Musings from Jay (blog site permanently frozen 11/05/2024 morning)

  In a previous essay I talked about the great emigration of native Hawaiians over centuries from the islands and the high mortality of those that remained. I also covered the foreign labor that moved in to replenish the work force. This essay examines the most recent decade US wide census data on the demographics and distribution of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.  Less than half of the Native Hawaiian population, alone or in any combination, live in Hawaii (46.7%) in 2020, down from 55.0% in 2010.  In 2020, about 14% of Native Hawaiians lived in California. About 4.6% lived in Washington. About 3.9% lived in Nevada. About 3.4% lived in Texas. About 27.5% lived in all other states.  The proportion of Samoans, Fijians, Tongans, Marshallese, and Chamorro (Guam and Mariana islands) is much lower in Hawaii (highest is Marshallese at 18.8%) and much higher  in California (as high as 70.7% for Fijians).   The Native Hawaiian alone or in any combination p...

Oahu where I live has a population of a little less than a million. The whole state has 1.46 million in the census. Today most of Hawaii's population is on Oahu.   The natives of Hawaii were Hawaiians. They were Polynesians, who arrived by sea from islands to the Southwest and ultimately from Asia. The first well established western contact was Captain Cook (a British naval officer and explorer) in 1778. His initial landing spot was near Waimea town in Kauai. There is some evidence of even earlier contact with Japanese and European seamen. The arrival of Cook started a period of population decrease.  Economic and demographic factors in the 18th to 19th centuries reshaped the Kingdom of Hawaii. With unfamiliar diseases such as bubonic plague, leprosy, yellow fever, declining fertility, high infant mortality, infanticide, the introduction of alcohol, emigration off the islands or to larger cities for trade jobs, and wars, the Native Hawaiian population fell...

Many people wonder what the economy of Oahu (and to a lesser extent Hawaii) looks like. It is interesting.  Although there is some light manufacturing, the people do not favor heavy manufacturing since a love for the land and the ocean and the air is deeply felt. One of the big reasons we moved here (among many) is because the air quality is great. San Jose where we lived? Not so good.  The population of Honolulu/Kaneohe/Pearl City metro (which is largely Honolulu County that encompasses all of Oahu) is roughly a million (the vast bulk of the state's population live here). The GDP is around $75 billion.  That works out to a GDP per capita of $75K from what I see.  That puts it around 20th among major US metros from what I see.  The San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara is around $210K (#1). The San Francisco/Oakland/Berkley is around $144K. The Seattle/Tacoma/Bellevue is about $119K. The Boston/Cambridge/Newton is about $108K. The New York/Newark/Jersey C...

The Board of Water Supply (BWS) is responsible for Managing Oahu’s municipal water resources and distribution system. It provides residents with a safe and dependable drinking water supply. The BWS is the largest municipal water utility in the State, serving approximately 150 million gallons of water a day to roughly one million customers on Oahu. The BWS is a financially self-sufficient, semi-autonomous city agency. Its operations and projects are financed with revenue generated by water transmission and distribution fees. The BWS also pursue federal and state grants to help subsidize BWS projects. The BWS responsibilities include repairing and replacing ageing infrastructure and maintaining and updating critical components in the water distribution system.  There are other state of Hawaii government entities in the ecosystem too like Safe Drinking Water, and Clean Water Division. The supply of water to residents on Oahu is somewhat privatized. Even the BWS is somewhat semi-privat...

The story of electricity generation in Oahu and more broadly Hawaii is very encouraging.  Hawaiian Electric provides electricity for 95% of residents of the State of Hawaii on Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Hawaii Island. Each island has its own grid and power generation. The renewable energy percentage is  28.2% on Oahu   and the r enewable peak was  72.7% on July 23,  2022,  based on generation. On Hawaii island, the renewable energy percentage is 47.9% .  On Maui County, the renewable energy percentage is 35.6% .    In Oahu, the number of customers is about 307,000. The company and its independent partners generate 1358 MW using oil, 130 MW using diesel, and 50 MW using biodiesel, 68 MW using waste to energy, and 8 MW using biofuel., for a total production of 1614.5 MW .  The last coal plant was recently shut down on Oahu.  Also in Oahu, 987.5 MW is additionally generated from renewables primarily by customer sited renewabl...