**1. Introduction**

Bioenergy is considered to be the largest renewable and sustainable energy source of the world's total primary energy supply. At the same time biomass provides fuel for production of 1% of the global electricity generation. It provides 26% of the total primary energy supply and accounts for 87% of the renewable energy supply in Southeast Asia [1]. A very strong community similar to the European Union has emerged consisting of ten member countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Lao People's Republic, Myanmar, and Cambodia; and known as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Biomass is an important source of energy in these countries and its use is still increasing. The rural population of this region and small industries use it as their energy source. Many countries of this region are among the top producers of agricultural products such as rice, sugar, cane, palm oil, coconut and rubber. The other important bio‐ mass resources are the agricultural residues such as bagasse, rice husk, palm oil waste, wood waste, logging wood residues, rice straw, sugar cane trash and coconut shells which accounts for more than 120 million tonnes per year [1]. Bioenergy can be converted into heat, electricity, liquid fuels, such as biodiesel bioethanol, methanol, dimethyl ether (DME), or gaseous biofuels like biogas and hydrogen indicating that it is capable of replacing each type of fossil fuel as well as producing clean energies. Literature reports that ASEAN coun‐ tries produce 30 *million m*<sup>3</sup> of wood residue, 19 *million tonnes*of rice husk and more than 27 *million tonnes*of palm oil residues which can produce approximately 41, 000 *MW* of pow‐ er [2]. A substantial amount of these residues are disposed through open burning and dumping while only a small fraction of it is used as a fuel for heat, electricity generation and household cooking indicating that the use of biomass not only provides alternatives to cur‐

© 2012 Malik; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2012 Malik; licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

rent energy sources but also eliminates disposal problems associated with generated agricul‐ tural residues [1].

**•** waste to energy (disposal and management of municipal solid waste, agricultural and for‐

Potential and Use of Bioenergy in The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Countries – A Review

The host country is directly responsible for assessing the sustainability of CDM projects as per Bonn agreement "The Conference of parties agrees to affirm that it is the host party's prerogative to confirm whether a clean development mechanism project activity assists it in achieving sustainable development" (UNFCCC, 2001). The developing countries of ASEAN community (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam) are lacking in technical know‐ how along with non availability of data for assessing the sustainability of proposed CDM projects make it difficult to compute the net reduction in GHG emission on completion of the proposed project. Feasibility studies are carried out by hiring foreign expertise to com‐ pete for such projects which is time consuming and usually responsible for delay leading to fewer approved CDM projects for these countries [2]. The priority areas identified by the

member of ASEAN nations for CDM projects are tabulated in Table 1.

**Cambodia** [4] **Indonesia** [5] **Lao, PDR** [6]

Clean Energy Conservations CHG friendly agriculture and husbandry practices

Afforestation & reforestation

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/51917

21

Biomass and biogas Energy efficiency

Waste management Renewable energy

saving Fuel switching

sources

Afforestation & reforestation

Energy efficiency, conservation and

Methane recovery and utilization from waste disposal sites and coal mining Application of renewable energy

Afforestation & reforestation

Sustainable waste management GHG mitigation in industries and

Afforestation & forest conservation

transportation sectors

Energy crops & biofuels Renewable Energy

**Malaysia** [7] **Myanmar** [8] **Philippines** [9]

**Singapore** [10] **Thailand** [5] **Vietnam** [11]

Biomass and biogas Solar and Wind Biofuels

Waste to energy

**Table 1.** The ASEAN countries proposed priority areas for CDM projects

Fuel switching (oil to biofuels) Production process improvement

est residues)

Wetwaste Biogas-electricity Rice husk/woodwaste gasification

Energy efficiency and Renewable

Biogas: POME & animal manure

Waste management Waste to Energy Agro-forestry

energy

Landfill gas Biomass CHP Biofuels

Waste management

Environmental sustainability Economic sustainability Social sustainability

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has established an international policy framework for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through a programme known as "Clean Development Mechanism" (CDM). A number of such projects have been initiated in ASEAN countries which are beneficial to reduce emission of GHG due to open field burning of forest as well as agricultural residues. With these projects not only the emission of GHG is reduced but more sustainable methodologies in managing nat‐ ural resources to achieve more efficiency has also been demonstrated.

The objective of this study is to report the potential and the present use of bioenergy in the ASEAN countries focusing on power generation potentials using available biomass resour‐ ces and the utilisation of CDM projects to achieve energy sustainability.
