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Fakhreza Samudera Budi (16613411)

Mrs. Nia Kurniasih
Academic Writing 04
December 19, 2013
Ocean Energy as Ideal Alternative Energy for Indonesia
Renewable energy resources are very needed in humans lives nowadays.
Time after time, people finally realize that fossil energies are heading to an end.
There are many renewable energy resources such as water, geothermal, wind, and
solar. But there is an alternative energy which is very suitable with Indonesias
geographic condition: ocean energy. Do you know that ocean wave can produce up to
eighty thousand terawatt hour of electricity every year? This potential should be
seriously reckoned by the Indonesian government instead of increasing petroleum
drilling and coal mining. Before we get into the main topic, there are some significant
things you should know about fossil fuels usage and supply.
Lack of fossil energy has become a primary concern in many countries all
over the world. Even though it is acknowledged a long time ago, only few nations
who try to develop renewable resources. Indonesia is one of the countries who have
little concern in renewable energy resources. Superpower countries, such as United
States of America, still use oil, coal, and other fossil energies as their primary energy
resources in spite of their advance capability in processing renewable energies. US
Energy Information Agency stated that renewable energy has only been used about
6% of their total energy consumption. 86% of their usage still depends on fossil fuels
including petroleum (40%), natural gas (23%), and coal (23%). Fossil energy is
considered as non-renewable energy resources because their regenerations take a
long time. Long time can be millions of years or more.

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All of fossil fuels made of hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons have the ability to

reserve energy in their atomic bonds. With only just burning them, hydrocarbons
release their energy. That is why fossil fuels are the simplest and oldest energy
resources. When fossil fuels are burned carbon and hydrogen react with free oxygen
in the air creating carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O). This reaction produces
heat which made the energy even bigger. For your information, the rise of carbon
dioxide due to fossil fuel oxidizing process made the world face a great problem
which is global warming.
Fossil fuels energize almost every essential machine in humans lives. Before
electric bulb was found by Thomas Alva Edison in December 1879, petroleum oil has
been used to light bulbs. Until now, in certain villages in Indonesia where electricity
is not conducted very well, petroleum oil is still used to amplify bulb light. Some
people who live in an isolated place like Badui people are even use fossil fuels to
switch on their stoves. As we realized, fossil fuels cannot be separated from our
transportation system. Since 1700s, fossil fuels have become main combustion
ingredient for vehicles. After the first fuel-based boat (steam boat) was found in 1783,
it evolved into many modern transportation systems such as cars, motorcycle, and
also airplane. However, there is one thing that has not changed from the classic and
modern transportation which is the fuel. After 300 years of development, engineers
have not found a way to energize transportation without fossil fuels entirely. Modern
cars can only reduce the usage of fossil fuels with the hybrid system which combines
oils and hydrogen. In addition, modern cars with hybrid combustion system are still
very expensive. Most of heavy industrial machines are also amplified by fossil fuels.
As mentioned above, fossil fuels are very easy to get. Therefore, their
production cost is not so expensive. Also, fossil fuels price always rises because of
their scarcity and the dependence of human in using them. U.S. Energy Information
Agency informed that even though the coal supply will last about 1500 years, with
the 5% growth rate it will only last only about 86 years. A relatively short time isnt
it? Other fossil fuels can also be considered to have short supply time like coal.

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Ocean energy has a very long supply time. As you know, 70 percent of earth
consists of water and more than three quarters part of Indonesia also consists of water.
According to Ocean Energy Association of Indonesia (ASELI), Indonesia has an
enormous potential of wave and tidal energy. In the ocean surrounding Java island,
ASELI have declared that in that ocean contains huge potential of wave energy.
Referring to National Energy Council, Indonesia has 49 gigawatt of potential ocean
energy. In eastern part of Indonesia, ASELI found a potential of tidal energy. If the
government can build capable power plants for those potentials mentioned above,
Indonesia can change course from coal-based and water-based power plants into
wave-based or tidal-based plants.
Indonesia has only used about 0,01 megawatt of that enormous energy for the
power plant prototype created by Indonesian Agency for the Assessment and
Application of Technology (BPPT). In the future, the government will conduct more
study on ocean energy resource and will hold a new project in high-potential areas
such as East Nusa Tenggara. According to Alihuddin Sitompul-minister of Energy
and Mineral Resources for Peoples Welfare of Indonesia-, government will try to
encourage domestic industrial competitiveness to manufacture components of ocean
power plants.
Ocean energy or sometimes called as marine energy divided into specific
energy resources: marine current power, osmotic power, ocean thermal energy, tidal
energy, and wave energy. Wave energy has the biggest production compared to other
ocean resources because it can reach eighty thousand terawatt hour of electricity
every year. However, that does not mean other ocean energy resources do not have
good potential. For example, ocean thermal energy and ocean thermal power can
produce ten to fifty thousand terawatt hour per year of electricity. Each of those
classified energy has its own unique advantage.
Marine current power or ocean current power is energy obtained from
manipulating kinetic energy created by the ocean current. It is not widely used in the

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world right now even though ocean current is far more predictable than solar cell or
wind power. United States Department of the Interior reported that capturing 0,1
percent available energy of Gulf Stream current which is twenty-one thousand times
larger than the energy of water flow in Niagara Falls, would supply 35 percent
Floridas electricity needs. In addition, marine currents are happened because of the
rise and the fall of tides due to gravitational interactions between earth, moon, and
sun. The currents caused the whole sea to flow. Kinetic energy induced from the
currents can be converted as well as the kinetic energy of wind power.
There are several things which make the electricity generated from harnessing
ocean current more stable and even larger than any renewable energy resources. The
fluid properties supply can be calculated specifically. That means this renewable
energy is predictable and can be planned easily, unlike other renewable energy
resources such as wind or solar power. Ocean current power plant installations are
relatively cheaper than other alternative energy power plants because of its simplicity
and accessibility.

