{"id":817820,"date":"2026-05-23T23:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/817820\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T23:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:32:14","slug":"anti-lng-coalition-calls-on-hawaii-to-stop-plans-to-import-fossil-fuel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/817820\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-LNG coalition calls on Hawaii to stop plans to import fossil fuel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; Renewable energy advocates are pushing back on the state\u2019s move to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) to reduce energy costs and power outages. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">This as Japanese company JERA is a step closer to building a $1.5 billion power plant on Oahu, having <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaiinewsnow.com\/2026\/05\/23\/japanese-company-seeks-first-permit-import-liquefied-natural-gas-oahu\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.hawaiinewsnow.com\/2026\/05\/23\/japanese-company-seeks-first-permit-import-liquefied-natural-gas-oahu\/\">applied for a federal permit to build an offshore terminal to bring in the condensed LNG<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Local Power Hawaii, a new coalition of organizations, advocates, and community members, is urging local leaders to closely scrutinize JERA\u2019s proposal, saying the plan could require more than $2 billion in infrastructure costs alone and take focus away from affordable clean energy projects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Ben Sullivan, a former Kauai Island Utility Cooperative board member and former City and County of Honolulu Chief Resilience Officer, is part of Local Power Hawaii and joined HNN\u2019s Sunrise to talk about the ongoing debate over LNG.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cInvesting in LNG diverts resources, delays solutions, and creates ongoing fossil fuel dependence,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s simply not the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cOahu uses fossil fuel for almost 70 percent of our electricity generation,\u201d Sullivan adds. \u201cWe don\u2019t need to switch from one fossil fuel to another, we need to reduce the amount of fossil fuel we depend on overall and do so as quickly as is practical.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He added that while the Hawaii State Energy Office\u2019s study in January 2025 showed significant savings from switching from oil to LNG, there were major math errors that forced the Energy Office to reissue the report recently with revised recommendations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cTheir entire study is looking at the cost of one fossil fuel versus another and never gives proper consideration to the numerous lower cost non-fuel alternatives that we have access to,\u201d Sullivan said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">JERA says its plant could provide nearly half of Oahu\u2019s electricity and meet the state\u2019s renewable energy goal by 2045 by switching to a renewable fuel at a later time, but provided no details.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Critics say JERA\u2019s plan advanced without meaningful public input, legislative approval or binding consumer protections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Local Power Hawaii says it supports a transition to 100% renewable energy that protects ratepayers, strengthens energy independence and expands investment in locally generated power and opposes proposals that would lock the state into decades of imported LNG dependence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">For more information, visit <a href=\"https:\/\/localpowerhawaii.org\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/localpowerhawaii.org\" target=\"_blank\">localpowerhawaii.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; Renewable energy advocates are pushing back on the state\u2019s move to import liquefied natural gas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":817821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[23],"tags":[24071,5495,746,50055,336542,267852,126566,6172,866,159,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-817820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-electricity","tag-energy","tag-environment","tag-fossil-fuel","tag-jera","tag-liquefied-natural-gas","tag-lng","tag-power","tag-renewable-energy","tag-science","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116626505401689515","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}