It’s not really white gold metal but rather, an energy source the entire world could use a gas that is clean, environmentally green, and self-replenishing.
The Philippine Trench as well as the Philippine Rise is breeding grounds of the endangered Pacific Blue Fin Tuna, but speculators also say that lying at the bottom of the Philippine Trench is the world’s largest deposit of a gas called Deuterium.
Deuterium gas, also known as heavy hydrogen, is a heavier and stable isotope of ordinary hydrogen. It is widely known worldwide as the “Fuel of the Future.”
It is a colorless, odorless, nontoxic, diatomic, flammable gas. Deuterium gas is used in nuclear power, fusion power, deuterated optical fibers, deuterated lubricants, lasers, light bulbs, R & D laboratories, and annealing semi-conductor rims.
When burned, unlike fossil fuels, the gas only releases water vapor to the atmosphere. Therefore, environmentally, it is one of the best, if not the best, energy source on the planet. This could fuel power plants, steel mills, and many other industries requiring a clean and highly efficient heat source.
The Philippines was identified by some in the scientific community to hold the greatest amount of deuterium deposits in the world somewhere in the area called the Philippine Trench or Mindanao Deep, the part of the Pacific Ocean running mostly the entire length of the country.
Deuterium is most prevalent in an area more widely known as the Philippine Deep, which is located along the eastern side of the Philippines, of which the deepest deuterium deposits, when viewed from a satellite, lies closest to the shores of Surigao. The Philippine Deep was once the deepest part of the Earth until the Marianas Trench was found to be deeper.
Dr. Anthony B. Halog, a Filipino scientist with a chemical and industrial engineering background, described the Philippine deuterium wealth in this manner:
“A big deposit of 868 miles long, 52 miles at widest point, and 3 miles at its deepest point, replenished by nature 24 hours a day after deuterium travels more than 12,000 kilometers from Central America to the Philippines through the span of the Pacific Ocean when Planet Earth turns on its axis from West to East in unending perpetual motion.”
Dr. Halog said, “its economic potential is about 12 million barrels per day, with a capacity priced at US$7.00 per barrel, that could reach US$84 million per day or US$30.66 billion per year, enough to wipe out all existing foreign debts of the Philippine Government in one year.”
Dr. Halog said, “once Deuterium exploration and extraction succeed, public works, private construction, economic and financial booms could be expected to happen in the Philippines in the same manner as those that happened in the Middle East and financial centers of the world.”
The world is becoming more and more environmentally conscious. As such, exploring all alternatives that could provide energy with little or no detriment to the environment should be considered, including the recovery, processing, and marketing of Deuterium.
In reality, the Philippines could actually become the cornerstone of a global shift towards a clean, green, pollution reducing future, in addition to becoming one of the richest countries in the world.
Something to consider for the future…
However, there are other scientists and researchers who hold a different opinion.
Twenty years ago, a certain Dr. Nona Calo from Butuan City in Mindanao, hypothesized that a very large deposit of deuterium can be found in the Philippine Deep, located off the waters of Surigao. First discovered and isolated in 1932 by an American chemist Harold Urey, deuterium or heavy water is composed of two isotopes of hydrogen and an oxygen atom, with a chemical formula of D20 or H30. With more hydrogen molecules than ordinary water, it is much heavier than water or even saltwater, causing it to naturally sink farther down into deep ocean trenches.
Although deuterium mining has never been done before even in highly developed first world countries and the possible costs might be staggering, research on this opportunity is still worth investing in, considering the high stakes involved. This program could propel the Philippines to be the biggest hydrogen fuel (Li-Hy) producer in the world, and become the only fuel producer 40 to 50 years from now in an oil-depleted world economy. With the expertise of the Philippine National Oil Corporation (PNOC) through one of its departments that focuses on indigenous and non-traditional fuel sources, the government can embark on a deuterium research program and Li-Hy production project with ease, in terms of project organization and administration.
What hasn’t been done before does not mean that it cannot be done. Deuterium mining is practically just pumping water from the ocean bottom. The present technology in offshore oil production is up to depths of 6.4 kilometers from sea level, and they still have to drill through the ocean bottom to get to the oil, hundreds of meters below the sea floor.
