Philippines on track to produce 537 Mgy of ethanol by 2014, minister says

In the Philippines, Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap confirmed that the country is on track to meet its goal of producing 142 Mgy of ethanol to meet domestic mandates by 2014. The Secretary said that 16 projects have been launched, at a cost of $500 million, with a production capacity of 150 Mgy. He added that biofuels would require a 1,000,000 acre expansion in cropland to provide the sugarcane, sweet sorghum and cassava for ethanol feedstocks, and said that increased productivity was another path to providing feedstocks for the new plants. The country, he said, is also on track to produce enough biodiesel to meet mandates.

Secretary Yap was responding to local reports that said the country would have to import biofuels to meet targets, due to an internal shortage.  The Philippines passed the Biofuels Act in 2006, which called for a minimum E5 standard in 2009, and an E10 standard in 2011.
The author of the country’s Biofuels Act said in January that the Bill has been overhyped and she is calling on the country to slow down implementation to ensure that biofuel production is sutainable. Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago said that biofuel production will compete with food production and that the government had to apply the brakes to development by strengthening the Biofuels Oversight Committee and prioritizing wind, solar and other renewable energies ahead of biofuels.

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