Where is our crisis plan?
As far as our transport system is concerned, it is a hopeless case. Except for the small portion accounted for by electricity powered MRT and LRT, our transport system is essentially dependent on petroleum. I guess, worse case scenario, many of us have to walk.
The thinking of some activists and bishops that junking the oil deregulation bill will solve our problem is plainly stupid. If the aim is to empower government to delay or stop oil prices from rising, we will just end up with a supply shortage. Why would anyone import oil and lose money to sell here at below world market price?
Power, thanks to our pioneering efforts in harnessing geothermal and coal, is no longer a hostage to rising oil prices. Except that even the price of geothermal and coal is still somehow indexed to oil prices, a practice that should be reviewed in the light of today’s environment.
Last Monday, I wrote about the early efforts of Dr. Ernie Terrado in the area of non-conventional energy. In our desperation to deal with the first energy crisis, then Energy Secretary Ronnie Velasco left nothing unexplored. We didn’t have any significant oil reserves and we were almost 100-percent dependent on petroleum except for the few hydro electric plants managed by Napocor.
Geothermal was something theoretical at that time. Dr. Art Alcaraz, the pioneer in geothermal, was still tinkering with the potentials of geothermal for generating electricity. He was overjoyed at the success of his first experiment that lighted a bulb in Tiwi. Today, geothermal is part of our conventional energy resource base, thanks to the determined efforts of Dr. Alcaraz to define its potentials and the effort of Pabling Malixi of PNOC-EDC to make it a major power resource.
Coal was pretty conventional even in those days but what we lacked was a good idea of how much coal we had. It was Rufino Bomasang and Mario V. Tiaoqui of PNOC Coal who worked to explore domestic reserves and eventually, put up an entire logistics system that included blending local and imported coal so that power plants can use it instead of bunker fuel oil.
Everything else that didn’t fall under geothermal or coal was classified as non-conventional and it was assigned to Dr. Terrado. That included various applications of solar energy, wind, agricultural wastes and the products of local inventors that promoted more efficient utilization of conventional energy.
Dr. Terrado was testing all sorts of things including an air conditioning system powered by solar energy. One conference room in his Non- Conventional Energy Center at UP campus was cooled by this system. But it was bulky and expensive and was just a good talking point to demonstrate our determination to explore everything.
I remember that Ronnie Velasco told Dr. Terrado that the more important reason for being of his unit is to make sure our farm sector is isolated as much as we can from the worldwide energy crisis of supply and price. It was a sensible objective inasmuch as a large part of our economy is agricultural and most of our people are dependent on the agricultural sector.
We got a lot of help from the private sector, notably from Dr. Felix Maramba of Liberty Flour Mills who helped demonstrate the use of biogas in a pretty large scale agro-industrial setting. UP Los Baños scientists were also very helpful in investigating the use of biotechnology to reduce our dependence on imported oil. Thus, we had the beginnings of alcogas and biodiesel. Dr. William Padolina, Dr. Emil Javier and Dr. Elpidio Rosario were some of top UPLB scientists who spearheaded our research efforts.
We were doing experiments on such other things as solar energy, mini hydros and wind power. I remember how we put up a solar energy system to produce electricity in a remote off-grid location. But those were early days. The battery storage system was cumbersome and the cost to produce a watt of solar electricity was uneconomical.
And lest people think that all the scientists we employed to search for alternative energy were purely there for the science, Dr. Terrado also had a team of economists to keep watch on the economics of the technologies being tested. I remember that one of those economists working with him was Iggy Kilayko, who went on to become one of the top finance experts of the country and an official of the Philippine Stock Exchange.
My point is, we have been there, we have done that, we should have sustained it. If our present energy officials seem to look like they are bewildered by the present crisis, they shouldn’t be. A lot of spade work had been done and we have proven that we can do it.
My other point is, while it is but right to worry about the impact of high oil prices on industry, let us not forget our farm sector. Indeed, it is our farm sector that is in a very good position to adapt well to the crisis. There are very viable alternative energy options that will sustain the livelihood of a vast portion of our population still dependent on agriculture.
It was to the credit of then Energy Secretary Velasco that even as he embarked on big ticket projects and high profile strategies like dealing directly with oil producing countries, he never forgot the importance of insulating as best he can, our farm sector from the crisis. This is something sorely missing today. Much of government concern is urban related. Yet, our food supply is already at risk of higher prices because of the competition from energy concerns.
The way it looks, we are in for rougher times ahead… something worse than the first energy crunch. What we need from government is a lot of reassurance that it is up to the task of providing not just our energy needs but also more importantly, our food supply. We need a nice and neat crisis program that tells us how we plan to respond to the global challenge we now face.
For sure energy conservation will have to be an important part of our response today as it was then. But even here, government must show leadership. Half-hearted programs launched by this government in the recent past only waste time and dissipate what little credibility this administration has.
Hopefully, they don’t call another summit meeting. We never called summits during those days but we just worked our butts off to come up with a credible program and thereafter, monitor strictly how it is being implemented. The advantage today’s officials have is that we have done a lot of spadework. We didn’t have anything when we started at that time. Our advantage then was that we had top Filipino managerial talents determined to produce results at the shortest time possible. Working for energy independence was to us, the moral equivalent of war.
How come I get the feeling that for this administration, it is just business as usual?
Garbage to oil
We got this e-mail from Manuel C. Diaz, a geologist now living in the
With $200/barrel oil we can convert the Payatas mother lode of Garbage and also the 7,000 metric tons of Metro Manila Garbage into diesel fuel. Mining Payatas at 7,000 tons/day and processing also the 7,000 tons/day garbage output of Metro Manila will produce an equivalent of 24,000 barrels of oil/day at a cost of $50/barrel.
Instead of striking every time oil price goes up Philippine drivers should urge their government to start exploring the synthetic fuel alternatives using garbage as the feedstock.
Two from Leno
“They said on the news tonight that if gas prices get any higher, we could see something totally unprecedented here in
“President Bush spoke with the Amish. He didn’t want to, but it was the only group he could find that wasn’t upset about the high price of gas.” — Jay Leno
Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]
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