Building ‘Solar Valley’ in the Philippines
Written on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 11:14 pm | by chuckIn a four-part feature in BusinessWorld, Technology columnist Dennis Posadas (who blogs at Ricebowlandchips) advocates building a Philippine Solar Valley which would be to Renewable Energy what Silicon Valley is to Information Technology.
In Part One, Posadas explains the timeliness of such an initiative especially given the recent opportunities we can build on, in particular, the presence of one of the major suppliers of solar cells which has its manufacturing plans in Laguna and Batangas. Following the Silicon Valley model, he emphasizes the value of physical proximity of both Industry and Institutions of Higher Learning.
Part Two of the series provides an overview of the various energy collection, storage and transmission technologies associated with harnessing sunlight. Given that the associated technologies are in its early stages, Posadas believes that there is a lot of room for improving the efficiency of yields which offers another window of opportunity for us.
“Therefore there should be a lot of potential research in finding better materials and equipment suppliers. We Filipinos are pretty good at this, in my opinion.”
Part Three presents the various locally available photovoltaic technology as well as an analysis of the economics of going solar by introducing the concept of Levelized Cost of Electricity.
In Part Four, Posadas focuses on the role of Research and Development in developing the industry explaining that…
“The Solar Energy R&D institute should be a semi-government, semi-private R&D institute that can spin off its intellectual property so that investors and technopreneurs can commercialize these technologies.”
Dennis Posadas’ recommendations are derived from the lessons he has distilled from the success of Silicon Valley and similar business ecosystems that he wrote about in his book Rice and Chips: Technopreneurship and Innovation in Asia (which i previously reviewed). I hope the government, business and education sectors are listening.
Tags: development, energy crisis, entrepreneurship, industial policy- We can go “green” til we turn blue but lunch won’t ever be free
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I wonder, to which politician we can lobby this idea to? I am thinking along the lines of one of the 2010 presidentiables, but who?
Among the presidentiables,
Villar is the real estate man.
the proponent might want to present this idea to him.
IMO, we should ask all of them and see you is serious and who is just paying lip service.
BTW, you can also give your feedback directly to the author of the above series in his blog.
Technology is the least of our worries. Suppose you are an inventor/innovator and you’ve got some great ideas you want to try. Would you locate your R&D and Manufacturing faciities in a country where counterfeit DVDs, knock-off designer goods, fake prescription medicines and all sorts of pirated intellectual property goods are openly for sale?
Where the essential beneficiality of the patent protection system, as a fair means of guaranteeing that important knowledge gets to the public domain, is truly respected, and not distorted and blamed for high prices!
Where the most powerful politicians will drag foreign investors over the coals on nationwide tv, just to win patriotic pogi points while changing the rules of the game in mid-stroke?
Whose financial system was rated just yesterday as being in the bottom five in the world (with Vietnam, Nigeria,et al), and whose govt the most corrupt? Where nothing is safe from those in the seat of power, not even the main electric utility.
12 hour brownouts are coming for sure!
DJB, i hear what you say but China had similar ‘problems’ with piracy amidst their economic takeoff.
DJB, touche, but will defeatism help at this point?
Besides, i think intellectual property protection is not entirely a good thing. An economy grows by increasing productivity. Increasing productivity requires new technology. New technology is a result of both innovation and imitation. Intellectual property protection may be good for the former (although not in all cases) but is bad for the latter. Witness how Japan and Korea had to start with cheap knock-offs in the early stages of its industrialization before it moved up the ladder to do more original work [aka innovation]. That’s why the push by the developed world for stricter intellectual property enforcement is seen by some as kicking away the ladder.
It looks like Posadas’ ideas may have some parallel with Thomas Friedman’s new book “Hot, Flat and Crowded” where one of Friedman’s themes is that oil will soon be outdated as typewriters. I have yet to read the book though.
chuck,
take the case of pharmaceuticals. after all that brouhaha over the cheaper medicines bill, turns out 99% of the UN’s Essential Medicines list is OFF-PATENT. Yet is anyone here “imitating” the fully documented, public domain recipes for making even the famous “norvasc”–which went off patent last year??
No. IP protection is not the problem. If it werent for the patent system things like human dna from genetically engineered e coli bacteria would not be permanently a part of human knowledge (an even that happened some time in the early eighties).
Who’s climbing that ladder around here though?
By the way, here is one item I hope everyone will remember: ever since the 2001 Basic Education Curriculum was adopted by Deped, the Grades One and Two SCIENCE subject has been missing from ALL public elementary schools. Now the generation of grade school graduates with 30% less science subject preparation are entering a Secondary School System that is reeling from it. Kids are getting only four years of Science preparation before highschool instead of 6.
It’s the most backward thing I can imagine we could have done. What for? To make way for “Makabayan”!
