Ethanol our alternative fuel source

I was watching last Sunday's special report in CNN about the world's oil crisis, which to me were an eye opener and a very interesting piece of journalism. CNN even went into various scenarios as to what would happen around the world if and when the oil dries up. You may say that it was part fiction, but then, who knows someday it just might become a reality.

The most interesting part of the story was that when the oil dries up in their fictional year of 2009, Brazil would be the only nation on earth that would proudly go on with life as usual. Thanks to their widespread use of Ethanol fuel on all their vehicles, they're the only nation who can claim total independence from fossil fuel within a year.

And where does Ethanol come from? From sugar cane! Yes Maria, if only our militant jeepney drivers who every now and then march and rally against high oil prices would shift their attention to our Senators and Congressmen to enact laws that would overhaul the sugar industry to give incentives to farmers who convert their lands into sugar or corn (yes, corn can also be used for fuel) modernize our antiquated sugar mills and most important of all, give back the taxes earned from the Ethanol revenues back to the people working in this industry, pretty soon, the Philippines would be in the road to total independence from crude oil.

Call this a pipe dream if you wish but in our example, we don't have to reinvent the wheel or concoct something from nowhere. All we need to do is follow the example of Brazil. Way back in the mid-90s when Mayor Tomas Osmeña and a small group of friends went to the City of Critical, Brazil, we already saw their gas stations using ethanol fuel, even when at that time, the pump prices of oil wasn't as expensive as it is today. Brazil didn't drop the idea of using ethanol because oil was at that time cheap. Forward thinking did the trick.

That CNN Special Report revealed to us that there are still a lot of oil reserves to be discovered on this earth, except that in many areas, environmentalists were successful in stopping oil explorations. What is crystal clear is that, with the rapid growth in the economy of India and China, their middle class are now buying cars just like most of the Western world, hence thanks to the Law of Supply and Demand, the era of cheap oil is over. It is for this reason why alternative fuels like Ethanol from sugar or corn can now compete with the Black Gold and we should exert all effort to develop our own.

Well, it turned out that the Senate Energy Committee under Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago has such a bill, mandating the use of ethanol or coco-diesel. Now this is a step in the right direction. But they should have a more comprehensive bill that would give back some kind of subsidy to the coconut, corn or sugar workers in order to give them a better than average pay. If Congress can do this, a lot of our people would be working in sugar plantations, cornfields or coconut farms just to satisfy our own fuel needs.

But the money earned from the fuel pumps should not be taken in as government revenues and put in the General Fund; rather, it should be literally plowed back to the people working in the corn, sugar and coconut industry. Then the economy of the countryside would develop and soon, no one would want to be squatters in the urban metropolis of this country because there's going to be a lot of jobs and money in the countryside. Perhaps the greater benefit here is that, the people in far-flung areas can now afford the finer things in life and yes, the Communist insurgency would vanish because our people would be too busy working in a job that gives the Philippines real independence from foreign oil. Sure, this may just be a dream, but often dreams turn to reality.

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Still about high oil prices, House Committee on Transportation Vice-Chairman Rep. Joseph Santiago of Catanduanes emailed me his concern that many Filipinos are now using motorcycles because of the high cost of fuel prices, which now exposes them to the hazards and the dangers of motorcycling. Rep. Santiago got a report from the Asian Motorcycle Industries showing a 20.3 percent increase in motorcycle sales up by 493,000 units in 2005 to 410,000 sold in 2004.

As a motorcycle enthusiast, I have always wondered if there's anyone keeping record of all the motorcycle accidents happening throughout the country. I'm sure that not all accidents get reported, but I do agree that the figures must be staggering, especially with those who take the "Habal-Habal" public transportation. Perhaps we should now ask the government to get records of all motorcycle accidents so we can analyze those results.

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