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Ethanol project
approved
LIHUE >> Gov. Linda Lingle signed regulations yesterday on Kauai giving the green light to the manufacture of ethanol from byproducts of Hawaii's two remaining sugar plantations.
The regulations require 85 percent of the gasoline sold in Hawaii to contain 10 percent ethanol by April 2006. Lingle signed the regulations at the end of a speech to the Kauai Chamber of Commerce.
The governor spent much of her visit promoting two Republican legislative candidates: former Kauai Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, who is seeking to unseat state Sen. Gary Hooser (D-Kauai, Niihau); and Mamo Cummings, who is challenging Rep. Mina Morita (D-North Kapaa, North Kauai).
Lingle hopes to pick up at least three House seats this year, which would give her enough votes to block an override attempt on any future vetoes.
She said the ethanol requirement -- along with $12 million in factory construction tax credits and a bill she signed authorizing the sale of bonds -- will save the jobs of about 300 sugar workers on the Gay & Robinson sugar plantation on Kauai and even more at Alexander & Baldwin's Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Co. on Maui.
Plans are under way to set up ethanol plants on both sugar plantations, plus a third ethanol plantation on Oahu. Studies have concluded Hawaii can produce 90 million gallons of ethanol within 18 months, and eventually as much as 400 million gallons per year.
Alan Kennett, president and general manager of Gay & Robinson, attended yesterday's luncheon and said ethanol producer Worldwide Energy Group is ready to set up shop at the sugar company's processing plant.
Kennett said both the company's excess bagasse -- the sawdust left after sugar cane is processed -- and molasses -- a byproduct of sugar refining -- will be converted to ethanol.
Currently, Gay & Robinson exports molasses from Nawiliwili Harbor. Kennett said the same storage that now stores molasses waiting to be shipped out of Hawaii will be used to import molasses bought on the world market for conversion to ethanol.
Raw sugar cane also can be converted to ethanol. If oil prices continue to climb and world sugar prices continue to fall. Kennett said the day is not far off when all of Gay & Robinson's sugar cane is converted to ethanol rather than sugar.
