a project in economics 4

8/7/2019 A Project in Economics 4

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A Project inEconomics

A Thesis About the Energy Crisis in the Philippines

Created by:

Jordan Jay-R N. Jacinto & Kyle Hubo

IV Excellence

Submitted to:

Ms. Mercado


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Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. Power Crisis

III. The Causes of Power Crisis

IV. Comparison

V. Solutions

VI. Conclusion


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Introduction

Our country today is facing a major problem: Energy crisis.

Most of our people have been affected because of it, most

especially because of the rising prices of electricity bills; which in

turn caused poverty, so our people had no choice but to tighten

up their belts and make up for their minimum wages.

This is one of the main reasons why the authors of this study

chose this topic.

What they had to do first to make this study is to find and collect

articles in the internet regarding this grave situation. The next

step is to study and evaluate data from the articles, then write the

main topic, and in the end review the whole thesis and do it all

over again.

The process is quite long, but in the end they learned a lot of

things, and in turn opened their eyes about what their country is

currently facing.


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Power Crisis

The demand for electricity today is quite daunting, and it still gets

far more worse each year. The country is largely affected and

devastated - it caused a shortage of supply of electricity, the price

of electricity bills rose, and lastly, caused a lot of power cuts. As

you can see in the figures 1.1 and 1.2 below, the country's

electric consumption continues to rise each year.

Figure 1.1

Figure 1.2

Year

Electricity -consumption

Percent Change

2003

42,040,000,000 kWh


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2004

42,040,000,000 kWh 0.00 %

2005

46,050,000,000 kWh 9.54 %

200

6 44,480,000,000 kWh -3.41 %200

749,750,000,000 kWh 11.85 %

2008

47,040,000,000 kWh -5.45 %

2009

47,040,000,000 kWh 0.00 %

2010

48,960,000,000 kWh 4.08%

(Source:

http://www.indexmundi.com/philippines/electricity_consumption.html )

The causes of Power Crisis

There are many causes why this situation has happened. The

following causes are:

1.) Overpopulation

2.) Not enough reserves in power plants

3.) Insufficient funds

Overpopulation

This is one of the causes of the power crisis. That's because the

bigger the population, the bigger the demand for their needs, and

one of this is the need for electricity for their everyday lives. It

says right in the CIA World Fact book that we are the 12th most

populated nation in the world. They've also estimated that thepopulation of the Philippines by July 2010 was 99,900,177. So

having a big population in a country is a big nuisance.

Not enough reserves in power plants
http://www.indexmundi.com/philippines/electricity_consumption.htmlhttp://www.indexmundi.com/philippines/electricity_consumption.html


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Since Philippines is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, the country

frequently faces a lot of typhoons every year. Because of this,

power plants placed everywhere in the country gets damaged a

lot more easier. So if a power plant ever gets broken, or needs

some inspection or repair, there should be another workinggenerator, wherein it has sufficient energy to replace the broken

power plant. But the problem is, most of the Philippines'

generators doesn't have enough reserves, resulting in brownouts.

A good example for this situation is the typhoon Ondoy. Most of

the country's generators were broken and heavily damaged - it

resulted in mass brownouts throughout Philippines. Reserved

energy is most required in this dire situation from the other

working power plants. But there weren't enough reserves to

match the required grade, so others still experienced brownouts.

So the Government thought of making a system called "rotating

brownouts", where every place in the country will experience a

brownout, in a specific time and day.

But there's a huge setback. Many businesses were affected

because of it, since there's no electricity. Many, or almost all of

the businesses today use electricity because of our perpetually-progressing technology today. So if there's no electricity, the

country's economy will be greatly affected.

Insufficient Funds

Unlike before, our country faces another grave problem - lack of

funds. This means that it'll be harder and will take longer to fix a

power plant or even buy a new one. This is one of the reasons

why we couldn't upgrade or fix most or even all of our powerplants and generators. We couldn't even give our power plants

proper service, we couldn't give its workers proper knowledge and

insight about power plants, and scarcity of spare parts of the

power plants so that it'll be repaired and improved more quickly

and easily.


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Comparison

The two monstrous countries China and United States had the

same problem too. The two countries suffer from Overpopulation,

where according to an estimate by the US Bureau of the Census

based on statistics from population censuses, China had the most

biggest population, having 1,338,612,968 citizens, while United

States was at the third place, having 307,212,123 citizens.

Even though China and United States face overpopulation, they

managed to solve the problem itself. As one can see, China andUnited States' Electricity Consumption (Figures 2.1 and 2.2) rises

up rapidly each year.

But in figures 3.1 and 3.2, their Electricity Production goes up too.

So why does that happen?


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Figure 2.1

(Source: http://www.indexmundi.com/china/electricity_consumption.html)

Figure 2.2

(Source:

http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/electricity_consumption.html)


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Figure 3.1

(Source:http://www.indexmundi.com/china/electricity_consumption.html )

Figure 3.2

(Source:

http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/electricity_consumption.html )
http://www.indexmundi.com/china/electricity_consumption.htmlhttp://www.indexmundi.com/china/electricity_consumption.htmlhttp://www.indexmundi.com/china/electricity_consumption.htmlhttp://www.indexmundi.com/china/electricity_consumption.html


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So how did they do it? Both countries invested in using renewable

and sustainable energy. One of the key factors is that both

countries invested in solar and wind energy. Both countries have

decided to do that since sources of energy like coal and oil aren't

renewable. Studies even say that we only have 44 years until allof our oil reserves are used up. So they've decided to enhance

their technology in generating renewable energy resources so

that they wouldn't face any other problem in the future. It is

recommended that our country does that too, but many problems

obstruct the path towards the progression of our economy. Our

country doesn't have enough funds, and that would take a lot of

time.

