Over the weekend, Department of Energy (DOE) director Mario Marasigan announced that his agency may propose to increase the minimum required biodiesel blend to 3% by February 2009 to spur investors to pour in more money to the sector.
He revealed that there are now 13 accredited biodiesel manufacturers capable of producing up to 326 million liters which is more than what the 2% blend requires.
“The DOE is studying that with this capacity in place, is it appropriate, rather than two percent mandated blend on February 2009, why don’t we increase it to three percent?,” he said.
Why not? If the blend is indeed that friendly to the environment and it can compete with the usual diesel, why not make it to 5%. Studies suggest that a blend of 6 to 10% works very well with light cars and vehicles, and other countries are mulling to use up to 20% blend (B20) for large buses. In fact many countries start with a mandated 5% blend (B5) and gradually increasing it to B20. A 2% blend is just too dilute to effectively feel a difference in performance, and its avowed benefit may be hardly felt.
But what we, users, must guard against is substandard fuel introduced into the market by unscrupulous individuals or firms out to make a quick buck. True, the DOE has released its adopted biodiesel standards which is, on paper, quite stringent and appears to have been patterned after the European standards. What is uncertain though is whether the DOE has the know-how or the capability to scientifically monitor the blend already on the market.
We mean the technical capability to verify whether these biodiesel blends passed the technical requirements such as fatty acid content, cetane rating, sulfur limits, heavy metals content and the like. Corollary to this is the question whether there are laboratories which can independently check the quality.
These are not routine inquiries, for what is at stake is the integrity of one’s vehicles, not mentioning the projected impact to the environment.
There is also a need for more public discussions on the DOE standards. The consumers need to be clarified whether the standards apply to the diluted blend or to the pure biodiesel (B100) which is the starting material for blending.
As far as I could tell, we are the first and possibly only country to have specified a coco-methyl ester (CME) standard rather than the usual fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) or fatty acid alkyl ester (FAAE) standards. Its formulation smacks of political undertones or lobbying from CME manufacturers in attempts to exclude other biodiesel sources.
There is nothing wrong with protecting our own native coconut industry. The Malaysians have done it with their palm oil and the Americans with their soya oil. What is objectionable though is a protectionist policy that stretches beyond the boundaries of technology to favor certain interests to the ultimate detriment to the consumers whose choice becomes limited.
This outlook apparently crept into the formulation of the cetane rating in which the DOE standard pegs it at 55. The cetane rating measures the relative amounts of easily burnt component in a fuel; in this case the molecular weights of fatty esters. The higher the cetane rating, the better the fuel.
Scientifically, though, the standard vehicle engines work very well with cetane ratings for 46 to 55. This is the reason why the U.S. ASTM standards pegs the cetane rating to only 47—which the soya oil, a major U.S. crop product for biodiesel, passes easily—while some European countries put the minimum at 51. Incidentally, DOE claims that CME has a higher cetane rating than soya or palm oil.
The danger is, such exclusive provisions can be twisted to suit one’s selfish interests and mislead the public. For example, a leading CME manufacturer listed at the Philippine Stock Exchange made it appear that only biodiesel conforming to the CME standards are allowed in the market citing the DOE's revised circular that “only CME conforming to PNS/DOE QS 002:2007 shall be manufactured, sold, offered for sale, dispensed or introduced into commerce as biodiesel in the Philippines.” Apparently the manufacturer’s announcement was in reaction to reports that some firms are importing biodiesel which is not CME-based from Korea and other places, and is trying to protect its turf.
The mandate to use the biodiesel blend in accordance with Republic Act 9367, otherwise known as the Biofuels Act, starts in February 2009. There is still time to conduct public discussions in media to educate the consumers on the pros and cons of biodiesel, and on how they could be protected from unscrupulous dealers.
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