In undergraduate environmental science, we tell students on the pros and cons of using biofuels. For instance, using biodiesel is a major problem in cold climates since just like the veggie oil from where it was transesterified from, biodiesel will turn into “sebo”. Now that isn’t a problem in tropical Philippines unless you drive a car in Baguio. For ethanol, in hot climates the ethanol vapor may stuck up your carburator resulting in a stalled car. Newer cars may run on ethanol blend gasoline but still there are concerns. This is the issue that Petron has raised to the DOE.
Petron claims that E10 gas is may ruin car engines as ethanol is oxidative especially to iron alloys that make up engines. In environmental science 1, I told my students that one damaging result of running your car on ethanol blend is that it could ruin your car’s hoses, especially the fuel lines. If your fuel lines are made of rubber and even plastic, the problem can get serious as these materials can get brittle. Thus one has to regularly check these hoses. And that is the reason why liquor is sold in glass bottles. Beer can be sold in aluminium cans but is best had from a glass bottle. The aluminium will corrode eventually and that is why beer in cans cannot be stored for long.
Petron’s claims should be an opportunity to revisit the 2006 Biofuels Act RA 9367 that mandates a 2% coco methyl ester blend for diesel within two years and a 10% bioethanol blend for gasoline within four years after the effectivity of the Act. This year the big 3 have made all fuels sold blended with ethanol. The oil companies are ahead by two years. But it seems that no study has been made if the consumers will be able to handle the fuel modifications. No study has been made if the market can make the necessary adjustments. In Germany the energy minister in 2008 has cancelled a mandatory shift to 10% bioethanol blend since a survey suggested that German motorists are not prepared to make the shift. With the recession with demand for new cars at a low, car manufacturers have postponed the sale of more E10 ready cars.
I tend to agree with the Germans. I have carefully noted my fuel gauge and mileage and with the E10 blend it registers an erroneous reading. The reason is that ethanol has a lower specific heat (2.2 KJ/kg) than gasoline (2.3 KJ/kg). Thus it requires less heat to raise a mass of ethanol 1 degree celsius higher than gasoline. This lower specific heat capacity means it is easier to raise the volume of ethanol than gasoline. In a tropical climate this expansion of volume may be significant resulting in an erroneous fuel gauge reading.
In the 2006 Biofuels Act, the National Biofuels Board (NBB) chaired by the DOE secretary with the secretaries of DOST,DTI,DOF,DA and DOLE as members; is mandated to make the guidelines for the implementation of the act. It is also empowered to make recommendations on a program to allow consumers to have modifications on their cars. Now I have been trying to find out from the DOE NBB website and so far I haven’t found any information if such a program has been constituted.
My question is why are the oil companies selling E10 blend without a scientific study demonstrating whether the Filipino consumer and market are ready for the shift? The NBB needs this kind of input to make a recommendation. Surely the goals of the Biofuel Act are laudable but there is something terribly amiss in its implementation.
It is not the role of an oil company such as Petron to make the study although it can do so to support its marketing strategies. The initiative to make the study falls on the DOE and the DOST.
There is also a question about the kind of ethanol put in gasoline. Is it really anhydrous? We have to ask this since ethanol for fuel should have less than 1% water content in it. Now while we have rules and guidelines on fuel quality, we really don’t know if these are followed. How many complaints have we heard about substandard gasoline and diesel being sold?
This just shows a problem typical of societies in transition. Philippine society and its elite find it a feel good thing to have environmentalist goals made part of the law of the land but without the requisite careful scientific study and scrutinity of its applicability . Thus the the consumer (mostly the middle class) will have to pay for the damage to his/her engine and if he/she files a suit as like all consumer class suits aimed at big business and government, hardly anything results from this.
Popularity: 1% [?]
This is not America. Ang problema sunod sunuran tayo sa America. bro, iba ang mercado dito kaysa sa America.
Aren’t you making this ethanol question too complicated? I think the answer is “… if it works in Thailand, India, Venezuela and Texas, then it should work in Pinas”. Re-inventing old science seems foolish. What other work is there for DOST and DOE except to test, then stamp?
It works in Brazil and it should work here. But remember Brazil developed flexi engines in tandem with Ethanol blend in the last 30 years. Thus the market had choices and the users were ready for the shift. You miss the point. The utility of E10 is not the question but whether the Pinoy market is ready for the shift.
We don’t know if the consumers can shift to E10 now. We even haven’t evaluated if E5 is much better.
the issue is not whether E10 or E5 is better.
the issue is the Philippines has been haphazard in allowing vehicles on the road – there’s a lot of antiquated engines that would conk out on E10. LOL
blackshama,
This is the most informative essay so far written on a theme only a subject matter expert can argue and defend with scientific basis.
Kudos.
Just to make a point. Science is probably one frontier not within the reach of lawmaking or Congress as we know it – past, present, future. Thus when laws relating to science are being drafted, these are not given to the strict methodologies of scientific knowledge much less driven with that desire to back up their piece of legislation with the requisite scientific studies.
Lawmaking, as we very well know, cannot wait. A congressman or senator is anything like a popcorn who pops at the slightest heat. In other words. to consult too long with scientists or experts like blackshama is not in the order of business.
Unlike Japan, we produce too many laws a year in the Philippines. This also means, Congress debates a whole lot of bills throughout the period thereby resulting in too much economic drain for a useless ritual of pseudo – debate, deliberations, and voting.
Congress does not have to just go into the orgy of its vicious dialectics – it must first go on a study on its own before it must propose a bill.
Sadly, not few congressional staff are entirely lacking in academic background required to come up with a well thought out bill or measure in regard to science. So bills become nothing but a mere scrap of paper.