Also, as a renewable energy resource, ocean current can be

exploited with very little environmental impact. This advantage can bring a great
future by getting large scale electricity energy with less damaging procedure.
Osmotic power, on the other hand, is more complex than other ocean energy
resources. Osmotic power or salinity gradient power is energy obtained from
harnessing the difference in the salt concentration between seawater and river water.
There are two practical methods to gain power from salinity gradient: reverse
electrodialysis (RED) and pressure retarded osmosis (PRO). In spite of its scientific
complexity, osmotic power is not hard to get if only there is enough water resources.
Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) uses the temperature difference
between deep ocean which has cooler temperature and shallow ocean. This condition
can run a heat engine and creates work. There are very few countries that develop or
do researches concerning OTEC because of its need of advance technology in
producing and its little production result. Therefore, OTEC develops quite slowly.

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Tidal energy is quite popular ocean energy. As well as marine current power,
tidal energy is energy which converts the kinetic energy of tides into other forms of
power such as electricity. When it was developed for the first time, the production
cost was not worthy of its result. After the discovery of modern turbines, tidal energy
can be produced economically and environmentally efficient and price can be brought
to competitive levels.

Tidal energy has even more advantages such as stable

electricity production, fossil fuel-free procedure, free pollution energy production,

and predictable resources. Furthermore, scientists and engineers from many countries
especially France and Netherlands nowadays do their best efforts to gain more energy
from ocean tides.
Wave energy resources are the most used ocean energy in the world right now.
The simple concept of its energy production makes many energy companies
interested in producing energy from wave. Wave energy also converts waves kinetic
energy into other forms of energy as well as marine current energy and tidal energy.
Wave energy is slightly more advantageous than tidal energy. It produces higher
amount of energy than tidal or current power and also have very low maintenance
cost.
Indonesias geographical condition is often considered as many natural
disasters such as tsunami, earthquakes, flooding, etc. On the contrary, Indonesia has a
very advantageous to apply ocean energies such as wave and tidal. As mentioned in
the opening paragraph, more than 60 percent of Indonesias territorial consists of
water. In so many seas territorial, Indonesia has strong waves like southern sea of
Java. Strong waves can be converted into large amount of electricity and other energy
forms. Also, Indonesia is located between two prime oceans: Pacific Ocean and
Hindia Ocean. This situation makes Indonesias seas very capable for bringing energy
because of its enormous scale of ocean current. Indonesians view on their own
geographical position which is often blames geographical location for many natural
disasters can now be flipped as an advantageous position for producing renewable
clean energy resources.

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As a country that has very high rate of economic growth, Indonesia should be
capable to build wave and tidal power plants financially. BPPTs wave power plant
now has only reached to prototype stage. On this stage, the power plant cannot supply
enough electricity to distribute to other regions. Momentarily, it is only used as
research needs. Indonesian government should look more into ocean energy-based
power plants by giving them more fund and more manpower to strengthen the ocean
energy production. Indonesian government now focused only on some alternative
energy resource especially water energy. Ocean energy is only planned for future
development which should be a short-time plan. It is clear that Indonesian
government has not yet realized the potential of maximizing wave and tidal energy.
Not only the government, Indonesian people have also not considered wave
and tidal energy seriously. Indonesian educational society has little encouragement on
ocean energy development. Nowadays, students are more interested in petroleum and
mining engineering as reflected on the total number of Faculty of Petroleum and
Mining Technology of Bandung Institute of Technology enthusiasts in the last 5
years. Engineering educational board should encourage students to study about
renewable energy resources, especially ocean energy by doing campaigns to high
school students. The petroleum engineers high payments that interests many high
school students must be replaced by greater future for your descendants by
developing renewable energy resources because most of petroleum engineering
enthusiasts are interested in their wages. Most students right now only care about
payments instead of helping people. Indonesian young generations should know that
by developing renewable energy resources will not only help themselves with their
payment but also help their children and grandchildren to get decent clean energy
without worrying the supplies. In addition, engineers who work in renewable energy
resources nowadays receive high payments also. Many companies encourage young
engineers to work in renewable energy resources to gain more popularity.
My father once told me, If you pursue money, you wont get satisfaction.
You will only get it by helping people. I believe that studying and working in

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renewable energy resources can bring goodness not only to me but other people as
well.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_current_power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/climate_carbon_energy/energy
_solutions22/renewable_energy/clean_energy_facts/ocean_energy_facts/
http://interestingenergyfacts.blogspot.com/2009/09/fossil-fuels-facts.html
http://aseli.co/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=86:ombak&catid=40:catarticle&Itemid=53
http://aseli.co/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=87:energi-laut-2&catid=40:catarticle&Itemid=53
http://www.litbang.esdm.go.id/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=828:roadmap-pengembanganenergi-laut-indonesia&catid=1:terkini&Itemid=1