When Typhoon Ondoy submerged most of Metro Manila and so called citizen journalists started thumping their chests while shouting “Where I am from, everybody is a hero!” as they distributed relief goods, some of the people who were warning every one about climate change probably shook their heads.
The message they were spreading, apparently, hadn’t sunk in.
Global warming, climate change, and all the green jargon floating around in cyberspace apparently had flown above the heads of most people and continues to fly unimpeded.
Sure, there are are early adopters who will swear that they’ve made headway in getting their communities to adapt to climate change. But the dozens, hundreds, or few thousands who adopt climate change adaptation measures in the Philippines are probably still not enough to make a significant impact on the level of green house gases and other emissions that continue to drive our planet’s temperature higher.
Right now, climate change adaptation is one of those cool phrases that gets mouthed by some celebrity green advocate. But what we really need to see is the ordinary Filipino man or woman living the climate change adaptation philosophy.
Within the small group of mountaineers and grassroots green advocates that comprises the Alliance for a Cleaner Earth (ACE), the guiding idea behind some of the projects we support are those that get Filipino communities engaged in practices that will help cut down green house gas emissions while providing them with a steady source of income.
One project that we are supporting is a massive cooking-oil-to-bio-diesel conversion project that has recently just been started up with the help of a UP Diliman Jeepney operator.
Ricky Cuenca, a good friend and compatriot, shares a welcome development in helping ordinary Filipinos to produce their own fuel from the used cooking oil they normally thrown down drains and gutters.
When we started the biodiesel project 17 mos ago, so many roadblocks had to be hurdled. It is now bearing fruit.
The Jollibee group will supply as much used cooking oil as we can pick up from all their corporate stores in the Philippines to start the project for their contribution to the lessening of the Air Pollution problems, environmental and health hazards at a fixed price per liter.
This allows us to compete with the Big 3 and the present pump price of diesel. We plan to lower it a little more so that there is no question on affordability.
The benefits are huge. At 20% blend, we lower CO2 and sulfur emissions by 15 and 30% respectively. If we increase the blend to a higher percentage the more we can lessen these pollutants. There are so many other benefits using Biodiesel but the important thing is we now have a foothold of supply, an ever growing market of Public Transport Groups that consume 4 billion liters of diesel every year in the Philippines.
The UP Coop is just the beginning, we have lined up groups of Jeep and transport Coops in the thousands.
We just want to take our steps one at a time so we do not fall flat on our faces.
Phase 1 UP Jeep Coop – 200 jeeps, 1200-1500 liters a day of Biodiesel. Hope we can get up to full speed by Earth Day Apr 22.
The hope is that when we get up to speed by April 22, the project can now be showcased during the visit of Former Vice President Al Gore to the Philippines on April 30
We will need your help in spreading the word, blogging about it.
Here are a couple videos of the cooking-oil-to-bio-diesel project in UP Diliman.
Here’s a jeepney driver talking about the cooking oil bio-diesel he just loaded in this jeep.
Now, for the most part, Pinoy Buzz has been battling other bloggers over a number of political issues — mainly over the fact that Noynoy Aquino and Manny Villar are poor choices for the Presidency.
Recently, I’ve decided to lay off the online war over who is the better candidate and focus on supporting measures that will really make an impact on all of our lives.
After all, we can’t argue over politics under the sea.
In general, I don’t think bio-diesel is a good environmental solution. It requires a lot of energy to produce, and where it is produced using biomass, significantly reduces the land and grain available for food production. The benefits of biofuel are canceled out by negative impacts elsewhere.
BUT I think the application here, particularly how it is being handled in this program, is a significant and acceptable exception with a positive net result. Since the Philippines does not have much heavy industry, most of the air pollution can be blamed on vehicles, and this biofuel is being applied to what are probably the worst-polluting ones. That’s sensible. The Philippines also imports all its fuel, so anything that reduces that strategic disadvantage is also a strong benefit. Since the source material being used is also a source of ground and water pollution, it is helping that problem as well, and not posing a risk to the country’s already-insufficient food production capacity.
A much better long-term solution is to develop effective and energy-efficient transportation systems to replace the jeepneys entirely. Perhaps this is a good start; if nothing else, it makes a dent in the much larger problem. Hopefully, the people behind this can maintain that perspective and keep working on it even after they achieve their immediate goals.
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I am aware of a group in the Binondo area who have a more environmentally friendly means of transportation than that Bio-Diesel jeepney. Theirs are Kalesas running not on Bio-Diesel but on Kabayo-Diesel. PEACE!
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For so long am I (silently) supporting the option to use used cooking oil as fuel. If all vehicles use it, the Philippines will smell like fastfood. Way much better than putrid smoke.
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i don’t know how the science behind the idea works but it sure is interesting. i remember seeing a ripley’s believe it or not feature on a group that took a van on a trip across the united states. their van ran on fastfood cooking oil.
i think filipinos should do more exploring on alternative energy sources. this one is a good start i think. we just need to be more scientific about it. wouldn’t it be good if the philippines found a way to shift from the usual power sources. maybe invent a new technology.
i still think though that instead of finding new energy sources for jeepneys it would be better to do a complete re-design of this relic. the jeepney should give way to better means of transportation.
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i just cannot wait until the majority is not depended on oil to fuel there cars. It’s great that these innovative persons are using their ingenuity to find better fuel options because the list of benefits is never-ending. Thanks for the post!!
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The effort itself of looking for alternative energy sources is highly commendable, but I suppose this still needs more research.
Crude oil itself was formed after millions of years from carbon-based fossils of living organisms, so there is an advantage in not having to wait for the earth to process fuel sources for such long periods of time.
There is a professor in UC-Davis whose engine runs on used cooking oil. You can tell he’s been around when it starts to smell like fries
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i always use Biodiesel on my car to help the environment. Biodiesel is cleaner and is reneweable..*”
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I think this is good. Not just the use of biodiesel in jeepneys, but also the grassroots initiative involved. Go BIODIESEL!!!
I’m curious about what happens to the glycerin by-product. A lot of small biodiesel producers have this as a current problem.
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the glycerin by-product will be used to make soap and other products. The goal is to get the communities to sell the by-product as well as the used cooking oil biodiesel.
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