The scientist took the mic and said something to the effect of - ‘Yo, man, I study this stuff and that sh*t just ain’t possible’ ( I’m using editorial liberty of paraphrasing the shortsighted scientist – and I hope you don’t mind). Rogers remembers being rebuffed by the scientist after stating that we would get Hawaii to 100% clean energy by 2045. This is the thing we need to have on every ‘island’ in the world is to align incentives with the utility.”Īfter the interview, Rogers told me that he was in a panel at an International Union for the Conservation of Nature conference once, along with a University of Hawaii data scientist in the panel. The price is now about half that for them to produce and store renewables…. Much of it from Libya, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. It costs them 27c per kWh to produce energy with oil. “They were making 10% on top of the price of oil (which HI uses predominantly for energy). “HECO makes more money on renewables - by legislative design,” Rogers said. And…all of a sudden, they were happy to be at the table. The trick for the renewable standard was to change the business model of the public utility, Hawaiian Electric (HECO), Rogers said, so that they could make more money in renewables. Rogers’ Blue Planet Foundation took 7 years of lobbying and educating to get the state to adopt the first 100% clean energy RPS in the country, a model that many other states soon followed, now encompassing more than 50% of the population of the United States. So Rogers set out to work in his backyard, the state of Hawaii, which, still to this day, exports more than $5 billion a year for fossil fuels to power a state that is blessed with ample wind, sun, and geothermal reserves. A saying he’s fond of is that you can’t tell someone else to clean up their room if you haven’t cleaned yours. He decided, just like that, to solve climate change. Rogers became a clean tech champion after realizing that we (and our carbon pollution) were the cause of this environmental disaster. It was his waking moment, much like the infamous reading of The Death of Birth was Ray Anderson’s “spear to the chest” moment. And at one point, the newspaper in Rogers’ then hometown of Honolulu had a piece that said that we would more than likely, in our lifetime, see the end of coral reefs. Rogers made hay in the gaming world, helping bring Tetris to the world, and then turned his attention to exploring what else was happening in the world. Recently, I had the great pleasure to sit down with one of my longtime heroes, Henk Rogers, a true climate champion, to talk about solar, storage, microgrids…all the good things. Before attending law school, Melissa worked as an environmental scientist for a Hawaii-based consulting company, managing multi-party environmental projects.Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Melissa also worked as a litigator in private practice and completed a clerkship at the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals. She has authored papers on climate justice and taught persuasive writing and legislative advocacy at Hawaii’s law school. Before Blue Planet, Melissa worked as a legal fellow assisting state agencies in Hawaii with rulemaking, invasive species law and policy, and inter-agency coordination. In 2015, Melissa led Blue Planet’s grassroots campaign to pass the nation’s first 100% renewable energy law. in Environmental Science from the University of Denver. Richardson School of Law (University of Hawaii) and a B.S. She received a law degree and a certificate in Environmental Law from the William S. Melissa Miyashiro is Chief of Staff at Blue Planet Foundation, a nonprofit organization committed to clearing the path for 100% clean energy through bold advocacy, awareness, and community action.
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