Domini M. Torrevillas
Philippine Star

I clearly remember the sweet smell of success when Biofuels Act No. 9367, otherwise known as the “Biofuels Act of 2006,” was passed by Congress on Jan. 12, 2007. The chief author of the bill, Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, was walking on Cloud 9 over his accomplishment. He had fallen in step with the world’s grabbing of alternatives to fossil fuel whose supply is dependent on Middle East sheiks, and whose price is alarmingly increasing seemingly day by day.

The Biofuels Act of 2006 declared that “it is the policy of the State to reduce dependence on imported fuels with due regard to the protection of public health, the environment, and natural ecosystems consistent with the country’s sustainable economic growth that would expand opportunities for livelihood by mandating the use of biofuels as a measure to:

“a. utilize indigenous, renewable and sustainably-sourced clean energy sources to reduce dependence on imported oil;

“b. mitigate toxic and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions;

“c. (create) rural employment and income, and

“d. (secure) the availability of alternative and renewable clean energy without any detriment to the natural ecosystem, biodiversity and food reserves of the country.”

Section 4 of the Biofuels Act mandated the phaseout of the use of harmful gasoline additives and/or oxygenates within six months from the effectivity of the said law, and Section 5 of said law instead mandated the mandatory use of biofuels with a specified timeframe.

Section 5 mandated that within two years from the effectivity of the Act, at least 5 percent bioethanol shall comprise the annual total volume of gasoline fuel actually sold and distributed by each and every oil company in the country; that within four years, it would recommend a 10 percent blend of bioethanol by volume into all gasoline fuel distributed and sold by every oil company, and that within three months, a minimum of 1 percent biodiesel by volume shall be blended into all diesel engine fuels sold in the country.

Well and good. But those mandates seem to be meeting a slow death, what with a food crisis enveloping the globe. Food security vs. biofuel production and the environmental degradation caused by biofuels in all likelihood will necessitate putting Zubiri’s baby on hold — unfortunately,  I don’t know for how long.

The first big blow hitting Zubiri is Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s seeking more government oversight powers over biofuel development, which she fears could adversely affect the country’s ability to produce its own food. Speaking in the senator’s favor is Renato Velasco, chair of the Philippine National Oil Co.-Alternative Fuels Corp. (PNOC-AFC) who said that the program to develop the biofuels sector would not adversely affect the country’s food production.

From academe comes the contrary view — coming from UP Prof. Teodoro Mendoza who, like Senator Santiago, see the real threat of massive cultivation of crops for biofuel production, thereby reducing the hectarage devoted to food production.

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At a chance meeting with Rep. Roilo Golez, he told me he had raised questions about the implications of the Biofuels Act as early as Dec. 10, 2007. At this time he filed a resolution directing the committees on ecology, energy, and agriculture and food “to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, on the current biofuels program and review its impact on energy security, carbon emissions, global warming, and food security.”

In a press statement he had urged the Government “to suspend the multi-billion dollar biofuels program of the country and redirect the huge financial and land resources from biofuels to food production.”

At best, he said, the biofuels program “can provide only around 5 percent of the country’s transport fuel needs in the coming five years, but in exchange, the biofuels program has wrought havoc to the food production sector, contributing to the emerging global disaster of food scarcity and high food prices.”

“The people can survive without the 5- to 10-percent contribution to energy security that the biofuels program can potentially provide, but the people cannot survive the dislocation of the food sector that is now fast unraveling.

“There is also the very serious global ethical issue that some sector pushing for biofuels are doing so because they are going to benefit primarily from the increased demand for biofuels crops like sugar and corn. This must be reviewed and clarified by the government before any further resources are committed to the biofuels sector.”

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The adverse negative effects of biofuels’ carbon emissions concerns the representative from Parañaque. Biofuels, he said, aim to be “carbon neutral, meaning that the carbon released during the use of the fuel, e.g. through burning to power transport or generate electricity, is reabsorbed and balanced by the carbon absorbed by new plant growth . . . (Also) carbon neutral fuels lead to no net increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, so that global warming need not get any worse.”

In practice, he said in his resolution, “biofuels are not carbon neutral because energy is required to grow crops and process them into fuel; examples of energy use during the production of biofuels include fertilizer manufacture, fuel used to power machinery, and fuel used to transport crops and fuels to and from biofuel processing plants.”

He said that the amount of fuel used during biofuel production has a large impact on the overall greenhouse gas emissions savings achieved by biofuels.”

In his declarations, Golez mentioned a slew of experts (from the United Nations and World Bank and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) who decry the greenhouse gas emissions of biofuels. Among these is global warming expert Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen who says that “the advantages of reduced carbon dioxide emissions are more offset by increased nitrous oxide emissions since nitrous oxide is deemed to be both a potent greenhouse gas and a destroyer of atmospheric ozone.”

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My e-mail:dominimt2000@yahoo.com