28-06-2012, 01:45 PM
Bio-fuels
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INTRODUCTION
Increases in prices of petroleum products and global warming have made the use of bio fuels necessary particularly for Third World countries. Greenhouse gases which cause global warming have been largely caused by excessive pollution brought about largely through the use of fossil fuels. Bio fuels on the other hand do not cause pollution. Proponents of bio fuels claim that bio fuels may even clean up the engines on which these are used.
Unlike fossil fuels, bio fuels can be absorbed by the environment. There is less danger to the environment in cases of oil spills as what had happened recently in Guimaras.
Fossil fuels take millions of years to form. Bio fuels can be derived from plants and is renewable. Many of the plants from which it can be derived are locally available. Many of the plants from which bio fuels may be derived are grown in the Philippines such as coconut from which bio diesel can be obtained and sugar cane from which ethanol which can be blended with gasoline can be extracted.
ASEAN can be a center for production of bio fuels. The Philippines and ASEAN are the major world producers of four plants from which bio fuels may be derived. These are coconut, sugar cane, cassava and palm oil. Many of them are net exporters of these products.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Biofuels are any fuel derived from biomass. These are renewable sources of fuel, unlike other natural resources such as petroleum, coal and nuclear fuels. Used as motor fuels, these can be used in compression-ignition and spark ignition engines with no major modifications. Bio fuels are also biodegradable, nontoxic and free of sulfur and aromatics. These are also inexhaustible and can be produced from locally available agricultural resources. Typically, bio fuels are burned to release its stored chemical energy. The carbon from biofuels however is extracted from the atmosphere by growing plants, so burning does not increase the average amount of carbon dioxide.
TYPES OF BIO FUELS
There are three types of bio fuels, solid, liquid and gaseous.
3.1 Solid Biofuels
Solid bio fuels come from wood, dried compressed peat, straw and other dried plants, animal waste and from crops such as rice, ground nut and cotton.
The Oil Industry in the Philippines
Industry Structure
At present, the Philippines is almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels for its vehicles. Great strides have been made in generating power from non traditional sources such as geothermal energy, hydropower and power has also been generated from wind energy, but bio fuels is something new.
Philippine oil industry has been deregulated since 1998 through Republic Act 8479. It is currently dominated by two major oil refining and marketing companies, Petron and Shell Philippines. Caltex Philippine, a unit of Chevron Texaco of the United States, converted its oil refinery into an import terminal in 2003. The Philippine National Oil Company jointly owns Petron together with Aramco. PNOC and Aramco each have a 40 percent share in Petron while the public hold the balance of 20 percent of the shares.