New and Renewable Energy For the Social Justice (and Energy) For All Indonesian : A note about the Dream for My Lovely Country

Discussing energy it means also talking about human civilization. It has known the energy history always linear with the civilization that was created by the human. In the olden times, when our ancestors were living with the nomad era, biomass, or the energy that came from the tree, such as wood, is the only choice used. Wood was used for producing fire and light. By this fire, the required energy for living and safety factors, preventing the wild animal, was sufficient. Moving to the agriculture revolution era when humans were permanently lived in some areas and developed farming-field for their food consumption, wood is not only the one source of energy for humans. Wind energy, waterfall (hydropower), and the animals' power started to be used for helping daily activities. Plowing up the land and crushing the rice seed are examples of human activities in this era. Moreover, horse and donkey were used as a transportation medium.

The era when wood became the primary source of energy continued until the human population drastically increased, and technology development rapidly happened. In the 17's – 18's century, coal starting to be used as a wood substitution. Till the early 1800s, crude oil was found and be the leading energy source for humankind. In the middle of The 1900s, especially after the world war II era, natural gas was used as an alternative to energy sources besides the oil. The considerable amount of natural gas and environmentally friendly character of the gas caused the overexploitation of this energy. Yet, by the innovation of technology and the more populated of humans, which is equal to the increasing of energy consumption, nowadays, oil and gas are tried to be substituted by other energy resources.

Non-renewable energy, or sometimes called it fossil energy, is the energy that will be finished due to the limited amount and long time needed to be created. Moreover, this energy is also known as not environmentally friendly because of producing hazardous emissions gas. The gas, such as Carbon Oxide (COx), Nitrogen Oxide (NOx), Sulphuric Oxide (Sox), etc. are the gas that causes global warming. Therefore, the alternative energy that has not only a more environmentally friendly but excessive amount on the earth should be discovered. The type of energy with these characters is known as renewable energy and new energy.

The era of renewable energy is a new era that always is developed in the modern human era. Many renewable energy resources are found and continue to be optimized. Some of the universal renewable energies are wind power, hydropower, geothermal, solar power, and biomass. If we observed the cycle of energy, that was produced by the people, the end of the sequence, always electricity. Nowadays, for the household scale and industrial scale, the technologies that use electricity are the primary chosen. This trend is predicted will be happened in the next generation. Because of that, the electrical sources is the key to our life. Electrical consumption also can be used as an indication of the productivity and prosperity of a country.

The electrical consumption of our beloved country, Indonesia, in 2014 is 812 Kilowatt per Hour(kWh)/capital and increased to 1012 kWh/capital in 2017. This data was taken from the Center of Statistical Organization (Badan Pusat Statistika (BPS) and the World Bank. Yet, this consumption is much lower than in other countries such as Korea (10200 kWh/Capital), Japan (7.819 kWh/capital), and USA (12.984 kWh/capital). While If we compare to our neighbor countries such as Malaysia (4.596/capital), Thailand (2.539 kWh/capital) dan Brunei (10.242 kWh/capita), our electrical consumption still far away.

The low electric consumption of Indonesia compared to other countries is a paradox. Indonesia is a country that has abundant energy resources. Therefore,  the small electrical consumption problem should be finished. There are some factors and reasons why this problem happens. Firstly due to the demographic factor. Indonesia is a massive country with an unbalanced spreading population, some people live in urban areas, but fewer people live in rural areas. The technology factor also contributes to this problem. The innovation that needs high technology sometimes becomes resistant to developing the energy sources that Indonesian have. The last element is the diversity of energy resources. Because Indonesia is an archipelago country, every island of Indonesia has its original energy sources. Therefore, a mapping of potential energy in Indonesia is a must to be done first.

From many investigations that have been done, Indonesia is a paradise of renewable energy. It can be seen from the potential sources that spread out the Indonesia area, where each region has a different character. These sources can be used as an in-situ (local) energy solution. For instance, Java and Sumatra island have a couple of active volcano mountain, where these areas have geothermal energy potential. Besides that, the mountain area also has the potential for micro-hydropower energy.

On the other hand, the Kalimantan island consists of several giant rivers. These rivers are potential energy if we build a dam for the water reservoir of hydropower turbines. The hydropower in Kalimantan is a kind of renewable energy that can be used as a substitution of coal energy. While in the east area of Indonesia, sunlight is the primary potential renewable energy that can be exploited. Sunrises over the year in the eastern region of Indonesia have an intensity and quality higher than other areas. Another potential renewable energy in Indonesia is wind-energy because Indonesia is the archipelago country with the infinite coastal area, the wind energy also always available all year. Last but not least, palm oil is also one of the most significant biomass potentials for creating renewable energy in Indonesia. Indonesia is the highest exporter of palm oil in the world. Palm oil waste is one of the biomass sources that can be converted to hydrogen and biomethane as a substitution of fossil fuel.

 The final concern about renewable energy in Indonesia is about technology. Technology for producing renewable energy also one of the critical aspects to be discussed. Until now, Indonesia is an insignificant country in the international atmosphere for its contribution to renewable energy technology. Whereas our natural resources i.e., mining material, is one of the promising in the world. Indonesia has abundant sources of copper, gold, silver, platinum, lithium, nickel, tin, etc. These elements are vital for developing renewable energy technology. Therefore the role of Indonesia in developing renewable energy technology can also be started from the refining of those ores and becoming the supplier for other countries.

For the last statement, I want to say that everything that exists in Indonesia is a blessing from god. Lets we manage this blessing to fulfill the energy demand in Indonesia for now and future generations.