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P3-B ethanol processing plant to rise in Isabela

ILAGAN, Isabela - All is set for the establishment of a P3.5 billion bio-fuel farm and ethanol plant capable to produce at least 100,000 liters of ethanol in a former logging town here.

Mayor Edgar Go, whose San Mariano town will be the site of what could be Luzon’s first bio-fuel farm and ethanol plant, yesterday (25 Oct) said that the project’s major Japanese investor-proponents have already visited the 300-hectare reserved site and given it the green light for the project to proceed.

“It’s all systems go for the project. The contractor and Japanese investors has already seen and inspected the site. Besides, nobody has raised a protest against the project since our constituents know this would be an additional livelihood for them,” he said.

A former logging area and hotbed of communism, San Mariano, one of the region’s biggest municipalities in terms of area, lies along the foothills of the Sierra Madre.

Aside from the ethanol processing plant, the project consists of a 90-hectare nursery which is part of the 300-hectare field planted to sugarcane, the project’s main raw materials for ethanol fuel here.

“The construction of the plant,” Go added, “will still have to undergo several phases before it becomes fully operational. When it is completed, the processing plant will be able to produce some 125,000 liters of ethanol per day from the sugarcane.”

Ethanol fuel which is to be produced in the said plant is derived from ethyl alcohol, which also used in the manufacture of alcoholic drinks. It can be used as a fuel, mainly as a bio-fuel alternative to gasoline.

Besides sugarcane, ethanol fuel can also be made from the extracts of common crops like corn, or from jathropa plant, which is now being pushed by the Department of Energy as bio-fuel source.

The government has been venturing into finding alternative as well as environment-friendly fuel sources like bio-fuels to lessen the country’s dependence on petroleum products.

Recently, the provincial government under Gov. Grace Padaca has recently revived its plan to establish a coal-fired plant, another energy source here, with the help of Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC) in the province’s northern area. CCL

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