Muhaimin Iqbal
Author

The Significance of Mastering Energy Conversion

Advanced Renewable

Tue , 14 May 2024 12:16 WIB

Due to various reasons, some countries in the world those do not have sufficient sources of their own oil and gas still choose to import from other countries those have excess sources. In fact, oil and gas imports are not only bad for the environment because of their carbon emissions and carbon footprint, but they are also bad for the country's economy which continues to depend on imported fuels.

The value of imports is a reducing factor in the GDP formulation, so that dependence on imported fuel becomes an impoverishing factor for a country's economy. There must be serious efforts from every country to become energy independent. And in the era of energy transition, this is an opportunity to improve the economy and the environment by self-sufficient energy, particularly with carbon-neutral energy.

Clean energy sources are abundant around us, everything that contains carbon and hydrogen such as rubbish and waste is an inexhaustible source of energy. However, in its original condition, rubbish and waste are generally still seen as a source of problems. The city government only thinks about eliminating the burden of this waste and makes very little effort to process it.

In fact, when rubbish and waste are carbonized into charcoal, it has changed from a liability to an asset. Its volume has shrunk to about 1/3 of its original volume, but its energy content has soared. When rubbish and waste have turned into charcoal, it has become an asset that contains high energy, each kilogram of charcoal contains around 30 MJ of energy or around 2/3 of the energy contained in petroleum.

It's just that using charcoal as fuel may be considered ancient and troublesome, impractical, etc. In this era of course, charcoal does not have to be used in the form of charcoal just like that, that is the importance of mastering energy conversion which must be developed in society - so that the transition process towards clean energy can be successful.

The sketch below is an example of energy conversion, from charcoal to LPG, designed by the Advanced Renewable Organization (ARO) team. In essence, it only takes three steps to change ancient fuels such as charcoal into modern fuels that are currently used throughout the world, namely LPG.

The first step is that the charcoal is gasified into syngas, the result is still standard syngas, containing a little H2 and the majority CO. Second, upgrade this standard syngas to become H2-rich syngas, H2/CO ratio>2.3, this is what is needed for LPG feedstock. And thirdly, LPG synthesis from the upgraded syngas.

With the details of the mass & energy balance below, we will know that carbon-neutral LPG should be low cost and very doable, it can be produced even at the community level, medium-sized companies, regional governments and especially the central government. Clean energy sources are abundant all around us, so just lets do it, produce our own energy - start with LPG.