THE NIMBY PROBLEM

Before NIMBY, a few notes:

• The debate yesterday between JD Vance and Tim Walz was a TIE.
•  CNN showed that Walz's favorability rating went from 46% to 59%, while Vance's improved from 30% to 41%.
• Recent Veep debates have been mixed.

• 
  Here is a list of the three best and worst Veep partners in recent history.  The absolutely worst was probably Sarah Palin in 2008.  
• GOP nominee John McCain wanted to pick his longtime colleague Senator Joe Lieberman, but instead impulsively chose little-known Palin, who became a Saturday Night Live hit.  One reason is that Tina Fey played such a terrific Sarah Palin.
• Worse, Palin gave a series of disastrous interviews.

• 
  About her debate against Joe Biden, she lost, but kind of redeemed herself for her "folksy grit."  Some reviewers went so far as calling it a draw.  This is something you don't want to do, but if you are a masochist, watch the entire 1.5 hour debate.  In 2008, Biden already looked sort of old, and you got to wonder if Palin was not really Tina Fey.

• 
  As McCain/Palin lost to Barack Obama/Joe Biden by 7.3%, it was determined that the Palin Effect was only about 2%, so even as bad as she was, the outcome was not affected.
• Biggest moments of Vance vs Walz.
• I thought that Vance avoided answering direct questions, and lied or exaggerated reality a lot.  Here is a fact check of the debate.
• 
  Yesterday was also the 100th birthday of former president Jimmy Carter, the only president to reach this age.
• Yesterday was exactly 5 weeks to presidential election day.  Presidential trends.
• 14 states towards Kamala Harris:  Michigan, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, New Hampshire, Virginia,Montana, Ohio, Nebraska 2nd district, Washington, Missouri Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.  Note that "trend" does not mean that much in most states.
• 7 states have trended towards Donald Trump:  Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Minnesota, California, Arizona, Maryland and Indiana.
• FiveThirtyEight's forecast shows that Harris is projected to beat Trump in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada, which would secure victory, even if Trump wins North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona.
• 
  The death toll for Hurricane Helene has risen to 176, at least 90 from North Carolina.  
• There are many more still unaccounted for, so this figure will no doubt increase.
• 1.3 million still without power.
• The highest fatalities from hurricanes in the U.S. occurred in 1900 with the Galveston hurricane, for the death toll could have been as high as 12,000, or low of 8,000.  In tenth place was the Georgia hurricane of 1881 with 700 deaths.  Hurricane Helene will probably end up in 17th place, passing Hurricane Diane in 1955, only a Category 1, with 184.  #16 was Hurricane Camille in 1969 with 56 deaths.  I was then living in Louisiana and remember it well, for I had a few weeks earlier driven through the impacted area of Mississippi, and when I returned the following year, the coast highway had disappeared.
• If you would like to help donate to survivors from Helene, several organizations including the Red Cross and the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster are seeking assistance from the public.

I have been involved with renewable energy for almost two-thirds of a century.  My entire academic life at the University of Hawaii was devoted to some aspect of green energy, from planning to modeling to analysis to construction to operation to environmental enhancement.  From way back when, not in my back yard, or NIMBY, arguments stopped or minimized the application of many of these efforts.

Just demonstrating the use of wind power in North Oahu drew a wide range of opposition, including the Audubon Society, various local Hawaiian organizations far more interested in returning to the good old days as opposed to progress for the future, people who lived close to these facilities and more.  In the Puna region of the Big Island of Hawaii, the expansion of geothermal energy was curtailed by rain forest lovers, fanatical devotion to upsetting Goddess Pele, illegal marijuana growers and local residents.

Last week, the Star Advertiser headlined, Oahu offshore wind farm plan gets blowback.

• Aukahi Energy LLC, a subsidiary of French utility giant EDF Group, shared its vision to build a floating platform for up to 30 wind turbines between Oahu and Molokai to supply about 25% the electricity used on Oahu.  Cost of $18 billion.
• 
  This offshore wind project of from 400 to 450 mewatts, would be about 12 miles from Makapuu Point and 12 miles away from the northeast tip of Molokai.  Remember, you can hardly see anything more than ten miles at sea.
• Hawaii has a legislative sanctioned goal to generate 100% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2045.
• At the present time, nearly 30% of Hawaiian Electric's power generation comes from renewable energy, with 70% from imported oil.
• Residential customers on Oahu pay 17 cents per kilowatt-hour.  Offshore wind power would cost the utility 5-11 cents/kwh to produce.  Solar projects with some battery storage costs 9-12 cents/kwh.
• 

  Mark Glick, the Hawaii chief energy officer indicates that if offshore wind development does not happen, then oil will continue to be imported.  I commiserate with Mark.  He is on loan from the University of Hawaii, and his Manoa Campus office is adjacent to mine.

• 
  The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is preparing an auction for ocean leases in 2028 to begin operations by 2035.
• Thus, Aukahi is doing the sensible thing to first involve the public.
• Town hall meeting this summer conducted by the federal government showed mostly overwhelmingly negative reaction.  In one other session, everyone was against any ocean wind farm. 

• 
  One serious problem Hawaii faces is that our mountains (why the Mauna Kea Thirty Meter Telescope has been stopped) and oceans are considered sacred by local Hawaiians.
• A 400 megawatt offshore wind farm was in 2015 defeated, not only by Hawaiians, but the U.S. military.

• 
  Aukahi has a mitigation agreement with the Department of Defense if they proceed with the planned site, but my gut feeling is that this French effort will back-off to go elsewhere.  This same team has a planned project off the coast of New Jersey of 2800 MW to power over a million homes.  However, they have had 5 years of stakeholder engagement and completed more than 40 environmental studies.

Wikipedia has a NIMBY page.

• Applies to anything from energy projects to real estate development to rail lines to homeless shelters, etc.
• The connotation is that such residents are only opposing the development beause it is close to them and that they would tolerate or support it if it were built further away.
• There are also CAVE people/dwellers, a pejorative term for citizens against virtually everything.

• 
  Then there is BANANA, for build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything.
• Where are the YIMBYs (Y for yes) in these public hearings?
• In China, NIMBYs get jailed.  Also known to fund protests against development of rare earth industry elsewhere, so as not to compete with China.
• From 1966 NIMBYism retarded the building and later expansion of Narita Airport in Japan.

However, my experience has been contending NIMBY matters related to renewable energy.

• In Hawaii, for example, our energy costs, almost all related to fossil fuels, are the highest in the nation.
• There is a state plan to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.
• Sure, those near any energy site can be inconvenienced, but should government use its power to do what is best for the entire state?  There is a term, eminent domain, that works for building highways and the like.
  
• And what about global warming?
• 
  Mind you, we are not the only place with this problem.  Read about the NIMBY threat in Vermont. Even the Sierra Club is frustrated.
• About 160 communities have rejected or restricted solar projects since 2017, and 360 have rejected or restricted wind projects since 2015.

• 
  The whole nation is affected.  NIMBY is having an effect on President Joe Biden's green transition.
• High-power transmission lines need to connect wind and solar energy to the grid, but property owners are objecting.
• Ford wanted to build an EV battery factory in Michigan for 2500 employees, but residents are objecting.
• According to Forbes, NIMBYism is a global problem.

Typhoon Krathon made landfall over Taiwan at 105 MPH just north of Kaohsiung, and will move north, finally turning west into the Taiwan Strait, with the track heading for Shantou, China as a tropical storm.

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