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| Learn from Iceland By Antonio C. Abaya Written August 14, 2005 For the Standard Today, August 16 issue But first learn from Brazil. With the price of petroleum crude reaching $67 per barrel and still going up, don�t we wish we had followed Brazil when it started pioneering in the use of ethanol � an alcohol derived from home-grown sugar cane � as fuel in the 1980s? In 2005, Brazil is exporting ethanol to Japan and South Korea at $25 per barrel, about one third of the price of crude. More than half of all new cars in Brazil are said to have so-called �flex-fuel� engines that automatically adjust fuel injection depending on the ethanol-gasoline mix of the fuel. During our energy crisis at the end of the Cory years, when we were experiencing 10-hour power outages everyday, there was much talk in media about learning from Brazil and setting up ethanol plants to replace at least part of our petroleum imports. It would also have been a boon to our moribund sugar industry, as sugar producers would have been encouraged to increase production, thus giving jobs to hundreds of thousands of our rural poor. But like everything else in this country run by lawyers and politicians, it was all talk. As far as I know, not a single ethanol plant was ever established here in the intervening 15 years to wean our transport and power sectors from total dependence on imported oil. It is therefore a relief to read in the August 15 issue of Standard Today that four minor players in the domestic energy market (Seaoil, Flying V, Unioil and USA 888) will soon start selling a 10% ethanol-gasoline mix at their pumps. At first, the ethanol, 25 million liters of it, will be imported, but there are plans to build two ethanol plants, in Bukidnon and Negros Occidental. One has to ask: why was all this not started 15 years ago? According to the August 05 issue of Newsweek, China has constructed the biggest ethanol facility in the world. It uses corn as raw material, but the Chinese are also experimenting with cassava, sweet potato (the lowly camote) and sugar cane. (Sugar - and other carbohydrates - from any crop can be fermented into alcohol.) Thailand is said to be building over a dozen ethanol facilities using sugar cane and rice husks as raw materials. Newsweek quotes a Lew Fulton of the International Energy Agency that �without too much effort, producing ethanol from sugar cane in developing countries like Brazil and India could replace 10% of global gasoline fuel� and that Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia are well positioned to join Brazil as global suppliers of sugar-cane ethanol. Why wasn�t the Philippines mentioned as a source? We are a major sugar-producing country and can ferment sugar into alcohol as well as the other countries, if only our lawyer-politician leaders had more foresight and less hindsight. According to Newsweek, Malaysia is expanding its palm-oil plantations and setting up biodiesel plants specifically to serve the German market. Fifteen years ago, we were also talking about coconut oil as an additive to diesel fuel. This is not a new technology. During the Japanese Occupation, many of our motor vehicles ran on coco-diesel. Their exhaust smelled of bukayo, but they were a viable alternative in the face of the petroleum shortage. Ten to 15 years ago, our lawyer-politicians were also talking about mixing coconut oil to our diesel fuel. This would also have been a boon to our coconut industry and would have provided hundreds of thousands of jobs to our rural poor. With revitalized sugar and coconut industries, hundreds of thousands, even a couple of millions, of rural Filipinos would have found decent jobs in their home regions and would not have been compelled to migrate to the cities where they just wound up, mostly jobless, in urban slums. The development of bio-fuels would also have reduced our import bills by hundreds of millions of dollars.. But, again, our lawyer-politician leaders did not translate their talk into concrete action and, as far as I know, not one coco-diesel plant ever got built to reduce our dependence on imported diesel fuel. Newsweek also reports that a new technology has just been developed by a Canadian firm. Using genetically engineered enzymes, it is now possible to convert the cellulose molecules in plants and trees into glucose (the chemical name for sugar), which is then fermented into alcohol. Cellulose is what gives plants and trees their stiff, fibrous structure. This means that the bagasse residue after sugar has been squeezed out of the cane, the rice-husks after the palay has been milled, the corn ears after the corn has been shelled, the coconut husks and shell after the coconut meat has been extracted��as well as the rice straws, the corn stalks, the coconut fronds and even ageing coconut trees themselves..