The Tiny Oilseed That Could Help Power Hawai‘i’s Energy Future
Some of the state’s biggest companies are working to turn a cover crop into renewable fuel for utilities, vehicles and passenger planes.
Nothing seems particularly remarkable about camelina, a small, wispy plant that flowers in meadows across North America and Europe. Yet it’s full of surprises.
When cultivated, camelina acts as a fast-growing cover crop that can be rotated with crops such as onions and watermelons. The plant’s rows of tiny, hard seeds are packed with oil, which has been used in lamps and kitchens for millennia. After the oilseeds are extracted from their pods and crushed, what’s left behind is a protein-rich seed cake for feeding livestock.
In recent years, another novel use has emerged: Camelina oil works as a feedstock, or raw material, for creating biofuels – a potential pathway to more energy independence and resiliency in Hawai‘i.
The oil can be processed into biodiesel to power electrical plants, renewable naphtha for gas companies and – maybe most surprising of all – sustainable aviation fuel for long-haul flights. And camelina-based biofuel has another unexpected advantage: It can be added directly into the fuel tanks of planes and vehicles, with no modifications required.
In September 2024, the first North American flight using camelina-based fuel – Delta 2732 – traveled from Minneapolis to New York City, a milestone in the push to turn this low-carbon energy source into a viable alternative to petroleum-based jet fuel.
In Hawai‘i, the work of creating a camelina-to-fuel ecosystem is being led by the Par Hawaii refinery, the private land-management company Pono Pacific, and leaders of the newly merged Hawaiian and Alaska airlines. These large companies are joined by a growing coalition of farmers, ranchers and others.
“Biofuels have to be part of the mix here,” says Eric Wright, president of Par Hawaii. “They have to be part of the airlines decarbonizing, and they’re part of HECO’s integrated grid plans for getting to zero percent carbon. … This is really our best chance to have those fuels locally produced.”
The First Big Step
Work to add renewables and to decarbonize buildings, transportation and industries has steadily advanced since 2015, when Hawai‘i passed legislation that calls for all of its electricity to come from renewable energy by 2045. That was followed in 2018 by a first-in-the-nation bill that aims to reach 100% carbon neutrality by 2045.
Nearly 20% of Hawai‘i’s electricity now comes from solar power, for instance, much of it generated from rooftop panels. And by late 2024, the state had more than 34,000 registered electric vehicles, a 23% increase from the year before, according to the Hawaii EV Association.
Despite concrete steps to move away from fossil fuels, petroleum continues to dominate Hawai‘i’s energy mix. Petroleum accounts for about 80% of the energy consumed in the state, the highest percentage in the country, according to recent data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Hawai‘i’s transportation sector uses almost two-thirds of all petroleum consumed, with jet fuel accounting for nearly half of the petroleum products used in the state.
In 2022, a major step toward weaning the state off petroleum occurred. Crude-oil refinery Par Hawaii committed $90 million to convert a distillate hydrotreater at its Kapolei facility into a renewable hydrotreater that produces biofuels. The blessing ceremony for the renewable unit took place in late November, with a finish date anticipated in fall 2025.
This giant processing unit – a maze of undulating metal pipes and tanks encased in a web of scaffolding and stairs – will take organic feedstock, such as camelina oil, and alter it using hydrogen and a catalyst at high temperature and pressure. What comes out has a hydrocarbon makeup similar to petroleum products, making it an efficient “drop-in” fuel.
When the renewable hydrotreater is running, Wright says the unit will produce 60 million gallons per year of sustainable aviation fuel for airplanes; renewable diesel for ships, cars, trucks and power generation; and renewable naphtha, which can be blended with regular gasoline or used to produce synthetic natural gas.
When the least carbon-intensive practices are used – such as growing camelina feedstocks on Kaua‘i, refining them in Kapolei and pumping the fuel into planes at the Honolulu airport – products such as sustainable aviation fuel reduce greenhouse gases by up to 80% compared to petroleum-based jet fuel, according to global trade group International Air Transport Association.
Two huge, green storage tanks for renewable feedstocks have been added to Par’s facility, ready for the transition. The company plans to import cooking oils and fats as feedstocks while local camelina production launches and expands enough to offset imports.
The 60 million gallons of locally produced biofuels will add to the growing U.S. supply. At the start of 2024, refineries were producing 24 billion gallons of biofuel per year – a 7% jump from 2022, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Much of the increase comes from growth in renewable diesel and naphtha production, along with a new push to produce sustainable aviation fuel.
All told, biofuels will make up about 5% of overall production at Par’s refinery, says Wright; for context, the facility can currently process about 94,000 barrels of imported crude oil a day. In the future, more areas of the plant might be converted to produce biofuels, he says.
Liquid biofuel has a distinct advantage over solar and wind power in that it’s a “firm” energy source that stabilizes the electric grid when the sun is obscured or the wind stops blowing, says Wright. As he describes it, a gallon jug of renewable diesel fuel can produce 20 times more energy than what’s stored in a similarly sized lithium-ion battery.
“The electric grid really needs firm renewable fuel that you can put in a tank and store, and it’s there when you need it,” says Wright.
In Honoka‘a on Hawai‘i Island, the Hamakua Energy power plant runs on both imported fossil fuels and renewable fuel supplied by Pacific Biodiesel, which processes discarded cooking oils at its Kea‘au refinery and produces about 6 million gallons of biodiesel annually.
By the end of 2030, Hamakua Energy plans to shift to 100% renewable fuels and create a “closed-loop system in Hawai‘i,” says Marcelino Susas, VP of strategy and business development at Pacific Current, a subsidiary of plant owner Hawaiian Electric.
Like Wright, Susas says biofuels make the grid more stable while also buffering the state from fluctuating crude-oil prices. “I think if you’re self-sufficient, you’re not so exposed to the shocks that you have with imported fuels, as we’ve seen in the last few years,” he says.
