Muhaimin Iqbal
Author

Challenges for Desert Conquerors

Advanced Renewable

Tue , 14 May 2024 04:24 WIB

Currently there is around 1/3 of the earth's surface area in the form of desert, there is a tendency to increase through a process called desertification. These deserts exist on almost the entire surface of the earth on various scales, the largest of which are in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) countries and Australia.

What not many people know is that the fertile land of greenery in our country also has deserts that are famous throughout the world for certain people, namely people who love the sport of sea surfing. Its position is in West Lombok and on Google maps the location is marked with the name 'Desert Point'. Thousands of hectares of land in this area have now turned into desert.

However, deserts can also return to green, for the Arabian Peninsula, which has been a desert thousands of years ago until now, there is even prophetic news - it will return to green. The details of the process for making it green and producing food and springs are even mentioned in His guidance. One of the keywords in His guidance is '...aydyhim' - their hands. This means that the process of turning the desert into green again will involve the actions of human hands, whose hands are these?

Well, the hands that will green this desert could be the hands of all of us, we and you who read this article. What we are doing at the Advanced Renewable Organization (ARO) is preparing and integrating all the technologies needed for this. Starting from soil treatment technology, Liquid Nano Clay (LNC), cheap water desalination, Slow Release Fertilizer (SRF), drip irrigation and various technologies needed to green the desert.

What we still need is support from local communities in desert areas such as the West Lombok 'Desert Point' mentioned above. Then also support from corporations with ESG (Environmental Social Governance), CSR or Carbon Credit funds.

This is also a big opportunity for the fossil industry to go green. Low calorie coal, which is cheap, for example, can be processed into active carbon and SRF to fertilize desert lands. Likewise, we can capture CO2 emissions from power plants or factories and convert them into SRF, pesticides, insecticides, etc. From the battery industry, we can develop Capacitive De-Ionization (CDI), which is a cheap seawater desalination technology for this project which that we call Desert Springs.

More specifically, vocational schools in areas that have potential for this project can prepare their students to become potential conquerors of this desert. Starting from the deserts around us, after becoming a model for the world, the 1/3 of the earth's territory which is currently still desert can become a way for all of us to carry out His commands, to make this earth prosperous.