Hawaii: "Go Green" seems so far, but doable.

Hawaii is known as the one of the "addicted" consumer of oil for its daily energy consumption. 77% of energy consumption in Hawaii comes from oil, compared to the tiny 1% amount in the mainland. Because of its addiction to the oil, the cost rate consumption in Oahu is 2-3 times higher than the mainland. Even in neighbor islands, the cost can reach to the double amount of what Oahu residents pay. The reason is that the oil is imported into the Hawaiian islands, and just because of that, oil is way too expensive in Hawaii. Not only that, but if we compare to the mainland, all the states are interconnected among each other. Therefore, exchanging energy among them is possible. However, obviously among the Hawaiian islands, the exchanging is impossible. The islands are separated by the ocean and it would hard to find a way to connect all the of them and share their energy. Each island has its own power supply plant to feed energy to every household in every island, which is rather expensive and inefficient. 

Hawaii do have a way to change the problem of oil consumption. Because of its great nature environment, Hawaii is presented with a vast major opportunities to use renewable energy. Some examples are the solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal energy. However, if Hawaii has those kind of excellent opportunities to reduce the cost of energy consumption, then why not use them? One reason is that those energy production will vary depending of the time and weather. For example, if we produce solar energy, we will need some kind of source to produce energy at night. Or maybe some days we get strong winds, some days not. It does vary. Another reason is the unequal distribution of the renewable energy. An example is the Lanai island that can produces a great amount of energy using wind farms, but actually that energy is more needed in Oahu. Finally, the high cost to build the mechanisms to produce those renewable energy is an obstacle. If it is decided to build those mechanisms, then taxes will be raised and people will most likely complain about it.  

In a way to approach the energy consumption problem, the governor of Hawaii signed an approval to initiate a project that would allow Hawaii to produce its energy using 70% of clean energy by the year 2030. It will be composed of 40% of the renewable energy mentioned above and 30% of energy management consumption. Energy management should be then promoted to all residents living in Hawaii in an attempt to reduce their daily energy consumption. Using fluorescent bulbs, taking the bus or walking to school instead of driving a car are some examples of good energy management that will help a lot in this project approved by the governor. 

Tools for researchs and creating products that allow us to manage our energy consumption are still under development. Good software programs are needed to create this tools. Therefore in an attempt to learn more about energy and software development, I will attempt to do some katas about WattDepot. WattDepot is an open-source software that attempts to contribute to help Hawaii with its energy consumption problem. I will talk about this software later on, and how I did on the katas.