Renewable Energy and Resources

What is Renewable Energy?

Renewable energy can be defined as the energy that comes from the sources which are abundant and can be renewable as long as the sources are available. It can come from various sources such as solar, wave, wind, river (hydro power), geothermal and also the biomass sources. The main purpose for this renewable energy is to generate electricity, since most of our electricity sources come from fossil based such as petroleum and liquid natural gas (LNG). By depending on these two sources, it is seen as not sustainable way as these sources are not renewable and are expected to be exhausted by the next few decades.

Oil and Gas are the main energy sources in the world

Many countries have come with different ways in order to counter the limitation caused by the fossil based resources. Apart from being too expensive, the petroleum also for example is the main reason for the air pollution, caused by the car and other vehicles that use petrol and diesel as their power sources. Since the introduction of cars back in the late 19^th century, this manmade machine has now conquered roads all over the world. The car is no longer seen as the luxury item yet it is a must for a person nowadays.

Because of these, many develop countries such as United States, Japan and France have found another ways of generating electricity. One of the popular yet too expensive ways is by using the nuclear power plant to produce electricity. However, many environment activist opposed this method as it is very risky due to the radiation from the power plant. Still remember what had happen to the Fukushima Daichii Power Plant back in 2011? =)

In Malaysia Context

In the context of Malaysia, majority of the electricity is generated from the hydropower where there are a lot of hydro dam allocated across the country such as Kenyir Dam, Temenggor Dam and the biggest in the region – the Bakun Dam which has recently put some aborigines live in deep Sarawak jungle in damnation (sorry). Because of the location of our country in the Equatorial zone, we have received a lot of rains each year which ultimately a very important sources for generating the hydro dam.The usage of the hydro electric have keep the electrics tariff in Malaysia is generally cheap since the last 20 years. Until recently, the Government has decided to increase the tariff by a little margin to cover the increase of the global oil and gas however.

Bakun Dam, Sarawak

When we discussed about the Malaysia context, the usage of the hydroelectric dam even though it is cheap and are the main renewable sources of the country, it still have a bad implication to the environment. The dam, for example cannot be existed naturally. We must clean the forest; create such a large buffer zone to ‘hold’ the river water so that the electric can be produced. This has created such a massive lost of forest area as most of them are being sunk with the manmade lake. For example the Banding Lake in northern Perak once has some villages, mainly the aborigine’s people. Once the Temenggor Dam is completed, all of the villages has gone and sunk in a deep Banding Lake. That is just one example of the impact form the construction of hydroelectric dam.

Energy is harvested from the wind

One must know how to revolutionize the current method of electricity generating so that it can become more sustainable to environment and also beneficial the people fairly. For example, we can turn into another renewable source that is abundant in Malaysia: the biomass. In my opinion the biomass can be the ‘next generation’ of electricity generation sources as it is easily available in the country. The biomass is the process of producing the electricity from the leftover such as food and agricultural product that are ‘fermented’ in a certain period of time. When the leftover is fermented, the chemical reaction released certain gasses that collectively can be used as the electricity sources (think about the LNG method).

The sources are taken from the pulp of the oil palm which has been process and can be found in a very large quantity in Malaysia. Since the oil palm industries has become a major agriculture industry in the nation, so one might wonder what had happen to the leftover. A part from seen as the next sustainable element in the Malaysian industry, it can also produce the electricity form something that we thought as the rubbish before. For me, that is how we can sustain in the future in the case of the shortage of oil and gas to produce the electricity. Yes, it might not be comparable to those two in term of the quantity BUT at least it is another aspect that we had exploited for ourselves into the better future. (OK la daripada takde apa) =)

Oil palm pulp as the biomass sources in Malaysia?