Govt backs alternative energy use
Tb. Arie Rukmantara, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
In response to an energy crisis caused by soaring global oil prices, the government is rushing to issue three regulations to promote the development of alternative forms of energy.
State Minister for Research and Technology Kusmayanto Kadiman said on Tuesday that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was expected to sign three presidential decrees later this week to support the development of alternative energy sources.
"Hopefully after returning from Aceh, he will sign the three documents," Kusmayanto said after a meeting with Austrian Minister of Education, Science and Culture Elisabeth Gehrer at his office in Jakarta.
Susilo returned on Tuesday evening from a three-day visit to Aceh and Nias, North Sumatra, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the tsunami and to celebrate Christmas.
Kusmayanto said the three presidential decrees covered national energy management, the development of biofuel and coal liquification.
The new decrees are meant to help minimize the use of fossil fuels in the country, which reached a total of over 60 million kiloliters this year.
"After these regulations are issued, all the work to develop alternative fuel sources, such as planting the crops needed as raw materials, will start early next year," the minister said.
Kusmayanto told The Jakarta Post earlier the decree on national energy management would provide a road map for the utilization of different alternative energy sources from 2005 to 2025.
He said the decree aimed to create a "balanced energy mixture", comprised of 30 percent oil, 30 percent natural gas and coal, and the rest from alternative energy sources such as biodiesel, biomass, geothermal, wind, solar and nuclear plants.
The government hopes to begin operating nuclear power plants by 2017.
The two other presidential decrees -- on biofuel and coal liquefaction -- will support the decree on national energy management, the minister said.
Gehrer, the visiting Austrian minister, said Austria would support Indonesian initiatives to develop biodiesel as an alternative fuel source through exchanges of researchers.
"Indonesia has taken a very good step forward in biodiesel and we could work together in developing biodiesel in the future," she said.
Bernd Michael-Rode, the European coordinator for the ASEAN- European Academic University Network, said this bilateral cooperation could take place at several levels, including joint research and business-to-business cooperation.
"First, we will help test Indonesian crops to determine the suitability of their use as biodiesel. Second, our industry will cooperate with the Indonesian government and private sector to install facilities to produce biodiesel from Indonesian crops," said Michael-Rode, who attended Tuesday's meeting with Kusmayanto.
"And by these (measures), Indonesia will gradually reduce its need to import oil," Michael-Rode added.