By Anna Valmero

Environmental group Greenpeace Philippines brought and lit a solar-powered lantern at the Senate of the Philippines in celebration of the passage of the Renewable Energy Bill.

Senator Miguel Zubiri received the six-foot tall (six-meter in diameter) lantern from Greenpeace members.

“This is a parol that is totally off-the-grid as it spearheads the use of renewable energy for it to be lit,” said Zubiri, as he lauded the effort of Greenpeace to design and bring the lantern to their office.

He said the lantern shows people can have power coming from green energy sources.

Zubiri said the lantern would be placed outside the canopy side of the Senate building until end of December.

The lantern is made of rattan and is adorned with over 60 meters of yellow and green light emitting diodes (LEDS).

Amalie Obusan, climate campaigner of Greenpeace Philippines, said they used LEDS because they are more power-efficient light sources than ordinary Christmas light bulbs.

Two solar panels are used to run the LEDs installed in the lantern. The panels are attached to four batteries, which stores a total of 100 amperes of electricity. The batteries are then attached to a 1,000 -watt inverter which converts the stored energy to 12V of power, which lights the lantern.

“The lantern is a reminder to our senators that renewable energy is the clear answer, the true hope, for a secure future free from severe impacts of climate change,” Obusan said.

She said the passage of the renewable energy bill is laudable but stressed the need for the government to commit to climate change mitigation efforts.

This activity is part of the official Global Day of Action for the Climate celebration slated on December 6. This year, the celebration coincides with the United Nations climate meeting in Poland.

By Anna Valmero
INQUIRER.net

Can used oil be recycled as fuel for vehicles?

“Yes,” according to Teodorico Badua, the inventor of a so-called “fuel energy saving device.”

This device, he says, transforms used oil and other combustible liquid waste into flammable gas that can be added to the engine fuel, which can translate to fuel savings of up to 30 percent.

This La Union-based inventor says the device harnesses the energy from used oil by heating the combustible liquid waste into a gas generator. This process then generates fuel vapor that can be used for gasoline-based engines.

The device has been tested to work with used cooking oil, engine oil and washing fuel, the Filipino inventor says.

“The device promotes safe disposal of combustible liquid waste into the combustion chamber of the engine, which burns it as fuel,” says Badua.

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By Anna Valmero
INQUIRER.net

ORTIGAS City, Philippines — Anticipating the growth in local demand for biofuel, Seaoil Philippines Inc. said it will increase its total number of filling stations from 114 to 500 units by 2011, an executive said.

Biofuel is an alternative fuel that blends natural substances like ethanol from sugar cane and coco methyl ester (CME) from coconut to regular gasoline and diesel.

Seaoil Philippines expects to grow their number of stations by 300 percent because of the anticipated increasing local demand following the signing of the Biofuels Act in 2006, which will become effective in February 2007, said Art Cruz, marketing director of Seaoil Philippines.

“The consumers are more mature than before in exploring alternatives available to them. The youth, which are more open-minded in trying the biofuel, is creating the growing demand for it,” he said.

The Biofuels Act mandates that 5 percent of the annual volume of gasoline fuel sold and distributed by each gasoline company in the country will comprise bioethanol. This will be required two years after the effectivity of the law or starting February 2009.

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MAURICE Malanes of the Philippine Daily Inquirer Northern Luzon Bureau talks to Victor Ayco, a Filipino chemical engineer and inventor, who is not worried about the current oil crisis.

In fact, he sees this as an opportunity to explore alternative sources of fuel with the help of science. Malanes finds out that Ayco has found vital clues to creating a gas-saving product, thanks to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Excerpt:

A scientist and inventor, Ayco sees the crisis as an opportunity for the country to tap the inexhaustible potentials that science can offer in finding alternatives to fossil fuel.

“Many seem to anticipate a bleak future because of the prospect that one day the world’s fossil fuel deposits will finally run dry,” says Ayco, 70. “But fossil fuel is not the only source of energy that can run engines of cars and other machines. There are other inexhaustible alternatives [to fossil fuel].”

He based his radical optimism on what he regards as a vital clue from one of the geniuses of the 20th century — Albert Einstein. That clue is the theory of relativity, or E=mc², where E is energy, m is mass, and c is the velocity of light.

The Mandaluyong-based chemical engineer says Einstein’s theory helped him perfect his gas-saving product, which he demonstrated recently before Baguio City motorists.

Essentially, Einstein’s relativity theory, says Ayco, states that “from matter we can produce energy.”

His invention called “aero-nitro power injector” took 15 years of research and experiment. Patented on Dec. 11, 1985, the device has been marketed only recently through Energy Philippines Inc., a private firm, which Ayco co-owns with other partners.

The inventor says his device “converts ordinary nitrogen (a noncombustible substance) in the atmosphere into combustible nitro-gas, and serves as gasoline and diesel additive in gaseous form for efficient engine combustion.”

With efficient engine combustion, a vehicle can run more kilometers with less fuel and emits almost zero toxic pollutants.

WITH the recent oil price shock, where we saw the price of oil going up to around $140 a barrel, the question is whether that is enough political impetus for us to go into renewable energy in a big way.

By a big way, we mean that we make the investments now in “renewables.” The problem is that renewable energy, technology-wise, is still being perfected, so that means it is not yet cheap. But if nobody invests, it will never become cheap because industry holds back on R&D, because there is no demand. So it becomes a chicken and egg situation. Given that the so-called carbon credits from developed countries can pay for up to 10 percent of the cost of the project upfront, it is still not attractive for some.

Enter the Philippine Renewable Energy bill. When passed, it will actually give a lot of incentives to investors to go into renewable energy (RE). Aside from the fact that RE is a good way to contribute to the climate change effort, if the RE bill is passed, it may actually make good financial sense to go into RE. Because right now, the climate change advocates root for the use of renewables but when you talk to the financial folks, they’ll tell you now is not yet the time.

But what is the right time? After the oil crunch of the 70s, we should have gone big time with renewables. But naysayers said at that time, “Now is not the time.” So now the world is slowly realizing that, now is the time. Because if not now, when? When the oil runs out? That will be too late.
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