An emerging industry

As if we don’t have enough on our plate, we now have to contend with rice shortage, uncontrolled oil price in the world market, which is greatly affecting our economy, runaway prices of basic commodities and a steadily rising inflation rate at home. Add to these woes the very real threat of global warming and environmental pollution, and we have a serious problem in our hands.

 Amidst an economic turbulence that threatens to wash over many developing countries, the option seems to be simply how to forestall it. Some of the industrialized countries have gathered together to discuss ways and means to save mother earth, and in the process spawned a whole new industry that has emerged, largely unplanned but interesting to watch.

The Kyoto Protocol, ratified in 2005, had some of the leading industrial countries, excluding the United States; agree to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as one of the major steps in tackling the issue of global warming. They have established that methane, more than carbon dioxide, is responsible for global warming. These countries, led by Japan and some European nations like France, Ireland, etc., through the Kyoto Protocol set out to finance “clean development” projects in developing countries in a serious effort to mitigate these dangerous emissions.

In order to recognize these efforts by specific industries towards this goal, it was agreed under the Kyoto Protocol that CERs of Certified Emission Reduction certificates be issued. Also called carbon credits, these certificates are issued as a particular industry contributes its share to the mitigation efforts, methane earning more than CO2. When the equivalent of one ton, for example of carbon dioxide is prevented from entering the atmosphere, a CER is merited. Methane earns 21 CERs.

An enterprising company in Ireland called Eco Securities of Ireland has reportedly offered a local piggery outfit called Uni-Rich, $4 for every carbon credit it earns for trapping the methane gas generated from its swine solid waste. While earning from the trapped methane, which the proprietors have re-generated into fuel for use in their day-to-day operations to replace (albeit partially) the very costly electricity charges, this company earns a little more from the carbon credits they have earned for trapping the generated methane emission.

Eco Securities reportedly offered Uni-Rich $12,000 per year in exchange for these carbon revenues, every year until 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol is set to expire. How does Eco Securities intend to make money from these credits?  They are supposedly offering these same certificates, purchased at $4 per, for $18 per to big banks like the French Bank Caisse des Depots.

Other investment banks now want in on the business of carbon finance. ‘Carbon trading’, or the business of buying and selling the rights to greenhouse gas emissions, is now big money. It is reported that enterprising traders have bought/sold some $60 billion worth of emissions certificates, mostly from European countries and Japan. These investment houses and traders will hang on to these certificates for a while, hoping that their value will rise, or sell to European power generators who need the credits to meet their regulatory obligations.

Methane is the gas emitted from pig and chicken manure, from landfills and coal mines. There is big money to be earned here, and the trend in the more developed countries is to turn these landfills and dumpsites no longer into fertilizers, which are now perceived as soil pollutants, but to thermal energy. Sewage treatment plants do this first by filtering the water which is then released back to the rivers, then incinerating the remaining sludge.  The steam that is generated here is thus used as energy.

Remarkable, how sewage, just plain waste until recently, can be turned around for usable energy. Enough energy to power thousands and thousands of homes, mitigating the need for fossil fuel, the price of which has skyrocketed, and which is a major pollutant of the environment. Get the drift?  There is so much truth to that old adage that there is money in garbage/waste. Maybe someone can look into Payatas and other landfills and apply this technology here. 

Our very own Development Bank of the Philippines has been in the forefront of renewable energy and wants to be known as the environmental bank, focusing on hydro resources, thermal projects, solar/wind and geothermal projects as well. Bent on clean energy all the way, they are now negotiating the sale of the CERs earned from these projects. Kudos!

The Osmonds are coming

A friend recently sent me a disc of the PBS Osmond Show, taped from a live performance in Las Vegas. This and two other shows of the Osmonds reportedly were sold-out shows, and now Donny and Marie are taking this very same show to selected countries.

Guess what! The Philippines is one of these countries, and the Osmonds are coming to Manila on June 14 to perform at the PICC Plenary Hall.

I remember the Osmonds as a family of entertainers in my younger years, back in the 70s. They are an exceptional family of six brothers and a sister who made such hits as Paper Roses, Crazy Horses, Love Me For a Reason, Puppy Love, He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother, etc. Andy Williams was one of the first to recognize these talents and guested them on his own show several times before the public adulation erupted. The 70s was marked with an unmistakable Osmond-mania, and of the brood, it was Donny and Marie who stood out eventually and made it on their own, as a brother-sister tandem or as individual performers.

As proof of their longevity, they just recently celebrated their 50th year in showbiz with ‘The Osmonds-Live in Las Vegas 50th Anniversary Reunion’. Imagine performing again, after so many years, and to a sell-out audience. Amazing.

Catch them at the PICC Plenary Hall on June 14.  Tickets are available at all Ticketworld outlets.

Mabuhay!!!  Be proud to be a Filipino.

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