Modern society depends greatly on energy. Cars need gasoline to go anywhere (aside from downhill). Cell phones need batteries to operate. Software engineers need electricity to power their computers so that they can write blog entries. While this dependency upon energy is not necessarily a bad thing—cars, cell phones, and software engineers certainly offer their conveniences—this relationship between society and energy does create the potential for problems. Hawaii, as a very unique place, has unique strengths and weaknesses in working with energy.
At first glance, Hawaii would seem to have several severe disadvantages when considering energy needs. Being an archipelago rather far away from any typical sources of energy does make certain options unviable. Oil, which is what many people automatically think of when asked about energy sources, is not naturally found in Hawaii and must be imported. The same is true of many other raw materials used in energy production. Since these materials must be imported, they are much more expensive in Hawaii than in other locations. The fact that Hawaii is comprised of a number of islands also makes them divided, unable to easily share what energy they can produce with one another. These islands are also different from one another in many respects, such that a solution that works on one island may be unworkable on another.
There also exist concerns about the usage of land on which energy development might take place. As with most land issues, there are those who own the land, those who think they own the land, and those who know that they do not own the land but want everyone to think that they do. Across all of these situations though, there is the need to carefully consider a wide range of factors when constructing facilities for energy production. The islands of Hawaii have a very limited amount of land for development, so any plans to use the land must be well thought out. Residents may not want to live near a power plant, or fertile land may be better used for agriculture.
On the other hand, the Hawaiian Islands also provide certain unique benefits and opportunities in regards to energy development. Hawaii offers a great variety of renewable resources. While Hawaii does not always fit the tourist ideal of bright sunny skies, solar energy seems to be a common choice for alternative energy, especially for residential areas. Geothermal energy is also a possibility at the State or county level, though trying to use it for individual houses would be questionable (though as with anything involving heat and particularly magma, it would certainly be interesting; a moat of lava would probably be effective at keeping trick-or-treaters away).
Even the negative characteristics of Hawaii in terms of energy development can be turned into positives given the right frame. The current cost of energy provides an incentive to find some cheaper sources of energy, and the cost of those alternatives compared to those of more conventional methods certainly seems much more appealing than it might otherwise. The limited, isolated nature of the Hawaiian Islands can also serve as a positive factor in that the energy needs are also relatively limited.
Energy production in Hawaii offers several opportunities for software engineers to participate in research. Researchers will often benefit from having tools that can analyze the data that they obtain. The data itself is just numbers; software engineers can present that data in a meaningful form not only to the researchers but to the participants and even to the general public. Software engineers can also help in providing quality assurance tools to verify the data that the researchers gather. With the amount of money invested in this sort of research, ensuring that the results are valid becomes extremely important. On a larger scale though, most of the research on energy focuses on hardware solutions: building a particular power plant, or monitoring fluctuations in energy use in different locations. Software engineers can add a software-based perspective to solving energy problems. For example, given the problem of the lights in houses being left on throughout the night, a hardware solution might involve light bulbs that are energy-efficient and circuits that automatically shut off after a certain amount of time. While this works, the hardware solution is also rather inflexible—if the user wants to keep the lights on, he or she would have to manually turn the lights back on each time the lights automatically turned off. In contrast, a software solution might involve a program allowing the user to select how long to leave the lights on before automatically turning off, with the ability to make exceptions in special cases or account for variables, perhaps giving warnings at intervals before the lights are automatically turned off.