Indonesia’s Opportunities in Developing Renewable Energy based on the Country Location

Disusun oleh Departemen Lingkungan Hidup BEM UI

Photo by SmartTraveller

what is energy? Energy is defined in science as the ability to do work. Energy is everlasting, energy can neither be created or destroyed. The hot water we use to clean our body, mobile phone that we use everyday, and the movement of vehicles are not regardless of “Energy Being”. There are many kind of energies, such as kinetic energy, nuclear energy, electical energy, etc. Since long time ago human always need energy to do daily activities, for example the ancient society used firewood to produce heat. For the very first time, appeared this thing we knew as steam engine. Invention of that machine was a trigger to the later Industry Revolution. Since then people from all over the world began to use energy more and more everyday. The fact we must know is sources of these energies are definetely will be run out sooner or later, they are: electricity and fossil energy (coal, petroleum, and natural gas). That’s why we have to find a way to develop renewable energy that is not only good for human but also for the nature!

Flanked between Pasific and Hindia Oceans; also between Asia and Australia, Indonesia is stretched accross the equator. Archipelago is the type of my country geographical state, for the perks of having about 17000 islands, with the 5 biggest: Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi, and Papua. Based on this location, this country is basically has potential to develop renewable energy.

First, Indonesia absolutely has such a big number of coastalline, and water area surrounding the lands, and not to mention about the lakes. So what this article is trying to say is, this country has so many oppurtunities to make renewable energy by utilizing water! The energy is made by really-fast-moving water, it happens a lot at waterfall. But how about the not moving one? So what the people have to do first is to develop machines that are able to make the water moves in really fast speed.

Second, the average temperature of Indonesia all along the year is 28  degree in Celsius, the maximum is 36 degree in Celsius. Maybe this hot weather is such a bad thing for some people, but actually we could turn the high temperature into a blessing by using solar panels. If those huge ammount of heat energy could be converted into wind by fan and air conditioner, why not? What the people ought to do is to produce hundred thousand or even million more panels.

Photo by Daniella Syakhirina

The writer of this article is staying in the capital city of Indonesia, Jakarta, so this article will tell you about the condition of Jakartaas a big city that is surrounded by so many cars and motorcycles. Jakarta is one of the most populous cities in Indonesia, with the total area that is approximately as big as Singapore, there were 9,6 milion peoplecounted in 2010. Yes, this city is very crowded and unfortunately mostly of the people prefer to ride private transportation rather than public transportation. So don’t be shocked, we experience traffic jam everyday in many spots here. Therefore the air polution in Jakarta is very bad for health. But don’t worry, the government is working to save the society from air polution by making open spaces.

Researcher at the Laboratory of Electric Machinery, Kitami Institute of Technology, Hokkaido, Japan, Marwan Rosyadisaid fossil energy such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas will be exhausted by 2050.Switching from fossil energy into renewable energy is a very serious action that all of us could do to prevent the earth from extinction of energy sources.

-There is still hope to better earth as long as we keep on paying attention to save energy and develop renewable energy-