![]() ![]() (Ulupono was founded by Civil Beat publisher Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pam Omidyar.)īlue Planet, which is primarily a think tank and advocacy organization, is spending a big chunk of its money the old-fashioned way: on lobbying. Another donor is the Ulupono Intitiative, a Hawaii-based social investment firm focused on renewable energy, local food production and waste management. “It’s not my personal mission.”ĭonors include solar energy and clean transportation companies, as well as organizations like the Hawaii Community Foundation and the Elemental Excelerator, which supports clean energy startups. ![]() “Blue Planet Foundation is a public charity,” Rogers says. About half came from sources besides Rogers, the 2015 return indicates. The foundation generated just under $1.2 million in contributions and grants in 2016. Although the nonprofit still gets the bulk of its funding from Rogers, its recent tax returns show snowballing interest. Washington lawmakers also introduced a 100 percent-by-2045 bill last session, but it too stalled. Last year, a bill emulating Hawaii’s 100-percent-by-2045 mandate passed out of the California State Senate but stalled in the Assembly. Blue Planet Foundation’s founder and chairman Henk Rogers stresses that the organization is a public charity, “not my personal mission.” Stewart Yerton/Civil Beat /2018īlue Planet’s vision is getting traction on the mainland. With his salt-and-pepper beard, pony tail and mild Dutch accent, the charismatic Rogers could play himself in a Hollywood tale of a lone visionary who set out to change the world.Įxcept this isn’t a movie. He still serves as managing director of The Tetris Co. The entrepreneurial Rogers also landed the license rights to market the game Tetris in Japan and helped broker the deal to put the game on Nintendo Gameboy devices. He later made a bigger fortune when he built and sold a company that made games for mobile phones. “When he set up Blue Planet, he definitely believed in the cause.”īefore he started Blue Planet, Rogers made his fame and fortune designing the first role-playing video game sold in Japan. “I think it begins with Henk Rogers,” Ige says. Mike Gabbard all credit Blue Planet with helping push Hawaii’s 100 percent renewables legislation in 2015. Perhaps more than any other single entity, this brainchild of Henk Rogers, a Dutch-born video game designer-turned-entrepreneur, is driving Hawaii’s energy policy. The act, now enshrined in Hawaii’s statutes, mandated that the state’s electric utilities use renewable resources to generate 100 percent of the electricity sold in the state by 2045.Īs the Blue Planet Foundation heads into its second decade, Act 97 stands as a singular milestone, a sign of Blue Planet’s significant political influence in Hawaii. With Ige in office, Blue Planet made another big push for renewables.Īnd in June 2015, Ige signed Act 97. Abercrombie was ousted by a fellow Democrat, David Ige, in 2014. It took a new governor to clear the path. And the idea of LNG as a bridge fuel was fading. Less than three years after Abercrombie’s speech, the state had adopted Blue Planet’s vision. If Mikulina is a boy magician, then he and Blue Planet seem to have some powerful spells. “I said, ‘You guys, this is all Harry Potter,'” Abercrombie says in an interview. Neil Abercrombie as “magical thinking,” the Blue Planet Foundation’s vision is central to Hawaii’s energy policy and beginning to gain traction on the mainland. Five years after being rejected by former Gov. Blue Planet had been opposing LNG, even as a bridge to renewables. The particular issue was Abercrombie’s push for using liquefied natural gas, along with renewable fuels, as a cleaner substitute to replace the dirty coal and diesel that fuel many of Hawaii’s power plants - and as an inexpensive alternative for a state that pays the nation’s highest electric rates. Later, recalls Jeff Mikulina, Blue Planet’s executive director, “He actually called me ‘Harry Potter.'” In a speech, he referred to the foundation’s ideas as “magical thinking.” Neil Abercrombie was crafting an energy policy for Hawaii, he was hardly impressed by Blue Planet Foundation’s ambitious plans for pushing the state into an all-renewable energy future. ![]()
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