By Pat Jared V. Pangantihon
Correspondent
THE Department of Energy, through its Biomass Energy Management Division, conducted a public consultation online via Zoom yesterday on the Draft Department Circular “Prescribing the Policies and Programs to Promote and Enhance the Development of Waste-To-Energy (WTE) Facilities in the Country”.
This was the third of the three-part consultations, with the previous consultations held on September 3 for Luzon, and September 6 for the Visayas.
The activity aims to raise public awareness and gather input from various stakeholders in the development of Waste to Energy facilities that are planned to be established in various parts of the country.
For Mindanao, there has been interest by private corporations to establish WTE facilities in Davao City and in Cagayan De Oro City. During the activity, various non-governmental organizations representing the environment were able to air their concerns and submit questions for the panel.
Waste To Energy plants are facilities that burn municipal solid waste to produce steam for boiling, which in turn is used to generate electricity. The DOE plans to promote facilities like these to provide for base-load electricity which at the same time helps in the reduction of municipal solid waste.
Despite WTE plants being found to produce significantly lower carbon emissions compared to coal-fired power plants, however, environmental groups have opposed this because of pollution concerns as well as affecting the Philippines’ commitment to the 2017 Paris Agreement to reduce its carbon footprint by 2030.
