Recognizing the country's strength as one of the world's biggest producers of coconut oil, the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) has embarked on a project that would make use of coconut oil as alternative to diesel.

PCA Administrator Jesus Emmanuel M. Paras said the concept of using vegetable oil as diesel fuel alternative is not new. He said that when Dr. Rudolf Diesel invented the diesel engine in 1900, he used various vegetable fuels to run the engine. The introduction though of cheap petroleum-based fuel led to the sole use of such fuel for the diesel engine.

Paras recalled that during World War II, when there was a scarcity of petro diesel, the Philippines pioneered the use of coconut oil in place of petro diesel. Soon after the war, however, the use of coconut oil was not pursued as cheap petroleum based fuel became available anew.

In the 1980's, there was renewed interest in the use of coconut oil as alternative fuel due to a worldwide oil crisis. It was about this time that the coconut oil estherification process was introduced. Positive results gathered showed that coconut methyl esther (CME) has approximately the same properties as that of diesel fuel. CME can be a 100-percent fuel substitute for diesel fuel or blended with petro diesel at a minimum of one-percent blend.

However, CME turned out to be very expensive compared to petro diesel. While diesel engines did run well with pure coconut oil, problems with clogging of fuel filters and hard starting doused cold water on efforts to push coconut oil as substitute for diesel. Thus, further tests were discontinued.

Recent developments have seen the price of petro diesel rising continuously over the years and there are indications that this trend will continue in the coming years. In fact, current diesel prices have now surpassed the prices of vegetable oils, including coconut oil.

Given this situation, coconut-growing islands in the Pacific, particularly Marshall Islands, have been conducting serious studies on the use of pure coconut oil as diesel substitute. In a meeting of the Asia Pacific Coconut Community held November 2005 in the Marshall Islands, Paras had an opportunity to witness and see the use of coconut oil in place of diesel in their equipment and vehicles. For about a year now, Marshall Islands has been using all the coconut oil they produce - about 200,000 liters per month - to run their diesel engines.

Upon his return to the Philippines, Paras initiated a project aimed at producing filtered coconut oil similar to what Marshall Islands is doing. Before 2005 ended, PCA had installed test filtering facilities and is now producing its own filtered coconut oil.

Since January this year, several PCA vehicles - including the service vehicle of Paras - shallow tube well pumps and other farm equipment have been running on 100-percent coconut oil. Although it is barely two months from the time that the testing has been conducted, initial results have shown that pure coconut oil works. The filtration process appears to have solved the problem of clogging of filters.

As for the hard starting problem, Paras said this was remedied by blending coconut oil with petro diesel on a 50-50 blend. For stationary engines and farm machineries running on diesel engines, pure coconut oil can be used with no such problems and with no need for engine modifications.

Paras said we should take advantage of being one of the biggest producers of coconut oil in the world. He said domestic consumption of coconut oil should be given preferential consideration particularly the production of filtered coconut oil.

PCA said production of filtered crude coconut oil can be done at the village or barangay level. He said farmers can organize themselves into a cooperative, acquire a one-ton capacity mini oil mill, produce filtered coconut oil and supply the fuel requirements of their farms and their localities. A one-ton oil mill can deliver at least 600 liters of coconut oil a day. And such fuel would be at least P5 per liter cheaper than petro diesel.

"If we are able to do this the soonest time possible, imagine the impact it would create on the lives of the coconut farmers, to the industry and to our country as a whole. The enormous effect would be endless," Paras said, adding that the price of copra would be stable and that cheap fuel would be readily available. More importantly, this will increase the income and productivity of the agriculture sector while resulting in foreign exchange savings for the country. This will also boost the coconut planting & replanting program, reduction in the global CO2 build up and would reduce if not eliminate rampant illegal cutting of coconut trees.

For this program to succeed, Paras said the cooperation of other government agencies and institutions like the Department of Energy, Department of Science & Technology, University of the Philippines and the local government units is a must. He said a filtered coconut oil protocol as biofuel must be established very soon so that the dissemination of the process and technology of producing filtered coconut oil can be started. Petro fuel prices will continue to increase so time is the essence in the development of this biofuel alternative, the filtered coconut oil, Paras concluded.