Biofuel or Electric Vehicle First?

The decarbonization trend continues and has penetrated almost all lines, including the transportation sector. In the transportation sector, there are 2 things that can be done, namely the use of fuel from renewable energy or biofuel and the use of emission-free vehicles such as electric vehicles. In vehicles with 100% renewable energy or biofuel, the emissions produced are carbon neutral (even though the emissions contain CO2) while electric vehicles produce no emissions at all because there is no combustion process in the operation of the electric vehicle.

Currently, the majority of vehicles are vehicles with internal combustion engine technology, so they use fuel for their operations and the most widely used fuel is fossil fuel, especially in liquid form or liquid fuel. To achieve carbon neutral conditions, this fuel must be replaced with 100% biofuel. But currently, even though the use of biofuel has been carried out, the portion is not yet 100%. Indeed, technically there are restrictions on the use of biofuel so that it cannot be 100% like bioethanol, so this is also a concern. However, of course efforts to use 100% biofuel will also be the main target, apart from the emissions factor to achieve carbon neutral conditions, internal combustion engine technology is also the majority so it only needs minor modifications or even no modifications at all.

Another fact is that currently most electric vehicles still use electrical energy sources from fossil fuel power plants, especially coal. Even though these electric vehicles are non-emissions, basically the energy source is fossil energy, only the locations are far apart. Electric cars as a new product are also generally more expensive, even double or more than cars in general. This condition also affects the amount of use of the cars or electric vehicles themselves.

Indonesia as a tropical country has enormous potential as a biofuel producer because various plants or trees can grow well. Even though palm oil is currently the largest vegetable oil producing crop and Indonesia is ranked first in the world with an area of palm oil plantations reaching around 15 million hectares, the oil from palm oil competes with edible oil and the maintenance costs are high. not cheap. Meanwhile, vegetable oil from energy trees such as nyamplung (calophyllum inophyllum), apart from its oil productivity, is not inferior to palm oil, and the oil does not compete with edible oil, read more details here. Apart from that, the nyamplung tree, which grows well in areas near the coast, also provides its own advantages, namely because Indonesia has the second longest coastline in the world after Canada, namely 99,093 km and the nyamplung tree is also a multi-purpose tree. Meanwhile, biofuel from biomass waste can also be done, but because production costs are still expensive, it still requires a number of stages for implementation.

Under these conditions, the development of biofuel, especially from trees such as nyamplung, should be prioritized. Meanwhile, even though electric vehicles are emission free, their electricity source still uses fossil fuels. Efforts to reduce fossil fuels in power plants by cofiring have been carried out but the portion is still very small, so the climate benefits are not yet significant. If the source of electrical energy can be 100% renewable energy, then the use of electric vehicles can also be said to be like the use of 100% biofuel in internal combustion engines.