This Plant Can Power Grids, Planes, Poultry And Cattle. Hawaiʻi Isn’t Sold
An unusual coalition of Hawaiʻi airline executives, farmers and ranchers, and fuel refineries is eyeing a new crop they hope will be almost as big to the islands as sugar was in its heyday.
The Hawaiʻi Renewable Fuels Coalition sees the camelina plant, a brassica and close relative of canola, as a multi-win crop. Farmers could plant it between food crops to improve soil and its seeds can be harvested and pressed for oil, while a byproduct of that processing can feed poultry and cattle. The oil, in turn, can become eco-friendly jet fuel.
That plan would help Hawaiian Airlines achieve its lofty but looming carbon emissions goals, while also paving the way for the state’s 2045 decarbonization targets. And the livestock feed byproduct would fill a gap in Hawaiʻi’s agricultural supply chain.
But the coalition’s ambitions to plant and harvest 100,000 acres of Hawaiʻi’s agricultural land — almost as much as the acreage currently planted in the state — has met with resistance from legislators, in part because the coalition has asked them to approve up to $20 million in annual subsidies for local fuel production.
The legislation is hanging on by a thread, awaiting scheduling ahead of a Friday deadline in the House Finance Committee, whose chair Rep. Kyle Yamashita is known as a fiscal conservative.
Senators have taken issue with the tax credit’s almost singular focus on the Par Hawaii refinery in Oʻahu’s Kapolei, having already killed one related piece of legislation earlier this month. The refinery’s recent $90 million investment to produce sustainable aviation fuel, lawmakers said, is proof it’s a worthwhile enterprise that doesn’t need state investment.
And some concerns, including from a former Par Hawaii employee, are being raised about whether the subsidies actually will trickle down to benefit the farmers and travelers as promised by the fuels coalition.
But Par Hawaii says the local program to produce eco-friendly sustainable aviation fuel from camelina oil will benefit the islands’ airline passengers and farmers. A majority of the fuel would be used by Hawaiian Airlines toward its self-imposed goal of net-zero carbon neutrality by 2040.
The coalition hopes that adding local feedstock will eventually win legislators over by boosting the local agricultural economy — a consistent concern for Hawaiʻi as it works towards greater self-sufficiency.
The coalition says the credit is needed to account for the inflated cost of doing business in Hawaiʻi, as well as closing the cost gap between fossil fuels and sustainable aviation fuel. The sustainable fuel costs between two and five times more than conventional aviation fuel.
“We think the cost to produce this here, in Hawaiʻi, is likely to be more expensive than overseas,” Par Hawaii President Eric Wright said. “We need something to get the industry off the ground.”
Wright acknowledged that the prospects in the Legislature are dim but said in an email to Civil Beat that the coalition is “still committed” and may look at other legislative options to reduce the cost of renewable fuels.
Any subsidy will ultimately benefit travelers because fuel accounts for about 25% of ticket prices, said Alanna James, chief of sustainability initiatives at Hawaiian Airlines.
“I think, for us, we would like to keep air travel affordable here in our state,” James said, “especially since we’re so dependent on air travel for so much here in Hawaiʻi.”
Sustainable Fuel, Lifting Off
In an executive order, Gov. Josh Green has this year doubled down on the state’s drive towards its own renewable energy and 2045 carbon neutrality goals. Par Hawaii views itself, and the sustainable aviation fuel, as an important facet of those goals.
For decades the state has investigated the potential of feedstock crops for fuel and energy production, identifying sugarcane, eucalyptus, pongamia, sunflower, kukui and sorghum, among others. But few of them have proven to be economically viable.
Most of the feedstock used to make the aviation fuel will be imported, Wright said. “But we’re really excited about trying to develop crops here.”)
Hawaiʻi’s annual jet fuel demand sits between 600 and 700 million gallons per year. The new Par Hawaii refinery can produce about 36 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel per year.
Last year, the worldwide production of the fuel, according to the International Air Travel Association, reached about 343 million gallons.
The coalition is experimenting with camelina for many reasons, including that it already fueled a Delta flight between Minnesota and New York in September. The crop can also be grown in sub-optimal soils and requires little water.
That, according to the coalition, warrants greater state support for crop trials and tax credits.
“Similar to other green industries like solar and wind, these new industries need government support in the near term,” James said, and to eventually “compete effectively with conventional fuels.”
