- Email: [email protected]
What moves and works: Broadening the consideration of energy poverty
Energy Policy 42 (2012) 715–719
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Energy Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol
Forum
What moves and works: Broadening the consideration of energy poverty Benjamin K. Sovacool a,n, Christopher Cooper a, Morgan Bazilian b, Katie Johnson a, David Zoppo a, Shannon Clarke a, Jay Eidsness a, Meredith Crafton a, Thiyagarajan Velumail c, Hilal A. Raza d a
Energy Security and Justice Program, Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School, United States Electricity Research Centre, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland c United Nations Development Program Asia-Pacific Regional Centre, Bangkok, Thailand d South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Energy Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan b
a r t i c l e i n f o
abstract
Article history: Received 22 November 2011 Accepted 5 December 2011 Available online 27 December 2011
Greater detail on the specific technological and planning challenges facing energy-deprived developing economies is required to improve energy policy making and development assistance practice. The current literature tends to highlight electricity services, and, to a lesser extent, clean cooking. This article calls for a closer look at mobility and mechanical power as essential energy services in addition to a refinement of the specific institutional arrangements needed to reduce energy poverty and deprivation. This article augments and refines arguments made by Morgan Bazilian and his colleagues in their viewpoint ‘‘More Heat and Light’’. & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Energy poverty Energy access Rural electrification
1. Introduction Energy poverty, generally defined as a lack of access to electricity and dependence on traditional use of biomass for cooking and heating, remains an enduring global problem (see International Energy Agency, 2010; Bazilian et al., 2010). As many readers of this journal are aware, approximately 1.4 billion people still lived without electricity in 2009, a further one billion had access only to intermittent or unreliable electricity networks, and an additional 2.7 billion people depended entirely on wood, charcoal, dung, and solid fuels for their domestic energy needs. Fifty–five percent of those without access to electricity, as well as 72.3% of those dependent on traditional fuels, reside in Asia. The search for fuels and services is an arduous and continual burden for billions of people around the world. Lack of access to modern energy not only limits opportunities for income generation and blunts efforts to escape poverty, but also disproportionately impacts women and children and contributes to global deforestation and climate change (Sovacool, 2011). Strikingly, indoor air pollution (mostly from cooking traditional solid fuels) is the third most significant global cause of morbidity and mortality, after only poor water and sanitation, and malnutrition. By 2030, if trends continue, indoor air pollution will likely kill
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 802 831 1053; fax: þ1 802 831 1158. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (B.K. Sovacool). 0301-4215/$ - see front matter & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2011.12.007
more people than malaria, tuberculosis, or HIV/AIDS (Legros et al., 2009). Despite its importance, the topic of energy poverty has been largely neglected in energy planning discussions and energy publications in an OECD context. Kammen and Dove (1997) wrote more than a decade ago that advanced and modern technologies related to electricity and motorized transport (think ‘‘nuclear reactors’’ and ‘‘electric vehicles’’) were highly favored topics of energy policy discussion. However, ‘‘mundane’’ technologies— such as cookstoves, biogas units, heating and cooling systems, and other less ‘‘state-of-the-art’’ topics—were minimally discussed, even though these technologies affected the greatest number of people and had the most substantial impact on the environment in everyday life. Ten years later, Birol (2007), the Chief Economist for the International Energy Agency, argued that, ‘‘unfortunately, the energy-economics community has given far less attention to the challenge of energy poverty among the world’s poorest people’’. And most recently, a series of content analyses of the top energy journals, including this one, noted that only three percent of authors came from least developed countries and only eight percent of papers addressed topics related to energy poverty and energy development (D’Agostino et al., 2011; Sovacool et al., 2011a). For these reasons, the recent academic and political focus from the international community on issues of energy access, energy poverty, and rural electrification is most welcome. To help further the discussion, we briefly allude to the causes of energy poverty, as well as some of the quantifiable benefits in transitioning away
716
B.K. Sovacool et al. / Energy Policy 42 (2012) 715–719
from it. We also emphasize mechanical power and mobility as equally important energy services along with heat and light.
2. Augmenting a ‘‘New Approach’’ Bazilian et al. (2010) posit that addressing energy poverty as only one among several dimensions of development has led to a lack of effective institutions, business models, and appropriate regulations designed to achieve universal energy access. Fundamentally, Bazilian and his colleagues propose elevating issues of energy poverty by reframing energy access as an integral part of national and international energy planning. They note, ‘‘ycurrent efforts are woefully insufficient in scale, scope, and design, and attempting to address the issue solely as part of wider poverty reduction policies is likely to be sub-optimal’’. Still, it remains unclear exactly how this reframing would overcome the technical, governance, and financing issues that bedevil efforts by national governments and international development agencies to achieve universal energy access. Prior to the 1990s, the development paradigm was dominated by the idea that the proper role of civil society was to provide ‘‘poor’’ people with the material resources and services that were readily available to the ‘‘rich’’ (Gupta, 1997). The modern era, however, has brought about a radical shift within the development community. Development institutions are finally moving away from simply promoting the transformation of the underdeveloped into the developed, and increasingly focusing on empowering people to achieve their own wellbeing through economic, social, and cultural progress, defined by the people themselves (Mahat, 2008; Chambers, 2005). It is this ‘‘post-development’’ perspective that has allowed some international aid agencies and national policymakers alike to recognize the complexity of causal relations that lead to the conditions responsible for global energy poverty (Matthews, 2006, p. 55). Thus, a more nuanced approach that is inclusive of the new development approaches, along with strengthening national organizations, and ensuring a strong political ‘‘voice’’ is required. While energy poverty may lack priority within the ‘‘wide scope of development activities at the international level’’, global development practice over the past several years has evolved a cultural sensitivity and critical sensibility that may be essential to widespread progress on universal energy access (Mahat, 2008). The absence of this critical approach in energy policymaking may be one reason that conventional definitions of energy security fail to consider mechanical power and mobility as indispensable to energy access as lighting and heating.
