The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) administers the Hawaii Ocean Science and Technology Park (HOST Park). NELHA also administers a small site 4 acres (0.016 km2) in Puna on the eastern side of the Island of Hawaii for geothermal research. NELHA was founded in 1974. At 870 acres, HOST Park is perhaps the largest single green economic development project in the world solely devoted to growing a green economy. The original mission was for research into the uses of Deep Ocean Water in Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) renewable energy production and in aquaculture. It later added research into sustainable uses of natural energy sources such as solar energy. Its administration offices are located in the HOST Park Keahole Point in the North Kona District. The entrance is on the Hawaii Belt Road at coordinates 19°42′58″N 156°02′01″W / 19.71611°N 156.03361°W / 19.71611; -156.03361Coordinates: 19°42′58″N 156°02′01″W / 19.71611°N 156.03361°W / 19.71611; -156.03361, just south of the Kona International Airport. The main administration office is in the 4 acres (0.016 km2) research campus at the end of the road along the coastline on Keahole Point.
The laboratory was founded in 1974 with 345 acres (1.40 km2), associated with the University of Hawaii. Large pipelines pump cold sea water from a depth of 3,000 feet (910 m). For three months in 1979, a small amount of electricity was generated. A larger plant was constructed in the Almost $250M was spent on Ocean thermal energy conversion, but by 1991, the research shifted to other areas. The adjacent Science and Technology Park was merged into the facility, expanding it to 877 acres (3.55 km2). A neutrino detector was partially constructed in the 1990s called Project DUMAND.
In 2002, 50 acres (200,000 m2) were leased to a commercial company which filters and bottles the water for sale in Japan. The pipelines were broken in the October 15, 2006 earthquake, but one of the three has been repaired over two years later. Makai Ocean Engineering, working with Lockheed Martin, restarted OTEC research. Aquaculture, biofuel from algae, solar thermal energy, solar concentrating and wind power are some of the 40 tenants.
Famous quotes containing the words natural, energy, laboratory, hawaii and/or authority:
“The remnant of Indians thereabout—all but exterminated in their recent and final war with regular white troops, a war waged by the Red Men for their native soil and natural rights—had been coerced into the occupancy of wilds not far beyond the Mississippi.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Since the beginning of time, three-quarters of the mental energy and of the lies inspired by vanity have been expended for their inferiors by people who are only abased by such expenditure. And Swann, who was easygoing and unaffected with a duchess, trembled at the thought of being scorned and put on airs when he was with a housemaid.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“We are able to find everything in our memory, which is like a dispensary or chemical laboratory in which chance steers our hand sometimes to a soothing drug and sometimes to a dangerous poison.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“The back meets the front.”
—Hawaiian saying no. 2650, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)
“For words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)