�.can now be treated with this new enzyme and converted into glucose, which is then fermented into alcohol. According to Newsweek, Germany�s Volkswagen is financing a process to synthesize premium quality diesel oil from the cellulose of trees and plants, and some experimental VWs are already running on this fuel. A commercial facility will be up by 2007. Shell Oil is said to have invested $46 million on a facility that will produce 200,000 tons of ethanol a year from cellulose-derived glucose by 2008. As a major producer of rice, corn, sugar and coconuts, the Philippines stands to benefit enormously from this new technology, which will be a boon to both our rural and urban populations. Now if we can only get rid of our useless and obnoxious politicians�. The caveat here is that producing ethanol from all sorts of crops, and then burning the ethanol to generate electricity or to power motor vehicles and machines will still result in emissions of carbon dioxide and thus contribute to global warming. In the medium and long terms, the sane policy would be to declare our independence from both the hydrocarbons of petroleum and the cellulose-glucose from various crops as far as our energy requirements are concerned, and for this we have to learn from Iceland. Iceland is the first and, so far, the only country in the world to make such a declaration. In 2002, the Icelandic government announced a deliberate policy to create a hydrogen economy. (BBC News, Dec. 24, 2001.) Admittedly, this was relatively easy for Iceland because of its small population (270,000) and the abundance of hydro and geothermal resources. But, on a per capita basis, prosperous Iceland is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. That is now being changed by converting the engines of the country�s cars, buses, trucks and fishing fleet from gasoline- or diesel-fired to fuel cells. Fuel cells generate electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen, and the resultant emission is nothing more pollutive than ordinary water vapor, as I have mentioned in several articles, the latest one being �Hydrogen Economy� (Dec.26, 2004). The oxygen can be drawn from the air, and the hydrogen can theoretically be extracted from ordinary tap water through electrolysis. In actual prototype fuel cells, the hydrogen is usually derived from natural gas, which is mostly methane, a hydrocarbon, so some greenhouse gas emission is still unavoidable. The electrolysis of water is still very expensive and requires more energy than can be produced through fuel cells. A recent breakthrough using high temperatures from nuclear reactions has been announced but it would probably raise the overall cost of the energy produced to astronomical levels. In the Icelandic scheme, hydrogen is extracted by electrolysis as a by-product of an existing 50-year old industrial process that produces ammonia for fertilizers. In effect, Iceland would be using its cheap and abundant hydro and geothermal energy to produce the hydrogen needed for its fuel cells. The Philippines being the second biggest producer of geothermal energy, next only to the US, the government should send a delegation to Iceland to learn how we also can build a hydrogen economy. Is it feasible, for example, to use wind generators to extract hydrogen from water by electrolysis? Wind generators do not require any fuel to operate, so the initial high cost of the equipment can be amortized over, say, 50 years. Top-of-the-line wind turbines now have capacity ratings up to 1.6 mw, while stationary fuel cell generators, as far as I know, are available in modules of 250 kw each, stackable in series to a total of 1 or 2 mw. So when one thinks of fuel cells, one should not think of, say, 600 mw power plants that will each require an enormous amount of hydrogen. Think instead of hundreds or thousands of 1 or 2 mw fuel cells, serviced by hundreds or thousands of wind generators for their hydrogen requirements. But think also of the savings in sub-stations, transformers and power transmission lines hundreds of kilometers long, which are thus rendered unnecessary. But we have to be more action-oriented, rather than talk-oriented. In 1995, I was invited to Los Angeles for a briefing on fuel cells by the corporation that fabricates fuel-cells for NASA�s space ships. After my articles on fuel cells came out in my column in the Philippine Star, I received an unsolicited letter from the Department of Energy informing me that an 8-person delegation would be sent to North America to visit the various fabricators of fuel cells. But after that, as in the matter of ethanol and coco-diesel, there was total silence. There was no follow-through, no plan of action mapped out or implemented. We cannot keep on running our country like this.