Trucks unload 2,000 tons of municipal waste into H-Power’s Kapolei plant six days a week. Burning the waste produces enough electricity to power 40,000 homes.
This maze of pipes at Tesoro’s Kapolei refinery carries crude-oil residuals from the fractionation tower—where they’re heated up to 700 degrees—to processing facilities where the residuals are made into the fuel that powers Hawaiian Electric and cruise and container ships.
A worker descends one of the dozens of storage tanks populating Tesoro’s “tank city.” The largest tank is 60 feet tall and can hold 500,000 barrels of crude oil, about 21 million gallons. Pipelines run from these tanks directly to places such as Honolulu International Airport and Hickam Air Force Base.
While fixing equipment at H-Power in Kapolei, welder Ernesto Mendoza protects himself from hazardous gases with a welding hood, a filter, safety glasses, earplugs, a hardhat, a vest and gloves.
HONOLULU Magazine’s sister publication Hawaii Home + Remodeling rolls hot off the Goss M-600 web press at Hagadone Printing in Honolulu. The 33,000-copy run will use 230 pounds of vegetable-based ink, mixed on-site.
The shear of this Hitachi EX300 excavator cuts scrap metal at a pressure of 4,500 pounds per square inch at Lenox Metals in Kapolei. The facility recycles 10 million pounds of ferrous and non-ferrous metals annually, sorted and cut for sale to Asian markets.
From its Middle Street location, Love’s Bakery makes about 65,000 pounds of buns per week in industrial ovens, pictured here above the head of worker Salvador Devera. Love’s bakes 206 varieties of bread, 70 varieties of buns and rolls, and 14 varieties of cakes.
Worker Kai Fun Choi dusts sheets of noodle dough with cornstarch before rolling it out for cutting at the Chun Wah Kam noodle factory on Kalihi Street. The operation produces about 3,000 pounds of noodles a day for local use.
Not willing to change her identity to be part of the industry, Mahina Florence is at the height of her career because of her flawless Hawaiian complexion, strong athletic build, and friendly aloha spirit.
