Hawaii and Sustainability: Featherbedding

There was a term my father told me about in railroading- featherbedding. This term really came into play when diesels took over steam engines, but still were manned by an engineer and a fireman, although all the fireman did was ride along. Featherbidding is alive and well in our  fiftieth state, Hawaii today.

Seems that Hawaii has the highest electricity rates  in the USA directly attributable to importation of oil to provide on the order of 90% of their electricity needs. Starting in 2010, all new construction homes must have solar water heaters installed. And now the state is  bringing on wind power as a source of electricity. All sounds very well and good so far, doesn’t it? But wait, there’s more. While about 200 workers were employed to construct the wind power installations, only seven are on site to run them, and of these seven, “….three of those jobs are to make sure First Wind keeps its commitment to protect endangered species and upgrade and conserve lands on which the wind farm sits.” [From here] That readers of this blog, is featherbedding at its best. You have to speculate how such “make-work” is being carried over into other WPA projects being funded by us, the tax payers, under the banner of creating energy-based jobs, just to make the numbers look good. Hank