Bicycle

Posted 12.13.2007 in Ying Thai

These days, everyone who owns a car complains about the high petrol price. If recent events are any indication, the average Joe can soon expect to spend 2,000 baht each time he visits the gas station. But the idea that oil is running out is not new, is it? We have all thought about it at some point, and then later brushed the idea aside thinking that it would not happen in our lifetime, and someone somewhere will come up with a solution to save the world.

The government could put massive taxes on cars or restrict car travel into the city center to slow down oil consumption, but it is going to be immediately less popular and probably caused quite a riot. What we don’t want is however, to stop using oil because we have run out of this precious fossil fuel, but because we have found a new way of doing without it. Having worked in London and Asia as an energy analyst for a few years, I think I am qualified to talk about this subject. A good example is Brazil which produces and consumes 100 percent bioethanol for transportation fuel because they could not afford to import crude oil decades ago when their currency depreciated. Thailand was fortunate enough not to endure currency depreciation to the same degree, but look how well Brazil is performing now.

Brazil is listed as one of the BRIC nations, a term invented by Goldman Sachs to describe other fast economic growth countries including Russia, India and China. On a lighter note, Thailand was taken out of the STICK model (fast developing Asian countries including Singapore, India, China and Korea), and now the professor at Stanford who developed this model is scratching his head as he is left with the SICK model. I am not making this up!

Likes many other countries, Thailand lacked a clear guideline in energy saving and measure of its progress. The result is that some wealthy urban households have more than one fridge in their kitchen, while the parents & kids drive off in 4 different cars after breakfast. Thailand is not alone, ASEAN-wide energy policies are fragmented and uncoordinated at best. Member countries have different specification of fuels (e.g. B100, B20, premium gasoline 98, 97, 95 and 93) making trade very difficult as seen by Thailand’s recent ethanol surplus. Poor government implementation caused frustration among the produces/suppliers. At the end of the day, consumers paid the price dearly because we have successfully driven out the ethanol producers.

It seems like no matter which direction we go it will take a dramatic and painful change in our lifestyles to save Thailand (sorry guys), and the rest of the world. Some alternatives are biking, solar power, wind power, hydrogen fuel cells, or nuclear power. If we don’t start making some dramatic moves we will continue to walk back into the “Stone Age”, something that I doubt if the next elected government is prepared for.

With much debates on ethanol/gasohol policy in Thailand, passing a measure to phase out premium gasoline, a policy that the government has reversed, is too little too late even if they are to go ahead with it in the next government. The current 3.50 baht/litre price difference between gasohol and gasoline is also not large enough to make the wanted effect prominent. The differential should be substantial and implemented rapidly instead of a small series of changes.

I disagree with how Thailand adopted the first generation technology of biofuel as a way forward. (The first generation of biofuel refers to using food crops feedstock.) Use of sugar cane / corn /palm oil to produce biofuel has simply driven the price of food up, and it has fueled a massive debate/issue in other countries, especially when the countries have no spare land for bio crop. China, for instance, has moved away from corn as a feedstock for ethanol while the rest of South East Asia turns to Jatropha. And even if we have successfully adopted the second or third generation technology, the cost of production is not currently viable without government intervention.

Just to put the impact of bioethanol into perspective, the industry estimated a whooping 6 percent of bioethanol in the total gasoline global demand by 2010. Not a lot, isn’t it? I doubt if the impact of bioethanol will be significant enough to knock off even a $10 per barrel of crude oil then. Not to scare you off, but geopolitical conflicts will undoubtedly sharpen. China will continue to produce million of babies every year, guzzling milk and oil at unprecedented rate. The U.S. will insist on keeping world peace (yeah, world peace, right) by perhaps invading Iran. Forget about buying hybrid cars and relying on Thai government policy on sham biofuels, the future lies in your legs and two wheels.

Here is an innovative idea, last July, the City of Paris launched a new self-service “bicycle transit system” called ‘Velib’. Users are able to pick up and drop off bicycles throughout the city at 1,500 locations, which are stocked with over twenty thousand bikes. The rent can be paid at the meter, which also provides information on other station locations. The fee is tailored towards your need and very affordable to the Parisian standard, something like what we pay here in BTS fare. If the French can still look elegant while biking in their summer heat wave, I think we can ride bikes with style in Bangkok. And the pollution will be less once people start paddling.

Many of us stop by the gym to run on treadmills and ride bicycles after work, why not combine the workout and the commute? What we really need for this is just a decent, effective dedicated bicycle lane system on the road. (Ok, I know it is not easy, so I will settle for a mediocre one if the bus drivers promise not to run us over while they compete in their daily city grand prix.) I wonder what our governor, Apirak Kosayothin, think of my proposal.

Other countries such as Sweden are also continually expanding the bicycle rental service. I for one would welcome such an idea since it seems a lot more promising and practical in reducing oil consumption and curbing global warming than the highly-publicized fashion recycling bag campaigns and economically non-viable ethanol plant. As former PM, Anand Pranyarachun, said recently, we need a more solid campaign to solve our energy crisis, not another company looking to commercially exploited global warming issue.