Ketua Umum
Pimpinan Cabang Pemuda Muhammadiyah
Tebet Timur
One vital element which has important part in civilization development is energy. It has maximizing human being invention and innovation to stimulate development acceleration. From generation to generation, energy consumption has grows and increases adapted with technology and population. Informer times, people were used energy in simple way to full fill their needs. Using of animal in agriculture, human (slave) to lift up the water or rowing a boat, firewood for household needs also wind energy for sailing, proved how important energy in support human life (Yusgiantoro, 2000).
As time goes by, people were found fossil energy from like, oil, coal and natural gas. That makes people make some explorations to find sources in order to provide need of energy which has increase drastically together with rapid population grow. Based on time variable, energy has two classifications, first, renewable resource for example water, air, sunlight, firewood, etc. Second, non-renewable resource for example oil, coal, natural gas, etc.
On the other hands, source of energy is limited and utility of energy has made negative impact for animal, human being, plan and environment. Nowadays, those issues are taking global intention. The core problems are, how to full fill need of energy and to reduce negative impact to protect sustainable of life for now and next generation.
FOSSIL FUELS COME FROM
There are three major forms of fossil fuels: coal, oil and natural gas. All three were formed many hundreds of millions of years ago before the time of the dinosaurs - hence the name fossil fuels. The age they were formed is called the Carboniferous Period. It was part of the Paleozoic Era. "Carboniferous" gets its name from carbon, the basic element in coal and other fossil fuels. The Carboniferous Period occurred from about 360 to 286 million years ago. At the time, the land was covered with swamps filled with huge trees, ferns and other large leafy plants. The water and seas were filled with algae - the green stuff that forms on a stagnant pool of water. Algae is actually millions of very small plants. Some deposits of coal can be found during the time of the dinosaurs. For example, thin carbon layers can be found during the late Cretaceous Period (65 million years ago) - the time of Tyrannosaurus Rex (www.energyquest.ca.gov, …).
As the trees and plants died, they sank to the bottom of the swamps of oceans. They formed layers of a spongy material called peat. Over many hundreds of years, the peat was covered by sand and clay and other minerals, which turned into a type of rock called sedimentary. More and more rock piled on top of more rock, and it weighed more and more. It began to press down on the peat. The peat was squeezed and squeezed until the water came out of it and it eventually, over millions of years, it turned into coal, oil or petroleum, and natural gas (www.energyquest.ca.gov, …).
HISTORY OF ENERGY USED
Everything we do is connected to energy is one form or another. Energy is defined as the ability to do work… Energy is measured in many ways. One of the basic measuring blocks is called a Btu. This stands for British thermal unit and was invented by, of course, the English… Energy also can be measured in joules. Joules sounds exactly like the word jewels, as in diamonds and emeralds. A thousand joules is equal to a British thermal unit… The term "joule" is named after an English scientist James Prescott Joule who lived from 1818 to 1889. He discovered that heat is a type of energy… 1,000 joules = 1 kilojoule = 1 Btu (www.energyquest.ca.gov, …).
Before people, in traditional period, were found fossil energy, they were used natural energy like human and animal energy or water, sun light and wind to support their activities. With those sources, their productivities were low. But people thought were change, based on their experiences, they finally found new energy source and made simple mechanic tools that operated with fossil energy, like coal, in England and then spread to Europe and then exported to Asia.
Many invention were created from the expert, one of them is James Watt who was created steam machine. His creation gave significant impact to Industry Revolution. Even though steam machine was used for windmill and water circulation, the core energy was human energy. That was limited industry production capacity. Due to steam machine invention, it was eliminated (Hart, 1989). Coal was use intensively with growing of steam machine since Industry Revolution (1780’s). At the first time, oil was used for engine lubricant (1860’s) become coal competitor, especially after the price was cheaper… However petroleum used for many households light energy… Natural gas take part in market after long distance transportation technology was developed with cheap price in 1930’s (Yusgiantoro, 2000).
World industry was growing significantly and need more fossil energy to operate the machines. In the same way, technology bring world to modern era which is need huge energy supply. The reality, energy stock to supply the demand is not able in every country. Energy source especially fuel, which are need for every human and industry activities, available in Middle East countries. Because of that, fuel price is very depends from policy and situation from those countries.
In 1973, there was energy crisis because Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), majority members come from Middle East, made embargo for fuel supply. October 17, 1973, Egypt and Syria were succeeded to approach OAPEC, including Arabic countries as OPEC members, made fuel embargo to Israel allies countries. Targets are US, Holland, and European countries as US allies. Those countries were panic and Yom Kippur War was made world energy crisis (Angkasa, 2007). At the end of that year, vehicle drivers in all over the world were queue up in gas station, and crude oil price increase from 3 USD per barrel become more than 13 USD per barrel (Flavin, 1995). In January 1979, Iran Shah was escape from Teheran, after revolution movement for a year by religious leader and secular whose are revolted with corruption by shah’s family and despotic regime (Flavin, 1995). In response to the revolutionary turmoil in Iran, they increased prices again. World oil prices soared from $2.50 to $34 a barrel. The impact on economies around the world was devastating (Roskin, 1994). After that, many oil crisis were happened until the latest oil crisis is today, when the price touch 120 USD per barrel.
Based on that fact, many countries had made some research and development for alternative energy to avoid oil dependency. Nuclear energy is alternative energy which is use in many development countries. It was very potential and has bright future, but world was shocked after some nuclear tragedies in some countries. Three serious accidents have affected nuclear reactor for electricity production through the world… : in Windscale (Great Britain) in 1957, Three Mile Island (United State) in 1979, the last in Tchernobyl (Soviet Union) in 1986. The two among those, Windscale and Tchernobyl were had consequences for population and environment (Mandil, 1996).
ENERGY PLANNING
Before we decide to make a decision, we must make a comprehensive planning. It is very important because we must know how we can apply. Good energy planning can integrate all energy sub-sector, including village energy sector, and related aspects with energy sector as one unity. The related aspects are social-economic, environment, balance of payments, etc. The important ones that must do in energy planning is identifying group of data which is need to energy demand analysis, examine any sources of energy to fulfill the demand, and developing any balance alternative of energy demand-offer. The analysis result used as basic to take decision in energy policy… In general, principal objective of energy planning is to maximize net benefit for economy (Yusgiantoro, 2000).
Daftar pustaka:
Angkasa, The Yom Kippur War October 1973, Jakarta: PT. Gramedia, 2007.
Michael Hart, Seratus Tokoh Paling Berpengaruh Dalam Sejarah alih bahasa oleh Mahbub Djunaeri, Jakarta: Pustaka Jaya, 1989.
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