***** Reactions to [email protected] or fax 824-7642. Other articles in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Learn from Iceland� How true. And as I read this, I just learned that Thailand is expanding its production of methyl ester, which is the additive in biodiesel, from 215,000 to 331,000 tonnes per year. (Coconut methyl ester (CME), a product of coconut oil's trans-esterification, actually supersedes the use of unaltered coconut oil as was used in the defunct coco-diesel; not only is it free of the bukayo smell, but produces much lesser smoke than plain diesel). Efforts on the other hand by both DOE and PNOC to start-run buses in both CME and alco-gas, so I read from a report, is bogged down by the lack of a refueling station that was supposed to be built in Batangas. Meanwhile, we are permitting the construction of two coal-fired power plants in Cebu by a Korean company with a tarred record in waste mitigation. One must seriously doubt whether your elegant engineering solution will find light in the dimness of our politicians. Bernardo Vidal, [email protected] August 17, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww The ethical and moral values among government employees (not all ) is kaput. It's this prevailing attitude among them that in order to endorse or push through a project, a proposal or a contract, it�s this " what's in it for me " that has to be dealt with first. Thus, overpricing comes into the picture to accommodate their wants and to ensure approval. To make matter worse, it has to be up front. Thus, a lot of very, very, very good projects or proposals die or do not progress because of this attitude. It has also seeped in the private sector already. Dealing with large private companies with regards to providing logistics to them require that you deal with their purchasing department. It�s getting to be the same with them. " THERE ARE NO TAKERS IF THERE ARE NO GIVERS " Bombing Moll, [email protected] August 17, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I say learn from anywhere. There are enough learning around us if only we dare to fight the giants who prevent us from acting out for our own good. Wind generators has been around and so are other alternative sources of energy. But the petroleum giant cartels have been around too, trying their best to put our every initiative to break away from them to bust. And their crooked partners in government are perpetually around to make our dependency upon them last forever. Ogie Reyes, [email protected] August 17, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww From: AC Abaya: [QUOTE] After my articles on fuel cells came out in my column in the Philippine Star, I received an unsolicited letter from the Department of Energy informing me that an 8-person delegation would be sent to North America to visit the various fabricators of fuel cells. But after that, as in the matter of ethanol and coco-diesel, there was total silence. There was no follow-through, no plan of action mapped out or implemented. We cannot keep on running our country like this.*****[UNQUOTE] Dear Mr. Abaya; You could have been expecting too much from the hydrogen fuel cell affair. Your article already mentions that fuel cells using hydrogen, sports a negative energy balance especially when using natural gas as feedstock. Offhand, I feel certain hydrogen fuel cells do not have a future in the US nor in the Philippines. However, it could be quite feasible in Iceland, Denmark, and the Netherlands because the primary energy source would be hydro, wind, and geothermal. Whatever energy we can generate from geothermal and hydro should be used as electricity and not wasted partially by converting it into motive hydrogen. The additional electricity should be used for mass transport. Let ethanol and biodiesel handle the portable need for liquid fuels. We need a country blueprint on what and how much energy sources would be applied for what energy end use. This is to avoid wastage of scarce capital and to keep energy costs as low as possible. Tony Anciano, [email protected] August 17, 2005 P.S. There is an important technical concept in using windpower and hydro for hydrogen production, that is if a country has abundant wind, solar, and hydro resources. Hydrogen is not a primary energy source; it is a storage medium. Link this concept with the fact that wind power and solar are intermittent and hydro is seasonal. Intermittent power generators should not be connected to the grid which requires reliable service. They should be directed at producing liquid/gas fuels which can be stored and which are not sensitive to reliability of service. As can be seen, the Philippines needs all its hydro, geothermal, and wind power as end-use electricity. Hydrogen is not for us. MY REPLY. You missed my point. Which is that even if wind is intermittent, it can still be used to extract hydrogen from water by electrolysis. Since there is no fuel, only water, involved, the cost of the equipment, amortized over 50 years or more, would