Bali told to seek renewable energy

Environmental activists and researchers urged the Bali administration to seriously seek ways to exploit renewable energy sources to cope with its electricity shortage problem.

Renewable energy sources, such as wind and micro hydropower, would provide the small island with better and safer alternative energy than geothermal.

Udayana University’s research center of industry and energy head I Gusti Bagus Wijaya Kusuma proposed that the administration should treat the island’s mounting trash as another potential source of energy, thus solving two problems at once.

“I am convinced that we could generate a significant amount of electricity by processing heaps of garbage. In 2012, we will start pilot projects on processing garbage into electric power in Klungkung and Tabanan,” he said, adding that the center would also conduct an experiment to harness Klungkung’s ocean waves to produce electricity.

Heaps of uncollected trash have become a constant headache for island administrations. Lack of sufficient trash collection trucks, manpower, landfills and management had further aggravated the problem. Foreign visitors identified uncollected trash as one of the resort island’s major problems in a government-funded survey.

The island’s largest landfill in Suwung, south Denpasar, operates a small-scale waste-to-electricity facility. Although it is currently capable of producing 1 MW electricity, the facility expects to eventually generate up to 9.6 MW. The landfill’s operator is currently still searching for the best method in processing the waste into electricity.

I Wayan Suardana of the Indonesian Forum for Environmental Forum (Walhi) said that the search for renewable energy sources was critical following the central government’s insistence to continue the geothermal project in Bedugul forest reserve area, some 70 kilometers north of Denpasar.

“Bali is a tiny island with very limited space and other alternatives must be sought before we allow the geothermal project to clear a significant size of conserved forest and drill at the island’s largest water catchment area,” he stressed.

Last week, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Jero Wacik stated that the central government would continue the geothermal project that he claimed would solve the island’s electricity shortage problem by generating a total of 165 MW of electricity. Initial studies estimated that at least 25 hectares of forest would have to be cleared for the project. The local administration is still adamantly opposed to the project, fearing that it would damage the island’s fragile ecology and spiritual balance, since the region is revered as sacred spot in Balinese Hinduism’s cosmogony.