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RI can achieve 100% renewable energy within ‘years’, Prabowo tells APEC summit
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'Engagement and negotiation': President Prabowo Subianto addresses the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Lima, on Nov. 14. (Presidential Secretariat YouTube channel/-)
P
resident Prabowo Subianto has highlighted Indonesia’s abundant natural resources as a foundation for national energy security, suggesting that the country could meet its entire energy needs without relying on fossil fuels.
“We have the fortune of being able to, in a few years, be completely self-sufficient in energy, self-sufficient in green energy. We will be, perhaps, one of the few countries that can achieve 100 percent renewable energy within a few years,” Prabowo said.
Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima on Thursday, the former defense minister explained that bioenergy played a key role for achieving complete energy independence.
The archipelago has the greatest geothermal energy potential in the world, as well as significant solar power potential, “but our main strength comes from bio-energy, from the plant-based fuel that we can produce,” the President said.
“We will be, I think, together with Brazil and maybe the [Democratic Republic of] Congo. We have the potential to produce fuel from plants, and this, I think, will create a lot of opportunities because we will save a lot on foreign exchange,” he added.
Despite his declared support for renewable energy, Prabowo added that the government was “also pushing for more exploration of oil and gas and other minerals”.
Prabowo is known in Indonesia as a big proponent of biofuel and promised during his campaign leading up to the presidential election in February this year to push for a higher mandatory biofuel content in diesel and gasoline blends. The aim is to roll out the use of a 50-percent biodiesel fuel (B50) and a 10-percent bioethanol fuel (E10) by 2029.
