Eighteen million hectares of Philippine uplands originally contained thousands of mountain streams that drained to 240 major rivers which flowed along 12 million hectares of plains towards the sea. These days the uplands that rise at average 1,500 meters are so denuded of trees that most of their streams dry up during the country's six summer months. Even in regions with nearly-balanced rain and dry days year-round, the absence of trees indicates near-total absence of mountain streams. When the pouring rains come over the next six months, hardly any forest or greenery absorbs and stores upland waters, resulting to heavy topsoil erosion, flash floods of stream waters due to absence of water-storing plant roots, silting and shallowing of lowland rivers, rising frequency of landslides that at times bury entire villages, sudden collapse of upland road sections, and widespread floods in plains, towns and cities. The combined scourges create terrible tragedies and billions of pesos in yearly damage. Life-sustaining rainy season waters become major causes of Philippine poverty.
What can our Mega Co-op Movement do? Unfortunately, Philippine government resources and talents have long been proven to be inadequate as indicated by decades of anemic State efforts to address the issue on systemic basis. The problem is always lack of funds. The solution? Build mini dam hydropower chains along upland stream networks that feed lowland rivers, on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis. Billion-dollar 1st World Aid and Climate Change funds may provide 75% of project cost as a way of augmenting their CSR funds thru interest income, while addressing the climate change issue.
A group of 10-20 1st World CSR companies that includes several hydropower equipment manufacturers and builders may form one BOT company for the building of ten or so mini hydropower dams on sections of Philippine stream nets. Climate change Funds and 1st World Aid agencies may provide 75% of project cost, which should include power transmission facilities that connect to mega co-op agro-forest facilities and the local power grid. Hundreds of such BOT companies simultaneously building hydropower facilities nationwide will create trillion-watt level power within a mere two years or so. Tiers of mini dams from average 1,500 meters uplands height down to mountain base rivers will enable the BOT companies to repeatedly use upland waters thru gravity flow. The dams have to be built along sections of deep ravines to collect rainy season waters at such volumes as to ensure year-round power as well as provide water supply for agro-forests' fire control systems and for use by site factories and households. Otherwise, shallow upper dam sites have to be dug much deeper, then piped to lower dam sites, each site equipped with hydropower turbine, alternators, and power transmission facility.
The foreign BOT company should sub-contract civil works and local materials supply (cement, aggregates, etc.) to mega co-op joint ventures with local construction companies. Upon completion, the BOT company earns international rate profits from operations by selling power to mega co-op agribusinesses and factories as well as to regional power grids. For their part, the lender institutions will earn interest that will add to their CSR funds. Once loans are paid up, the BOT company 'sells' all its assets, including capital shares to mega co-ops at book value, thereby recovering investments. During pre-transfer operations, the BOT company should have included in its pricing, a percentage representing installment payments as the mega co-ops' 'purchase' of the company's assets. All mega co-ops served by the BOT company should become equal beneficiaries, thereby becoming new owners without painfully building up capital for the projects. After the transfer, the BOT company earns more thru iterations of mini hydropower projects that expand tropics-wide, all aided by the world's Green and Development Aid funds at 75% of project costs.
As new owners, the mega co-ops will hence continue to operate the projects for good profit, and pay dividends to their masses of employee-owners and investing institutions. Power prices have to include a percentage for capital build-up for investment in more power projects tropics-wide. Thousands of mega co-op power facilities will hence channel trillions of pesos in profits to the broad masses, not to a few elites and the politician-controlled government as what invariably happened in past BOT projects.
The scheme initially requires the BOT company to reforest all active or dry stream banks to 100-meter width both sides, using bamboo and deep-rooted trees along both stream banks to ensure year-round water flow. Fruit and forage trees are ideal for 'band reforestation', since profits from harvests will deter cutting down of the trees until they cease bearing fruit. Hardwoods and softwoods should add to the forest mix. All cut-down trees have to be quickly replaced by saplings from the company's nursery. The forest bands should always contain mixed-species trees to avoid clear-cutting while preventing the spread of plant diseases. The permanent forest bands' tangled roots should then store rainwater and gradually 'release' them year-round in the manner of old forested times. The roots will also prevent rains from eroding fertile topsoil and converting them into river silt which get deposited as sticky mud during lowland floods, as what currently happens.
An upland mini hydropower plant fed by streams can yield power at 500 kilowatts to several megawatt levels depending on dam size and site slope. As lower dam chains receive piped or channeled water from upper dams, rainy season waters are conserved and repeatedly used to drive power plant turbines thru gravity flow. Lower dams should be bigger, as they will receive more water from both the upper dams and the surrounding ground areas. Well-placed perforated steel pipes driven into the soil should form 'springs' that drain into concrete canals feeding the dams.
Combined power from each set of ten or so dams and power plants may be in 50 to 100 megawatt level depending on number and size of dams as well as height of mountain range sites. Each dam's mini lake will have to be deepened to ensure year-round water and power flow to the entire set of hydropower chains.
Mini dam chains should be favored over construction of grand dams because the former takes only a few years to build if scores of companies work on them all at the same time. The mini hydropower scheme applied along 18 million hectares of Philippine uplands can yield trillion-watt level power that is ultra cheap because of free rainwater 'fuel'. From second highest-priced in Asia, Philippine electricity prices can become lowest worldwide, thereby attracting all manner of 1st World companies to set up factories in provincial sites thru mega co-op joint ventures, in the process de-clogging the country's overpopulated cities.
