 percent ethanol.

Lingle expects the ethanol requirement to save 300 jobs at the Gay & Robinson sugar plantation on Kauai and even more at Alexander & Baldwin's Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Co. on Maui. A third ethanol processing plant is planned on Oahu.

The ethanol will be made from bagasse, the residue from sugar cane processing, and molasses, a sugar byproduct. Raw sugar also can be converted to ethanol, and Gay & Robinson may eventually use all of its sugar cane to make ethanol, said Alan Kennett, the company's president and general manager.

Detractors have maintained that ethanol production uses as much if not more fuel than it creates. However, a study released last month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that ethanol made from corn yields 34 percent more energy than is used in growing and harvesting the corn and distilling it into ethanol.

Studies also have shown that fuel efficiency using gasoline mixed with ethanol is essentially the same as that using pure gasoline, and it does not harm a car's engine, contrary to claims by skeptics. Ethanol also is cheaper than gasoline, projected at $1.25 to $1.30 in Hawaii. Unfortunately, its use is not likely to reduce Hawaii gasoline prices because of the state's noncompetitive market.

The law providing for the ethanol-gasoline mixture was enacted by the Legislature a decade ago but its implementation was stalled by the lack of such an industry in the islands. Sugar companies were reluctant to build plants until the rules were in place. Lingle's signing of the rules will start the engine.