CONGRESSMAN [Roilo] Golez’s concern that biofuels will eat into food security — specifically, “making beer more expensive” — strains credulity.
Couldn’t he at least think of other, more plausible reasons besides worrying about a more expensive alcoholic drink?
– Perla Limbaga Manapol, Banga, Aklan, Philippines (via e-mail)
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December 25th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Helloooo, Garci! where are you. This is a lonely place to be nobody here. HO HO HO MERRY CHRISTMAS!
December 24th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL…..
December 24th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Once more Roilo Golez failed to consider several aspects of his supposed study.
But before that, to Andro Mondala, supposed “excess” glycerol has abundant uses and new uses as well. Please research in the net. I’ll give an example for one of the newly developed process to use this byproduct:
http://www.biofuelsjournal.com/articles/University_of_Leeds_Scientists_Develop_Process_to_Convert_Biodiesel_Byproducts_Into_Hydrogen_Fuel_____11_29_2007-51108.html
Excerpt:
University of Leeds Scientists Develop Process to Convert Biodiesel Byproducts Into Hydrogen Fuel
… Now researchers at Leeds have shown how glycerol can be converted to produce a hydrogen rich gas.
Hydrogen is in great demand for use in fertilisers, chemical plants and food production.
Moreover, hydrogen is itself viewed as a future •clean’ replacement for hydrocarbon-based transport fuels, and most countries currently reliant on these fuels are investing heavily in hydrogen development programmes.
The novel process developed by Dr Valerie Dupont and her co-investigators in the University’s Faculty of Engineering mixes glycerol with steam at a controlled temperature and pressure, separating the waste product into hydrogen, water and carbon dioxide, with no residues…
As for Roilo Golez’s claim that the biodiesel is not “carbon neutral”, he failed to take into account that much of the carbon dioxide emitted by biodiesel is absorbed by the biodiesel plant source itself.
http://www.biodiesel.org/resources/faqs/
Excerpt:
A 1998 biodiesel lifecycle study, jointly sponsored by the US Department of Energy and the US Department of Agriculture, concluded biodiesel reduces net CO² emissions by 78 percent compared to petroleum diesel. This is due to biodiesel’s closed carbon cycle.
For his concerns regarding biofuel affecting food security, I have answered this before and I reiterate. Certain plants like Jatropha grows in BARREN SOIL. The country could utilize its BARREN SOIL to plant Jatropha.
Next, since Jatropha only produces thus far about 2 tonnes a year, a farmer who has fertile land which could earn better by planting food crops would not plant Jatropha. Only when the farmer fails to earn sufficiently for from food products will he convert to Jatropha. The price of food products in the market vis a vis the earnings from Jatropha would serve as a natural check and balance from planting this in fertile areas which produces food products with better income. One possible concern however if food products from farmers are being bought dirt cheap by traders and controlled by middlemen. However that is not the fault of the farmer. That would be the fault of the exploiting middlemen and the stupidity of government to fail to provide adequate food refrigeration facilities and direct food outlets in the cities.
For his concern that this is supposed to be poisonous, that is the reason we have to have BIODIESEL PROCESSING plants of which some are capable of neutralizing these supposed toxins.
Some wish to promote bio-ethanol over bio-diesel. This should not be the case, BOTH MUST BE DEVELOPED. However the problem with traditional ethanol products is that this is usually extracted from corn. This is highly inefficient way to get ethanol and this is the one which threatens food security. A temporary answer to this is to develop high yield ethanol from sugar cane. We should also convert to biodiesel which come from various plant oils.
Why do we have to do this? Because this is a TRANSITION FUEL, not a permanent one. Since biofuel could be readily adapted to current vehicles, the transition to biofuel would be smooth. From this point, efficient ELECTRIC CARS must be developed when biofuel comes into regular use.
In summary, the best route for us will be,
A. Develop biofuels especially those which do not compete in land areas suitable for food crops.
B. Develop proper refrigeration, transport and city distribution system for food products. If the farmer gets adequate income from food crops, he would plant food crops. If the stupidities of this government fail to address this, then food crops will continue to have low prices thus discouraging the farmers to plant such items and may use too much fertile lands for biofuel production.
