Oil is cheap again. Gas prices are down at the pump and electric bills have settled from their stratospheric fuel-surcharge driven heights of just a few months ago.

Not to be too cute with a phrase here, this "good news" leaves open the strong possibility that the steam will once again go out of Hawai'i's effort to get itself off its dependence on oil for almost all of its energy needs.

It's a cycle we have seen before. During the oil shocks of the 1970s, Hawai'i launched a furious series of energy alternative initiatives including geothermal on the Big Island (in place, but hardly growing) as well as wind and hydropower. We even dabbled in an Ocean Energy Thermal Conversion project (the technology is based on the temperature difference between cold deep sea water and warm surface waters) that former Gov. George Ariyoshi declared was as revolutionary as the first flight of the Wright brothers.

Well, Hawai'i proved that Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion works, but the prototype plant at Keahole on the Big Island has put precious little energy into the grid. Rather, somewhat unexpectedly, entrepreneurs have found innovative and exciting ways to use that cold, clean near-shore ocean water for a variety of non-energy purposes ranging from agriculture and aquaculture to setting up something akin to a "lobster hotel" for stressed-out sea creatures en route from the East Coast to the dining tables of Tokyo.

But there is a possibility that we might see a return to the original idea of using Hawai'i's deep nearshore waters for the production of energy.

Gov. Linda Lingle, who has been tramping around Asia in search of business ties and tourism opportunities, has cut a deal in Taiwan to relaunch OTEC as an energy venture.

She announced a new partnership for a pilot project (not really pilot, since this has been looked at since the 1970s when the first "mini-OTEC plant" was announced off the Big Island in 1979) for a 10-megawatt ocean thermal conversion plant involving the Taiwan Industrial Technology Research Institute and Lockheed Martin Corp.

Like Hawai'i, Taiwan is an island-state that is unusually vulnerable to the price and supply of imported oil (it imports more of its net energy supplies than even Hawai'i). If a way can be found to produce more energy at home, all to the good.

The problem here is that these ideas seem to rise during times of high oil prices and wane when the cost of petroleum comes down. It will be interesting to see whether this latest venture will fall victim to short-term economics or be the start of a real shift away from our disastrous dependence on oil.

Jerry Burris' column appears Wednesdays in this space. See his blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com/akamaipolitics. Reach him at jrryburris@yahoo.com.