Our Environment

Our Earth is under attack from man made pollutants. The Hawaiian islands are being affected by Global Warming. 100% of our transporation fuels and almost all of our electric energy is petroleum based. Bio - Renewable Fuels will help us become energy self sufficient.

For over 100 years, the world has been a slave to Petroleum. Wars over this addiction have killed millions of people and consumed billions of dollars. Ironically, Petroleum. has been a boom and a bane. It revolutionized industry, transportation, warfare and allowed us to explore space. Through gluttony and abuse, along with Oil . and its fossil fuel partner coal, the long term effects, global warming, may now threaten life on earth as we know it. As with all addictions , change does not come easy.

Enlightened people around the world are seeking alternatives to OIL. Even with governmental subsidies, nuclear energy has proven to be prohibitively costly, extremely dangerous and no one has figured out how to safely store its deadly waste for the next ten thousand years. Solar, wind, hydrogen and tidal technologies are in most cases not cost effective for transportation. Since most of the transportation vehicles in the world today rely on gasoline for fuel, the only logical, renewable, substitute is Biofuel Technology.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased nearly 30%, methane concentrations have more than doubled, and nitrous oxide concentrations have risen by about 15%. These increases have enhanced the heat-trapping capability of the earthÕs atmosphere. Sulfate aerosols, a common air pollutant, cool the atmosphere by reflecting light back into space; however, sulfates are short-lived in the atmosphere and vary regionally.

Global warming is in part, a thickening layer of carbon dioxide pollution, mostly from power plants and automobiles, that traps heat in the atmosphere. Global warming is no longer theory, it is a fact. Many can debate its causes, but no one can deny that is it occurring at an alarming rate. Global temperatures increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the course of the last century, and will rise at an accelerated rate over the next 50 years.

In 2005 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined that sea level is rising more rapidly along the U.S. coast than worldwide.

Many scientists believe we are at the "tipping point" or the point of no return with dire consequences. All glaciers in Glacier National Park will be gone by 2030. In 2005, the United States is the world's largest consumer of oil, using 20.4 million barrels per day, most of it imported. Burning this OIL emits CO2.

In 2005, Americans were 6% of the world population responsible for 25% of the world's emission of greenhouse gasses. In addition, the Chinese/Indian economic boom is putting more carbon into the atmosphere. Amazon and Indonesian deforestation, wildfires and burning world wide is responsible for 25% of all carbon emissions entering the atmosphere. Over 34 million acres of trees are lost to burning each year.

By 2005, fossil fuel consumption increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to an average of 381 p.p.m.; an increase of 100 p.p.m. from a century earlier.

In June 2006, Greenland ice was melting into the ocean at a rate of 53 cu. mi. per year as compared to 22 cu. mi. per year in 1996. The amount of water contained in the Greenland ice sheet is enough to raise sea levels by 23 feet. In 2005, the Antarctic Peninsula saw an increase in average temperatures of almost 5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1955. The Antarctic continent holds enough ice to raise sea levels by 215 ft by the year 2100, if all of it melts. By 2005, levels of atmospheric methane, rose 145% in the previous 100 years.

The global conveyor belt thermohaline circulation that keeps western europe and Scandanavia warm in the winter, is driven primarily by the formation and sinking of deep water (from around 1500m to the Antarctic bottom water overlying the bottom of the ocean) in the Norwegian Sea. This circulation is responsible for the large flow of upper ocean water from the tropical Pacific to the Indian Ocean through the Indonesian Archipelago. In today's Atlantic the thermal forcing dominates, hence, the flow of upper current from south to north.

When the strength of the haline forcing increases due to excess precipitation, runoff, or ice melt from the north pole or Greenland, the conveyor belt will weaken or even shut down. This slowing of the conveyor belt will lead to much colder climate in Europe and influence other areas of the global ocean.

An effect of Global Warming is a permanent El Nino that will dominate the Pacific weather, dramatically increasing water temperatures creating longer summer drought and intense spring rain in many parts of the world.

Coral Bleaching: Rising sea temperature coupled with the strong El Nino of 1998 was devastating to much of the world's coral reefs.Ê High water temperatures caused coral bleaching and subsequent death or adverse change to sixteen percent of world reefs overall and up to 46 percent in parts of the Indian Ocean. In 2005, the Caribbean was actually better off than areas of the Indian and Pacific ocean where mortality rates, mostly from warming waters, were 90%.

GLOBAL DIMMING: Fossil fuel use, as well as producing greenhouse gases, creates other pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide, soot, and ash. These pollutants however, also change the properties of clouds making them more reflective sending the sun's heat and energy back into space before it hits the earth's surface. Contrails (the vapor from planes flying high in the sky) also reflect sunlight. This cools the earth. The effects of global dimming on humans include respiratory disease, cancer, drought and famine.

In 2006, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), Chinese oil imports will rise more than six times between 2002 and 2030, from 1.7 to nearly 11 million barrels per day.

China depends on shipping for almost all of its energy imports. China's oil imports will rise by an amount nearly equal to Saudi ArabiaÕs total current oil production capacity.

The burning of fossil fuels is one of the major sources of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. Cellulose ethanol technology does not burn fossil fuels; there is a net zero greenhouse gas emission.

New technology can produce bio fuels from ANY cellulose biomass, by way of theenzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose, then simple fermentation and distilling. The process is safe, efficient, eco-friendly and converts ethanol from biomass at a very high rate. Bio fuel production plants are clean and in some cases, generate approximately four (4) time more electric energy than the plant will consume.

Hawaii Resource Library presents scientific studies and reports on a wide range of issues from Global Warming, Ethanol, Bio fuels, Hydrogen, China and Oil for your information.

Hawaii Statistics and data

US Statistics and data

2006 Report to Congress; Climate Change, PDF
2006 Report on Biomass, PDF
Congress report China Trade 2006, PDF
Berkley Report Ethanol and Energy 2006, PDF
U.S. Sugarcane to Ethanol Report July 2006, PDF
U.S. OIL Report 2006, PDF
EnergyPolicyAct-PublicLaw109-58, PDF
NOAA Global Warming, it is upon us 2005, PDF
U.S. Bio-mass report 2005, PDF
USDA corn lignorefining 2005, PDF
Lignocellulosic Report 2005, PDF
Oil and Ethanol 2005, PDF
World Oil Congress Report June 2005, PDF
Cost of Oil DOE Report, 2005 2005, PDF
US energy 2005, PDF
Energy Balance Report 2004, PDF
Biomass hydrolyisis 2004, PDF
U.S. Oil Reserve 2004, PDF
US Congress Energy Facts 2004, PDF
Ethanol Energry Net Balance Report 2003, PDF
Gasoline Profits 2003, PDF
Growing Switchgrass study 2002, PDF
Switchgrass as a Bio Fuel, PDF
Ethanol from Cellulose 2002, PDF
Brazil Ethanol report 2002, PDF
E-10 Auto maker endorsements, PDF
E-85 Guidebook, PDF
Fuel Efficiency, what and how you drive is important, PDF
Biomass and Energy report 1998, PDF
Benefits of producing bio fuels, US 1998, PDF
Sugarcane Bagasse - info, PDF
Corn and bio diesel 2006, PDF
NREL Hydrogen Fact and Fiction 2006, PDF
Canada's plan for ethanol 2006, PDF
El Nino, what is it, PDF

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Halihali mai 'oe i ka po'e lahui Hawai'i.
Ka ala nui Ea like me ke ka'awila. Imua a i hope.
Ma lela no hana like ka kou, a'ole hakaka, a'ole hukihuki,
ALU LIKE. ... Fannie Leialoha Lindsey (1992)