Electricity is everything! Think about it! Every aspect of our lives is supported by electricity. From keeping our food fresh in the fridge, to do work on your computer, and to the way you communicate to everyone in a distance through your phone is dependent on electricity. But, how does actually electricity come from? Is it from the sky? Or there is a huge battery that stores us electricity? Sadly, is not. The electricity that we use daily is all from the conversion of many types of source energy around us. There are two types of it, non-renewable and renewable. The non-renewable is fossil fuels (such as natural gas, oil, and coal), while the renewable one is solar (sun) energy, hydropower (water), geothermal (heat within the earth) energy, biomass (plants and animals) energy, nuclear energy, and wind energy. These sources of energy are where we can get electricity from. Why it is called a source because they will be converted in different ways to form electricity. Scientist never stop researching to find new ways or ideas to make better electricity. As population increase, the usage of electricity definitely increase. One of their duties is to find new ways to get electricity that will have positive impact for the environment, source that are renewable, source that cheap, easy to get, and it can meet community needs.
As we know, non-renewable means that it could run out as we keep using it in a matter of time. It could lead to scarcity of the source that give a negative impact. Unfortunately, around 63.3 % of global electricity comes from fossil fuels. For example, Indonesia has been estimated to use around 75% of fossil fuels (32% is oil, 28% is coal, and 15% is gas) and 25% is from renewable energy (13% biomass and 12% is geothermal and hydro -energy mix-) in 2020. Fossil fuels are still consider the main source of energy in Indonesia. Why is that so? Indonesia's government still prefers to use fossil fuels because it's cheaper than the others and has sufficient to supply national electricity needs. Indonesia also can produce its coal. Coal resource and production in Indonesia are mainly distributed in four provinces, that are East Kalimantan, South Sumatera, South Kalimantan, and Central Kalimantan. That’s why they said it's cheaper.
Unfortunately, fossil has another negative impact for the environment too. It could produce land degradation, water pollution, and emission. For example, Coal. Coal poses a problem because the extraction, processing, and use can damage the environment. It could damage our air condition as pollution, waste management, land issues, and also could cost human lives. Coal itself produces many types of dangerous gasses, such as CO2 and NOx. These two gasses are contributed to climate change and have the potential to acid rain. The activity to produce coal could create sinkholes, erosion, and surface water pollution also sludge that will destroy and affect agricultural land. In short, coal could damage our environment in every aspect.
Solar energy could be one of the alternative main sources of Indonesia. Indonesia is considered a tropical country, which means Indonesia has more and often gets sunlight. It’s a big opportunity for Indonesia to utilize it other than coal. Solar energy has many better impacts on the environment too, like it does not produce greenhouse gases, does not pollute the water, requires little water for maintenance, and does not cause noise. However, Indonesia still doesn’t make the most of it. Indonesia can only utilize it 0.05% from the potential power that exists. It's because of the problem with the fund. Due to the high production cost and also lack of human resources, Indonesia can’t give maximum effort to utilize the potential given. High investment costs also become an obstacle for them and the problem of land to place solar panels due to population density.
Don’t worry, the solution to all of these problems is already in search, hopefully, they can get the best and profitable results and also can protect the environment even better. The government already had a plan that in 2025, Indonesia would be able to make one million solar panels. Hopefully, other countries around the world also replace fossil fuels as their main source of energy with another source, according to their circumstance.
留言