Raising Public Acceptance of Geothermal Utilization Through Direct Application in Indonesia

Abstract

Given that most of energy demand is met by burning fossil fuel and fuel oil, a vast opportunity exists for directly and indirectly utilizing indigenous geothermal energy as a cleaner, nearly emissions-free renewable alternative. Although Indonesia is endowed with geothermal energy resources, they have been frequently undervalued because geothermal has only been popular among particular groups: the academicians, governmental members, students, and of course geothermal industrial groups. Nevertheless, public is often overlooked far behind in spreading out the information and knowledge about geothermal energy. Consequently, public acceptability often poses a barrier towards geothermal energy development. The objective of this paper is to provide a simple proposition in introducing geothermal energy to Indonesian people through their fondness of thermal waters recreation.