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You may have heard that folks from the Department of Energy (DOE) are coming back to town. They’ve released a 1,350 page , upon which you can comment through July.

But since the first public hearing is on May 12, I’ve taken the liberty of selecting some highlights for you.

This PEIS contains volumes of rich information, just about anything you could want to know about electric vehicles, battery storage technology, biomass, geothermal, solar, water quality — you name it.

Although the many figures, tables, and lists littering this document are a bit mind-numbing, it’s very searchable. If I were a teacher of any grade past the third, I would fight to have such a reference guide in my classroom. Kudos, DOE!

This PEIS is so encyclopedic because, according to DOE, it is not making any decisions in or through the document, it only means to create a “guide” for itself to use when pondering how to spend our tax dollars for us in the future.

Though as far as the state is concerned, private developers will use the PEIS “when project-specific EISs are prepared” or “tiered off” of this one. This suggests we better be paying attention, since this PEIS could provide a short cut for future, more specific developers’ projects that we might not like so much.

But what’s most interesting about this PEIS is what’s not in it. Although there is a lot of chatter about an undersea cable as a potential transmission opportunity, DOE utterly fails to mention that this is not a new idea.

In fact — with significant DOE support — we have been trying to take energy from one island and ship it to another by undersea cable for just about 34 years now. (Fortunately, someone had the foresight to capture this rich history. (See and ).

But is there any mention in this PEIS that we have been here and tried to do this before? No, not even a footnote.

So here are a few points to consider as you prepare for the public hearings:

-Between 1973 and 1981, the DOE contributed $10.8 million to geothermal exploration efforts, but it wasn’t until 1980 that Hawaiian Electric (HECO) and the state submitted an “” to DOE to conduct the “Hawaii Deep Water Cable” program; they wanted to explore sending excess geothermal energy to Oahu.

DOE’s estimated contribution to study the of the deep water cable was said to be $22 million.

-In 1982 Parsons Hawaii prepared a definition and schedule for the Department of Business and Economic Development and Tourism (now DBEDT, then DBED), that noted $1,208,831 in federal funds would be required in phase two of the deep water project; Parsons thought the cable would take 5 years to complete and be operational by 1990.

-In 1986 and 1987 both and acknowledged significant support provided by the DOE to the deep water cable project.

-In 1988 the Washington Post printed a front-page story, “,” by Dan Morgan, detailing efforts by HECO and an Italian cable company, Pirelli, to secure millions in congressional earmarks for the project.

Morgan wrote that business and political entities in Hawaii — with “financial help from the Department of Energy” — had settled on producing geothermal energy and exporting it via the deep water cable as a “centerpiece” of the state’s energy strategy.

At least one source, Northwest Economic Associates of Vancouver Washington, estimated the geothermal-cable project could cost close to $4 billion.

In 2009, Robert Kaiser’s book, “So Damn Much Money,” devoted most of to the Morgan story and noted that the Pirelli cable company stood to gain millions if the cable deal had gone through.

-Then, in 1990, several environmental groups sued the DOE (), claiming the government should have prepared an environmental impact statement (EIS) for what they described as a “major federal action;” they argued the geothermal Deepwater Cable project had been improperly characterized in four phases to avoid environmental assessment.

The court agreed this was a “major” action, and subsequently stopped any further expenditure or participation in the project by the federal government until an EIS was prepared. The court estimated that a total of $49.7 million in government funds had either been spent or earmarked, $24 million of which was for the deep water cable phase.

-By 1995, litigation at the state level ended with a settlement, in which the state terminated the project and agreed to “not support, proceed with, participate in, or directly facilitate” any geothermal project that might be exported from the Big Island during Gov. Ben Cayetano’s term(s) of office.

And that’s how things stood, until Gov. Linda Lingle, HECO, DBEDT and Hawaii’s Consumer Advocate signed — with DOE’s Bill Parks looking on — the of 2008.

This agreement effectively displaced geothermal with wind, but kept the undersea cable. After all, just like the geothermal deep water cable proposal, what good would hundreds of massive wind turbines on Lanai and Molokai be if there was no way to get the energy to Oahu?

The DOE continued to spend our money. In 2011, DOE’s Steve Lindenberg gave a on DOE’s assistance in promoting the energy agreement in which he said that: “$17 million in Department of Energy HCEI investment is on track to yield over $2 billion of total project investment by January, 2012.”

Now, perhaps embarrassed by the vast sums that have already been spent trying to cable energy from one island to another for the past three decades, the DOE approaches the notion in this PEIS somewhat tepidly. (See PEIS 2-217; 3-188.)

Not so for its partner, DBEDT. DBEDT unequivocally states its energy strategy includes “connecting the islands through integrated, modernized grids.” (See PEIS 1-2.)

This tells me that DBEDT has already decided that an undersea cable is where we’re going, contrary to DOE’s multiple disclaimers, “Not us, we’re not picking any winners here!”

But the real question is: what exactly would we be sending over DBEDT’s Maui-Oahu cable? If it isn’t geothermal from the Big Island or wind from Lanai and Molokai, what then?

There are currently three industrial wind power producers on Maui, and MECO has been scolded for “” excess wind energy — but they recently fixed that, having lowered the curtailed amount substantially.

My guess? Some project developer has already figured out the cable makes no sense without building out at least 200 MW more wind on Maui.

And although DOE and DBEDT are carefully vague in this PEIS about exactly what type of energy might now travel between our islands (see PEIS2-216), DBEDT did recently suggest the best way to proceed building an undersea cable — and that would be in phases: “As for the long-term goal of a broader, interconnected electric transmission system, it should be pursued in a phased approach.” (See DBEDT’s comments in from Oct. 9 of last year).

So sadly, people, we have been here before.

First it was the deep water cable, then it was the Hawaii Interisland Renewable Energy Program (: Wind), which DOE now calls “defunct” (PEIS S-8).

The deep water cable ended with litigation, and Hirep: Wind ended because hundreds of you showed up at public hearings two years ago, complained loudly, and wrote thousands of comments regarding the insanity of assessing only one resource, wind, unabashedly targeted at the small, rural communities of Lanai and Molokai.

[A final note: remember the Pirelli cable company from the deep water days?

It appears that in 2005 Pirelli Cable was sold to Goldman Sachs and acquired a new name, .

I see that a company by that very name, Prysmian, is now a bidder for DBEDT’s Oahu — Maui undersea cable, via “Hawaii Infrastructure Partners.” (See .)]

So it may be that we aren’t making any decisions in this new round of the PEIS, but DOE says it wants to hear from us; let’s oblige them.

Maybe we can avoid going to court down the road. After all, it is “so damn much money” — just think Deep Water.

See you at the hearings.

About the author: Sally Kaye is a resident of Lanai, an editor and former prosecutor.

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