Bali Time: Friday, 31-Dec-2011 1:48 free NGO Web Hosting Bali Emergency Network Bali Recovery Group (archi ve 2002 ) The Magic of Bali Home | Hospit als | C onsulat es | Organisations | about BaliSOS | more links Original page published by: ReFocus - The International Renewable Ener gy Magazin e NOV/ DEC 2001 The Ring of Fire: The Use of Geothermal Energy in Indo nesia For In done sia's myriad smal ler isl ands, as w ell as for r ural l ocations that canno t be eco nomical ly connecte d to the grid, electric power de velopment strategy is i ncreasingl y seen more in terms of the country's abundant rene w able energ y resources. Hydro, bi omass, solar and wind ener gy are be ing ex plored for their potential to gener ate pow er, to lessen national dependence on fo ssi l fuels. Expert attention today is focused on exploiting the huge geo therma l pote ntial of the specta cular mounta in rang es in Java and Sumatra, volcanic Indonesia's so-called "R ing of Fire". R ichard Mo gg, Lanna Blue Bangkok repor ts on geother mal ener gy production and use in the re gion. Indonesia: the current situation With a total land surface area of 1,900,000km and a population estimated at some 220 million today, the Republic ofIndonesia is by far the largest member of the ten-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). (Besides Indonesia, ASEAN member ship includes Brunei Darussa lam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia , Myanmar (Bur ma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.) While some 6,000 or so of Indonesia's more than 16,000 islands are inhabited, over 60 percent of the total population is concentrated in Java and Madur According to figures given by G.W. Huttrer at the World Geothermal Congress 2000, Indonesia's installed generating capacity driven by geothermal p ower had r eached a level of 589.5MW, which gener ated 4,57 5GWh. Over half of this was privately owned and operated by two commercial affiliates of oil interests based in the United States (see below). Unocal and Amoseas Indonesia, which is a joint venture between Texaco and Chevron, are contractors to Pertamina, Indonesia state-owned oil, gas and geothermal enterprise. Three more joint ventures, all partnerships between American and Indonesian commercial interests, have signed power pur chase agreements and j oint-operating contracts with Pertamina, t o develop a f urther 680M W of geothermal generating capacity. Pertamina, which today styles itself the "national oil, gas and geothermal organisation", stated mid-September that it intends to invest US$5 billion in a programme to develop high-growth operations in the period 2002 to 200 6. The progr amme f ocuses gover nment policy t o reorient domest ic usa ge away f rom oil dependence. Indonesia thus joins a small group of countries that have increased their installed geothermal generating capacity by at least 50 percent in the period 1995-2000. The others are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Iceland, New Zealand, the Philippines, Portugal (Azores) and Russia. Indonesia's overall installed generating capacity, of all types, jumped in 1997 by 16 percent t o 33,255 MW, and b y a further 13 per cent in 1998 to tot al 37,532M W. Of t his, 2,88 1MW compr ised large and small hydropower units, Indonesia's largest renewable energy generating sector. Accor ding to an assess ment made by Dr John W Lund, Director of the Geo-Heat Cent er, Or egon Institut e of Technology, USA, and his colleagues, current total electric power produced worldwide by geothermal means is equivalent to saving an annual 83.3 million barrels (12.5 million tonnes) of oil. It results, too, in the saving of an estimated 11.03 million tonnes of carbon pollution that burning the oil would produce. Global warming, believed to be reaching an unacceptable level, should not be forgotten in the quest for sustainable renewable energy development. RE on the sidelines? Southeast Asia's surging 1990s economic development spawned rapid development of generating capacity fired with cheap, readily available fossil fuels. The name of the game in Indonesia was base-load and merchant generating plant fuelled by oil, gas or the country's plentiful coal reserves. The ASEAN countries generally regarded renewable energy as an interesting but rather minor sideline, lacking true investment potential. Environmental considerations were considered counter-productive, and often still are. This has resulted in the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) labeling the ASEAN nations the most polluted in the world today. Geothermal plant may emit small amounts of gas, but even this is eliminated wher e a binar y system is installed for electr ic power g eneration.