Making It Pencil Out
Aloun Farms staffer Winnifred Marcos Green rubs tiny seeds between his thumb and forefinger, the fruit of one of the thousands of camelina plants carpeting a two-acre test plot on Kauaʻi’s south shore. The waist-high, spindly plants surrounding Green have shed their yellow flowers, already going to seed.
Once those seeds brown and dry out, they will be pressed for oil. And the protein-rich byproduct, called seed cake, will remain. It will be abundant if the group realizes its 100,000-acre goal, which is why agricultural interests are part of the fuels coalition.
Pono Pacific Land Management is currently running trials at some of the islands’ largest farming operations. Harvests so far show the crop’s sow-to-harvest cycle sits at around 70-80 days, weeks shorter than on the mainland, and the average yield is 1,200 pounds of seeds per acre. About 30% of that weight will be oil, while the remaining 70% will become seed cake, says Chris Bennett, Pono Pacific’s sustainable energy solutions vice president.
Bennett hopes Hawaiʻi’s pigs and cattle will take to the cake because the whole plan “does not work if there’s no animal feed.”
A lack of locally grown animal feed has for years been a sore point for Hawaiʻi livestock producers, due to the cost of importing feed to the islands. The feed shortage is a key reason why most of Hawaiʻi’s cattle are shipped to the mainland at 10 months old, to be finished and absorbed into the national beef supply. That process, standard in the Hawaiʻian industry for about 30 years, is cheaper than importing feed to the state, ranchers say.
But if the group plants and harvests 100,000 acres of camelina annually, that could yield 800,000 pounds of camelina seed cake, a huge amount of feed to support animal agriculture.
Bennett has been traveling the state to give out samples of the cake to poultry and cattle operations.
Haleakalā Ranch and Meadow Gold Dairies are among the most interested, as part of the Hawaiʻi Renewable Fuels Coalition. The Hawaiʻi Cattlemen’s Council is also intrigued by the prospect, managing director Nicole Galase said.
“We’re always looking for ways to make sure we have more feed options,” Galase said. “It only increases our resilience as an industry.”
The feed represents an additional income stream for farmers as a cover crop, which are planted between food crop harvests to maintain soil health. Pono Hawaii is unsure how much farmers might fetch per pound, although Bennett said it would likely be an additional income source as farmers typically plant cover crops anyway to keep their soil healthy.
But large agricultural states such as North Dakota, Minnesota and Montana are also growing the crop, gaining state and federal support to build the sustainable fuel supply chain from farm to airplane, in line with the national Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge, which includes lifting the national annual supply to 3 billion gallons by 2030.
Once mainland enterprises flesh the supply chain out and build capacity, mainland sustainable fuel prices could drop lower than Hawaiʻi’s, according to Paul Bernstein, an economist with the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization.
“It could be another story of mainland supply becoming cheaper” than Hawaiʻi’s supply, a familiar tale in the state’s agricultural history, which contributed to the demise of sugarcane, among other crops, Bernstein said.
Ted Metrose, a former Par Hawaii staffer, is also skeptical of the proposals, having opposed similar tax credits last year. Metrose, a whistleblower in a tax-avoidance-related lawsuit filed by the state against Par Hawaii, has raised concerns about the lack of guardrails in the bill.
Metrose said the bill is “basically a facade” because it subsidizes all sustainable aviation fuel, produced from both locally grown and imported feedstock. There is no guarantee the savings will be passed on to farmers or air travelers, he added.
Pono Pacific is nevertheless testing out camelina crops at Mahi Pono, Meadow Gold and Aloun Farms, rotating it between crops of onions, sweet potatoes and sweet corn, to assess its viability across Hawaiʻi’s microclimates. And the farmers’ interests are piqued.
Lawmakers Skeptical Of Need For Subsidy
The Senate’s agriculture and economic development committees earlier this month killed one of two companion bills to install the tax credit, citing Hawaiʻi’s spotty history of success with feedstock investments, among other things.
The chair of the Economic Development, Tourism and Technology Committee, Sen. Glenn Wakai, was especially dismissive of the proposal, saying the prospect of planting crops to fill aircraft rather than people’s stomachs would not work.
The fuel coalition, Bennett of Pono Pacific said, does not want to replace food production. It instead wants to support it as a cover crop and source of livestock feed.
House Bill 976 still needs to be scheduled and heard before Friday to have a chance at success. If it doesn’t succeed this time, the coalition said it will continue to try in years to come.
The bill has already been refined, with the cap on subsidies dropping from an initial request for $475 million in credits available through 2036. The annual credit limit now sits at $20 million per year, about half what was initially proposed.
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This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.