Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
through transfers from wealthy countries. These transfers can be focused on the de-
velopment of infrastructure necessary for the transition to a low-emission-energy
system, including electric grids, low-emission generators, urban transit, and so on.
Because of the rapid growth of their energy consumption, developing countries are
important theaters for innovation, especially in the energy-intensive basic materi-
als industries (steel, chemicals, cement, etc.) for which demand has almost reached
saturation in the industrialized countries. It is for this reason that it is so important
that modern technologies be incorporated early into the process of development by
“leapfrogging” the traditional path of development.
This process is already taking place, as demonstrated by the amazing speed of
adoption and diffusion of innovative and state-of-the-art technologies in develop-
ing countries. A shining example is the speed at which cellular telephones were
introduced even in countries that did not have traditional telephone systems, partic-
ularly in rural areas. Another example can be seen in Indian villages where lighting
is provided by fluorescent lamps instead of old inefficient incandescent light bulbs.
Other less spectacular technologies, such as biogas produced in large biogas units
using waste products of the village, can serve several purposes such as power for
lighting, water pumping, fertilizer production, and sewage treatment. Black-and-
white television is becoming a thing of the past even in the remote areas of Amazo-
nia. The same has happened with cellular telephones that have surpassed wire-con-
nected telephones in many places.
Despite its attractiveness, “leapfrogging” should not be regarded as a universal
strategy because sometimes the products or technologies needed are not available
in developed countries or are not well suited to the developing country's needs.
There is also usually a need to strike a balance between relative prices of labor
and capital in developing countries. Because labor is expensive and capital is re-
latively cheap in industrialized countries, many innovative technologies produced
in developing countries are labor-saving and capital-intensive. On the other hand,
since labor is cheap and capital scarce the technologies adopted might be different.
Developing countries need sometimes innovations better suited to their natural re-
source endowments than those they can obtain from industrialized countries. For
example, not only is the production of biomass labor-intensive, it is also more read-
ily available than fossil fuels in most tropical countries, including India, Brazil, and
