PNN EDITORIAL- VOTE FOR ONLY SULLIVAN AND STOKES IN KIUC ELECTIONS:

PNN EDITORIAL- VOTE FOR ONLY SULLIVAN AND STOKES IN KIUC ELECTIONS:

The ballots for KIUC Board of Directors (BOD) elections are in people’s mailboxes and PNN is urging coop members to “plunk” and for the only two people who can change the corporate governance, anti-renewable-energy mind-set of the Board - Ben Sullivan and Ken Stokes.

Just because one can vote for three people doesn’t mean you have to vote for three and voting for a third may deny election to one of the two you actually want.

All the other candidates propose to sit back and use the corporate model to deny us a low-cost home owned renewable alternatives.

The other four- including one self-nominated and three board-nominated candidates- have stated they will perpetuate the current outdated model of the typical commercial electric company where the mind-set is “We sell you a product- electricity” rather than using a renewable co-generation model that can and will avoid the high cost of building new fossil fuel plants or denying large-scale private renewable projects as “unreliable” or “economically risky” without doing real full-cost-benefit analyses.

We urge all voters to read the extensive written questions and answers
and the individual articles on each candidate as well as the interviews in the local paper.

The current governance, very apparently supported by the three current board members and petition-nominated one, has been stuck in the classic, monopolistic, electric-company model and has failed Kaua`i miserably despite allegedly being the users’ co-op.

It still serves a paternalistic view of our energy future. We need to stop that.

Through fear mongering the directors have convinced themselves that we need to be economically afraid of solar, wind and hydro on a large scale. And they refuse to even discuss how to allow, much less financially encourage, co-op members to use the existing generation and grid to invest in storage-battery-free individual customer-owned, cost-effective co-generation based on the “net metering”- aka running the meter backward- that exists in state PUC law.

No one can deny the corporate influence is ubiquitous on the current Board. They can’t seem to think about another model because of their ties. When they think about renewables they think of some massive scale project like acres of windmills, re-running rivers, or burning forests.

But, as has been proven by the highly successful, though highly corrupt, solar hot water program which encourages patrons to reduce their bills works. It has according to many estimates, take 10-20% of the load off the supply side of the supply with current technology and increasingly more as the technology improves.

Actually the solar water heater program doesn’t even do anything but subsidize “approved”, hand-selected higher-cost installers. Those companies who charge about what the subsidy is rather than twice that can’t participate.

But despite the cost the success begs the question as to why there is no similar 0% loans for photo-voltaic roofs if not windmills. The reason we don’ have the program appears to be because the solar industry fears it will lose their 100% high-cost market share if solar companies get a big pot of money. That will draw low cost competitors into the market..

It is the solar companies that stand in the way of providing each and every home-owner immediate savings with a “save as you pay” solar-panel loan program.

With ubiquitous tax breaks that go on and off at the federal, state and local levels and with a program for a windmill- even a short one- in every yard we could cut usage by as much as 50%, get a bonus to pay off the loan faster and make the construction of more fossil fuel power plants an amusing anachronism.

But if you think of your KIUC BOD job as running a corporation that sells electricity to customers rather than a coop where the idea is to decrease the amount that needs to be provided- one that, like any business must sell more and more to sustain the financial liquidity needed to provide more and more (and pay off the overpriced loan used to buy this company)- you will continue to charge 40 cents a kilowatt today and 50, 60 or 70 tomorrow as imported fuel bills rise while doing nothing for the co-op member to decrease their bills.

The “dependability” argument is absurd- how dependable is it to plan for burning more fossil fuel in a “peak oil” world?
Please vote for the only two candidates- Sullivan and Stokes- who apparently “get” the need to immediately move to renewables and, we hope, home co-generation facilities rather than selling us the type of power we don’t want and is, according to scientists and smart economists, unsustainable in the 21st century.