make the cost of the hydrogen produced minimal, thus competitive for use in fuel cells to power motor vehicles, communities, individual buildings, factories, etc which do not require more than 2 mw of electricity, in 1995 the limit for fuel cells. It is also about time that you retire your favorite dictum, that Hydrogen is not a primary energy source; it is a storage medium. It is not based on sound science, in much the same way that the Medieval Church�s terracentric universe was not based on a scientific cosmology. Real scientists (astronomers, physicists, chemists) know that hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, that the energy released from its conversion into helium through thermonuclear or fusion reaction in the Sun (and other stars) is the ultimate cause of all energy everywhere in the cosmos, including (on Earth) wind, solar, petroleum (from the decay of heliotropic plants millions of years ago), biomass and biofuels, hydro (from the evaporation and precipitation of water), and geothermal (from the release as steam of water heated by volcanic heat.) Hydrogen is THE primary source of energy in the universe, including Earth. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww From the looks of it, our country is about to fall from the pinnacle of desperation to the abyss of utter degradation and hopelessness. For already the malady of resignation and defeatism had permeated the most basic pillars and elementary units of our society. Clearly, our forsaken land, the poor Philippines is blessed with bountiful human and natural resources that can be harnessed to build a really great and prosperous nation. But unfortunately, we have been cursed with the worst, most barbaric, inutile government and officials ever known by the human race. The term "LEADER" should not be used to call these beasts for they are not. For me at least, a "LEADER" is an almost holy individual who is almost totally selfless and is willing to lay down his life for the good of his people and motherland. But what we have now is a cursed bunch of self-centered dictators whose individual aim is to enrich themselves (and often by filthy lucre) If I can have my way, visionaries like you must be installed at the highest office of the land, and there, hopefully, you can begin to impart the basic wisdoms of effective government to these fat beasts But we cannot do anything except wail in the dark. Our voices are lost in the madness of this society that has gone into the trash bin of civilization. Just look how the rest of the world regards our nation. For the foreigners we are a nation of fools, of thieves, and of whores. Nowadays the word "filipina" is synonymous with prostitutes and mail-order-brides. For our society stresses the point that filipina women and girls are goods to be exported for the general pleasure of foreigners. And majority of our whoreful filipina girls and women now look westward and overseas in looking for boyfriends and husbands. After all, maybe this is the "strong nation" that President Arroyo had envisioned. Alex Argote, [email protected] August 17, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony: This is truly a great article. Our gas prices in Florida and so with other part of the USA have soared up high. That's the reason too why I chose to get a Diesel instead of Gas fueled vehicle. The former averages 27 in the city and 37 mpg. on long driving. My other car, which use gas can do only 17 in the city and 24 on long driving. Thanks for including me in your distribution. Ding Roces used to share your articles with me--now I get it direct. Fred Vidal, [email protected] Florida, August 17, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww The reason why we remained stagnant despite the previous plans of developing ethanol is that we are very much attached to good ol' Uncle Sam. The other countries you mentioned that developed or at least drawing up plans to develop ethanol plants (Brazil, India, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia) are not as dependent on the US as ours. In fact, they want as much as possible to disassociate themselves with the US. That's why our leaders don't have the ball to go against what Uncle Sam dictates. Throughout history, our government did not show interest in developing our home-grown technology, and our inventors were forced to sell their inventions (and the patent) to big foreign companies. Agapito Flores has never been acknowledged for his invention of fluorescent lamp. I forgot the other names, but it was also a Pinoy who developed NASA's moon buggy. Other Filipino inventions include the Karaoke (which unfortunately is globally mistaken as a Japanese invention), the oven toaster, and many others. And if proven right and authentic, Dingle's motor engine that runs on water may be our greatest contribution and gain. But no support was given, and he might