by Habibie Razak – Energy Practitioner and Project Manager.

The high urban community growth and also the increase of infrastructure development in every sector causes several problems such as urbanizations, poverty, poor real estates and housing, municipal wastes, etc. The major concern in bigger cities such as Jakarta, Surabaya, Makassar city and other developed cities right now in Indonesia is municipal wastes.

The rapid development of metropolis cities in Indonesia, followed by the increase of urbanization with the ideas the villagers can get better life in big cities. This will affect the increase of populations and also the increase of wastes both from industry and housing. Unfortunately, this situation is not followed up by the improvement of facility and infrastructures provided by the government and slightly reducing the quality of the environment, especially the increase of municipal wastes and how to handle it to be more environmental friendly.

Kepala Dinas Pertamanan dan Kebersihan Kota Makassar, Kusayyeng said http://makassar.tribunnews.com/2014/02/28/volume-sampah-di-makassar-bertambah-menjadi-800-ton-per-hari, the volume of wastes in Makassar increased to become 800 tons per day as of February 2014. Estimated waste volume will keep increasing to become 1000 tons per day at early of 2015.

One of the solutions to manage the municipal wastes is to convert it to synthetic gas (syngas) through gasification process. Gasification is thermochemical conversion process of solid organic to gas. This gasification involves to the partial oxidations and combustion process at 900 – 1100 Degree Celsius or more. Like pyrolysis, gasification process producing gas the calorific value about 4000 kJ/Nm3.

Benefits of Biomass Gasification such as: Converting what would otherwise be a waste product into high value products, reduced need for landfill space for disposal of solid wastes, Decreased methane emissions from landfills, Reduced risk of groundwater contamination from landfills, Production of ethanol from non-food sources. For gasification of biomass can be read further at this link http://www.gasification.org/gasification-applications/biomass/

The government of Indonesia through the Ministry of Industry, Energy & Mineral Resources and related ministries should put more emphasis in inviting investors and technology licensors and facilitate the communications with the city mayors. The symposium or seminars on biomass/MSW gasification related technology should be done frequently to enrich the knowledge and insights of the business players (industry) and government for both technical and economical aspects of the investment.

One of the projects finished their demonstration plant construction and currently in operation is for converting municipal solid waste (MSW) to jet fuel using TRI gasification and EFT Fischer Tropsch process technologies. The TRI pilot plant has operated over 1,200 hours gasifying 4 tons per day of sorted and sized MSW (aka RDF) producing FT liquids suitable for upgrading to jet fuel which is considered renewable. This process is not yet commercially proved.

Fulcrum Bioenergy is licensing the TRI and EFT process technologies and is developing a project in the US which will use TRI’s gasification process and EFT’s Fischer Tropsch process. The EPC work has started for this project.

As being said before, there are several big cities such as Jakarta, Makassar (South Sulawesi), Surabaya (East Java), Bogor (West Java), Bandung (West Java) that can collect over 500ton/day of MSW. The potential off-takers for jet fuel would be PT Angkasa Pura, a State-owned Air Business Company which is coordinating all airlines logistic in Indonesia.

Gasifying and converting over 200 ton/day waste can produce 700 barrel/day of jet fuel considered to become feasible and will need to conduct some economic study and see how the investment works-out in term of CAPEX, OPEX, IRR, NPV and payback period.

Hari Minggu 28 Juni 2015 PPI Jepang Komisariat EHIME menyelenggarakan sesi Knowledge Sharing sebagai bagian dari program “Scientific Interaction and Academic Studies”. Topik sesi kali ini menurut Ketua PPI EHIME, Ir. Andi Erwin Syarif, MT adalah menitikberatkan pada pengembangan teknologi dengan melakukan konversi energi melalui implementasi desain yang efisien. Tujuan utamanya adalah mengajak para stakeholders baik akademisi maupun praktisi memainkan peranan signifikan di dalam menyelesaikan tantangan energi hubungannya dengan pengurangan emisi karbon, biaya energi yang lebih kompetitif dan ketahanan energi.

Saya pada sesi ini diminta sebagai Guest Speaker dengan membawakan materi tentang Aplikasi Bahan Bakar LNG sebagai bahan bakar murah dan ramah lingkungan. LNG di Indonesia selain berasal dari gas alam juga bisa dibuat dari batubara yang keduanya merupakan kekayaan alam Nusantara. Batubara melalui proses gasifikasi dapat menghasilkan synthetic gas (syngas) yang kemudian bisa diturunkan lagi menjadi berbagai macam produk seperti pupuk, methanol, DME, olefin, synfuel, sampai menjadi Synthesis Natural Gas (SNG). SNG dari batubara kemudian bisa diliquefy menjadi LNG.

Pembicara menyampaikan bahwa Pemerintah Indonesia mengimplementasikan program Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction di mana targetnya adalah pengurangan emisi sampai 26% di Tahun 2020 dengan kondisi tanpa dukungan dari negara lain dan sampai 41% pengurangan dengan bantuan dari negara lain. Sebagaimana Tabel di bawah adalah Target Reduksi GHG pada tiap sektor.

Regulasi yang mengatur tentang upaya pengurangan efek rumah kaca ini setidaknya diatur sebagaimana di bawah ini antara lain:

◦Law No 17 Year 2004 on The Ratification Kyoto Protocol To The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Protocol.

◦Presidential Regulation No. 61 Year 2011 on the National Action Plan for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction.

◦Local Regulation. In East Java for instance Governor Regulation No. 67 Year 2012 on East Java Action Plan for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction.

Pembicara juga memaparkan tentang perbandingan kadar emisi truck menggunakan bahan bakar LNG dan truck berbahan bakar diesel di mana ada pengurangan emisi CO2 sebanyak 30% sehingga bisa disimpulkan bahwa LNG adalah bahan bakar kendaraan yang lebih bersih (environmental friendly).

Sesi knowledge sharing ini ditutup dengan pengenalan tentang organisasi Persatuan Insinyur Indonesia (PII) dan sosialisasi UU No. 11 Tahun 2014 tentang Profesi Keinsinyuran di mana Pembicara Tamu juga adalah Pengurus PII Pusat. Turunan dari UU ini adalah Peraturan Pemerintah dan Keputusan Presiden yang akan segera diberlakukan tahun ini.