EMB-10 offers ‘total solution’ to Philippines’ industrialization dilemma

 

The Duterte administration has set the full scale industrialization of the Philippines as the key to sustaining the country’s economic growth and curbing unemployment.

However, Environment Secretary Regina Paz ‘Gina” Lopez is determined to shut down coal fired power plants the Department of Energy deems necessary to power the President’s vision for industrialization.

 

PH coal-fired power plants

Based on DOE data, 70% of the 5,000 megawatts (MW) of power-generating capacity under construction or on the pipeline until 2020 are coal-based. DOE data shows 20 coal-fired power plants operating in the country today, with over 50 more in various stages of planning and construction across the country, according to the Global Coal Plant Tracker.

According to environment advocate group Greenpeace, the use of fossil fuels like coal as an energy source is the number one driver of global warming, being a top emitter of greenhouse gases.

 

The Climate Change Commission has urged a review of energy policy following government’s approval of 29 coal-fired power plants with more online expected to generate 56% of the country’s electricity by 2020, according to consultancy firm IHS.

 

“We want low carbon development but we need to identify an alternative first for coal for baseload. We need a level of safety to ensure energy security,” said Jesus Tamang, head of DOE policy and planning.

 

According to the Department of Energy (DOE) Philippine Energy Plan (PEP), the Philippines needs 13,167 megawatts (MW) of additional power capacity by 2030, of which 8,400 MW are baseload power.

 

Coal, which is sourced locally and abroad, has been touted as ideal for baseload because of its availability and the relative ease with which coal fired power plants (CFPPs) could be built anywhere in the country provided there is sufficient water supply.

 

However, latest data from DOE show that committed and indicative CFPPs already totals 11,992 MW, assuming all projects come to fruition. That’s already 43 percent over the country’s baseload energy requirements of 8,400 MW as specified in the PEP, and 592MW over the 11,400 MW (out of the required 13, 167 MW) open for private investment.
 

 

Shift to Renewable Energy

Environment Secretary Lopez has been steadfast against coal projects and is instead advocating a shift to renewable energy (RE).

“While China has closed all their coal plants – well about a hundred – and America closed all of theirs, we come up with 118 permits? I mean, what’s that all about?” she said.

 

Instead, Lopez stresses the Philippines should focus on wind, solar and geothermal projects to capitalize on falling RE costs and minimize emissions.

 

“Why allow more coal plants? Why commit to a form of energy that has no future?” Lopez said in an interview with Bloomberg. “I’m not keen on it. I’d have to be very convinced.”

 

Ms. Lopez said her family’s investments in energy firms First Gen Corp. and Energy Development Corp. have no bearing on her decisions.

 

“I’m not going renewable because of them. I’m going renewable because it’s for the Filipino people,” she said.

“And if they benefit, well, other people can also benefit. My thing to the businessmen, go renewable so you can also benefit.”

 

“Addressing global warming will be our top priority, but upon a fair and equitable equation,” the president said during his first State of the Nation Address.

 

“It must not stymie our industrialization,” he added.

 

EMB-10’s Total Solution

However, Regional Director Sabdullah C. Abubacar of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) in Region 10 believes Ms. Lopez’s advocacy to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions need not clash with the president’s industrialization track.

“For the past 10 years, we have successfully piloted a total solution in addressing the present dilemma with EMB-10’s partnership with STEAG State Power, Inc. (SPI), the first coal-fired power plant operating in Mindanao,” Abubacar said.

 

Under present regulations, environmentally critical projects (ECP) as classified by law are only required to provide self-monitoring equipment for their greenhouse gas emissions. Abubacar went one step further and persuaded SPI to link their system to the EMB-10 office to enable the latter to keep an eye on its emissions as well for regulatory purposes.

 

The Cagayan de Oro system is unique since it is the first, and so far the only one in the country, directly linked to the Continuous Emission Monitoring System (CEMS) of a private company.