already be contemplating on selling his idea to BMW. Not only our inventors. Until now, our professionals are lured to go abroad. It seems everybody wants to ape anything Western. Therefore, because the west uses fossil fuel, we too should use the highly toxic, environmentally unfriendly petroleum products. That is also what the west wants so we will remain dependent on their technolog Unless we (and I mean all of us) acknowledge the fact that we have our own great minds and learn to stand on our own, we will remain the talangka the we always use in that well-known analogy. Martinez Felipe Rommel, [email protected] August 17, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, I agree with you 100% about your suggestion re ethanol and hydrogen fuel that we should also produce massively to power our economy to the end that we should even be exporting them to earn more dollars for the Philippines. . The trouble, however, is that each time we engage on any enterprise to improve our society, high officials and politicians always need to have a CUT in every peso that we invest into our business ventures and there is nothing right in justice if these crooks don't make money in the venture. And so, the incentive to improve is killed right then and there before it could start because the capital to invest in any good venture is all swallowed up by the pockets of Philippine "holy" politicians that run the country. To STOP the stupidities by government leaders, we must first REFORM JUSTICE, a justice system that must be PEOPLE POWERED so that the common people or private citizens will be able to independently decide in their halls of justice to send ALL grafters to jail. This can only be accomplished by the adoption of the Grand Jury and Trial Jury systems. As one critic said, Philippine justice is a "lap dog" justice where the real crooks don't go to jail." How powerful can a Grand Jury do to send grafters to jail? Kind browse the following web site: http://anticorruption.homestead.com/GJInst.html Kindly invite all leaders in the civic, ecclesiastical, media, business, etc., sectors to co-sponsor with you the proposed jury law that I have drafted for enactment under RA 6735, the law that empowers private citizens to pass a law without going through Congress or the President. Please contact Vic Del Fierro, Jr. (email: [email protected]) who is laying up the launching of the jury systems. He is the President of the Coalition of Consumers Protection & Welfare, Inc. - Refer to: http://anticorruption.homestead.com/Compressedf.html Let's use the people's power on a higher level in the halls of justice. Marching in the streets is the poorest way of exercising people's power. It drains out energies and this is the reason why the number of participants in public demonstrations is dwindling now-a-days because the people know that in the end such activities will not change the picture of stupidities in the government. Presently, the government monopoly of justice is the protective "mother superior" of high government grafters. This monopoly has to be dismantled by adopting the jury system, the people powered justice system. Justice first before embarking on anything else. We are like farmers who are planting seeds but we do not drive out the crows that eat the seeds before the seeds could grow. Marlowe Camello, [email protected] Homeland, California, August 17, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr Abaya, Try exploring these: There are a lot of palm tree plantations in Mindanao, particularly in region 10, 11 and Caraga. There is an abundance of geothermal resources in region 7 particularly in Leyte My best regards... Mabuhay ka! Majoret, [email protected] August 17, 2005 MY REPLY. The geothermal fields in Leyte have been exploited for the past 20 years or so, as have those in Negros, Albay and Davao. Next to the US, the Philippines is the biggest user of geothermal energy in the world. Aside from date palm, our tens of millions of coconut trees are a source for coconut methyl ester, which is now being tried as an additive to diesel fuel. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, I like your candid views about impeachment, military intervention, and the disloyalty of the people with whom GMA has been associated with. You are definitely right when you said that there is no one whom people will rally around. It was a choice of a lesser evil and Gloria was perceived as a lesser evil. Dr. Nestor Baylan, [email protected] New York City, August 18, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Sir: Say what you will about Ferdinand Marcos, at least he had a long-term energy program in place. Unfortunately, the communists, the limousine liberals and the bleeding hearts of the Cory regime dismantled these programs, including the 95% completed nuclear plant. Now we have no energy program and have wasted billions of much-needed