(The Philippine Star) | Updated July 16, 2016 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines -
The Philippines has strong potential to develop the biogas industry due to the
country’s favorable geographical conditions and availability of various kinds
of feedstock, according to industry stakeholders.
Energy generation from
biogas, which is the product of natural degradation when organic matter
ferments, does not cause any additional greenhouse gas emissions and does not depend
on climate factors.
“The Philippines is
potentially a major market for biogas given our geographical conditions and our
available feedstock resources such as animal manure, agricultural by-products
and agro-industrial waste,” said Liborio Cabanilla, University of the
Philippines Los Baños College of Economics Management Alumni Foundation Inc.
(UPLB- CEMAFI) executive director.
He said improving the
country’s biogas industry is just a matter of better informing the people of
the possibilities.
Cabanilla said farmers
have the potential to have financial security by selling agricultural waste and
from the organic digestion process which also produces high-value fertilizer.
He cited, First Quezon
Biogas Corp. (FQBC) which has been producing green energy with the help of a
poultry farmers’ cooperative from Quezon province. Commercial poultry owners
have faced problems with the huge quantity of chicken manure generated from
their farms.
FQBC’s biogas facility
in Quezon will primarily use 14,000 metric tons of chicken manure per year from
Quezon’s poultry farms and rice straw, readily available in the province.
“Biogas is changing our
perspective of work and our life in Quezon province giving us the chance of
developing further our main business, poultry farming while generating green
energy. We solved a problem and found a lucrative venture along the way,” FQBC
president Andy Alquiros said.
However, the use of
high-efficiency technology is important in ensuring a full control of the
biological process, engineer Marcello Barbato of German biogas technology
company EnviTec Biogas AG said.
“Our German
experience and quality can be easily implemented in this amazing country that
needs power and efficient technologies to enhance its growth,” he said.
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