Nation
Posted on March 14, 2016 10:48:00 PM
By Nickky F. P. de Guzman, Reporter
Gore sees ‘more sun’ in Manila, urges solar use
SOLAR ENERGY is becoming globally cheap, “because we’re reaching a grid parity,” said Albert Arnold “Al” Gore, Jr., former US vice-president and Nobel Prize-winning climate change advocate, before an audience on Monday of more than 700 representing the Philippines and 80 other countries.
Former US Vice-President Al Gore speaks at the Climate Reality Corps Training in Pasay City yesterday. -- Philippine Star_Krizjohn Rosales
Mr. Gore is in the country for a three-day leadership corps training by The Climate Reality Project, which he is the founder.
Grid parity happens when a developing technology like solar can produce electricity for the same cost as the traditional source, like coal energy, the Nobel laureate said.
Yet, despite a global slowdown in coal demand, coal consumption in the country is practically more than threshold the global demand, as Sen. Loren Legarda, a participant in this forum, noted in her separate presentation.
“Why is the Philippines taking the opposite track?”
She answered her own question: because coal is “widely available” and affordable.
For Mr. Gore, the principal part of the climate change problem is that “we still rely on dirty carbon based fuels for 85% of energy used in [the] global economy.”
“We can get rid of dirty fossil fuel. We need to put a price on carbon in the markers and put a price on denial in politics,” he said.
Ironically, as Ms. Legarda in her turn pointed out, the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that the Philippines has 246,000 megawatts of untapped capacity for renewable energies that could generate 175,000 jobs.
“It is unforgivable not to tap them,” she said.
Mr. Gore: “It’s not impossible to see the Philippines going [100%] solar... because it’s becoming the cheapest energy -- except the coal companies don’t like it.”
He urged the Philippines and the rest of the world to go solar because “enough solar energy reaches the earth every hour to fill all the world’s energy needs for a full year.”
In his two-hour presentation, Mr. Gore mentioned countries like Chile, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Cambodia, among others, as among the nations slowly buying solar panels.
“You get more sun than Chile,” he said.
The Philippines relies on coal and fossil fuels as energy sources, but some are already tapping into renewable energy.
According to Ms. Legarda, the country is the first in Southeast Asia with large-scale wind and solar energies, “but we’re still far away from maximizing renewables.”
In 2008, the country enacted the Progressive Renewable Energy Law, which gives incentives for renewable energy suppliers.
The senator promised to monitor the compliance of laws on renewable energy law, clean water, clean air, and solid waste management. “All we need is to cooperate [in ensuring] these laws are followed,” she said.
In her meeting with BusinessWorld editors last year, Mary Anne Lucille L. Sering, then Climate Change Commission secretary, said the country has no baseline data yet to start maximizing renewable energy technologies.
“We don’t subsidize fossil fuels. In short, our policy in terms of energy and lack of subsidy makes it [an] ideal country to bring in renewable. We’ve been acting like one grid country when we’re an archipelago. Maybe we should look at off grid areas doing independent energy mix,” she said.
Mr. Gore is optimistic. He likens the growth of solar energy technology to that of mobile phones, which saw overtime a “sharp cost dropped,” “dramatic quality improvement,” and “all the low-income nations with no landline grids leap-frogg[ing] the old technology.”
“Because of [the] impact of climate-related extreme weather, it has become a simple choice of what is right and what is wrong...This is a people’s movement from [the] grassroots up to confront decision makers for [a] decision to make yes instead of no and right instead of wrong,” he said.
He added: “A will to act is in itself a renewable resource.” His audience roared as he closed his power point presentation.
Grid parity happens when a developing technology like solar can produce electricity for the same cost as the traditional source, like coal energy, the Nobel laureate said.
Yet, despite a global slowdown in coal demand, coal consumption in the country is practically more than threshold the global demand, as Sen. Loren Legarda, a participant in this forum, noted in her separate presentation.
“Why is the Philippines taking the opposite track?”
She answered her own question: because coal is “widely available” and affordable.
For Mr. Gore, the principal part of the climate change problem is that “we still rely on dirty carbon based fuels for 85% of energy used in [the] global economy.”
“We can get rid of dirty fossil fuel. We need to put a price on carbon in the markers and put a price on denial in politics,” he said.
Ironically, as Ms. Legarda in her turn pointed out, the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that the Philippines has 246,000 megawatts of untapped capacity for renewable energies that could generate 175,000 jobs.
“It is unforgivable not to tap them,” she said.
Mr. Gore: “It’s not impossible to see the Philippines going [100%] solar... because it’s becoming the cheapest energy -- except the coal companies don’t like it.”
He urged the Philippines and the rest of the world to go solar because “enough solar energy reaches the earth every hour to fill all the world’s energy needs for a full year.”
In his two-hour presentation, Mr. Gore mentioned countries like Chile, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Cambodia, among others, as among the nations slowly buying solar panels.
“You get more sun than Chile,” he said.
The Philippines relies on coal and fossil fuels as energy sources, but some are already tapping into renewable energy.
According to Ms. Legarda, the country is the first in Southeast Asia with large-scale wind and solar energies, “but we’re still far away from maximizing renewables.”
In 2008, the country enacted the Progressive Renewable Energy Law, which gives incentives for renewable energy suppliers.
The senator promised to monitor the compliance of laws on renewable energy law, clean water, clean air, and solid waste management. “All we need is to cooperate [in ensuring] these laws are followed,” she said.
In her meeting with BusinessWorld editors last year, Mary Anne Lucille L. Sering, then Climate Change Commission secretary, said the country has no baseline data yet to start maximizing renewable energy technologies.
“We don’t subsidize fossil fuels. In short, our policy in terms of energy and lack of subsidy makes it [an] ideal country to bring in renewable. We’ve been acting like one grid country when we’re an archipelago. Maybe we should look at off grid areas doing independent energy mix,” she said.
Mr. Gore is optimistic. He likens the growth of solar energy technology to that of mobile phones, which saw overtime a “sharp cost dropped,” “dramatic quality improvement,” and “all the low-income nations with no landline grids leap-frogg[ing] the old technology.”
“Because of [the] impact of climate-related extreme weather, it has become a simple choice of what is right and what is wrong...This is a people’s movement from [the] grassroots up to confront decision makers for [a] decision to make yes instead of no and right instead of wrong,” he said.
He added: “A will to act is in itself a renewable resource.” His audience roared as he closed his power point presentation.
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