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On August 29, 2005, President Macapagal-Arroyo launched in Malacañang
an ambitious program that would promote the use of ethanol-blended
gasoline and slowly wean the country from imported oil.
During the launching of the E-10 program
(10-percent ethanol blended gasoline), the President said it was
time to shift to what she described as the “fuel of the future”
because of the unabated rise in the price of imported fossil fuel.
A few months later, in another ceremony in
Malacañang, the President was presented with a prototype Ford Focus
which uses ethanol as fuel.
Ethanol or ethyl alcohol is the alcohol found in
alcoholic beverages but is denatured (unfit for human consumption)
when used for fuel or industrial purposes. Ethanol is usually
blended with gasoline for it to be used to run motor vehicles. The
blend is usually 10-percent ethanol and 90-percent gasoline, thus
giving birth to a type of gasoline called E-10.
Since the launching in Malacañang, the
government and the private sector have stepped up efforts in
promoting the use of ethanol in the country.
Recently, Basic Petroleum Corp. announced that
its local ethanol plant in Zamboanga del Norte will be fully
operational by the last quarter of 2009. Basic bought the Zambo
Norte BioEnergy Corp. (ZNBC), a subsidiary of ZN Biofuels Partners,
Inc.
ZNBC is engaged in sugar-cane plantations for
ethanol production. Its assets include a 22-hectare site for its
proposed plant and more than 6,000 hectares of leased land in
Zamboanga del Norte, which will also be planted to sugarcane.
Upon full operations by 2009, its Zamboanga
facility is expected to produce 200,000 liters of ethanol daily.
RP among the last
to shift to ethanol
The Philippines is actually among the last
countries in the world to shift to ethanol. At the fuel pumps in São
Paulo, customers are given the choice on whether to fill their tanks
with gas or alcohol. Since the mid-1970s, Brazil has worked to
replace imported gasoline with ethanol, an alcohol distilled from
locally grown sugarcane. Today ethanol accounts for 40 percent of
the fuel sold in Brazil.
Brazil is the world’s leader in ethanol
production, distilling some 4 billion gallons (15 billion liters) in
2004. The United States is rapidly catching up, producing 3.5
billion gallons last year, almost exclusively from corn. China’s
wheat- and corn-rich provinces produced nearly 1 billion gallons of
ethanol, and India turned out 500 million gallons made from
sugarcane. France, the front-runner in the European Union’s
attempt to boost ethanol use, produced over 200 million gallons from
sugar beets and wheat. However, the total world production of
ethanol is able to replace only about 2 percent of total gasoline
consumption, just a drop in the proverbial bucket.
Fly in the ointment
Ethanol is now widely accepted the world over as
an alternative fuel mainly because it is cheap and a renewable form
of energy. Its proponents are saying that because ethanol has a high
octane rating, it reduces polluting emissions such as carbon
dioxide.
But a recent study conducted in the United
States showed that ethanol, taunted as the green alternative, could
actually create dirtier air and cause slightly more smog-related
deaths.
In his study, Mark Jacobson, a Stanford
University civil and environmental engineering professor, said that
nearly 200 more people would die yearly if all vehicles in the US
run on mostly ethanol fuel blend by 2020.
The study said that about 4,700 people die from
respiratory problems from ozone, the unseen component of smog, along
with small particles. Ethanol would raise ozone levels, particularly
in certain regions in the US where smog is already a serious
problem.
“It’s not green in terms of air
pollution,” Jacobson said, “If you want to use ethanol, fine,
but don’t do it based on health grounds. It is no better than
gasoline, maybe even slightly worse.”
Jacobson’s study, based on a computer model,
was published in the online edition of the Environmental Science and
Technology Journal. It has added to the already messy debate on
whether ethanol is really the answer to the global energy crisis.
All over the world, politicians,
environmentalists, industry leaders and other stakeholders have
clashed on just how much ethanol can be produced, how its mass
production would affect food security and to what extent will
ethanol cut back on fuel consumption and in fighting pollution,
especially global warming gases.
malinaolito@yahoo.com
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