The Department of Energy (DOE) recently gave its approval to seven biofuel projects which have a combined investment of over P7 Billion. The ramp up of biofuel production in the Philippines is in compliance with the 2007 Biofuel Law that mandates for a fixed amount of bioethanol to be mixed in the gasoline and biodiesel in the petro diesel being sold at the pumps.
The Seven Biofuel Projects are:
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Trans-Asia Renewable Energy Corp. shared that Jatropha Curcas is not as hardy a plant as its supporters tout it to be. They said that after experimenting in their Jatropha Curcas farm at Laguna they found out that the plant actually needs a lot of water and it won’t grow in just any type of land. This in turn affects the commercial viability of the plant as a feedstock for biodiesel. With this revelation they also announced that they are dropping any plans to enter the biofuel industry.
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The Department of Energy (DOE) announced that the biofuel law will push through despite questions raised by oil companies with regards to bioethanol being corrosive to gasoline vehicles.
Earlier this week, Petron CEO & Chairman, Ramon S. Ang raised an alarm that without proper guidelines in the processing, bioethanol mixed into the fuel could have water in them which could lead to corrosion of the fuel system and the subsequent blame would fall on the oil retailers. This necessitated the DOE to call a stakeholders meeting.
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Publicly listed, Chemrez Technologies Inc, announced a net income of P308.5 million for the earning period despite the slowdown in the world economy. They also reported a gross profit margin of P402.8 million, which is better by 17% from last year and an improved net profit margin of 13% compared to the previous year.
Income for the same period as last year however is down 3.2 percent from P2.45 billion due to price adjustments made to cope with the weakening global demand.
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Here’s an interesting article at Motoring Today’s column pointing out that E10 (fuel with 10% ethanol mixture) is not safe for use with carbureted vehicles since the ethyl alcohol can corrode the aluminum parts of the carburetor.
I guess the best answer to this question, on whether you car is E10 ready, is to ask the manufacturer. Its only recently that the Biofuels Law of the Philippines was passed mandating gasoline retailers to sell at the pumps biofuel mixed fuels so we can’t really tell whether the cars are indeed ethanol ready. Considering that making a car ethanol ready carries a cost with it that the car manufacturers could have done without since ethanol fuel was not an option at the pumps at that time.
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The very influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has announced its opposition to the biodiesel project of Pacific Bio-Fields Holdings.
Specifically stating that its planned use of over 600,000 hectares of government owned land as being exploitative and having a negative effect on landless farmers and fisherfolk who have yet to benefit from the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
CARP is a law that gives land to the landless in the form of favorable rates of payment that the farmer should payback in a span of 25 years. According to the law, idle public lands and most agricultural lands can be subjected to CARP.
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