Environment wise, mini hydropower chains as part of mega co-op projects will help in creation and perpetual maintenance of agro-forests due to the projects' combined profitability, which means large budgets for forest protection. Reforestation will also restore or revive near-extinct plant and animal species back to healthy population levels. Mini and micro hydropower chain schemes may also be set up in certain low slope rivers in Philippine valleys and plains. Once the Philippines perfects such technologies, other 3rd World countries may set up equivalents. Since all such systems require reforestation of waterways, millions of hectares of forest bands will rise in today's largely denuded tropics. As in all other mega co-op projects, inter-racial profit motive will help revive and maintain the planet's damaged ecologies.
What can our Mega Co-op Movement do? Unfortunately, Philippine government resources and talents have long been proven to be inadequate as indicated by decades of anemic State efforts to address the issue on systemic basis. The problem is always lack of funds. The solution? Build mini dam hydropower chains along upland stream networks that feed lowland rivers, on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis. Billion-dollar 1st World Aid and Climate Change funds may provide 75% of project cost as a way of augmenting their CSR funds thru interest income, while addressing the climate change issue.
A group of 10-20 1st World CSR companies that includes several hydropower equipment manufacturers and builders may form one BOT company for the building of ten or so mini hydropower dams on sections of Philippine stream nets. Climate change Funds and 1st World Aid agencies may provide 75% of project cost, which should include power transmission facilities that connect to mega co-op agro-forest facilities and the local power grid. Hundreds of such BOT companies simultaneously building hydropower facilities nationwide will create trillion-watt level power within a mere two years or so. Tiers of mini dams from average 1,500 meters uplands height down to mountain base rivers will enable the BOT companies to repeatedly use upland waters thru gravity flow. The dams have to be built along sections of deep ravines to collect rainy season waters at such volumes as to ensure year-round power as well as provide water supply for agro-forests' fire control systems and for use by site factories and households. Otherwise, shallow upper dam sites have to be dug much deeper, then piped to lower dam sites, each site equipped with hydropower turbine, alternators, and power transmission facility.
The foreign BOT company should sub-contract civil works and local materials supply (cement, aggregates, etc.) to mega co-op joint ventures with local construction companies. Upon completion, the BOT company earns international rate profits from operations by selling power to mega co-op agribusinesses and factories as well as to regional power grids. For their part, the lender institutions will earn interest that will add to their CSR funds. Once loans are paid up, the BOT company 'sells' all its assets, including capital shares to mega co-ops at book value, thereby recovering investments. During pre-transfer operations, the BOT company should have included in its pricing, a percentage representing installment payments as the mega co-ops' 'purchase' of the company's assets. All mega co-ops served by the BOT company should become equal beneficiaries, thereby becoming new owners without painfully building up capital for the projects. After the transfer, the BOT company earns more thru iterations of mini hydropower projects that expand tropics-wide, all aided by the world's Green and Development Aid funds at 75% of project costs.
As new owners, the mega co-ops will hence continue to operate the projects for good profit, and pay dividends to their masses of employee-owners and investing institutions. Power prices have to include a percentage for capital build-up for investment in more power projects tropics-wide. Thousands of mega co-op power facilities will hence channel trillions of pesos in profits to the broad masses, not to a few elites and the politician-controlled government as what invariably happened in past BOT projects.
The scheme initially requires the BOT company to reforest all active or dry stream banks to 100-meter width both sides, using bamboo and deep-rooted trees along both stream banks to ensure year-round water flow. Fruit and forage trees are ideal for 'band reforestation', since profits from harvests will deter cutting down of the trees until they cease bearing fruit. Hardwoods and softwoods should add to the forest mix. All cut-down trees have to be quickly replaced by saplings from the company's nursery. The forest bands should always contain mixed-species trees to avoid clear-cutting while preventing the spread of plant diseases. The permanent forest bands' tangled roots should then store rainwater and gradually 'release' them year-round in the manner of old forested times. The roots will also prevent rains from eroding fertile topsoil and converting them into river silt which get deposited as sticky mud during lowland floods, as what currently happens.
An upland mini hydropower plant fed by streams can yield power at 500 kilowatts to several megawatt levels depending on dam size and site slope. As lower dam chains receive piped or channeled water from upper dams, rainy season waters are conserved and repeatedly used to drive power plant turbines thru gravity flow. Lower dams should be bigger, as they will receive more water from both the upper dams and the surrounding ground areas. Well-placed perforated steel pipes driven into the soil should form 'springs' that drain into concrete canals feeding the dams.
Combined power from each set of ten or so dams and power plants may be in 50 to 100 megawatt level depending on number and size of dams as well as height of mountain range sites. Each dam's mini lake will have to be deepened to ensure year-round water and power flow to the entire set of hydropower chains.
Mini dam chains should be favored over construction of grand dams because the former takes only a few years to build if scores of companies work on them all at the same time. The mini hydropower scheme applied along 18 million hectares of Philippine uplands can yield trillion-watt level power that is ultra cheap because of free rainwater 'fuel'. From second highest-priced in Asia, Philippine electricity prices can become lowest worldwide, thereby attracting all manner of 1st World companies to set up factories in provincial sites thru mega co-op joint ventures, in the process de-clogging the country's overpopulated cities.
Environment wise, mini hydropower chains as part of mega co-op projects will help in creation and perpetual maintenance of agro-forests due to the projects' combined profitability, which means large budgets for forest protection. Reforestation will also restore or revive near-extinct plant and animal species back to healthy population levels. Mini and micro hydropower chain schemes may also be set up in certain low slope rivers in Philippine valleys and plains. Once the Philippines perfects such technologies, other 3rd World countries may set up equivalents. Since all such systems require reforestation of waterways, millions of hectares of forest bands will rise in today's largely denuded tropics. As in all other mega co-op projects, inter-racial profit motive will help revive and maintain the planet's damaged ecologies.
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