DJB, as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India and China has shown, ‘climbing the ladder’ requires a policy that favors home grown industrialization. We haven’t had that over here. (It was last attempted during Marcos’ time with his 11-major industries initiative.) Without government initiatives, industrialization doesn’t just happen.
Japan, South Korea = Has US Bases
Taiwan = US lapdog
China = sold out to capitalism
India = selling out to capitalism
Philippines = sold out to the Vatican
Unilab is making Amvasc, which is a slightly different salt from Pfizer’s Norvasc. The Pfizer patent would have extended to Amvasc were it not repealed.
So if I will go with some of the comments posted, we should just sit down and die without a fight.
Dennis Posadas,
Patents are not “repealed”. They expire by design typically in under 20 years. That’s how it is supposed to work.
Isn’t it wonderful that a company like Unilab, which spent not a centavo of R&D to develop that lifesaving drug, can now turn a profit manufacturing and marketing it?
“Die without a fight?”
Whatever are you talking about?
But we must concentrate on the basics: highly educated workforce and investment friendly environment.
Anyway Dean, peace.
I followed the case on this closely. There was a Federal Circuit court in the US that overturned Pfizer’s patent on the Amlodipine Besylate salt (the generic name of Norvasc). The Unilab version is Amlodipine Camyslate (Amvasc).
In this case, the Norvasc patent is actually more than 20 years old but its life was extended because a new use was found for the drug (lawyer’s bag of tricks). Anyway, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeal overturned the patent HAH HAH because it appears that Pfizer had made Amlodipine Besylate prior art IN ANOTHER PATENT. In effect, because the method of making Amlodipine Besylate had been published in a previous patent (a public document) it had rendered the new patent null and void.
There’s no war Dennis!
You followed Norvasc closer than I did. But the point stands. Patents are good for inventors and investors in innovation, as well as ensuring that vital knowledge becomes human knowledge and not just private property. Pfizer got caught there, which only argues for more enlightened application of the laws. What we are doing with the Cheaper Medicines bill will not likely lower the cost of meds (what unilab is now doing will). But they will increase the level of fake drugs, I’m afraid.
i’ll see it when i believe it. though solar is a good thing. if it goes online, it’ll be good. if i’m not mistaken, Solar is predicted to go down in costs with new technologies coming online. for the life of me i can’t remember that link. think it was at discovery channel.
Since a solar powered facility will be built.
If this goes BOT, the original proponent who will offer an unsolicited proposal must prepare for a swiss challenge. Swiss challenges does not give a damn about the one who makes the first move,if someone else’s offer a more costlier and another way to do it,they will be the ones who will do the building of the facility.
Can an exppert on the bOT law correct me on this?
Guys are you aware of the green island in baseco, the idea is to transport the Metro’s garbage by barge via the pasig river. It was done via BOT and it is more than halfway complete.
IF this is ot a white elephant. all you need is three years of continuous garbage for another waste to energy plant. AS to the way it will arrive to the green island would be another problem. The garbage operators won’t sell its fleet of trucks,garbage is gold to the mayors,unless they will find it “economically” feasible,they won’t allow it to go by barge.
Just to be crystal clear: I wholeheartedly support the move to develop alternative energy sources such solar, wind and wave. Even “people power” where the huffing and puffing ergs at upscale gyms are harnessed to recharge cell phones, laptops and even make lighting.
But there is no free lunch. Look at the huge move to compact fluorescents. No doubt a boon in terms of global warming, but a mercury pollution disaster building up. LED lighting, said to be the wave of the future is still uneconomical. But even traditional manufacturers like General Electric are claiming new filament technology could bring back us back from technoglare to good ole softcolor incandescents.
What we need is not a change in light bulbs, but a change in men. (just to paraphrase Dick Gordon)
Dean - I agree with you. Particularly on patents.
There was an article in the Far Eastern Economic Review (I have to look for it) that said India has a lot of fake drugs.
Warm regards to all.
DENNIS
[…] made yet another insightful comment that summarised the whole problem of the constant high-fives we give each opther everytime we […]
My other apprehension re solar power is that solar power plants tend to occupy huge swaths of land.
In a country where displacement of indigenous peoples, land reform, farm land availability, and food vs. ethanol is a huge issue, where could a solar energy powerplant be built?
‘want to buy flashlight its very cheap,but it uses solar energy” so as the joke goes,but honestly speaking Philippines get a lot of sunshine year round,if we could only harness this energy using our local materials and local techicians or scientists talents and skills and of course government back up or subsidies we can produce photovoltaic energy that is affordable to common people.This technology which has been around for decades and simpler to produce can surely help reduce our fuel consumptions,people of all walks of life are talking about it and yet nobody wants to venture in this technology.Even the government is not bullish on its potential and still pinning its hope to struck oil on our shore and get rich quick,rumor that billions of barrels of oil are within our reach duh!, compare it to the energy that we can harness from the sun,well its limitless and free.