 

“Under the market based instrument which the government uses to calculate the comparative expense of its capital equipment, a two point monitoring test for ambient air quality costs P50, 000 in the commercial market,” Mr. Abubacar said. “With the Swedish-made Opsis open-path system, we can tap a company’s CEMS to do 24/7 remote monitoring of their industrial plant’s emissions at no cost to us since it does not require sampling.”

 

Companies emitting 100 metric tons (MT) annually were previously required by law to install CEMS for self-monitoring, but this was subsequently increased to 750 MT by another DENR Circular.

 

Using self-monitoring for regulation and transparency

 

EMB-10’s Air Quality Management System has been linked to two (2) remote CEMS stations, in SPI’s 210MW coal-fired power plant in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental since 2004.

“The execution of this agreement is advantageous to EMB-10 since it can provide a clear picture in real time basis of the current air pollution levels and sources in a given area,” notes environment consultant Engr. Mario B. Sumalinog, DTE, CE, REE. “Since the collected data are displayed in the website, they are accessible for dissemination to the academe, media, and the general public for information and awareness.”

 

“This would assure the monitoring system would remain transparent, accountable and affordable,” Abubacar said.

 

“Even given an infinite number of environmentally critical firms, DENR Central Office can monitor individual projects and its regional offices 24/7 to ensure no hanky-panky under the table deals are entered into between companies violating emission standards and regional regulators,” he added.

 

The capital and maintenance and operating expense of monitoring equipment alone already makes the present situation a fertile ground for corruption.

 

A CEMS Open Path system costs at least P12-million to purchase and P200, 000 annually to operate and maintain. That’s P17 million over a project’s 25 year economic life. The more expensive industrial type point monitoring system costs P18-million for a single station, and is even more expensive to maintain at P1.5 million a year, so total expenses over a project’s 25 year lifespan could go up to P55-million per station.

 

If the DENR makes it a legal requirement for all ECP’s (i.e., those emitting at least 750 MT of CO2 annually) to link their CEMS systems with the EMB, this would enable the environment secretary to monitor any linked point at anytime from anywhere in the world.

 

Under present regulations, companies can be levied anywhere from P10, 000-100,000 a day per violation by the DENR until the offending emission is stopped. Ironically, there is no legal provision to date requiring government’s real time monitoring of the emissions, hence the temptation for corruption.
But the benefits of EMB-10’s pioneering “Public-Private Partnership” does not end with real time monitoring of factory emissions from any point in the world and stopping corruption in its tracks.

 

Current environment regulations are only aimed at curbing pollution but not carbon emissions. For instance, SPI’s 210 MW CFPP emits an estimated 1,600,000 metric tons (MT) of carbon dioxide per year, of which 600,000 MT are carbon.

 

Since a hectare of forest can absorb 400 MT of carbon per year, EMB-10 asked SPI to plant and continually maintain a 1,200 hectare (ha.) “carbon sink” at Mapawa Nature Park in Malasag, Cagayan de Oro City to sequester its 600,000 MT of carbon emissions annually over the 25 year economic life of the project.

 

First carbon sink in Southern Philippines 

This pioneer project has established the first ever carbon dioxide sink in Southern Philippines which aims to help improve air quality through ‘carbon sequestration’ a process that removes carbon from the atmosphere and stores it in the trees.

Through an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol, industrialized countries with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment (Annex 1 countries) are allowed by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDA) to invest in emission reduction projects in developing countries as an alternative to what is generally considered more costly emission reductions in their own countries.

 

Such CDM projects are supervised by the CDM Executive Board under the guidance of the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

 

CDM projects are expected to generate investments in developing countries, especially from the private sector, and promote the transfer of environmentally-friendly technologies.

 

In SPI’s case, it invested P28-million in social and environmental projects even before it has started commercial operations. Among the latter are a Comprehensive Forest Conservation Program to develop and maintain a 1,200 hectare area in the Mapawa Nature Park at Cugman, Cagayan de Oro City in coordination with the DENR and E. Pelaez Ranch, Inc. (EPRI); and 25- year urban forestry projects in Villanueva and Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental covering another 1,000 hectares.