Although United States haven't been able to solve it yet, China

has a way to lessen their overpopulation situation. They created a

law called Two-Child policy, wherein every family in China is

only allowed to have two children. If a family had three children,

the third one will be added to their taxes. Although the policy has

been discussed lately the in the Philippines, some still consider it

as anti-family - the Catholic Church even said that it violates

religious and spouses' freedom.

Solutions

1.) Use Solar energy. Since our country is near the equator, it's

always hot. That's the reason also why we only have two seasons.

There are a lot of vacant lands in Philippines, so it's possible to

install solar panels in places like in provinces, where there's

usually no electricity.

2.) Fix the Law regarding the proper payment of taxes. This isbecause many of the country's citizens tend to break this law -

this tends to makes us look bad in the eyes of the people in other

countries. When it comes to other countries like the United States,

tax evasion for them is a big no-no. It is being shunned upon by

many of its citizens; they even consider it a bigger crime than


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stealing or even murder. So if ever possible, make the penalty for

tax evasion deeper. Death penalty would even be considered for

this, since many today do it; but then again, we can't since it's too

much.

3.) If ever possible, create open policies and tax exemptions for

foreign investors, so that they may be invited and encouraged to

give money to our country. Philippines today lacks foreign

investors, especially in the Electrical Generation Plant sector, so it

is a must that the country must have more foreign investors to

make a big progress in the development of our country.

4. Use wind energy. Collecting it isn't only limited to windmills

and such - there are many ways to do it.

Taken from the Biofriendly blog

(http://biofriendly.com/blog/energy/wind-energy-8-ways-to-collect-

it), This highway turbine was thought up by an Arizona State

University student. The turbines are designed to pick up wind

generated from passing cars. Since the turbines are placed over

the freeway, cars passing underneath will be traveling 65-70 mphon average which will allow each turbine to produce approx 9.6

kWh of energy annually. Thats enough to light up a small

apartment or help power the street lights on the freeway . This

would be useful in such highways like NLEX and SLEX, where


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hundreds of drivers bypass the highways everyday. Funding it will

surely not be a nuisance for the Government, as those highways

are privately-owned, meaning that the Government doesn't own

them a private company does.

Taken yet again from the Biofriendly blog, they also use the wind-

energy that they are generating to power the street lights that

they're attached to. It's similar to the highway turbine. Although

the Wind Powered Light may take a lot of funds and time to

create, it will surely help our country a lot.

5. Take advantage of renewable energy resources, so it would be

recommended to invest in build special structures for its

generation.

Oil is uniquely versatile and as a result powers almost all our

machines. Oil-powered vehicles transport and produce our food.

Oil-powered machines are our only way of life that we have

known for many years. Clearly, we are living in the age of oil, but


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that age is rapidly drawing to a close. There is only sufficient oil to

last 44 years if oil production stays constant until it is used up. As

oil reserves become depleted, there will be less which will make

keeping production constant impossible. Likewise, there is only

enough coal to last 133 years and only enough natural gas to last

61 more years. Certainly by now, everyone realizes that gas and

oil will become expensive and scarce within the lifetimes of our

children or their children. There will inevitably be a transition to

more renewable energy sources. That transition may be

haphazard or planned it is on us to decide. So while we maystill have some time left, it is a must for us to invest in building

specialized structures so that we may be able to sustain our

Economy.


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Conclusion

It was an eye-opener for the authors. They've discovered that the

Philippines' citizens , most of the time wouldn't solve their own

problems. Its citizens tends to complain about it but they

wouldn't do a thing about it. Most of the time they simply wait for

someone to solve it, and they would call him/her a hero/heroine.

It's quite sad that even although Filipinos are hard-workers, they

also tend to complain a lot, and that they need an iron fist just for

them to work hard. Also, most of its citizens needs to be taught a

thing or two about discipline; most of them don't follow the law.

Today crime is wide-spread there's not a night where a crime or

two doesn't happen. Some do not even care much about paying

taxes; unlike in America, where tax evasion is being shunned

upon those who do it.

Yes, the authors may have learned that Filipinos are stubborn,

undisciplined, and tends to complain a lot, the authors

themselves learned something from them they smile in the most

dire of situations. They've discovered that although Philippines

have faced a lot of grave situations, they've always managed to

solve it - its citizens never frown when they experience problems.

All that they simply need is a little nudge to get them back on

track. The Filipinos are simply like sheep if they don't have a

shepherd, they scatter away. They are near-sighted, so they need

guidance and protection from their shepherd. But every now and

then they shouldn't rely on their leaders too often they too must


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also learn to stand on their own feet. Relying on a leader, even to

the extent calling him/her a savior, is too much. The Philippines'

citizens must just wait for salvation to come they must reach for

it themselves. They must trust in the Lord Almighty for the

guidance to reach their goal. After all, Kung may tiyaga, may

nilaga.

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