Firm offers to convert city's waste into energy
The Philippine Bio Sciences Company, Inc. (PhilBIO), a company which is into bio-gas and wastewater treatment, is offering the city government a solution to its power needs by converting the city's waste to energy.
Iloilo City is one of the cities in the Visayas region included in the Memorandum of Agreement signed between the company and the Environmental Management Bureau-Department of Environment and Natural Resources to develop Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects for public sector solid waste projects with the use of ReStore Biogas Cogeneration Facility (ReStore).
Samuel West Stewart, president and chief executive officer of PhilBIO, in a letter sent to Mayor Jerry Treñas, said for every 25 tons of Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW), there is a potential to generate gas in the ReStore system that would generate up to 750 kilowatts of power
Other areas in the Visayas covered by the MOA are Mandaue City in Cebu, Bacolod City, Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Boracay Island, Tagbilaran City and Dumaguete City.
ReStore project will serve as model for viable plan for the proper closure of open dumps and controlled dumpsites as mandated by Republic Act 9003, restoration of existing waste disposal facilities through the application of PhilBIO's proprietary biological treatment technologies, utilization of recovered methane gas to deliver profit from electric and thermal facilities and provision of capital investments and operating funds through Built Operate and Own or Built Operate and Transfer process.
The company also wants a share of CDM benefits. Cities that signed a MOA with the PhilBIO will receive advances on future CDM streams from the buyer of carbon credits.
CDM scheme is being supported by the United Nations Kyoto Protocol. The Protocol has designed a program to reduce emissions through carbon tax. The main purpose of the tax would be to raise the price of carbon-based fuels and generate a global fund to encourage energy efficiency and technological development.
The Kyoto Protocol calls for 38 industrialized nations to reduce their emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Stewart said PhilBIO is well equipped to work on cities with CDM project. Currently, they have 18 projects with DENR's approval. The company's core competency is wastewater treatment and the capture of biogas utilization into various thermal energy applications.
In 2004, PhilBIO along with Philippine National Oil Company have jointly implemented the country's very first landfill gas to energy project in Payatas, Quezon.
PhilBIO's proposal had been endorsed by Mayor Treñas to the City Environment and Natural Resources for further study and possible recommendation.