Bio-LPG For Energy Independent
Since it was decided almost 20 years ago, the main fuel for Indonesian households based on LPG has continued to suck up subsidies and drain foreign exchange. Last year’s alone subsidies were more than Rp 40 trillion, and imports will continue to swell in the next few years.
At least until 2024, our LPG needs will reach around 12 million tons at that time, less than 2 million tons that can be produced domestically. This means that we will still import more than 10 million tons per year until then.
If we had moved quickly in research and development, we should have come up with a solution much earlier. At least I see two routes that we can take to produce renewable LPG that is 100% domestically produced, which is not only carbon neutral, environmentally friendly but also empowers the community, this is what I call Bio-LPG.
The first route uses non-food vegetable oils such as tamanu. With catalytic cracking, among others, propane and butane will be produced, the mixture of which is LPG.
If the raw materials for non-food vegetable oils are not available or not sufficient, the abundant raw materials are food waste, market waste and even sludge from urban wastewater. It can also be planted specifically for this purpose, a fast-growing biomass such as microalgae.
Through the Anaerobic Digestion process with certain microbial communities, these materials can be converted into Volatile Fatty Acids (VFAs), namely short chain fatty acids such as acetic, propionic, butyric acids etc.
When the CO2 is released from the VFAs through an enzymatic process, for example, the output will include propane and butane, which mix the two into LPG, similar to the one above. As for the CO2 waste, so as not to
pollute the air, can be recycled to become ‘food’ which is needed for microalgae cultivation.
And so this cycle revolves, overcoming organic waste, urban waste and paving the way for independent clean energy.
Of course its implementation requires qualified R&D and skills, but the sooner we start, the sooner we will be independent in energy supply.
