This is in reply to the article published on page A17 of the August 18, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and also viewable at news.inq7.net/metro/index.php?index=1&story_id=47244 about the use of coconut-based alternative fuel, Coco methyl ester (CME) or coco-biodiesel, as an alternative fuel due to the soaring global oil prices.

As a brief background, CME or coco-biodiesel is derived from coconut oil and used as an alternative to diesel as a fuel for diesel powered vehicles like jeepney and large trucks.

The Department of Energy (DOE) together with the US Department of Energy and USAID is actively promoting the use of such fuel as an alternative for diesel and is currently tested for three months on government vehicles and jeepneys in the city.

Last May of this year, 2005, the Senate Committee on Energy conducted an initial hearing and public consultation of the bill
about the compulsory use of coco-biodiesel and ethanol but the bill did not progressed at that time due to the negative sentiments of big oil companies about the unfavorable possible effects of the use of such diesel in the cars’ engine, and the reason that the DOE have not yet finished, at that time, in conducting a feasibility study of the use of coco-biodiesel and ethanol to simulate its effect in coconut and sugar production in the country.

According to the study conducted by DOE and producers of CME, coco-biodiesel will significantly reduce the dangerous emissions of car’s engine. Coco-biodiesel currently has three blends, depending on the amount of CME mixed with diesel. The B1 variety is a one percent blend, the stronger B10 has 10 percent blend. A B100 meanwhile is pure coco-biodiesel.

Moreover, the use of coco-biodiesel would give vehicles better mileage by 10-30 percent.

But the big question here is, will it be a good alternative and answer to the rising cost of oil? I think it will not.

Base on my computation of the available data and considering that the cost of B1 blend is more than 100% higher than the cost of regular diesel fuel, Although, coco-biodiesel blend increase the vehicles mileage by almost 30%, the cost will reduce the mileage by 50% such that the total mileage will decrease by 20% if coco-biodiesel will be used.

For example, if a jeepney driver allots 300 pesos for fuel, using diesel as fuel that cost around P30 per liter and assuming the jeepney runs at 2 kilometers per liter, the jeepney can travel 20 kilometers using diesel alone. However, if the jeepney uses coco-biodiesel as fuel which cost around P60 per liter and since it can increase the mileage by 30%, the jeepney can now run at 2.6 kilometer per liter of coco-biodiesel. But given the price of coco-disel as double the price of diesel, the P300 alloted for fuel can only buy 6 litters of coco-biodiesel and therefore can only run 15.6 kilometers, which is 4.4 kilometers short compared with the number of kilometers traveled if the fuel used is diesel alone. This is in contrary to what the advocates of coco-biodiesel claim that it will translate a savings in fuel cost.

In short the use of coco-biodiesel does not answer the problem in rising price of oil. It turns out that is just a good alternative if we want a more environmentally friendly fuel to power our vehicles.

additional readings:
sunstar.com.ph/static/ceb/2005/08/01/bus/doe.promotes.coco.fuel.html
news.inq7.net/metro/index.php?index=1&story_id=47244