Sunstar Bacolod
The Essentials
BY OFFICIAL pronouncements, the energy crisis in our country remains real and serious.
Government also estimates that we might have some 3,000 megawatts power shortage by 2012.
More than a decade ago, this was the same estimate that government wanted to solve. With the same estimate being projected today, it looks like government has not done anything substantive to reverse the trend, despite its positive outlook and bold projections.
For the government to be able to pursue the track of global competitiveness for its industries, the only way to secure its steady advance is to have an adequate energy supply. But the questions that now concerned both planners and consumers are, what sources, how cheap and how clean?
Although there is now a growing awareness for renewable energy, our country remains largely dependent on very dirty, destructive and expensive traditional energy sources – fossil fuels, of which coal is its biggest source.
In the Philippines, coal deposits are found over the country but the largest deposit is located in Semirara Island, Antique. The country’s largest coal producer is Semirara Mining Corporation, which contributes about 92% of the local coal production. Coal mines are also located in Cebu, Zamboanga Sibugay, Albay, Surigao and Negros provinces.
Experts say that coal is burned to produce steam which is then converted to electricity. It contains high heat content at economical costs. But the environmental problems its usage poses are heavy.
Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel to burn, so sophisticated air pollution control devices are necessary. Burning coal releases pollutants that contribute to acid rain and more carbon dioxide than any of the other fossil fuels. Strip mining for coal devastates an area and often results in serious erosion. Even when attempts are made to reclaim the land with grading, return of topsoil, and replanting, the ecosystem never fully recovers its biological diversity.
Dr. Romy Quijano, a toxicologist and pharmacologist, said that burning coal releases into the atmosphere more than 20 toxic and heavy metals, including arsenic, cadmium, mercury and lead. He added that low concentration of lead can increase neurological disease, especially in young children.
After having been heavily criticized as environment-unfriendly, coal was overtaken as an alternative energy source by nuclear power in the 70s and it proliferated in the early 1980s.
Experts cite many advantages to nuclear power. It does not cause air pollution or release greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It causes minimal water pollution. But other experts stressed that the big problem that nuclear power brings is high risk of radiation.
Despite the countless disasters and environmental destructions these sources have caused on humanity in different places and time, power brokers and experts still insist on using these destructive energy sources.
As of late, the Aquino government even mulls reviving the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, despite the disastrous nuclear fall-out in Fukushima, Japan.
Pushing this type of energy will only aggravate our crisis, and cause us endless nightmares.
The only way for our country to be stronger as it pursues global competitiveness for its industries and agriculture is to harness the almost unlimited power of renewable energy sources to complement our existing ones, and overtime, reduce the use of the latter.
These are solar power, wind power, hydroelectric, geothermal energy, and biomass energy sources.
Renewable energy sources can produce varied types of energy, electricity, heat and transportation fuel. Nuclear power produces only electric power.
Latest practices have already pointed out the cost-competitiveness of renewable energy compared to fossil fuels. Renewables will become even less expensive overtime when already used on a wider scale.
Our environmentalists are right in fighting for the use of renewable energy sources, since they could be available for an infinite length of time because the supply is continually replenished and the cost is affordable for the people.
Mindanao energy source is 51 percent supplied by hydroelectric power from Lake Lanao. The supply of energy however drops during summer months when there is less rain and less water in the dams. This is the reason why other renewable energy sources are being tapped to augment the shortages of hydropower supply.
Mindanao’s projected power shortage is estimated to be around 500 megawatts by 2014.
Visayas is reportedly facing a shortage of 600 megawatts by the same period. This state of our energy affairs demand more supply which can only be provided by our vast untapped renewable energy sources.
Department of Energy pointed out in 2009 that by 2030, more than half (6,767 MW) of the renewable energy sources in the country would come from hydropower. The contributions of other renewable energy sources by that time would be as follows: geothermal (3,097 MW), biomass (257.2 MW), wind (548 MW), ocean (120 MW), and solar (35 MW).
DOE added that biomass, solar and wind will be among the major sources of energy for the next decade, accounting for more than a third of the country's total energy demand. From 81.5 MMBFOE in 2003, the absolute level of these sources will increase by 2.8 percent annually reaching 104.1 MMBFOE in 2012. Biomass will continue to take the lion's share of the total at 99 percent. Meanwhile, the contribution of solar, wind and ocean will reach 0.6 MMBFOE in 2003 rising to 1.7 MMBFOE in 2007 and 3.0 MMBFOE in 2012.
Demand for solar and wind energy sources is foreseen to grow with the implementation of the program to invigorate the market for solar water heaters and locally fabricated solar dryers and wind pumps. On the other hand, biomass resources will continue to dominate total non-power demand for RE, increasing from 40.43 MMBFOE in 2003 to 47.46 MMBFOE in 2012.
The household sector will remain the largest user of these energy forms, particularly fuelwood, comprising 66.9 percent of the total biomass consumption for the ten-year period. From a level of 57.6 MMBFOE in 2003, consumption of the sector will increase to 68.4 percent in 2012.
Biomass will still be the most important fuel for rural households, particularly in their cooking and agriculture activities such as crop drying. Solar and wind, on the other hand, shall be utilized for lighting, water pumping and operation of small appliances
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There might valid arguments the pro-CENECO management and the anti-Ceneco critics are howling against each other.
But regardless who is right and wrong, in the framework of the current energy crisis and the search for a more lasting, stable and viable alternatives, the real issues on debate in Ceneco boil down to one thing: which energy source is clean, cost-effective and affordable for the already economically stricken consumers? Is the Ceneco power contract with KEPCO the best option there is for the public interest?
I hope this key issue is not blurred by propaganda issues of alleged reports of fund anomalies, poor management, unqualified directors, and illegal transactions in Ceneco.
If at all true, let them be just icing on the cake.
Published in the Sun.Star Bacolod newspaper on April 16, 2011.
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