Deuterium is located just between 7 to 10 kilometers from the sea surface and needs no further drilling. And since deuterium naturally electrolyzes when the 10,000-psi ocean pressure is gradually removed through the pumping process and replaced by lower atmospheric pressure, two upper pipes will then collect segregated by-products of deuterium, which are pure liquid water and gaseous hydrogen. The dispelled hydrogen gas, can then be collected, compressed and stored as liquid hydrogen. The pipeline itself will serve as refinery of deuterium to produce hydrogen.
Oil mining may actually be more laborious, costly and dangerous in comparison to deuterium mining, and oil refining more expensive than the processes involved in deuterium and Li-Hy production. With regards to expertise, Filipino engineers and technicians at PNOC have proven and even exported their skills to Japan in constructing geothermal plants, installation which is comparatively more complicated and hazardous.
Reprinted from South China Morning Post, 2-September-2004:
“Former US president Richard Nixon loved to say, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” American journalist Hunter S. Thompson had his own version: “When the going gets tough, the weird turn pro.” In the Philippines, a country buffeted by political and economic crises, the weird are turning professional, as strange people smell the scent of opportunity to make more money during these evil times.
One scheme doing the rounds asserts that there are vast “deposits” of deuterium in the Philippine Deep, created by oceanic pressures and “natural electrolysis.” If enough money were raised, pipes could be lowered to suck up the deuterium, allowing it to be used as fuel, earning billions for Filipinos, who would live happily ever after. This was first put forward more than 10 years ago by a labor recruiter unable to produce a shred of proof, thus the scheme has been considered a pseudo-science fraud. There are no “deuterium deposits” in the Philippine Deep — the only deposits the proponents are after are the ones a dupe will make into their bank accounts. Deuterium, a form of hydrogen, does not naturally occur in large quantities anywhere. It is found in extremely minute quantities in water. Industrial quantities are extracted using massive electrolysis plants. Deuterium is not a fuel, but a toxic liquid coolant for fission reactors. It is being tested as a power source for fusion reactors, but there is one catch: functional fusion reactors exist only in Star Trek.
Facts have not stopped the growth of what one scientist has called “deuterium delirium.” A website has been set up to encourage investment in this project. The latest story mentions mumbo-jumbo calculations involving the Earth’s rotational speed to prove the extent and depth of the alleged oceanic deposit.
Among those beguiled are: Senator Aquilino Pimentel, who has promised to bring the subject up for discussion in a committee; and assorted journalists who have written as if deuterium in the Philippine Deep is an article of faith. Apparently no reporter has called up any nuclear physicists to check the science. The unlikeliest dupe is the Communist Party. Recently, its spokesman, Luis Jalandoni, castigated the government for not exploiting “alternative energy sources” like the deuterium in the Philippine Deep. Perhaps, as many people have suspected, scientific socialism really has elements of comic fantasy.
The whole affair highlights how desperate times breed gullible people. In 1986, Senator Pimentel also supported a “water-fuelled car,” which turned out to be a fake. If you believe deuterium deposits lie at the bottom of the Philippine Deep, you are all set to buy green cheese from the moon.”
There are many comments and statements supporting or debunking the deuterium issue but getting to the truth is only possible by actually obtaining and then analyzing samples from the trench. It is an expensive task, to say the least, but a necessity in finding the truth behind the so-called deuterium deposits.
“When I was a junior officer, I was stationed in Surigao in the early 70s, and deuterium was already rumored to exist off the coast,” says Commo. Mariano S Sontillanosa AFP (Ret).
“During my younger years, I was fortunate to be an escort onboard a US research vessel owned by Scripps Institute of Oceanography. For 15 days or so, the vessel was within the vicinity of the Philippine Deep off Surigao. That was 39 years ago. The scientists onboard laid some small buoys at given depths. I did not know until later that the survey was about deuterium. As to whether or not there is a lot of it in the Philippine Deep, I leave it to your judgment,” says VAdm Emilio C Marayag Jr. AFP (Ret).
About the author:
Timothy Muelder is a retired Facility Manager of the U.S. Department of State.
Editor’s note:
The Maritime Review published in its Chairman’s Page in September 2008 the possible presence of deuterium in the Philippine Deep, authored by Commo. Carlos L Agustin AFP (Ret).