It's A Miracle! Indonesia Proposes Bill To Turn Coal Fuels Into "New Energy" W. "Minimal Carbon"

[hatrack]

Indonesia looks set to continue its heavy reliance on coal in its energy mix under a legislative sleight of hand: it will define fuels derived from coal as “new energy” and ignore any carbon emissions associated with them as “minimal.” The proposal has drawn heavy criticism from energy experts, who say it contradicts the Indonesian government’s pledge at last year’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow to phase out its use of coal.

The fossil fuel accounts for the majority of Indonesia’s current energy mix, and now looks set to eclipse renewable alternatives under a proposed bill on new and renewable energy. At a hearing on March 17, parliament presented the latest draft of the bill, which formally defines hydrogen, coal bed methane, liquified coal, and gasified coal — all products of the fossil fuel — as “new” energy, alongside nuclear. Eddy Soeparno, deputy chair of the parliamentary commission on energy affairs, said these “downstream coal products” will be processed in such a way as to eliminate their carbon content. “Therefore, the carbon content in the coal is very minimal,” he said as quoted by Indonesian news portal CNNIndonesia.com.

But this kind of reasoning ignores the emissions from turning the coal into its gas or liquid fuel forms, according to the Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR), a Jakarta-based energy policy think tank. The government is betting big on coal gasification, which can be used to produce both hydrogen and dimethyl ether (DME), the latter being a gas that can replace liquified petroleum gas (LPG). And while burning DME produces less in the way of emissions and particulate matter than burning coal, this doesn’t include the emissions associated with the gasification process. Over the life cycle of turning coal into DME into energy, the process emits 1,031 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated, according to the IESR. That’s higher than the carbon intensity from simply burning coal for electricity, which is less than 1,000 gCO2e/kWh. The carbon intensity of DME is also more than 25 times the life cycle emissions from renewable energy such as solar power, according to the IESR.

EDIT

https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/indonesian-bill-turns-coal-derived-fuels-clean-by-ignoring-true-scale-of-emissions/

[musette_sf]

1. Worst pollution I'd seen in decades

was in Jakarta

[hunter]

2. DME is an excellent replacement for bottled gas (propane, butane)...

... but not if it's made from coal.

It can be synthesized from captured atmospheric carbon dioxide and hydrogen from zero-carbon sources.

In many coal schemes the objective is to remove dirty coal from urban environments thereby displacing air pollution to remote areas. (That's not good for the people living in those remote areas or the earth's natural environment.)

If people in the cities cooking with coal switch to DME the air quality in the city will be better. If dirty diesel engines are converted to use DME the air quality in the city will be better.

That's how these projects can be promoted as "green." People in the cities will experience obvious reductions in air pollution.