Sim City: Hawaii Edition

If you've ever played Sim City, you know how hard it can be to be to make those decisions as mayor to help your tiny town grow into a bustling metropolis. I'm not talking the decisions about which disasters to unleash so you can watch your virtual citizens be engulfed in its destructive glory (try the alien invasion, aliens always tear your city up good). Nay, I am talking about the legitimate decisions of balancing your city's need for utilities, the cost required to maintain them, as well as environmental concerns.

Look at this thing ruining your citizens' day

One of the utilities that your Sim City citizens craved the most (when they weren't getting blasted by alien laser beams) is, of course, electricity. Although the decision in the game was one of simply keeping citizens happy by providing them with electricity while not contaminating their breathing air with pollution, the struggle for keeping a city out of the dark is a much more complex situation in reality. There are other concerns to look out for as well, such as the depletion of non-renewable resources that threatens to spell the end of the era of taking the availability of fuel for our cars or oil to burn in generating electricity of granted.

At this point, you might be wondering what this post is doing on my software engineering blog. The answer is two-fold. First, since you are reading this blog at all, you are on an electronic device with access to the internet and the concept of power and energy should at least interest you on a superficial level even if it's not a lingering thought in the back of your mind all the time. Secondly, this is my blog and I can write whatever I see fit on here!

Having said all that, allow me to express something of importance to this entry. I live in Hawaii. This is important because Hawaii, unlike most places in the country, faces a very unique situation when it comes to energy. Due to its relatively isolated positioning in the world, Hawaii is heavily dependent on importing oil in order to keep our lights on. What this amounts to is that our residential electricity prices lead the nation by nearly triple. It's clear to see now how the energy challenges that we face in Hawaii might concern a software engineer whose livelihood depends on having consistent access to electricity. Even putting aside the obvious reliance of a software engineer upon power, it is also important to take note of Hawaii's unique challenges from a concerned citizen's perspective.

In addressing Hawaii's energy situation, it is good to first understand that energy is the measure of power used over a given amount time. In other words, a light bulb using a little power that's on for a long time can end up using the same, or even more, energy as a microwave that uses a lot of power but is only on for a few minutes in the day. Energy consumption is therefore what we must keep our eye on even more so than how must power a device requires to operate.

Energy conservation is a concern all over the world, but it is of particular importance in Hawaii. As I mentioned previously, Hawaii's reliance on oil for energy generation raises the costs of energy quite a bit. Additionally, due to the fact that Hawaii is geographically isolated from the rest of the world, its energy grid is isolated as well. This means that energy can't be freely transferred from grid to grid as needed as is the case in the continental U.S., not to mention the fact that Hawaii's power plants need to be smaller and therefore less efficient as well. What all of this amounts to is essentially that traditional methods of power generation aren't nearly as effective in Hawaii as they are elsewhere, yet it is very difficult to uproot these practices and adopt new methods as well.

Granted, it is often difficult to buck traditions and change is often slow and sometimes painful. Fortunately, there is and should be optimism for the energy situation in Hawaii because, along with its unique energy problems, Hawaii also has unique potential solutions. For example, although Hawaii's small size results in inefficient power grids, the same small size means a more modest need for energy overall compared to larger metropolitan areas. Furthermore, Hawaii is uniquely primed for numerous sources of renewable energy as well, including wind, wave, solar, ocean thermal and geothermal. Couple the potential for renewable energy with the desirability for Hawaii and its people to ditch the reliance on imported oil and there certainly exists reason for optimism.

Of course, better people than I have thought of these things before me and it is through these people that I am able to convey some of these thoughts to you today. It would especially be of surprise to me if any of these concepts were lost on the folks at the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative (HCEI). The HCEI ambitiously plans for Hawaii to achieve 70% clean energy by the year 2030. There is probably initially quite a bit of skepticism for this number upon hearing it. However, the plans call for 40% of the energy to be from renewable sources and also reducing our need for energy by 30% thus enabling the 40% of renewable energy to effectively be 70% of the overall energy requirements. As people grow ever more conscious of the growing need for an energy solution and become more efficient with their energy use, even by simply replacing light bulbs with newer, more energy efficient ones, the 70% clean energy goal may not be so unrealistic after all.

For software developers in Hawaii, there are even a number of unique opportunities to contribute to the energy solution. For example, the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) implements various ways to collect energy usage data from consumers through installed devices in households which can send energy use information to HNEI as well as give users a more tangible reading on their own energy consumption. This allows HNEI to study not only energy usage in these households but also energy usage behaviors before and after the consumers are aware of their own consumption rates. Naturally, with all this collected data, software development expertise is then employed in the analyses and parsing of the information which may even be represented as graphical interpretations of energy usage that consumers can then access. Another opportunity for computer scientists interested in energy studies appears at Hawaii's flagship university campus as it undergoes renovations and seeks to improve energy efficiency in its buildings through wireless sensors streaming energy usage data to a central computer. Again, with all the data collected, there are opportunities for analyses and manipulation of the raw data into something coherent and useful. Likewise, with the rise in energy consciousness come more energy efficient homes and again, data collected from these homes provide unique opportunities for software engineers to help analyze it.

Even though being a mayor of Sim City might seem like a trivial task, the underlying lesson that one can take away from it is clear. Whether it's a computer game or reality, the need for better energy solutions exists and is more evident in the state of Hawaii than perhaps anywhere else in the country. Hopefully by now you also see why a software engineer might be interested in being part of the solution on a deeper level than simply the fact that their career choice relies on energy because, in fact, there are more than ample opportunities out there to challenge us and put our expertise to practical use.