International Seminar on Promoting Local Resources for Food and Health, 12-13 October, 2015, Bengkulu, Indonesia 254 | Proceeding ISEPROLOCAL. ISBN: 9786029071184 Potency of Waste Biomass for Energy Production in Bengkulu Province Ridwan Yahya 1* ,Kasmaini 2 , Hermansyah Burhan 3 ,and Rudianto Girsang 3 1 Faculty of Agriculture, University of Bengkulu, Kota Bengkulu 38371 A, Indonesia 2 Graduate School of Science Education, University of Bengkulu 38371 A, Indonesia 3 Mineral Resources and Energy Office of Bengkulu Province, Indonesia *Corresponding author e-mail: ridwanyahya@unib,ac,id ABSTRACT The Indonesian ambassador for Japan at a public lecture at the University of Bengkulu in 2014, mentioned that based onseveral preliminary survey of waste biomass such as midrib of palm oil tree, the Japanese government plans to establish an industry to process the to produce energy in Bengkulu Province, Information about the weight of midrib per unit time is needed to implement the industry, Unfortunately, until now the information is not yet available, The purpose of this study was to calculate the weight of the midribs per unit time in Bengkulu Province, The study was conducted by calculating the number of the midribs in Bengkulu Province, and then converts them into weight per time, Results showed that weight midribs was 653,476 tons/month or 21,079,88 ton/day, This means that in the raw material point of view, in the Bengkulu Province issue table to establishing an energy industry within put capacity up to21,079,88 tons midrib/ day, Other waste potential sources of raw materials in Bengkulu Province, namely Empty Fruit Bunches and trunks of rubber trees to be felled. Key words: bioenergy, energy industry, midrid, palm oil tree INTRODUCTION Biomass becomes one of the alternative energy sources in the future since it is renewable and maitain low level emission (Prasertsana and Sajjakulnukit, 2006; Zeng et al,, 2007; Searcy et al,, 2007; Christopher et al,, 2008; Riyanti, 2009), A number of modern technologies have been developed to increase calorific value from biomass through pyrolysis (Mohan et al,, 2006; Bridgwater, 2012; Ceyhan et al,, 2013; Hwang et al,, 2014; Kawamoto et al,, 2015; Matsuoka et al,, 2014), Biomass is organic material produced by photosynthesis, either the product or the waste (McKendry, 2002), including midrib from palm oil plantations, Globally, biomass is able to provide 11% of world primary energy (Dobermann, 2007), Waste biomass from oil palm plantations can produce around 67 million GJ of energy (Abdullah, 2001), The Indonesian ambassador for Japan at a public lecture at the University of Bengkulu in 2014, mentioned that based on several preliminary survey of waste biomass such as midrib of palm oil tree, the Japanese government plans to establish an industry to process the midribs to produce energy in Bengkulu Province, There is some information that is required to produce a proper planning, such as the calorific value of the biomass, economic feasibility, and a study on wood procurement, Information about the weight of midrib per unit time is needed to implement the industry, Unfortunately, until now the information is not yet available, The purpose of this study was to calculate the weight of the midribs per unit time in Bengkulu Province, MATERIALS AND METHODS Data area of oil palm plantations in Bengkulu Province processed to achieve the objectives of this study. The data is secondary data issued by the Statistical Office of Bengkulu province in 2014, data is retabulated to produce a communicable table (Hasan, 2002). We calculated the total amount of palm oil trees, and predicted the total weigth of their midrib (dry weight). Simanuhuruk et al, (2008) mentioned that one palm oil tree is estimated to produce 4 midribs / a month. They added that approximate distance between plants is 9 m x 9 m and weight of a midrib is 4.5 to 5 kg.