In my own home, could I be any less strident about switching off lights-aircons-appliances, mapping out essential car routes, weighing LPG cylinders, making everyone – including the resident pets – accountable for the peaks and troughs graphed on the month-on-month electricity consumption chart on my Meralco bill?
From the stands, could I be any more ferocious over delays in the passage of legislation that will render the country less dependent on foreign oil and ultimately more reliant on homegrown sources of clean, a renewable, alternative power?
Am I a total bore on the subject of energy efficiency and conservation, government-mandated or not?
Age, says a mid-life-ing comrade. "We’re still hot!" exclaims another. Hot we certainly are. This Holy Week is no different, as it brings little surcease from the intense heat of summer, causing tempers to flare, myocardial infarctions to multiply, air-conditioners to run non-stop, and electricity bills to rise in measured tandem with the mercury in our barometers.
I’ve tracked down one more culprit to obliterate: phantom loads. Not the one in your mobile phone, Harriet Potter. But the "dozen or more thieves living in your house, quietly stealing 6-10 percent of all the electricity that you are billed for," to quote the Department of Energy’s Consumer Welfare and Promotion Office.
They explain, "When you think you’re conserving energy by turning off lights and appliances, many of the common electrical items today are actually on ‘stand by’ mode. This is a design feature to provide us the convenience of time - this convenience costs us money because they continue to use electricity even when they are not on. This mysterious draw of electricity is known as a phantom electrical load. Electronic devices like these can consume five to eight watts each even when off."
How do you detect these dastardly ghoulish ghosts? Take a good look around your living spaces. Glowing red lights are an indicator: even when the appliances have been switched off, they are still siphoning power.
Five to eight watts is negligible but 24/7, 365 days a year, that’s not Caspar, your friendly neighborhood spook. Let us examine the more common specimen of phantom load: microwave oven with clock - which in the case of another amiga is her main mode of telling time in the kitchen – that’s 15 watts, or P95.86 per month, calculated at 24 hours a day times 30 days, times cost per kWh (P8.83/kWh, as of June 2005). P100 to give you the time of day? Ludicrous!
Instant-on television: 28 watts per month or P178.01. The DVD player umbilically attached to it: 14 watts or P89.01. The stereo no one can be bothered to unplug: 20 watts or P127.15. The adaptor and automatic voltage regulator that protects the computer from power surges and such like: 8 watts or P50.86. The cordless phone: 4 watts or P25.43.
There, we’ve just accrued a total phantom load of 89 watts:
Energy consumption per month = 89 watts x 24 hours x 30 days = 64,080 watt-hours or 64.08 kilowatt-hours. Energy cost per month (at P8.83/kWh) = P8.83 x 64.08 = P564.82.
Annual cost = P565.82 x 12 = P6,789.91.
That translates to how many pairs of wedgies, on sale, since we are such savvy shoppers? Do the math, folks, do the math!
And to prove how equally savvy investors are plugged into making alternative energy work for us and for them and for the planet: the Philippine Hybrid Energy Systems Inc. (Phesi) and its partner, Sea Breeze Power Corp., a California-based company specializing in wind farm development, are eyeing Oriental Mindoro for an 18-megawatt diesel-wind hybrid power facility. Requiring capital of $30 million or P1.7 billion, the plant will generate 14.5 megawatts from windmills and 3.6 megawatts from diesel to help meet the growing demand for power in the province, which, according to Oriental Mindoro Representative Rodolfo Valencia, now stands at 26 megawatts. Operations may start as early as 2008 as soon as Phesi, Sea Breeze Power, and the electricity stakeholders in the province can hammer out the details of the power supply contract.
In addition, the province is in talks with the Spanish government for possible exploration of Mindoro’s hydropower potential. "There are four hydropower projects that we’re looking at," said Congressman Valencia, while, in the same breath, pointing out that geothermal power was yet another area of development as studies have shown that as much as 20 megawatts can be drawn from the province’s geothermal resources. "We believe Mindoro can be an exporter of power, eventually."
Meanwhile, on not-too-distant shores, Camarines Sur Gov. Luis Raymund Villafuerte announced that the province is in the throes of establishing a 10,000-hectare plantation of Jatropha curcas, a plant widely used in India as a source of bio-diesel. The program gets going with the planting of 100 hectares in the towns of Caramoan and Presentacion, to include idle public lands in other towns soon. Known as "tuba-tuba" in the dialect, "tubing bakod" in Tagalog, and "tawa-tawa" in Ilokano, jatropha seeds contain an estimated 37 percent of the oil used in producing bio-diesel. One hectare can yield six to eight metric tons of seeds, the equivalent of 2,300 to 2,800 liters.
Several companies have already expressed an interest in purchasing raw jatropha for processing into bio-fuel for diesel vehicles, claimed the governor, adding that the investment in jatropha was inspired in part by the policies of the Kyoto Protocol that aims to check carbon emissions worldwide. He said bio-diesel is the most valuable form of renewable energy that can be used directly in any existing, unmodified diesel engine, while producing 80 percent less carbon dioxide, 100 percent less sulfur dioxide emissions, and providing 90 percent reduction in cancer risks.