Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Costs of energy (primarily oil) imports exceed 20% of export earnings in 35
countries, with 2.5 billion people, and they exceed 10% of GDP in an additional 15
countries with 200 million people.
These vulnerabilities in electricity supply are often made worse by demand-side
pressures. The majority of the world population—some 4.2 billion people—live in
53 countries. These countries will need to massively expand the capacity of their
electricity systems in the near future because they either have less than 60% access
to electricity or average demand growth of over 6% during the last decade. Both
fuels and infrastructure for such an expansion will need to be provided without fur-
ther compromising sovereignty or resilience of national electricity systems.
Poverty—linked to low income—is often perceived as the most critical social chal-
lenge that needs to be addressed in considering problems of access to energy. The
latest comprehensive estimates indicate that about 2.6 billion people live on less
than US$2 a day. Out of this population, about 1.4 billion live in extreme poverty,
accounting for the bulk of the 1.5 billion people with no access to electricity.
Over 2.5 billion people rely on traditional biomass, such as fuel wood, charcoal,
agricultural waste, and animal dung, to meet their energy needs for cooking. This
number is projected to rise from 2.7 billion today to 2.8 billion in 2030.
The vast majority of the population living in extreme poverty have limited ac-
cess to modern energy and cleaner energy options such as electricity or modern
cooking fuels such as liquid petroleum gas (LPG). Enhanced access to modern and
cleaner energy options can become an effective tool for combating extreme hunger
by increasing food productivity and reducing post-harvest losses. In both cases, the
energy technologies required to meet the objectives can often be produced locally.
An example is irrigation, which requires substantial electricity inputs that can be
obtained from wind pumps or photovoltaic panels.
Electricity in rural health centers enables provision of medical services at night
as well as assisting in retaining qualified staff and allowing the use of more ad-
vanced medical equipment (for example, sterilization and refrigeration of medi-
cines). In addition, energy is needed to develop, manufacture, and distribute drugs,
medicine, and vaccinations as well as enable access to health education media
through information and communications technologies (ICT).
