WCA March 2012

Statue of Liberty Image from BigStockPhoto.com Photographer: Marty

study of various geothermal and algae-based biofuel technologies happening at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority on the Big Island to smart grid experiments the state is conducting along with representatives from Japan and China. “We have more in common with Japan and Okinawa than we do with any other part [of the US],” Mr Glick told Forbes. “They look to us as a place to test technology. We’re isolated and so the tests can be very true. We provide an excellent statistical case to test new technology.” Elsewhere in the Pacific . . . ❖ A quiet development has been occurring in the call centre business: the rise of the Philippines, a former United States colony that has a large population of young people who speak lightly accented English and are steeped in American culture. As reported by Vikas Bajaj in the International Herald Tribune (25 th November), industry officials say that more Filipinos – about 400,000 – than Indians now spend time talking to mostly American consumers. India, where offshore call centres first gained traction, fields up to 350,000 call centre agents. Jojo Uligan, executive director of the Contact Centre Association of the Philippines, told the Herald Tribune that his country, with a population one-tenth that of India, overtook India last year. Companies including AT&T, JPMorgan Chase, and the travel website Expedia have engaged call centres in Manila or built their own there. Business comes in from the US, Europe, and even India as outsourcers follow their clients to the Philippines. “The growing preference for the Philippines reflects in part the maturation of the outsourcing business and in part a preference for American English,” Mr Bajaj wrote. In the early days, the industry focused simply on finding and setting up shop in countries with large English-speaking populations and low labour costs, which led them mainly to India. But executives say customers now increasingly identify places best suited for specific tasks. India remains the biggest destination by far for software outsourcing. Steel

Energy To consolidate their resources, all eight of the Hawaiian Islands are to be connected by submarine cable “We are at great risk of a severe crisis in the future if we don’t become self-sufficient. Our long-term vitality is totally dependent on our ability to become more self-sufficient and, in turn, to retain businesses.” The emphatic realist is Mark Glick, administrator of the energy office of Hawaii’s Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism (DBEDT). In his view, the state’s current high energy prices are a deal-breaker for many businesses, making it difficult to grow the economy beyond the state’s traditional economic engine – tourism. For this reason, Mr Glick told Amy Westervelt of Forbes, Hawaii has set itself the aggressive goal of meeting 40 per cent of its energy needs through renewable sources, at the same time employing conservation measures to reduce energy demand by 30 per cent by 2030. Because the goal is unlikely to be met unless disparate island energy sources are connected by a single grid, the state is going forward with an innovative and ambitious plan to connect the eight major islands via undersea cable, starting with Oahu, Maui, Molokai, and Lanai. As noted by Ms Westervelt , nowhere in the US is the immediate need to tackle resource efficiency more evident than in Hawaii, which imports 90 per cent of its energy and has the highest energy prices in the country. An archipelago, Hawaii is moreover uniquely vulnerable among the 50 states to effects of global warming, notably the rising sea levels warned of by island nations at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2010. For Hawaiians, a low-carbon economy is perceived as an imperative. (“Our Very Own Island Nation, Battling Climate Change Via Innovation,” 29 th December). The subsea cable would advance these goals. But even a smaller and less complicated project would have first to surmount a number of obstacles, and the Hawaiian Islands present challenges jurisdictional and environmental. The marine sanctuaries that abound are overseen variously by the federal government and the state. Some renewable energy projects, particularly wind farms proposed for Lanai and Molokai, have met with opposition. ❖ Accordingly, Ms Westervelt reported, the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) now in preparation avoids tying the development of the undersea cable to a particular type of renewable energy or specific project – a programmatic approach which, it is hoped, will permit at least some progress before approvals must be sought. The EIS is scheduled to be completed by April. Hawaiian Electric Co Inc (Honolulu) already has a request out for proposals from cable developers, with a selection considered likely by the end of the year. ❖ Thanks to its commitment to renewable energy, Hawaii is now also becoming something of a test bed for renewable energy technologies, from the

US makers of steel towers for wind turbines seek redress for market share lost to Chinese and Vietnamese manufacturers

Marking a new phase in an escalating green energy trade war, on 29 th December the four companies that make most of the steel towers for wind turbines installed in the US filed a trade complaint against China and Vietnam, seeking tariffs in the range of 60 per cent. The action is likely to exacerbate existing trade frictions between the United States and China. The case was filed by the Wind Tower Trade Coalition — comprising Trinity Structural Towers, DMI Industries,

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Wire & Cable ASIA – March/April 2012