dollars in amortization and interest on that mothballed nuclear plant. Now, it's payback time. Cheap $10/barrel oil of the 1990's is a thing of the past. We will be seeing much higher energy prices in the next decade or so. Because we are unprepared, we will be in for a rough ride. People should be informed of what a disaster Cory Aquino and her gang of Kamag-anaks and incompetents were to the country! Juan Deiparine, [email protected] Toril, Davao City, August 18, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Great piece, Tony. Now I learn the Philippines has so much potential, but all going to waste. Like a boxer with so much talent but who is never put to the test in a ring. Keep punching, brother. ~ Jimmy Pimentel, [email protected] Sydney, Australia, August 18, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww ACA, That was a valid question you raised that not one ethanol plant was ever established by the sugar industry to wean the country�s dependence on imported oil. Like proverbial ningas cogon, this issue goes back to the late 70�s when the industry had an exceedingly oversupply situation, world sugar prices were down, the large US quota was gone, and ethanol production appeared to be the only way that could save the industry. But then things went back to normal, and it became more profitable to sell sugar than ethanol. The project was quickly dropped and forgotten only to be revived, as it repeatedly happens, when another crisis threatens the sugar industry. Either that or they depend too much on government for quick political fixes, never a long term. The NFA has been bled nearly to death so many times for buying the sugar from the producers at a subsidized price to save the industry, because the prevailing prices were below cost. The industry has had many economic problems caused chiefly by its archaic mills which make production costs uncompetitively high. It also had its profitable years but, except for a few mills, many preferred to operate on their meager existence than recapitalize and expand productivity to meet the challenge of the future. There is now an ethanol plant under construction in Negros Occcidental. However, its success will depend largely on the support of the cane growers and the subsidy the government is willing to provide. How much impact it will have to reduce the nation's oil needs only time can tell. Cesar M. De los Reyes, [email protected] August 18, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony: You may also recall that some years back, even as they geared up for alternative fuels, Brazil also built 350,000 miles of bike lanes to harness pedal power as well! Talk of holistic planning and problem solving! Nakakainggit, ano? More power. Manny Valdehuesa, [email protected] Cagayan de Oro City, August 18, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi, Nice points made in your article, and obviously any fuel produced from home grown material would save on spending precious dollars on imports. The technology needed for the production of ethanol and/or vegetable oil for use as an engine fuel has been understood for years and neither is very sophisticated. It does not need to be done in large scale capital intensive plants but can be done as a 'cottage' industry (processing cellulose is a little more complicated). I quote you. "Fifteen years ago, we were also talking about coconut oil as an additive to diesel fuel. This is not a new technology. During the Japanese Occupation, many of our motor vehicles ran on coco-diesel. Their exhaust smelled of bukayo, but they were a viable alternative in the face of the petroleum shortage." Any jeepney driver can add 10% cooking oil straight to his diesel and drive away. The problem in the UK is stopping people from doing it, which is in general achieved by big fines (they are usually detected not by the smell of bukayo, but by a smell similar to a Macdonald�s chip fryer!!). The problem is that the Government needs the tax revenue even more than it would like to save import dollars, and I expect it is the same in the Philippines. D .John Adams, [email protected] United Kingdom, August 19, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww You Wrote: "Why wasn't the Philippines mentioned as a source? We are a major sugar-producing country and can ferment sugar into alcohol as well as the other countries, if only our lawyer-politician leaders had more foresight and less hindsight." **************************************** Is this surprising for anyone as to why we were not mentioned as a source? I'm not surprised. There are so many opportunities for the Philippines IN THE PAST to be a major contributor to other world countries but due to our "RED TAPE", "CORRUPT GOVERNMENT AGENCIES & OFFICIALS" which is known through out the whole world. (Philippines one of most corrupt country in the world). Who will put their investment here knowing