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Maui likely to OK
Waena power plant
zoning plan

By Gary T. Kubota
Star-Bulletin

WAILUKU -- Maui County Council members appear ready to approve a plan that allows Maui Electric to expand its use of oil-fired generators, despite criticism from some environmentalists who favor the development of cleaner alternative energy.

The Council is scheduled to pass the zoning bill for the Waena power plant site on July 7.

The company still needs to obtain approval for the $417 million project from the state Public Utilities Commission before it begins operation.

J. Kalani English, the Council's Land Use Committee chairman, said the bill represents a compromise.

Under the bill, the new 65.7-acre site about three miles southeast of Kahului would be designated for heavy industrial use -- 32.5 acres for oil-fired turbines and the remainder for alternative energy.

"I think we took the Buddhist path of finding the middle ... " English said.

English said the Council needed to ensure that reliable energy was provided in planning for the future needs of Maui but also wanted Maui Electric to develop alternative energy projects as they become more feasible.

Sean Lester, a nuclear physicist who lives on Maui, and a number of other people want the Council to delay the decision for four years.

Lester said that within the four years, he believed the assumptions made by Maui Electric in planning the Waena site would become obsolete because of developments in alternative energy.

He said Maui Electric's plan for Waena was based on the assumption that oil-fired turbines were the most feasible alternative.

Lester said the plan was made when the price of oil was about $12 a barrel, and oil prices are now closer to $30 a barrel. "We're going off the graph right now,"Lester said.

Maui Electric president William Bonnet said oil prices have gone up and down in the past and that delay would make the community dependent on the future feasibility of alternative energy, which is "hypothetical."

He said peak demand for electricity is growing by 4 percent a year and the company will need the site by 2007. Maui Electric expects to take about six years before it can begin operating the plant.

Bonnet said Maui Electric wants to develop alternative energy projects if they are feasible and reliable.