This five mile trail is one of the most strenuous hikes on Maui. We did 1.5 miles up a steep grade with lots of lava rock and ended at the wind turbines. They have 180 foot towers and the blades are 100 feet. Probably not many get this close to them, as the hike is hard and any access roads are on private land. There are 20 turbines, installed this year, and they now supply Maui with 10% of their power.

The island of Lania from Maui

The wind turbines

Heading back. The rock formations are lava, as is most of the island.

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…Lenin’s Tomb, for their brilliant Blair firm on early polls

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Another blog is possible wonders why the antiwar movement isn’t bigger, better organized, and more influential. The huge amount of mainstream media cheerleading for the war is certainly one reason. Another is that intensity among students isn’t as pronounced as in the 60’s because there’s no draft.

They intelligently bash a hand-wringing liberal Slate article on the alleged lack of an antiwar movement, pointing out the article tries to imply that current antiwar activities are somehow ‘hippie’ in intent. Hippies apparently are now the new commies. It you can’t refute the antiwar movement with logic and fact, then slime by calling them hippie throwbacks. The article also makes the laughable assumption that SDS were hippie. Ah no. Fellow travelers to be sure, but hardly hardcore hippie.

As one who is active in the antiwar movement, I wish it was bigger. We in the ANSWER Coalition work hard to build the movement. Another blog is possible is an anarchist blog, and thus a bit suspicious of groups like ANSWER. Hey, we can’t and won’t agree on everything, but in opposition to the war(s) we stand together. So let’s avoid silly tempests in a teapot. We have lots of common ground.

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90% of electrical production for Hawaii comes from imported petroleum. In other words, the oil comes in by boat. Yikes. Not real sustainable, is it? However the state is acting fast to create renewable energy.

Just this year, new wind turbines on the West Maui Mountains now provide Maui with 10% of its energy, with plans in progress to increase that to 20%.

Hopefully they’ll make it even more than that. Power can also be generated from the movement of tides, and there’s plenty of ocean around Maui too!

I can see the turbines in the distance out the window. They aren’t overly obtrusive and are well away from homes, etc. They are deliberately painted white to keep birds from flying into them, rather than a camouflage color that would fade into the background. Wind turbines are huge and noisy, so it’s best to keep them away from people, but then most people wouldn’t want to live where’s there’s steady powerful winds anyway.

Why bring in oil by boat to generate electricity when you can generate your own without oil.

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Here I am in Maui, posting to various blogs and websites on the mainland via the broadband and wireless at the in-laws house. Being able to do this still amazes me, ditto for getting off a plane in most any city and having the cell phone work. Hey, I remember when we BBS’ers went to 2400 baud modems and were amazed by the blisteringly fast 270 characters per second transfer rate. (Note: that’s ‘characters’, not ‘kilobytes’ per second!)

One day, maybe quite soon, wireless internet access will be ubiquitous, cheap, and everywhere, with your laptop or PDA always online.

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