Indonesia is the country with the largest number of active volcanoes and intends to become a world leader in geothermal energy, a clean and sustainable energy that does not attract many investors because of the high exploitation costs.
Being situated in the long Pacific Circle of Fire, Indonesia has underground a real “power plant†mostly fueled by the 150 volcanoes spread all over its territory. The experts estimate that this country owns 40% of the world geothermal reserves, meaning 27,000 megawatts.
In spite of this impressive figure the archipelago is only on the third place in the world as the geothermal energy capacity production is concerned, being surpassed by United States and Philippines with 1,189 megawatts (2% of their energy consumption.).
According to AFP, Jakarta intends to increase its geothermal energy production to 4,000 megawatts until 2014. This objective was set before the climate summit from Copenhagen during the Indonesian plan to reduce the green house gas emissions with 26% until 2020.
Everybody knows that the geothermal energy is cleaner than the one generated with gas or oil because it does not contribute to the carbon footprint of the society, releasing polluting gas or creating landfills.
Being so far the fourth most populated country in the world with 235 million inhabitants, Indonesia responded to the strong electricity need increase on its territory by building coal fueled thermal energy plants because the resource was available in the country. As a plus this type of energy was a lot less expensive as investments are concerned than the geothermal one.
Presently out of 250 potential resources situated on the large volcanic islands of the archipelago only 15 are being exploited due to the fact that investors are scared of investing in the project because such a geothermal adventure lasts around ten years.
Being favorable to the geothermal energy, the World Bank granted Indonesia a 400 million dollars loan to help it reduce the dependency on fossil fuel.
Currently the world harbors 20 countries which have made a goal out of producing electricity with the help of geothermal energy coming from the underground of the planet.
From these, Iceland is the one with the fastest evolution in the matter because it is using this type of energy as the main source of electricity throughout the entire country.
With the right investment plan, and a careful resource monitoring, Indonesia promises the world a future source of sustainable energy which will be able to give a hand in obtaining a cleaner, better and more Earth friendly society.
