时间：2022-04-25 10:59:43
When crude oil surged past US $70 a barrel inmid-2006, Southeast Asian governments were forcedto confront an inconvenient truth that: income levelscould not be sustained unless new energy sourceswere found, and quickly.
The World Bank has calculated that oil-importdependency tdmmed as much as 1% off the region'sgross domestic product last year, as higher productioncosts eroded export earnings, boosted freightoverheads and inflated food pdces.
Add in the threat posed by climate change, as wellas the rising tide of diplomatic pressure for the ThirdWodd to meet emission targets under the KyotoProtocol, and Southeast Asia's future shock of energydepletion has suddenly become all too real.
"Climate change cleady poses a major threat to thelivelihoods and environments of the ASEAN region,"Hans Verolme, director of the Wodd Wild Fund forNature's Global Climate Change Program, told theAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations summit inCebu, Philippines, January. "The most effmient andeconomic way to reduce oil dependence wilt bethrough a stronger regionwide effort on energyefficiency."
Of the 10 emerging and developing countrieswithin the ASEAN bloc, only Indonesia and Malaysiaare relatively self-sufficient in crude oil - and thatcomfort zone will evaporate within two decades, alongwith most natural-gas supplies.
From the global perspective, the US Department ofEnergy has calculated that oil demand will grow by35% between 2004 and 2025 - from 82 millionbarrels per day to 111 million
Output would need to dse by a similar amount.However, this assumes that the major producers,including Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, will double oreven triple their production; few independent analystsnow believe this will be possible. A greater likelihoodis that crude-oil supplies to Asia will begin to dry upwithin two decades.
But while the world oil markets may be fickle andmanipulative, the alternatives are not so obvious,even when coupled with efficiency drives. Coal isperceived in Asia as being too dirty, while localdeposits are usually of poor quality; there isgrassroots opposition to costly and invasive hydro-electric schemes, and solar generation lacks theeconomies of scale that could create a viable market.
This hasn't stopped a promising spurt of innovationthat could lay a basis for renewable sources that caneventually supply a substantial portion of overallenergy output, ranging from wave and windgeneration to a bewildering array of biofuelapplications.
According to the World Bank, which isspearheading an Asian alternative-energy program,spending on renewable-energy and efficiency projectsin Asia as a whole has exceeded $1.5 billion in loans,credits and grants since the strategy began in 1992 -when there was a single project valued at $2 million.
By 1999, lending for alternative-energy schemeshad already exceeded 46% of all spending in the power sector. Although this period coincided with adecreased volume of financing for conventionalprojects, it is believed that renewable projects stillaccount for about half of all energy investment inAsia.
"Over the past several years, as the dimensions ofthe energy and climate crisis have unfolded, thepress, the public and politicians have embraced "silverbullet" solutions one after another according to the fadof the day. One moment it's hydrogen, then ethanol,then nuclear power, then wind," said prominent USenvironmentalist Kelpie Wilson. Today there is agrowing recognition that no single energy technologycan replace fossil fuels, but there is still no recipe thattells us how to combine energy technologies into ahealthful brew that can save our planet and ourcivilization."
A study coordinated by the American Solar EnergyAssociation (ASEA) with input from a range ofalternative-energy industries found that the US wascapable of meeting its goal of 60-80% emissionsreduction by the middle of the century if it embracedrenewable forms - without compromising economicgrowth.
There have been no comparable studies forSoutheast Asia, but the model of community-basedpower generation envisaged by the ASEA is alreadyevolving in this region and fits neatly into rurallifestyles.
Most of the schemes being developed are so smallthat they wouldn't register on a conventional powergraph. The World Bank's projects collectively willdisplace only about 1 gigawatt's worth of fossil fuel, afraction of overall capacity, and supply an estimated530,000 -630,000 rural households. Most areconsumers who have not previously had access tomodern energy services.
