by Ryan Tannady & Rheza Budiono

The energy problem is like the dirty dish at the top of the dirty dish stack — it’s the mess you have to clean before you can get to all the other messes. So at the beginning of the summer, Ryan & I decided to learn as much as possible about Indonesia’s energy problem. The first step in learning about a problem is defining it. If you ask the wrong questions, you’ll get the wrong answers. What you find out may be true — but it’ll be probably be useless.

We found that the energy problem can be explained succinctly as the challenge of achieving 2 good things at once.

Good Thing 1: Everyone gets as much energy as they need. Moreover, everyone has access to energy that is clean at the point of consumption (i.e. should not produce harmful emissions where and when it’s being used). Good Thing 2: Minimize carbon emissions from all energy related activities — from production, distribution, to consumption.

We’ll explain what Good Things 1 & 2 entail in a bit. First, why are Good Things 1 & 2 any good in the first place?

Why Good Thing 1 is good…

Energy is the thing you need to do anything. It keeps the lights on, gets food to us, and streams Netflix. Here’s how the average Indonesian household in Padang City uses electricity:

Data from: Residential energy consumption in a local city of Indonesia (Sukarno, Matsumoto, Kimura, Susanti)

Being energy poor is not having access to, or not being able to afford, basic “modern energy services”. Basic modern energy services are things like modern cookstoves, lighting, or refrigerators for essentials like vaccines — things shown in this Gates Notes photo gallery. Energy poverty is widespread in Indonesia.

24 million out of 60 million households in Indonesia don’t have access to modern cookstoves (cookstoves that run on kerosene, liquified petroleum gas (LPG), or electricity). Instead, they use traditional cookstoves fueled by firewood. Firewood is cheaper than kerosene, LPG, or electricity. People can gather firewood themselves for free or buy them for very cheap prices. This sucks because burning firewood releases toxic smoke indoors which can cause “asthma, lung tuberculosis, and acute respiratory infections, particularly amongst children”. Traditional cookstoves are estimated to contribute 165,000 premature deaths per year, not to mention the poor health of those who live. You could say people who use traditional cookstoves get as much energy as they need to cook — but the energy they get is seriously harming them. That is, they don’t get energy that is clean at the point of consumption. So 40% of Indonesian households can’t cook without putting their health at risk. This is just one example of why getting people as much energy as they need is so important, and why Good Thing 1 is so good.

Why Good Thing 2 is good…

In short,

Source: How Tesla Will Change The World by Tim Urban (waitbutwhy.com)

I think that Tim Urban, of Wait But Why, does a good job of explaining why Good Thing 2 is good, so I’ll let him explain for me. Read this: How Tesla Will Change The World. The climate change part is the relevant bit (search for “Climate Change is a Thing” in the article to jump to the relevant bit), but I recommend reading the rest too.

If you’re curious about the science of the greenhouse effect:

The basic science behind the greenhouse effect — How Do Greenhouse Gasses Actually Work? by Minute Earth

A more thorough explanation — The Greenhouse Effect (Chapter 7 of Introduction to Atmospheric Chemistry by Daniel Jacob)

And if you have any questions, there’s a really good chance this video answers them: 13 Misconceptions About Global Warming by Veritasium.

What Good Thing 1 entails…

Increasing total energy production.

Regardless of what we want to happen, total energy consumption will probably increase. Even if per capita consumption stagnates, population growth dictates that total energy consumption will grow.

Also consider that today 40% of Indonesian households rely on firewood to cook. Eventually, these households will want to use cleaner cookstoves and purchase more electric appliances to make their lives easier — refrigerators, microwaves, computers, etc. That means increasing per capita energy consumption for an increasing population.

2. Expanding electricity access.

Electricity is the cleanest form of energy at the point of consumption. It means no indoor air pollution to harm the consumers, and no carbon emissions (given that the electricity was produced cleanly) to harm humanity. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), 80.5% of Indonesian households had access to electricity in 2013 but the World Bank claims that 96.5% of the population had access to electricity in the same year. The large discrepancy between the figures definitely warrant further investigation, but there’s room for improvement regardless.

