Guests Cover Interisland Cable, Other Energy Issues As We Connect with a Listener in Far-Off Germany

Josh Strickler and Henry Curtis in HPR's studio.

We jokingly billed yesterday’s program as the President Obama Call-in Show, since he’s spending the year-end holidays in Hawaii and -- as they used to say in radio – was "within the sound of my voice.”

Predictably, that didn’t happen, but we did score the unusual – our first call from Europe from a listener in Germany who was following Energy Futures via online streaming. Listen to the show here: https://archive.org/details/091228-ef

Our guests were Representative Hermina Morita (at right), who was on Kauai; in the studio were State Renewable Energy Facilitator Josh Strickler and Life of the Land executive director Henry Curtis.

A highlighted topic was the planned underwater electric cable system that would link Oahu, Molokai and Lanai into an electrical grid for the first time. Neighbor islanders called with a concern that their islands would be negatively impacted by development of 200+ megawatt wind farms that would feed power to an energy-hungry Oahu.

The first show of the New Year next Monday will be dedicated to transportation energy issues. Our intended guests will discuss development of an alternative to petroleum-based jet fuel and the latest plans to create a fleet of electric vehicles in the islands.

Energy Futures was broadcast "live" 5-6 pm HST Mondays on KIPO-FM (89.3 in the islands) and on the Internet via streaming, but the show was discontinued when unpaid volunteer producer and host Doug Carlson returned to his communications consultancy full-time in early 2010 and took his passion for renewable energy with him.