Thursday, June 14, 2007 So: E-jeepney and Jack By Michelle P. So Caught in the Net
IN a month or so, a new kind of public jeepney will be plying the streets of Bacolod City. This costs about P380,000 each, is made of fiberglass, seats only 13 including driver and doesn’t need gasoline to run. It’s an e-jeepney.
E-jeepney is an electric-powered jeepney that will debut in the streets of Bacolod, a city where the latest automobile models cruise. If you want to find out what’s new in the auto industry, you’ll find your answer in this city that’s 20 flying minutes from Cebu.
Since it does not run on gasoline or diesel, the e-jeepney is dependent on rechargeable batteries. For it to go an 80- to 100-kilometer trip a day, it needs to be charged for eight hours.
So what happens when the battery is almost drained, does the e-jeepney stop in the middle of the road, or does it warn the driver that it can go only for this distance so he can tell the passengers, “Guys, this is where you get off now. It’s only about two kilometers to your destination anyway and walking will do you good.”?
Green Renewable Independent Power Producer Inc. (Gripp), the private sector group that is behind the e-jeepney endeavor, wants to test the viability and sustainability of the electric-powered mass transport in Bacolod before it brings the vehicle to other cities, maybe Cebu.
I called up Jack Jakosalem, the Cebu City councilor who seems to have an answer to whatever question I ask him, be it the distance between his house in Maria Luisa and the moon or a behavioral analysis of the mayor. Jack heads the Council committee on transportation, energy, utilities and communication.
Do you think an electric-powered jeepney can work in Cebu, Jack?
He answered: We’re moving towards that direction—using vehicles with hybrid engines, partly gasoline, partly energy. They cause less strain on our environment and our pockets. But so far, it’s still private vehicles, no public transport yet. The private cars running on hybrid engines are expensive.
Later, he texted: With the inventive instinct of the Filipinos and the jeepney being a Filipino concept, I’m sure they will find a way to make the jeepney a cheaper and more maintenance-free mode of public transportation eventually.”
Off the cuff, I think the e-jeepney might be environmentally friendly but it might not be practical for Cebu City where the increasing number of vehicles is aggravating the traffic congestion. If the e-jeepney seats only 12 passengers (I think its Chinese makers have the average Asian size in mind), then it has the size of a multicab. What Cebu needs is a mass transport similar to the KMK buses that accommodate passengers of three to four 12F jeepneys.
There is more to the e-jeep than passenger sizes, fiberglass body and probably a crocheted sign of “God knows Hudas not pay.” It will be powered by electricity that is produced from waste. The e-jeep will be charged by batteries that will be charged at a power plant.
As described in news reports, the power plant consists of a generator, a high solid anaerobic digester and gas engine. Organic refuse will be emptied into the digester where this will be dissolved and converted into gas, which in turn will be pumped into an engine that will now produce the electricity. A physicist or a science teacher, or maybe even Jack, can explain this process better than I do.
When I visit Sun.Star Bacolod next month, I’ll try the e-jeepney, but I’ll be crossing my fingers that I get to my destination before it goes low-batt.
(MPS, chief of editorial operations for Sun.Star Publications Network, travels regularly to major cities outside Cebu where there are Sun.Star papers. Her weekly column talks about people and issues that hold common interest for Sun.Star readers wherever they are.
Since October 2004, MPS has been on leave from her job as Sun.Star Cebu executive editor [admin operations].)