C. Biodiesels including those coming from coconuts would serve to raise the price of our copra, this would actually greatly reduce speculators and middlemen at the same time allowing the farmers to earn more for their produce.
D. Once biofuels take hold, the money which used to go to the Middle East will now simply circulate in our country. We STIMULATE our economy rather than the economy of Middle East nations.
E. Because biofuels easily adapt to current engines, TRANSITION would be smoother as compared to going directly to ELECTRIC CARS.
F. While biofuel start to replace and reduce our need for traditional fuel, we must NOT rest on our laurels. An immediate development for efficient and cheap ELECTRIC VEHICLES must be developed.
G. While we somehow mitigate pollution through the use of biofuels and at the same time make better income for our farmers, we then can pursue development of electric vehicles in a better (non-rushed) manner and start creating basic infrastructures for this. Electric vehicles will now slowly replace inefficient conventional internal combustion vehicles and start REALLY cleaning up our environment.
So you see, this is a stepped long range program which is Pro-People as:
A. This helps our farmers earn better income
B. Prods us to develop more efficient food refrigeration and distribution system.
C. Greatly reduce health hazards caused by pollution
D. The money of our nation would not go abroad just to procure imported pollutive oil; the money will simply circulate in our country
Second, it is also Pro-nature as this would reduce pollution in our environment.
A word of caution here would be, despite all of this, care should be taken to prevent kaingin. So the DENR should have better budget, wages and an honest Secretary so that possible abuses of our forests would still be kept in check.
As for strategic program of government, it should be:
A. Transition to Biofuel
B. Development of efficient Electric Vehicles and full swing on biofuel as replacement to imported oil.
C. Transition to Electric Vehicles, slow weaning away from biofuels. Development of Electric Vehicle Infrastructures
D. Full use of Electric Vehicles and further R & D for clean renewable energy. Reduction of vehicles with Internal Combustion Engine even though they already use biofuel.
An unused powerful energy source we have not yet really developed is harnessing Sea Wave Power. We often forget that we are an archipelago surrounded by seas. We must not just immediately follow the US system since their thinking are based on land mass. We must think and develop technologies particular to our country.
That is my take on this matter. Stopping biofuel development will only lead us to worse scenarios. A proper transition program must be implemented with long range vision that would benefit our people.
December 23rd, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Other concerns regarding biofuel production besides land limitations that our lawmakers should consider:
1. For bioethanol, the biggest problem is its water solubility. The most feasible way for transporting ethanol is using existing pipelines for gasoline supplies. (It will take us forever and possibly trillions of pesos just to construct new in infrastructures). You wouldn’t want anything with water running down our gas pipelines and storage facilities.
2. For biodiesel, a by-product of the transesterification reaction to produce biodiesel from oil is glycerol. Due to the mad rush for industrial-scale production of biodiesel abroad, there has been an oversupply of glycerol, once a high value product, now just a nuisance. Some overseas biodiesel producers even pay other companies just to get rid of this excess supply of glycerol.
This is something to think about especially for our scientists and university students for research topics. Most of us writing in this blog may not be scientists but at least we’re aware of the pros and cons of this serious matter. I think our senators and congressmen/women should read these blogs more often to be aware of these things. Those lobbyists have only their own interests and desire for $$$$$$$ under consideration.
I really have a lot of reservations regarding biofuels… so many reasons that this blog space cannot accommodate. This is not the only solution for the looming energy crisis. Geothermal, wind, solar, etc. should be considered.
December 23rd, 2007 at 2:01 pm
if indeed biofuels would eat into our food reserves, what are we doing about it? let’s plant the feedstock that would go into our biofuels plants. i’ve seen palm plantations in palawan which i hope would be for biofuels if not for the cooking oil to replace the coconut oil turned into cme. it could be done in various parts of the country too. romblon, where golez partly hails from (ro-romblon, ilo-iloilo) has a small biodiesel plant. yet the plant has not even made a dint in the price of copra in the province even if it produces 5% of the diesel needs of the power generating plant of the npc at the island. my point here is that the biofuels act had been passed. if we see a flaw in it, because it would make us starve, the good guys who passed it should do something about. let’s plant instead of talk.