3. Increasing electricity production and electrifying everything

In an ideal future, we will all use only electricity at the point of consumption because electricity is clean and can be used for a variety of end uses.

What Good Thing 2 entails…

Decreasing energy related carbon emissions can be done in 2 ways. The first way is to produce, distribute, and consume energy cleanly (i.e. with as little carbon emissions as possible). The second way is the use a LOT less energy. Those of us who get more energy than we need could afford to use a lot less energy, but most Indonesians can’t. So achieving Good Thing 2 by using a lot less energy means sacrificing Good Thing 1. That leaves one option — achieving Good Thing 2 by producing, distributing, and consuming energy as cleanly as possible. This means…

Increasing electricity consumption.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, electricity is the cleanest and most versatile form of energy at the point of consumption. Electrifying more activities also means that more activities can ultimately be supported with clean energy since in general, non-electrified activities are powered by combustion engines.

2. 100% clean energy production.

Source: National Energy Energy Laboratory Life Cycle Assessment (harmonization adjusts source specific measurements to a consistent methodology with consistent assumptions)

Ideally, we want to choose energy production sources with the lowest life cycle greenhouse gas emissions as possible.

60 GJ per capita

How much energy do we need, really? Energy historian Vaclav Smil says 60*1⁰⁹ J, or 60 GJ, per annum per capita (per year per person in normal people speak).

In his book Energy & Civilization, Smil claims that there is a linear correlation between a nation’s per capita energy consumption and its human development index (HDI) up to a threshold of a 0.8 HDI.

The mean human development index (HDI) in the East Asia & Pacific region is projected to grow by 24% between 2013 and 2050. If we assume that Indonesia’s HDI will grow by the same rate, Indonesia’s HDI is projected to be 0.85 in 2050 (it’s 0.69 today). Hence, it is realistic for Indonesia to aim for a HDI of at least 0.8 by 2050.

Smil claims that any nation with a HDI above 0.8 must consume a minimum of 60 GJ per capita. So assuming that Indonesia achieves a HDI of 0.8 in 2050, each Indonesian will consume on average 60 GJ of energy in the year 2050.

Note that we take the 60 GJ per capita number with a healthy helping of doubt. Smil does not recount his working-out to get to that number in full, and we don’t know enough statistics to either confidently recreate his argument or vouch for its credibility. We’re also too early in our journey into energy to attempt a bottom-up argument for a number. The relationship between energy consumption and quality of life is something we’re going to investigate more in the future but are punting on for now.

The point remains — Indonesia’s per capita and total energy consumption should grow if quality of life is to improve (or at least be maintained). The 60 GJ per capita serves mainly as a helpful anchor number for now. This number allows us to better contextualize the challenge of simultaneously achieving Good Things 1 & 2.

Good Thing 1 with numbers:

Production-side:

Indonesia’s energy consumption averages to 60 GJ per capita in the year 2050, growing from the current 37 GJ per capita.

Increase total energy production from 6919 PJ in 2014 to 19200 PJ in 2050 (since Indonesia’s projected population in 2050 is 320 million).

Distribution-side:

100% of population has access to electricity as soon as possible. It means expanding electricity access to an additional 3.5% to 19.5% of the population, depending on which figure is accurate…

Consumption-side:

At the very least, 100% of the population cooks with modern (preferably, electric) cookstoves. This means making sure that 36 million (and growing) households cook with modern cookstoves.

Good Thing 2 with numbers:

Decreasing energy-related carbon emissions from 435.5 Mt to as close to zero as possible.

Increase annual total clean energy production from 778 PJ to 19200 PJ — a nearly 25-fold increase of total annual production.

So, yeah, it’s not going to be easy.

Where we stand today

Now that we’ve defined Indonesia’s energy problem, let’s see where we stand relative to where we want to be. Or, rather, where we stood in 2012 (the most recent year for which data was available from 3 separate sources). Note that 1 PJ = 10¹⁵ J.