WHAT IS not widely known, however, is that the diesel being sold locally already has some biofuel content. It’s actually a biodiesel blend that has one percent of coconut methyl ester (CME), which is sourced locally. Marasigan says that the country was able to produce 110 million liters of CME last year — more than enough for the 70 million liters needed for an annual supply of the biodiesel blend.

	SOME gasoline stations now sell bioethanol, which has a ten-percent ethanol blend. [photo by Isa Lorenzo]

Coconut oil is used to produce CME. Cocodiesel lowers the emission of nitrous oxide and sulfur oxide, which are the main contributors to smog. It also promotes more efficient combustion and less engine vibration, and is supposed to improve fuel economy by as much as 20 percent.

A survey conducted by the energy department showed improved engine emissions and overall performance, as well as reported increase in mileage. There were some negative comments in the survey, but the DOE says these were due to factors other than CME.

The one-percent CME in diesel was mandated to be in use nationwide by last April by the Biofuels Act of 2006, which was signed into law in January. In 2009, the CME content may go up to a minimum of two percent.

The biofuels law also mandates the use of at least a five-percent bioethanol blended into gasoline by 2009. After two years, the National Biofuels Board should determine the feasibility of using bioethanol, after which it can recommend a minimum 10-percent bioethanol blend.

Some oil companies are already offering gasoline with as much as 10-percent bioethanol blend. But unlike CME, the ethanol used by these companies is imported, since the Philippines has yet to have the capability to produce this. While the country’s first bioethanol plant is already being built in Negros Occidental, it is not scheduled to be in operation until next year. By 2009, 10 bioethanol plants will be needed to produce the country’s ethanol needs, but only three of these (including the Negros plant) are in the pipeline.

Industry statistics show that a total of some 26 million liters of ethanol-blended gasoline were sold nationwide last year. A liter of the blend is usually about P7 cheaper than the same amount of unleaded gasoline, but indications are those who opt for the former know it is the greener choice.

Most likely, locally produced ethanol will come from sugarcane. As it is, the Department of Agriculture has set aside 60,250 hectares for sugarcane that will eventually be used to produce 274 million liters of bioethanol. The government calculates that the 2009 bioethanol requirement will be 50 million liters less that amount.

Sugarcane ethanol can help reduce greenhouse gases, says Greenpeace. It also says sugarcane ethanol has a “positive energy balance,” which means that the end product generates more energy than required from its production. When sugarcane is used as a raw material for ethanol production, 8.3 units of energy is delivered for every unit of fossil fuel spent in production.

GLOBALLY, THE leader in sugarcane ethanol production is Brazil, which has a 30-year-old biofuel program. Interestingly, the Philippines began exploring the viability of biofuels about the same time as Brazil — only to drop the effort in the mid-1980s “due in part to domestic political turmoil, and in part to stable world oil prices,” say academics Raymond Tan and Alvin Culaba. At the time, the country was looking at two types of fuel: bioethanol, derived from sugarcane and used in a gasoline blend called alcogas, and biodiesel, derived from coconut oil and called cocodiesel. Two decades later, the Philippines is trying to pick up where it left off.

During the mid-1980s, almost all the cars sold in Brazil — which was apparently more serious about biofuels than any other country on the planet — ran exclusively on ethanol. Trouble came in early 1990s, however, when low oil prices led the government to remove subsidies on ethanol. High sugar prices also discouraged production. This led car manufacturers to find a cheap way for a car to burn both ethanol and gasoline. In 2003, the first flexifuel car was introduced in Brazil. Today 85 percent of the cars sold there are flexifuel.

	VEHICLE emissions are responsible for about one-fourth of global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. [photo by Isa Lorenzo]

Yet for all of Brazil’s success with ethanol, it is hardly the perfect model for biofuel development, says Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Jasper Inventor. “We certainly believe that it has reached a point where it’s not sustainable anymore,” he says. “It’s reached a point where you’re cutting forests in the Amazon (to grow sugarcane), where there’s actually some form of modern-day slave labor in plantations.”

It’s not certain how similar efforts elsewhere will end up. In the United States, where alternative fuels regained popularity some seven years ago, corn is the feedstock of choice for biofuel, even if experts say it is less “efficient” than sugarcane. The U. S. Congress has mandated that 7.5 billion gallons (28 billion liters) of the country’s fuel should come from ethanol or biodiesel by 2010. That’s equal to less than one percent of the annual U.S. fuel consumption. The United States, home of the gas-chugalugging SUVs and Inconvenient Truth Teller Al Gore, ranks first worldwide in terms of annual volume of greenhouse gas emissions.

Experts say that even if the entire U.S. corn and soybean corps were turned into biofuel, it would replace just 12 percent of the country’s yearly gasoline consumption and six percent of its diesel consumption. In the meantime, U.S. scientists are looking for ways to improve the energy balance and greenhouse benefits of corn ethanol by creating a “closed-loop system,” where cow manure would be used as biogas to create biofuel.

As for the Philippines (which ranks 38 among the top 50 greenhouse gas emitting countries), Marasigan says that the government will explore other types of fuel such as the extraction of methane from solid waste — aside from coal gasification and coal-bed methane. But as far as public buses are concerned, it’s placing its bet on compressed natural gas (CNG) that will see bus operators shelling out half the amount they are now spending for diesel. Natural gas is lead-free, produces practically no sulfur oxides or particulates and up to 30 percent less carbon dioxide than diesel.

The government’s compressed natural gas plan, however, is stretched out for completion in seven years, although anytime now 200 CNG-fed buses (with 185 already allotted to particular bus firms) will be arriving from abroad. Shell is also committed to selling CNG by the end of this month, albeit with just four stations offering this. (There is a move as well by the Philippine LPG Bus and Taxi Co. Inc. to pilot-test next month 10 buses running on LPG. The company plans to import up to 200 buses.)

Marasigan says that the near future of biofuels includes cellulosic technology, which produces energy from sustainable agricultural and forestry wastes. The DOE, he says, needs to keep on studying alternative fuels for the transport sector so that the department can achieve its goal of 60-percent energy security for the country by 2010. As Marasigan sees it, the bottom-line definition of energy security is being in a situation in which “whatever happens internationally, the country will have an ample supply of energy.”

At present, he says, the Philippines has already achieved energy security of more than 55 percent. Marasigan thinks achieving 100-percent energy security is improbable “unless we produce our own crude oil in (a) big quantity.”

Perish that un-green thought.