@Primer
The Pinoy science community in the interest of the nation will have to work with Congress and the executive in matters dealing with environment, natural resources etc all of which require input from scientists.
This is where the investment made by the GMA administration should pay off. Science in the nearly developed country status we now are in provides the necessary edge and scientists have the obligation to help the state give the same edge to its agencies.
The main complaint that the Pinoy scientists have is that Congress tends to listen more to pseudo-scientists from environmentalist NGOs. In some cases the environmental bills are 100% borrowed from other jurisdictions. The provisions of these bills may not fit in with Philippine conditions.
Congress should have a resident science advisor and probably Congress members who have a science interest should at least have one in their staff and he/she can do the research prior to a bill being introduced. The Chief Executive has a science secretary in the cabinet but Dr Estrealla Alabastro is just one scientist with a particular view. As a cabinet minister she isn’t really that independent of the President. Her science policy will still be in line with what the President wants.
The President thus needs an independent science advisor who can provide a contrary view. The UK and US governments have one in their payroll. The science advisor to Gordon Brown Prof. John Beddington is at times at loggerheads with the Labour government but that is part of his job. Barack Obama has Dr John Holdren who is influential in shaping the Obama energy and climate change policy. Holdren’s advice is not that completely received by the US Congress. Here is where his inputs are important in the horse trading that Obama has to do.
The US and UK governments make sure that their respective science advisors have the appropriate credentials in research and they have been vetted by the national science communities. Of course not all members of the science community will be in agreement and that is expected. Holdren’s views have their critics too. Beddington’s views on homeopathy and whether that treatment mode should receive government money for research has been criticized by MPs.
The appointment Malacanang science advisor would signal that science indeed plays an important role in national development. The Pinoy science community will benefit since the advisor may bring to the table a contrarian view to the official DOST policy. Also the advisor could signal to Congress what the needs to be legislated ASAP.
But we have to get over this: In Congress and the executive, many “experts” who dole out scientific advice have law degrees!
Also I may add, a study on how really corrosive E10 is in a warm and humid climate (such as we have in the Philippines and Louisiana) is needed. So it doesn’t mean that if it is not engine damaging on I 75 it won’t be on the SCTEX. BongV if you stall on the SCTEX at night, it isn’t a nice experience!
Right now my hygrometer in Diliman registers almost 100% humidity.
The main concern is the water content of ethanol in a humid climate. Ethanol with water is corrosive.
blackshama:
tell me about humid – i live in Florida.
All the major stations have E10 mixed with the fuel – even for premium grade.
The most likely reason Pinas faces ethanol-in-gasoline issues is because of “OLD” — many 1987-and-older cars, jeepneys, trucks still in use (old technology in fuel filters, fuel lines, gas tanks); also use of carburetors.
very true. That’s why if it works in the USA or Thailand it doesn’t mean it will work here. The NBB hasn’t really come up with a program to meet these concerns. Thus PETRON is concerned. I’m glad PETRON has brought this out since it means it listens to their customers.
I also would add that I think going E5 first before going E10 is a better idea. Consumers can then have time to assess their cars and oil companies can have time to evaluate their blends.
Any one may use ethanol if he thinks it’s good for his car because it’s being used in America, wtf.
I will use ethanol in my car, only as in only, if it is proven that it is not more harmful.
Or, if there is no other unleaded gasoline available.
Bert:
Kung kopong kopong sasakyan mo, don’t use ethanol.
Right, BongV, mine is a later model Toyota RAV4 but will not use ethanol just because ethanol is being used in America. Ano ako, colonial mentality? Nonononono!
History may eventually judge ethanol-in-gasoline as a crime fostered by “GREEN”. Rain forests in the Amazon and Indonesia getting bulldozed for biofuels feedstock projects; hundreds of thousands of Pinas agricultural land “leased” to China, India, others for biomass projects.
Ethanol/biofuels has jacked up world food prices. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year.
That’s another issue but the Biofuels Act has provisions for the use of other kinds of biomass. It’s up to DOST to provide a research direction to the use of cellulose derived ethanol. As a tropical country we do have heaps of sources for this.
blackshama,
You made quite interesting observations that indeed, the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch should communicate closely toward the introduction of science-related laws that will govern public policy as they relate to science and technology concerns.
There ought to have been such a considerably longer relationship between the two branches of government especially when my wife was the Committee Secretary of the House of Representatives of the Committee on Science & Technology for by academic background she had an undergraduate in Zoology, a graduate degree in MS in Science Education, as well as a post-graduate degree PhD. (short of submission of a dissertation) in ecology, something.
While there are any number of regular committees and special committees in the House of Representatives, you were damn right in saying that we found the chiefs of staff of congressmen to have degrees in law as well as the committee secretaries in the House Secretariat rather than academic backgrounds related to their committees.
For instance, the Committee Secretary for the Committee on National Defense and Security, at the very least, should be a former military or police general or colonel. The comsec (short for committee secretary) for Banks and Financial Intermediaries should be a major in banking and a banker; the comsec of Public Works and Highways must be an engineer; and so on and so forth.
Since most bills in the environmental field are usually merely copied from foreign models, they truly become culture bound and in no way can they really apply in our scientific or technological setting.
It is fun to go over who sit in these committees and special committees and chances are, you will find them not really competent, disciplinary wise. At least some of them did not have their committees their first entry points, as if it were.
Sad to state.
The car was originally designed to run on Electricity. Henry Ford
Model T in the 1900 run on electric. But, they want sounds and
lights to sell the Model T. So, they designed the internal combustion engine. Plus the business interests of the oil industry.
Oil was cheap and plentiful then.