THE forthcoming forum on renewable energy as one of the highlights of the 2nd Bicol Business Week which will unfold June 18-25, 2006 here in Naga City comes at a most opportune time. It comes when the world is crashing from increasing threat of global warming and nations are reeling from oil’s skyrocketing prices.

        For this activity alone (aside from the many other significant and interesting fora, seminars and exhibits that will be showcased during the weeklong trade fair), officers and members of the Metro Naga Chamber of Commerce and Industry ought to be congratulated. We salute them for taking a broader view and a giant stride in addressing this worldwide issue that seems to be very difficult to lick.

        The forum is set on June 19, 2006 at the Naga Regent Hotel with top officials and experts from the Department of Energy, the PNOC, and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) presiding as resource persons.

        With the whole world being addicted to oil, it is about time that we should find ways to kick the habit. In our own country, being an archipelagic mass of land and water with abundant agricultural and renewable resources, there exist bright prospects at renewable energy whose optimum development, utilization and commercialization will slash our huge dependence on oil and make safer our otherwise battered environment.

        According to the Department of Energy, nature-rich Bicol is rife for cheaper, renewable energy. Apart from our two giant geothermal plants in Albay and Sorsogon, Bicol also possesses the following renewable energy potentials: solar power, wind energy, biomass, coconut and rice residues, micro hydro, ocean thermal, and bagasse.

        Masbate, for one, is best suited for wind energy. The whole of Camarines peninsula, Catanduanes, and the San Bernardino Strait in Masbate are also being cited as potential resource for ocean thermal energy that, along with other potential sites in some parts of the archipelago, can produce a total of 170,000 megawatts of clean power.

        Bicol is also well-endowed with biomass resources generated by extensive agriculture, livestock and forestry industries, and solid waste that can be converted into renewable energy.

        Animal waste technology is already in the commercial stage in other parts of the country. Maya Farms in Central Luzon operates by recycling wastes of 60,000 heads of hogs into energy for the farm’s lighting, refrigeration, generators and various equipment, breeding and water pumping. In a town in Sweden, buses run on biogas made of garbage and other organic wastes from households and nearby farms, sparing the already affluent town from pollution and high cost of fuel oil.

        Indeed, the time is now to kick the habit of being addicted to oil which coincidentally is the source of the world’s violent conflicts and global warming. And we are thankful that the campaign for renewable energy has been launched here by our local business chamber whose members are determined in their bid to prime up Bicol’s growth and development. To paraphrase a Time article, some of these efforts (in the search for alternative sources of energy) may be small, but when an entire region or country embraces a pledge to wean itself from oil, there’s no reason that we can’t find the right key to power our industries and homes at lesser cost and without so much damage to the environment as well as to impoverish people who have to suffer the unimaginable ripple effect of expensive oil brought about by greed, war and politics.