The "space frame" on the Gateway project at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii is intended to make people ask, "What's that?" says facility Executive Director Jeff Smith. The frame supports photoelectric cells and will hold up heat-conducting chimneys.
Conservation piece
New projects generate buzz
and profits at Kona's energy labTech exercise focuses on refugee relief
KEAHOLE, Hawaii >> After 30 years of childhood, the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority in Kona has finally grown up.
Like a parent urging a teenager to get a job, since 1994 the Legislature had urged the 870-acre facility next to Keahole airport to become self-sufficient.
The operating budget finally went into the black last year, said NELHA Administrator Jacqui Hoover.
The number of people employed by the facility's 34 tenant companies and organizations is expected to jump to 500 next year from 300 this year, she said. Gross sales in 2002, the most recent year available, were $16 million.
Driving the growth are basic human needs for energy, food and water, said facility Executive Director Jeff Smith.
The fastest-growing industry at the facility is desalinated, bottled deep-sea water.
Food, in the form of fish, abalone and other seafoods, has long been a staple of tenants.
And energy research, the original reason for creating the Natural Energy Laboratory, is getting a renewed boost.
In September, opening ceremonies will be held for the $4 million Gateway project at the entrance to the facility. The Gateway center is intended to educate people on "distributed" energy -- small, alternative energy projects instead of dependence on large, centralized electric grids.
The opening of the center will also serve as a birthday celebration for NELHA, founded in 1974 to develop ocean energy in the same year that America suffered an energy crisis due to restrictions on oil production by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Because Keahole sits at a point where underwater land slopes sharply down into the sea, it was a place where warm water could be piped from the surface of the sea and cold water could be piped from near a half-mile deep.
A process called ocean thermal energy conversion, or OTEC, used the temperature difference to produce electricity. The process worked but it was uneconomical back then.
The facility is now considering new OTEC proposals that would create up to 10 megawatts of power, Hoover said.
But for many people, the future will mean hydrogen power, Hoover said.
Although hydrogen gas as a means of powering automobiles is not yet economical, the means to make it safe are here now.
Hoover is especially eager to make the Gateway center an education location for children.
The strange design of the center, two spidery webs of steel called "space frames" supporting photovoltaic cells at an odd angle, is also designed to attract adults, Smith said.
The expectation is that people will say, "What's that?" then drive in and find out, he said.
While energy research is being renewed, the original reason for the Keahole site, water, is gushing.
Asian bottled water companies have discovered that customers back home will pay a premium for desalinated deep-sea water from Hawaii.
Koyo USA is leading the way with grand opening ceremonies tomorrow for its new 75,000-square-foot bottling plant on 30 acres, an expansion of its year-old facility.
Heading the Koyo sales effort is Yutaka Ishiyama, who announces that his company's Mahalo brand water is "mysteriously good."
It sells in Japan for $6 for a 1.5-liter bottle, delivered straight to the consumer's home. Koyo's production is already sold out for the next two years.
Desalinated water is also available from deep water off Japan's own shores, but from only 1,200 feet deep instead of 2,000 feet, and without the name Hawaii on the label.
Koyo is one of five companies already at NELHA, and a sixth has just signed to do business there, Hoover said.
One reason for the expense of the water is the cost of electricity to pump it out of the sea.
At Kona Blue Water Farms, company President Dale Sarver is preparing to bypass that expense by returning fish to the ocean.
Sarver began a successful business as Black Pearls Inc. 12 years ago, then diversified into food fish about five years ago.
A lot of on-land research at NELHA with fish native to Hawaii convinced him that kahala was the best choice, delicious and highly prized in the Japanese market under the name kampachi.
After more than three years obtaining permits for six 60-by-80-foot cages a half-mile offshore, he is now ready to take tank-raised juveniles and grow them to market size after the cages are constructed beginning in August.
This success comes after starting his company on just a 10-by-10-foot patch of ground at NELHA. "Where else in the world could you do that?" he asked.
Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority
www.nelha.org
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The photo logo of the Strong Angel II event shows American workers with Iraqi children, left, and Iraqi men, right, who repaired a drinking water facility. At the center is a Big Island navigation light that will double as a temporary communications tower during the July 17-22 event at Keahole, North Kona.
Tech exercise in Kona
will focus on refugee reliefSome equipment featured at the
event will be donated to Hawaii County
KEAHOLE, Hawaii >> Shortly after initial military success in Iraq last year, humanitarian organizations entered the country to help rebuild it.
"Everybody comes flooding in to help them. That way may not have been the best method," said Gay Matthews, the Big Island coordinator for an effort to find a better way.
Starting Saturday, a one-week joint military and civilian effort called Strong Angel II will be held at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii in Kona, demonstrating how technology can coordinate relief in areas ravaged by war or natural disasters.
The event is named for the original Strong Angel exercise held near Waimea in 2000, in which military personnel practiced dealing with "refugees" -- actually, role-playing Big Island residents.
Navy doctor Eric Rasmussen, who organized the first exercise, is also heading Strong Angel II. The July 17-22 event will stress technology demonstration rather than role playing.
Matthews said a relief effort encounters questions like, "Who is sending medical supplies from what country, and where do they need to go?"
Computers keep track of those details, but computers can't do the job where there are no phone lines to servers.
A company called Groove Networks, a major participant, is providing software that doesn't need servers, Matthews said.
Another problem is shelters for relief workers or refugees. There will be demonstrations of 30-foot-long buildings made of plastic frameworks covered with sheets of plastic that can be set up in 30 minutes, she said.
At least some of the demonstrated equipment will be donated to Hawaii County at the end of the event, something county Civil Defense director Troy Kindred is looking forward to.
"This is a learning exercise for me, also," he said.
A public open house for the event will be on July 22. The Natural Energy Laboratory is hosting the event because education is one of its mandates, said laboratory Administrator Jacqui Hoover.
Strong Angel II
www.strongangel.telascience.org
