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HECO, HART, hydrogen. These three H’s offer a flexible, future-friendly way out of Honolulu’s worsening transport and energy morass.

To explain the concept, assume NextEra doesn’t buy Hawaiian Electric. Assume also that the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) project ends at Middle Street. In that case, the third H — hydrogen — could square things.

Hydrogen could be imported to Hawaii instead of environmentally-backward liquid natural gas. Hydrogen can power transport, produce electricity and serve as a battery.

Hydrogen would pull Oahu’s (and Hawaii’s) economy into the 21st century. If Hawaii is truly serious about reaching its 100 percent renewable energy goal by 2045, hydrogen is the path. But how?

In coming years, HECO could import hydrogen to Barbers Point instead of single-generation, carbon-intensive LNG as a replacement for oil. HECO could do this in partnership with Hawaii Gas. Hawaii Gas operates a natural gas-hydrogen pipeline that largely parallels HART’s route.

Tanker-delivered hydrogen piped to shore at Barbers Point and turned into electricity at a new hydrogen power plant built there could progressively supplant HECO’s oil-burning Kahe Point power station. Kahe Point now provides roughly one-third of Oahu’s electricity from Indonesian oil. Kahe Point would be wound down over time.

Hydrogen not used to produce electricity could be pumped by Hawaii Gas down its gas-hydrogen pipeline. That hydrogen would fuel short-term commuter vehicle rental car fleets and buses positioned at HART’s Honolulu Airport, Lagoon Drive and Middle Street stations. Those stations would provide onward surface transport to HART passengers dumped at those lonely locations by the truncated, multi-billion dollar rail system.

A ‘Last Five-Mile’ Solution For Rail

The good news is that the plan above offers the potential for a “last five-mile” solution to getting West Oahu commuters to their town-based jobs should HART get them only part way.

Honolulu Airport, Lagoon Drive and Middle Street all are in industrial areas. They could be transformed into dispatch locations for short-term hydrogen vehicle fleets. Using all three stations for this purpose would spread the rush-hour transfer load, reducing wait times.

While a bit clunky, the plan above is less so than abandoning HART before its initially-planned Ala Moana destination — an abandonment that decimates HART’s public transport rationale in the first place.

Hydrogen-fueled, hourly-use, multi-passenger rental vehicles used by HART straphangers exiting at Honolulu Airport, Lagoon Drive and Middle Street could then be dropped (among other locations) in Iwilei, downtown, Kakaako or Ala Moana.

Those locations are all slated for future HART stations. Building such capacity now puts a second bet on the table when at present there’s just one: disaster. On the Diamond Head side, dispatch/return locations also could be added in, say, Kaimuki or University.

If HART’s never completed, a hybrid HART-hydrogen system offers a reasonable solution. The alternative is continuing the current mess of cost overruns, bad execution and increased secrecy in an effort to hide it all.

A hybrid HART-hydrogen solution ultimately will make the system better. The reason: not everyone lives next to a HART station, or even within walking distance of one. Some people live miles away. For some reason, this has been treated as an irrelevancy in designing HART. Distributed last mile solutions could force needed system improvements to HART that have been overlooked to date.

Naturally, short-term rental hydrogen vehicle fleets wouldn’t be the only last-mile solution. Honolulu Airport, Lagoon Drive and Middle Street also could offer pickup and drop off space for single-person taxis, Ubers or fixed-route buses — all providing last-five-mile route flexibility.

Better yet, this capacity could be booked en route aboard HART from Kapolei to Middle Street using smart phone apps applying dynamic pricing to available last five-mile capacity. This would speed the transfer flow of passengers at the three hub stations.

The same would go for the return journey home to Kapolei. There, no sensible, high-volume, last-mile solution has been presented to getting people to and from the isolated HART station from the surrounding residential sprawl.

To keep traffic moving between Middle Street, downtown, Kakaako and Waikiki in the mornings and the reverse in the afternoon, Nimitz Highway and other clogged arteries could be fitted with Singapore/London style congestion pricing devices.

A Fourth Pillar For The Hawaii Economy

At present, the average Honolulu car-commuter wastes 88 hours a year sitting in traffic. Valuing that time at $15 an hour (a low figure), multiplied by HART’s 100,000 ridership estimate amounts to roughly $132 million a year. Extending congestion pricing to secondary arteries to further multi-passenger transport journeys could double or triple that number.

Because Hawaii shares no land-border with any other jurisdiction, cars from elsewhere can’t be driven here. This gives Hawaii control over the state transport fleet — both public and private. This gives Hawaii something unique: the as-yet unutilized ability to impose local technical standards on all surface transport.

No other state has this advantage. Done right, it could become the fourth pillar of Hawaii’s economy alongside tourism, the military and government. Everyone would come out ahead.

How? Hawaii could mandate a shift to hydrogen vehicles by, say, 2030. Given that the average motor vehicle is only owned for three to five years or so, that’s three vehicles ownership cycles from now — plenty of time.

This would spur the turnover of the Oahu vehicle fleet to hydrogen. This could be produced locally and supplemented by imports. It’s not as futuristic as it sounds.

Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries plans by 2020 to export carbon capture and storage produced hydrogen from Australia’s southern Victoria state to Kobe, Japan aboard special hydrogen tankers.

That’s the same year as the Tokyo Olympics. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government aims to use the Olympics to promote the “hydrogen society,” just as Tokyo used the 1964 Olympic to showcase the Shinkansen bullet train.

Hawaii and Japan, therefore, can occupy the leading edge of energy history.

At present, Oahu imports petroleum to create — primarily — electricity, gasoline and aviation fuel. Electricity can be generated from hydrogen. Passenger vehicles can run on hydrogen. Later on, planes may, too.

By reassessing HART and making sensible course changes now, Honolulu could turn boondoggle into boom and go from laughing stock to energy leader. Only a fool would let the chance go.