Rocks with energy

Have you even wondered where energy can come from? There's the sun, oil, wind, as well as from the wall outlet and even good old fashioned human labor. Those are all sources of energy, which we all use everyday. Some places can get energy easily, where others might have to use energy to create energy. Hawaii is one of those places where they have to use energy to create energy. Located in the middle of the Pacific ocean, there are few resources the the rest of the world easily uses to create energy. Coal, oil, or even nuclear energy; those things are scarce out in the middle of an ocean.

What Hawaii does have plenty of is renewable energy: solar, geothermal, wave energy, wind, bio-fuels, and even refuse derived fuel (i.e. burning trash to power a turbine). All of these things have the potential to power Hawaii's energy needs. On the other side, Hawaii imports oil to fuel public power plants to generate Hawaii's energy needs which varies due to the cost of oil. Because of this Hawaii has a unique opportunity to develop the technologies to effectively harness renewable energy as well as implement programs to eliminate energy waste that would both reduce the amount of energy that Hawaii uses.

Through this, the government is developing and implementing programs to reduce energy wastage and thus saving the government money as well. By creating energy efficient homes and promoting energy conservation, the government can reduce its energy needs and burden on the community which would reduce the energy needed to be produced from local power plants.

Hawaii is almost 40% owned by the federal government and burdening the power plants to produce the energy needs of its residents as well as the government. This also allows the government to work closely with local power plants to reduce the energy wastage that occurs. They also can fund projects that can be quickly implemented or created which can show where energy is wasted as well as how to reduce energy consumption. Model homes, which could be offered to military families to monitor energy usage can be developed and an accompanying study on the usage and energy wastage would show what needs to be fixed or changed.

Hawaii is a unique location where not only the government has a good location for testing energy efficient designs, but also to develop and research alternative energies across a broad range of renewable energy sources.