Abstract
In Indonesia, since 1974 a new national energy policy was formulated and the development of coal production becomes one of the main thrusts of policy implementation. Recently, the annual domestic consumption increased from 0.2 million tons in 1983 to 29 million tons in 2002. The pusher barge system for coal transportation from Kalimantan coal mines to the Java power plants has already been studied, and results showed that this is the most economical form of transportation. In this paper, the authors investigated the economic and environmental feasibility of the pusher barge system from Sumatra coal mines to power plants in Java Island. For this purpose, the pusher barge system has been compared with several modes of transportation, from the economic and environmental points of view. For economic comparison, the required freight rate (RFR) has been chosen as criteria and the life cycle assessment (LCA) method has been selected for environmental comparison. It can be concluded that the pusher barge system has some advantages over other transportation modes for domestic coal transportation in Indonesia, from both the economic and environmental points of view.