 

“Forests such as these are vital to our environment and to man’s existence by producing clean air and retaining ground water. For every amount of carbon dioxide sequestrated by a living tree, it releases a corresponding amount of oxygen into the atmosphere and stores a substantial amount of water through its root system,” EPRI said in a statement.

 

“STEAG State Power, Inc.’s Forest Development Program is our contribution to improving the quality of life in Southern Philippines. We have a 500-hectare target area for planting, an existing 500-hectare plantation, and 200 hectares of natural forest that we maintain. We also protect the entire forest area from forest fires and timber poaching,” SPI said in a statement.

 

Restoring balance in nature

The Mapawa Carbon Sink project is one of the biggest private-sector led reforestation projects in the country. Besides addressing climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration, providing livelihood and food security for tree farmers and the surrounding communities, it is also contributing to environmental stability, restoring biodiversity conservation and potable water for nearby barangays.

“Our surroundings have become cooler and we do not run out of water even during a long dry spell,” said EPRI forester Christopher Rivera.

 

“When I came here in 1995, this area was all brown and very hot during summer. But we now have a forest cover and the vegetative growth has returned. We now have a natural airconditioning,” said Dr. Cesar Nuevo, general manager of the Mapawa Industrial Forest.

 

Bird watchers have also started visiting Mapawa where some 108 species of local and migratory birds have been identified so far.

“We have the Silvery Kingfisher,” Nuevo said. “This endemic bird draws the bird watchers to Mapawa and helps make a vibrant niche in the local tourism industry. The sighting of the Philippine civet cat (known locally as melo or musang) means that we have a favorable environment for wildlife,” he added.

The Southern Silvery Kingfisher (Ceyx argentatus) is a rare bird in the family Alcedinidae that is endemic to the Philippines. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and rivers. It is threatened by habitat loss.

 

According to Bird Life International, this newly-split species qualifies as Near Threatened because its population is suspected to be undergoing a moderately rapid decline as a result of the loss and decline in quality of its forested lowland stream habitats.

Other rare birds which have found safe haven in the Mapawa carbon sink are the Red Bellied Pitta (Erythropitta erythrogaster) suspected to be in decline owing to ongoing destruction of lowland evergreen forests within its restricted range (del Hoyo et al. 2003) and Southern Philippines Dwarf Kingfisher (Ceyx mindanensis), classified as vulnerable due to extensive lowland deforestation of its habitat.

Besides restoring biodiversity, Mapawa Carbon Sink‘s many waterways never run dry, and this has made it the source of abundant potable water for at least three nearby barangays.

 

“Many don’t know this but we are also the source of potable water in the Sendong relocation area in the nearby relocation area in Barangay Indahag,” Rivera said.

 

Making carbon sinks mandatory

During a site inspection visit last 19 August 2016 as part of the agency’s nationwide benchmarking initiative to identify sound industrial practices on environmental protection and management, EMB Director Gilbert Gonzales was sufficiently impressed to mull its adoption as a model for public-private partnership in reforestation projects across the country and make it mandatory for all Environmentally Critical Projects in tandem with real time monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions as proposed by Abubacar.

Making carbon sinks mandatory for ECPs have the added benefit of ensuring the sustainability of the forests over a longer period of time, making it the perfect complement to the National Greening Program (NGP).

 

Under the NGP, farmers have been trained and hired to develop agro forestry plantations that involve timber, fuel wood, coffee, cacao, rubber, bamboo, rattan and fruit-bearing trees, to provide them with permanent livelihood and raise their level of living while also addressing poverty reduction, food security, environmental stability, biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation.

 

Director Ricardo Calderon of DENR’s Forest Management Bureau reported in a recent open letter published in a national daily that as of Aug. 5, 2016, the NGP had planted 1.08 billion seedlings on a 1.45 million-hectare spread and generated about 3.3 million jobs.

 

By the end of 2016, it would have 1.37 billion planted seedlings on 1.6 million hectares, thus exceeding its overall target of 1.5 million hectares, without exhausting its total allocation of 1.5 billion seedlings.