this? We are considered "HIGH RISK" due to above mentioned realities. We must reflect as to how to change this world-wide perception and make us at least a candidate to all these opportunities wherein we are being bypassed. WE KNOW THE PROBLEM, BUT WE DON'T MAKE AN EFFORT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. It is common knowledge that ALL government agencies and officials want to have a piece of the pie. That is why, even our businessmen are investing in other countries rather than putting their investment in the Philippines due to their foresight that we are going to the dogs if nothing is done in changing the Philippines investment image immediately. "This definitely will not be done during this administration, that is fighting for survival due to credibility, scandals and legitimacy issues". So many debts to pay to people who put them in power.......etc.... WE MUST REFLECT NOW AND MUST DO THE RIGHT THING, IMMATERIAL WHO GETS HURT AND THE PEOPLE WILL BE BEHIND WHOEVER INITIATES THESE DRASTIC CHANGES. Jose Genato, [email protected] August 20, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I suggest these kinds of topics should be sent to PGMA cc the energy Secretary, not just being publicized. In fact I would like to suggest also that the Energy Dept put up a Call Center wherein every body could submit their ideas for cost savings which should be a continuing drive. Bless you. Roger L. Madrigal, [email protected]. August 20, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, You just confirmed what I said. The trouble with this country is that there are 10,000 constitutional tinkerers and not one Bill Gates. Ethanol may not exactly be the cure. Raising the cane uses a lot of ammonium compounds, ultimately energy. (You don�t think the Brazilians know that? Yet they are the world leaders in growing, using and exporting ethanol. ACA) Windmills okay. But shouldn't we now develop our own SARILING (I sound like a nationalist) technology to develop them. (There is nothing to stop you from developing a better windmill, Ross. So why not be a Bill Gates, instead of one of those 10,000 bellyachers. ACA) Ross Tipon, [email protected] Baguio City, August 22, 2005 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |
| CEBUANO CITED FOR INVENTING COCO FUEL BY MARS W. MOSQUEDA JR. MANILA BULLETIN DECEMBER 3, 2004: P. J-3 Cebu City ? Cebuano Vick Anthonio Medel, who invented the ?vegetable energy,? is this year's Zetan Top of the Year Awardee. Medel will receive the awarding during the 13th Top of the Year Award ceremony yesterday (Dec.2) at the Grand Hotel Astoria in Zamboanga City with the President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as the honorary presentor. Medel Invented Enkoco Eco-Dynamics Energy from coconut oil to power diesel engines and as a catalytic to two strokes. Zetan Foundation chairman Danny Barrios asked Medel to receive the award during the ceremony ? to give us the opportunity to say thank you for the serving our city and people faithfully and well?. Medel said the Zetan Foundation and the people of Zamboanga City have expressed their gratitude after he recently launched his Enkoco Eco-Dyanmics Energy products in the area. Medel's invention obtains more than 20 by-products from raw coconut, including oil, which can be easily catalyzed into diesel, gasoline and lubricating oil. Medel's invention, which is vegetable energy, will generate close to 15 products out of raw coconut, including oil that can be used for fuel. Ultimately however, Medel said he would venture into producing diesel and gasoline hoping to ultimately free the country from its dependence on foreign oil. ?If the President is looking for a legacy, we hope this would be it, ? he added.***** MY REPLY. Sorry to rain on your parade, but �vegetable energy� was the subject of the cover story of Newsweek magazine about six months ago. Ethanol, derived from sugar and other carbohydrates, has been widely used in Brazil for about 30 years now. Ethanol is also a form of �vegetable energy.� During the Japanese Occupation (1942-45), diesel trucks and buses in the Philippines used coco-diesel, or diesel fuel mixed with coconut oil. It, too, is a form of �vegetable energy.� All of these � ethanol, coco-diesel, other forms of vegetable energy � are organic compounds, meaning they are carbon-based. When they are burned in internal combustion engines, they emit carbon dioxide, the most common of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. What Iceland has pioneered is an economy that is not fueled by energy from carbon-based sources. Iceland is the first and, so far, only country in the world that has specifically chosen to source its energy ONLY from hydro power, geothermal power, wind power, solar power and hydrogen-based fuel cells, none of which emit carbon dioxide. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww |