Dollars and Sense

Two years ago, the State (DBEDT) estimated that the interisland cable would cost taxpayers and/or ratepayers $1,000,000,000 (one BILLION dollars.) Castle & Cooke and First Wind have estimated that their components of this project would cost $1,000,000,000 ON EACH ISLAND.  Today, some estimate the costs to be double that original estimate.

The total costs for this project, estimated two years ago before a single shovel touched a piece of Hawaiian soil, equals $2,300 for EVERY HAWAII RESIDENT.  With federal and state tax-based grants, tax credits and tax-based loans, and with all the cable costs falling back on HECO ratepayers, THE TOTAL COST TO TAX AND RATEPAYERS WILL BE $2.3 BILLION DOLLARS — all for perhaps 4-6% of O’ahu’s electric demands.

Assuming an average cost of $35,000 for installing photovoltaic panels on the average Hawaii house, $3 billion dollars could cover 85,000 homes (about 1/2 of Oahu’s total) thereby saving about 200,000 barrels of imported oil every year.  For the cost of just the cable ($1 billion) every household on Oahu (158,000) could have solar hot water, saving about 415,000 barrels of imported oil every year.

Using the publicly announced figures for the recently approved Big Wind term sheet, were Castle & Cooke to build all 400 MW of wind-generated power, and were they to produce at the level projected by HECO, David Murdock’s privately held, California-based company’s annual revenue — for selling the wind — would exceed $150 million dollars.