The scale is limited by the classic energyconundrum of having to produce sufficient electricity inthe places where it can do most good. In the case ofwind power, which appears likely to be one of thesuccess stories of the bank's strategy, it has beendifficult to find sites that are both windy and closeenough to population centers.
Studies by the bank in four target countries havefound that an impressive 25% of rural populationswould benefit from low-scale wind plants but onlyVietnam offers a sustainable potential for largeroutput. While 8.6% of Vietnam has winds of good toexcellent strength, the proportion falls to 0.2% inCambodia and Thailand and 2.9% in Laos.
A $50 million plant opened by the Philippinegovernment this February in Ilocos Norte provincethat will produce 25 megawatts of power is believedto be the first operational wind farm in SoutheastAsia. It is targeted at dispersed rural consumers.
The search for more visible solutions, especiallyones that can embrace urban populations, has takengovernments on two very different paths: nuclearreactors and biofuels. Realistically, only the latter islikely to be a part of immediate post-oil energyplanning.
At least four countries have undertaken preliminary studies for nuclear plants, encouraged by Europeanand US evaluations that a reactor can be operatedfor as little as 2 cents a kilowatt-hour, compared with28 cents for solar and 10-12 cents for coal and gas.
These data do not include the higher developmentcosts of nuclear plants, the pdce tag for processingor disposing of radioactive waste, or the need to shipin uranium, which would establish a whole newimportant dependency. Then there is the problem offinding enough trained technicians to staff thefacilities.
Biofuels are a more natural fit, offering all thevirtues, on the surface at least, of a model alternativeenergy form. They can be manufactured from justabout any feedstock, are cheap to produce, and arereputed to emit almost zero emissions of potentiallyharmful gases.
Growth has been phenomenal in the past fiveyears, with Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines andIndonesia all establishing biofuel task forces. Biomassfor co-generation plants is also on the list ofalternative fuel options for Vietnam, though it appearsunlikely to offer short-term potential.
The raw material comes from rice, oil palm, corn,coconuts, peanuts, sugarcane, soybeans and coffee,all plentiful in Southeast Asia. Once processed it canbe mixed with diesel to replace motor fuels, used topower small generators in homes and factories, andbottled for export - fulfilling ASEAN's regional-cooperation pledge.
Yet biofuels also have their skeptics, not leastwithin the environmental and scientific communitiesthat were once so vocal in support. Still to be verifiedis whether the industry is as eco-fdendly as claimedand offers a viable economic alternative to fossilfuels.
Studies in Australia and the US have concludedthat ethanol, the biofuel blend used for motorvehicles, pollutes groundwater by releasing highlevels of benzene. The US journal Science evenreported that fuels containing ethanol produced justas many greenhouse emissions as gasoline.Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap the sun'sheat, theoretically causing global warming that couldchange the world's climate catastrophically.
Ethanol has also been found to damage carsmanufactured before 1986, while there can be widerignition problems for fuels that contain 20% or morethan substance, also known as ethyl alcohol or grainalcohol.
From an economic viewpoint, the impact ofbiofuels varies sharply depending on location and theavailable feedstock. While oil palm produces about 2,700 barrels of oil a year per square kilometer, thehighest level of efficiency recorded for any feedstock,corn produces only 76 barrels and coffee 147.5.
So much feedstock is consumed in the productionprocess that 540% of all arable farmland worldwidewould have to be used to meet projected energydemand, or 54% of the Earth's entire land surface.Growing biofuel on all of the world's farmland wouldstill only provide about 20% of the energy producedeach year from crude oil.
There is new land, but most is found in forestreserves, pitting investors and politicians against localcommunities. Indonesia's spreading oil -palmplantations have created a regional problem of smokeemissions from clearing activities. Biofuels, like otheralternative forms of energy, will become competitiveonce the petroleum begins to run out. But the ethanolmix isn't the only blend economic planners will haveto get right before that unnerving day dawns.