Bronzeoak Philippines, a subsidiary of Bronzeoak Ltd of the UK, announced that they were building two power plants to power their bioethanol distillery in the Bukidnon and Tarlac. Both projects are expected to cost about $100 Million and will deliver 15MW of power each. They will work in tandem with a 40 million li/year ethanol processing plant.

The power plants would be specifically located at Kibawe, South Bukidnon and in Capas, Tarlac. Construction is expected to begin by the middle of 2010.
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There has been a lot noise these past few weeks owing to Petron President and CEO, Ramon S. Ang, publicly asking for more definite guidelines on the preparation of bioethanol from DOE because there is the high possibility that it could corrode the fuel system and valuable engine parts. Petron’s point was that if something bad happened to the car’s engines because of the bioethanol, they would be the one to receive the front end of the public’s anger because they are the ones selling the fuel to them.
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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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Petron CEO, Ramon S. Ang, urged the government to come up with clearer specifications for the bioethanol being blended with gasoline at the pumps.

He also said that the current mixture of 10% bioethanol (E10) possesses a threat to car engines because the water content in them could cause the car parts in the engines to corrode. Specifically the parts that the ethanol blended fuel is going to pass through, like the gas tank, fuel pump, carburetor or fuel injectors.
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The P3 billion San Carlos Bioenergy Inc. (SCBI) distillery in San Carlos, Negros Occidental was finally inaugurated yesterday. The plant is primed to produce 40 million liters of bioethanol a year while using sugarcane from the sugar rich province of Negros Occidental as its feedstock.

The 40 M liters accounts for 10% of the country’s bioethanol requirement in order to keep up with the requirements of the Philippine Biofuel Law which mandates that a certain percentage of the country’s fuel sold at the pumps be mixed with biofuel.
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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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