The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
President Duterte said his administration will pursue power generation through cheap sources like coal plants, and will not be restrained by an international accord that limits carbon emissions.
The President repeated that even in the power-generation business, Western nations were following “double-standards” in restricting air pollutants among poor countries while most of the pollution and ill-effects of power generation from fossil fuel were their own doing.
The President spoke at the inauguration of the 405-megawatt coal-fired power plant of the FDC Misamis Power Corp. (FDC Misamis) in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental.
He questioned the authority of the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) in regulating the use of non-renewable energy sources in developing nations like the Philippines.
Last July, Mr. Duterte said he would not honor an international agreement restricting carbon emissions in poor countries.
“While the EU is hell-bent on imposing the lowering of the carbon emissions, they also forget that they were the first to maximize the use of fossil fuels and the first to pollute the planet,” the President said, saying even then that the EU was playing “double standards when they want to control the carbon footprint when they themselves created the problem, in the first place.”
He said the EU wanted the Third World to lower the emission of carbon in such a way that these countries could not move forward with their development agenda due to the energy protocols being set by the international environment-regulating bodies.
Mr. Duterte said that at present, the use of coal to produce energy was the most viable option for the Philippines.
“If we want to industrialize our country because we are left behind by so many generations, we have to keep up with developments. Coal is the main option right now because it is cheap and available, although it may have an impact on the planet,” the President said.
The country has successfully weaned itself away from oil in the generation of electricity; oil now makes up only 6 percent of the total mix for power supply. Coal, on the other hand, now makes up 46 percent of the total power generation.
In the first half of the year, power supply totaled 42.7 million megawatthour (MWh) of electricity composed of coal (46 percent), natural gas (24 percent), renewable energy (24 percent), and oil-based (6 percent), according to Energy Assistant Secretary and Assistant Director of Renewable Energy Management Bureau (REMB) Marissa P. Cerezo said.
For the renewable-energy generation, geothermal and hydro contributed 14 percent and 7 percent, respectively; wind, biomass and solar sources contributed only one percent each contribution to the gross generation, Cerezo said.
She also said the administration’s target is for the electrification of 90 percent of the country’s households by 2017.
Two of the country’s major lending and technical providers have recommended the promotion of renewable energy to achieve that target, she added.
The Department of Energy (DOE), meanwhile, said the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) ha completed an inventory of the country’s hydropower sites with potential for 912.13 megawatts (MW).
Last March, Jica partnered with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to invest in the Asia Pacific private- sector infrastructure projects, including energy, focusing on renewable energy. Jica agreed to invest $1.5 billion in equity for the program.
The DOE has also said the United States Agency for International Development (USAid) recently completed a resource inventory of biomass energy with 4,446.54 MW of potential power generation capacity. RIZA LOZADA