COMMUNITY BIOGAS SYSTEMS

 

COMMUNITY BIOGAS SYSTEMS

Very few people would remember the old Manila Gas Corporation (MGC), a Government Owned and Controlled Corporation (GOCC) that was abolished in 2014 during the term of President Benigno Aquino III. Along with five other GOCCs, it was deemed to be “non-performing” and “unnecessary”, and that is why it was abolished. MGC was in the business of distributing Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) in underground piping systems.

As a result of that decision to abolish, most of the LPG supplies are now distributed in cannisters, except for commercial and industrial customers that are getting their supplies via piped systems. In contrast however, many cities abroad have maintained their underground LPG systems, and are still piping it into residential, commercial and industrial accounts. Although there could be accidental gas explosions here and there, no decisions were made to abolish these systems.

On May 31, 2013, there was an explosion at Two Serendra Condominium in Taguig City, were three people died and five others were injured. The explosion was caused by an LPG gas leak that was ignited by a light switch. Because of that, the Ayala Corporation made a decision to remove the piped in LPG system, and that probably caused the end of the practice of distributing LPG to residential customers in the Philippines for good, or at least, for now. I understand that there are efforts to deliver Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) to residential households, so let us wait and see what happens to that.

As an alternative to both LPG and LNG, I think that it would be possible and practical to build small community based piped-in biogas distribution systems. By saying “small”, I would probably mean about a dozen or more adjacent households that could combine their organic waste into one common biogas digester and one pipeline distribution system. Of course, the biogas could be used for cooking and heating, but if the community members are still afraid of gas explosions, they could just use it for street lighting systems.

I do not know which government agency is thinking about it, but one of the reasons why Filipinos are so poor, is because of the costs of their basic utilities such as water and fuel in individual bottles. Water of course is now piped in, but many customers are still buying bottled water, because they do not trust tap water. If only LPG could be distributed via piped systems, it would be cheaper. As to the question of trusting that it would not explained, I think that precautions could be made, just like in the other countries. IKE SENERES/09-08-2024

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