From Honolulu Weekly
by Joan Conrow | Aug 24, 2011

The viability of the controversial $3 billion “Big Wind” project may be undermined by the global climate change it is intended to help mitigate.

Preliminary plans call for building dozens of windmills on Lanai and Molokai to generate some 400 megawatts of power to be transmitted by undersea cables to Oahu. The goal is to reduce the amount of imported oil that Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) is burning to make electricity.

Much of the discussion about the project–known officially as the Hawaii Interisland Renewable Energy Program, has focused on the cost, non-competitive bidding procedures and mounting opposition from Lanai and Molokai residents. But a key question remains: as the global climate changes, can Hawaii count on having brisk, steady trades to turn the windmills?

According to researchers, the question may not be fully answerable right now, given the complex nature of wind and current limitations in modeling the climate system.

State Climatologist Dr. Pao-Shin Chu, who is also a professor of meteorology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, conducted a study last year on the number of trade winds days in the Islands. “We did find there [has been] a significant drop in trade-wind frequencies at major airports in Hawaii over the last 30 years,” he wrote in an email. “At present, it is hard to say for sure this phenomenon is caused by the global warming, although it cannot be ruled out.”

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