Jakarta, Dec 5 (ANTARA) - Indonesia suffers from an annual deficit of
300 million barrels of oil and natural gas, as it needs 350 million
barrels but produces only 50 million.
Experts, however, say Indonesia is rich in geothermal power and
uranium, both of which can serve as alternative sources of energy.
"Since the year 2000, less than 50 million barrels of oil and natural
gas has been produced annually. This runs short of the national demand
of 350 million barrels. Therefore, we run short of 300 million barrels
every year," said Rovicky Dwi Putrohari, the chairman of the Indonesian
Geologists Association, in Makassar, South Sulawesi, on Tuesday.
As Indonesia's oil reserves are declining, experts suggest that the
country begin exploiting its other sources of energy, such as geothermal
and uranium, apart from coal, hydropower, wind, biomass, solar energy,
and others.
After all, Indonesia has vast reserves of geothermal energy, accounting
for 40 percent of the world's geothermal energy reserves.
"However,
only 2 percent of the country's geothermal energy reserves have been
exploited," said Yulnofrins Napilus, the field relations manager of PT
Supreme Energy Muaralabuh, in West Sumatra recently.
The development of a geothermal power plant needs a lot of money, which
is why investment in this sector is still below expectation.
"The development of geothermal power plants needs a sizable amount of
investment because the start-up capital for such power plants is huge.
It is very difficult to find investors to build geothermal power plants,
so support is needed from the government as well as the private
sector," Yulnofrins explained.
He said the construction of Liki Pinang Awan geothermal power plant in
South Solok district, West Sumatra, for example, would cost an
estimated Rp7 trillion. "Investors will surely be very careful in
investing a huge amount of funds so there must be commitment from the
government and the community to support the inflow of investment,"
Yulnofrins added.
Another potential source of energy is uranium. And Indonesia has plenty of it.
"In Indonesia, uranium reserves are scattered in a number of regions
outside Java. This will enable Indonesia to use it to develop its
nuclear power plant after the fossils energy reserves are used up," said
Agus R Hoetman, an expert from the Research and Technology Ministry for
Advanced Energy and Material Affairs, at a seminar in Yogyakarta on
Wednesday.
He
said there were enough uranium reserves in the world to meet its energy
requirements for 3,600 years. The shortage of energy, Agus added, could
be tackled by using renewable sources of energy. One of the sources is
uranium, which could be used as a source of nuclear energy.
"By recycling or reprocessing, uranium can last for 3,600 years," he noted.
According
to data collected from the Embassy of Indonesia in Athens, Indonesia
has at least 53,000 tons of uranium - 29,000 tons in West Kalimantan and
24,000 tons in Bangka Belitung - which could be used as the basic raw
material for the development of nuclear power plants (PLTN).
"Besides, Papua may also have a very large uranium reserve. But some
research is still needed to conform it," said Dr Djarot S Wisnubroto,
the National Nuclear Energy Agency's deputy chairman for the development
of cycle technology of nuclear substance and engineering.
"Based
on the similarity of rocks found in Papua with those in Australia,
which has the largest uranium reserves in the world, it has been
estimated that Papua island has vast reserves of uranium as well," he
stated.
"If
a 1,000 MW PLTN needs 200 tons of uranium per year, with the reserves
in West Kalimantan alone reaching 29,000 tons, uranium can be supplied
from there for as long as 145 years," Djarot pointed out.
"But it does not mean we will be producing uranium ourselves for a
PLTN, because under the existing conditions, the price of uranium is
quite low. It would be more efficient of us to buy it from other
countries. Our domestic uranium reserve could then be saved for the
future," he explained.
According to latest findings, in March this year, Mamuju, West
Sulawesi, has the largest reserves of uranium in Indonesia.
The highest concentration of uranium in Mamuju is in the hilly area of
Takandeang village, Tapalang subdistrict, about 40 km from Mamuju
city. The radioactivity of the area is between 2000 and 3000 nsw per
hour, far higher than that of urban Mamuju's 200 nsw per hour.
Until 2010, however, Indonesia met 95.21 percent of its energy needs
from fossils energy sources and less than five percent from renewable
energy sources.
According to Rovicky Dwi Putrohari, Indonesia's oil and gas reserves
are declining, due to which the government has been increasingly
importing the commodity.
"That is because the government did not find new reserves," he pointed out.
"Exploration activities are ongoing at four places in Tanggu and
Salawati in Papua, as well as in Masela, in the southern part of Timor,
and in Donggi Senoro, Central Sulawesi. But so far, no new reserves have
been found," Rovicky stated.
"Actually, there are new reserves but they it will be 10 to 20 years before they can be used," he explained.
Meanwhile, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry's geology agency
head, Sukhyar, said that Indonesia still had about 3.9 billion barrels
of unexploited oil reserves.
"Indonesia also has a gas reserve of 104 trillion cubic feet," he added.***2***
(A014/INE )
(T.A014/A/KR-BSR/A/A014) 05-12-2012 21:19 |
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