 

“Since ECP’s shall be mandated to maintain and protect their respective carbon sinks over the lifetime of their respective projects (usually 25 yrs., often renewed for another 25), they stand a better chance of sustainability while at the same time similarly addressing poverty reduction, food security, environmental stability, biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation at no cost to the government,” Abubacar notes.

 

In Region 10 alone, EMB-10 has listed 33 ECPs, including five coal-fired power plants, of which two are already operating with a combined capacity of 585 MW, and another three under construction and in the pipeline with a total capacity of 1,005 MW.

 

The four new coal-fired power plants have a combined output of 1,380 MW which will spew an estimated 10,515,600 MT of carbon dioxide annually of which some 2,867,890.91 MT is carbon. Since each hectare of forest land can absorb approximately 400 MT of carbon a year, these four plants would require the planting of new carbon sinks in the region totaling 7,170 hectares over 25 years, making it a perfect vehicle for the NGP since all these forest will be planted, maintained and protected by the coal-fired power plant companies over the projects’ economic life.

 

Outstanding Environment Monitoring Project

 

Last June 2013, EMB and the Pollution Officers Control Association of the Philippines conferred two national awards on SPI during the 1st National Convention on the Philippine EIS System held in Manila Hotel.

SPI received the Outstanding in Compliance Monitoring Report (CMR) and the Outstanding in Compliance and Validation Report (CMVR) Awards, “for exceeding the standards for self-monitoring and reporting under the Philippine Environmental Impact Study (EIS) System.”

 

Abubacar said the award is EMB’s way of promoting excellence in the Environmental Impact Assessment Reporting in the country and showcasing best examples of EIA reports following well-established scientific approaches, comprehensiveness and effectiveness.

 

“In tandem with our monitoring system, this carbon sink offers a total solution to the country’s dilemma to undertake industrialization while complying with the Paris Agreement,” Abubacar noted.

 

At the Paris climate conference (COP21) in December 2015, 195 countries adopted the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal. The agreement sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C. The agreement is due to enter into force in 2020.

 

The Philippines signed the agreement on April 22, 2016 but has not yet ratified it pending the findings of the Senate which was charged by the president to investigate its implications for the country.

 

Monitoring data spurs investments

 

The business sector is optimistic the pilot system gives Region 10 an advantage in attracting investments since potential investors can instantly be apprised of the feasibility of setting up their factories or plants in a specific area based on its carrying capacity as monitored by the system.

 

“Promote Cagayan de Oro supports the collation of data such as the CIC Louis Berger study thereby coming up with an environmental threshold map on types of indicated industries,” said Rodolfo L. Meñes, former president of the Oro Chamber and  Promote CDO, a private non-stock, non-profit corporation dedicated to attracting investors in Cagayan de Oro and Region 10.”Investors can look at specific areas based on CDO’s comprehensive land use plan which should be dynamically updated by all sectors especially business.”

 

“This should prove to be an advantage to us since businessmen can instantly know based on real-time data whether or not they can put up a specific type of business in a particular area,” said Elpidio M. Paras, DOST Regional Ambassador for Science and Technology.

 

Quality of Life

 

EMB Director Gonzales plans to make the Mapawa Carbon Sink and Real Time Monitoring a pilot model for its eventual adoption as mandatory for environmentally critical projects as proposed by Abubacar.

 

“This is the missing link that reconciles President Duterte’s thrust for industrialization and DENR Sec. Lopez’s call for Quality of Life,” Abubacar stressed.

 

In her column From the Heart dated 28 July 2013 headlined “Wanted: Health, Peace and Happiness”, Lopez wrote:

 

“Quality of life is founded on a broader and deeper understanding of what we are all about, where we want to go. Inherent in quality of life is the understanding that life is not just physical, it is emotional, it is energy. This is exactly why the goals for the Green Initiative are manifold:

 

• Environmental (clean, air, clean water)
• Economic (when one has money many things follow provided we have the right values)
• Health (it is difficult to be happy if you are not healthy or if the environment is not conducive to healthy living due to pollution, etc.)
• Peace and order (how can one have quality of life if one doesn’t feel safe?)
• Happiness (what use is all the money if one is not happy?)”

A Total Solution, indeed!

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