Biogas can ease demand for fossil fuel

With the price of imported fossil fuel becoming increasingly prohibitive, the urgency of developing indigenous fuel to energize the country has become more imperative.

One such indigenous fuel is biogas, which can be commercially produced using the covered in-ground anaerobic reactors (CIGAR) system of Philippine BioSciences Co. Inc. (PhilBio) in the country. CIGAR produces clean methane gas that can energize several farms and homes at the same time.

PhilBio has been assisting local hog farms put up and operate covered in-ground anaerobic reactors (CIGAR) that produce methane gas enough to power the entire farm, thereby reducing the country’s requirement for environmentally-harmful fossil fuels.

PhilBio managing director Samuel West Stewart said his company is now designing the CIGAR project of the SIDCI cooperative in Batangas, which is expected to supply power to several farm communities in the barangay from a common reactor.

"We do not only light up and power the farms but we also clean their farm wastes by treating them in CIGARs after which they produce beneficial methane gas," he said.

The CIGAR project is among several projects lined up by PhilBio for possible financing by developed countries under the United Nations-mandated Kyoto Protocol that requires member countries to reduce their harmful carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions through clean development mechanisms (CDM).

Projects that can be funded under CDM are fuel switching-energy efficiency (like biogas); renewables; technological projects (like re-injection and scrubbing processes); forestry and land use change; fugitive emission controls in landfill gases, coal mine methane and wastewater treatment.

PhilBio is currently operating 14 CIGAR projects (involving private commercial farms) in the country and is constructing another eight projects from Luzon to Mindanao, Stewart said.

PhilBio has put up CIGAR projects and is intending to further upgrade its projects with better foreign technologies for funding under CDM in Paramount Agri in Nueva Ecija; Sentra Everlasting in Tarlac; Unirich in Tarlac; Goldillon in Tarlac; and Red Dragon in Pampanga.

Philbio wants to get funding under CDM of the SIDCI communal (cooperative) biogas system in Batangas, which would be its "Model Bio Energy Systems for Rural Development."

Stewart said PhilBio CIGAR projects qualify for CDM because: they reduce greenhouse gases from farms; displace grid-fed electricity; improve the environmental performance of farms in terms of reducing odors, BOD and COD discharges and reduce fire hazard; they provide for sustainable energy since biogas is an indigenous fuel and benefits the economic performance of farmers; and they contribute to the country’s sustainable development objectives.

Deliberations on the greenhouse gas reduction treaty began in 1992 in the Rio de Janeiro conference to drum up global support to reduce greenhouse gases worldwide. But the first world countries said they could not just shut down industries to comply with this treaty because of the staggering losses to their economies.

The developed nations proposed, however, to fund CDM projects in developing countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions and buy the Bonn-certified volume of toxic gases reduced as a result of these projects to be credited as their compliance to the treaty.

The first period of implementation of the Kyoto Protocol is from January 2006 to December 2012, where only accredited countries can undertake CDM projects funded by developed countries and sell such credit certificates of actual greenhouse gas emission reduction to Annex 1 (or first world) countries.