3. Lighting One in three people in the world obtain light from ‘‘traditional’’ fuels and collectively pay 20% of global lighting costs (about $40 billion per year), but receive just 0.1% of the world’s lighting energy services (Mills, 2005, 2006). We briefly consider some of the small-scale, innovative responses to this energy service for those unfamiliar with them. Communities and households can utilize technologies such as biogas digesters, solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, small wind energy systems, and micro-hydro dams to provide lighting without connecting to a fossil fuel powered electric-grid or relying on liquid fuels. The electricity from these distributed systems can be used to power incandescent lamps, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), and white light emitting diodes (WLEDs). While households continue to use incandescent lamps widely, WLED and CFL technologies use less energy, provide better light, and have
significantly longer lamp life (Pode, 2010). Solar PV lanterns also provide a viable alternative in some circumstances to fuel or electricity-based lighting for about $25 to $30 a lantern (Adkins et al., 2010). Utilizing traditional fuel-based technologies for lighting has dire consequences for the world’s poorest people. First, fuel-based technologies are more expensive. After 50,000 h of use, kerosene lamps cost $1251 to operate, while incandescent lamps cost $175, CFLs cost $75, and WLEDs cost $20 to operate (Pode, 2010). Moreover, rural households spend as much as one-quarter of their household budgets on fuel for illumination without even taking into account losses in productivity and other indirect costs (Adkins et al., 2010). Second, using fuel-based technologies has severe health implications. The World Bank estimates that 780 million women and children inhale particulate-laden kerosene fumes while performing daily tasks in their homes. Kerosene fumes contain nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and volatile organic compounds, which cause eye, nose, throat, and lung infections, respiratory problems, and cancer in those that inhale them (Pode, 2010). Additionally, utilizing fuel-based lighting contributes to severe burns and accidental fires (Adkins et al., 2010). Access to modern lighting technologies, conversely, can yield substantial benefits. For example, a study conducted for the Millennium Villages Project in Malawi indicated that when households switched from kerosene lamps to solar lamps, their annual expenditures on lighting dropped by $47.06 per household, excluding the cost of the lantern ($29.78), in a country where average monthly per capita GDP is $66 (Adkins et al., 2010). The majority of households had an average payback of less than a year for these lamps.
4. Heating and cooking Electricity accounts for roughly 17% of global final energy demand, yet low temperature heat accounts for about 44%. Globally, this means that people use more energy for heating—typically by burning woody biomass—than for any other purpose (Olz et al., 2007, pp. 40–46). The majority of households in the developing world—about three out of every four—rely on traditional stoves for their cooking and heating needs. Traditional stoves range from ‘‘three-stone open fires to substantial brick and mortar models and ones with chimneys’’ (World Bank, 2011a, p. 3). These stoves emit a significant amount of smoke into the home, which can cause acute respiratory illnesses among inhabitants (World Health Organization, 2005). They also can cause significant environmental problems. Because these stoves are highly inefficient (as much as 90% of their energy content is wasted), they require a significant amount of fuel—almost two tons of biomass per family per year. These consumption patterns strain local timber resources and can cause ‘‘wood fuel crises’’ when wood is harvested faster than it is grown (Crewe et al., 2010, p. 2). Furthermore, studies suggest that the burning of biomass also exacerbates climate change. Households in developing countries can burn as much as 730 t of biomass annually, which translates into more than one billion tons of carbon dioxide in aggregate (World Health Organization, 2005). Improved cookstoves (ICS) offer a promising alternative. Though ‘‘improved stove’’ is a broad term, it generally includes stoves that improve energy efficiency, remove indoor air pollution, and reduce the ‘‘drudgery’’ of fuel gathering (World Bank, 2011a). Specifically, these stoves usually have a chimney and can be fueled with soft biomass, crop residue, or firewood. They have more efficient combustion chambers, utilize more durable materials, contain more insulation, and can cook more food at once.
B.K. Sovacool et al. / Energy Policy 42 (2012) 715–719
Some of these stoves can even be connected to space heaters, radiators, or pipes so that heat can be distributed throughout households (Brown and Sovacool, 2011). Because there is a ‘‘correlation between access to modern cooking and social and economic development’’, ICS generally improve the quality of life in households that adopt them (Bazilian et al., 2011). Hutton et al. (2008) compared the economic costs of investing in new cookstoves—including the expense of fuel, program costs, and capital costs for technology—to their corresponding benefits, such as reduced health care expenses, productivity gains, time savings, and improvement of the environment. They studied these costs and benefits in 11 developing countries from 2005 to 2015, and found that an investment of $650 million would produce $105 billion in benefits per year. Similarly, the International Energy Agency (2006) noted that switching to LPG stoves at the global scale would cost about $13.6 billion but would produce annual benefits exceeding $91 billion.
5. Mechanical power As discussed, most of the literature on energy access has an explicit (or implicit) focus on provision of light and heat. However, this misses an instrumental energy service: mechanical power. Put simply, mechanical power increases the efficiency and effectiveness of productive activities supporting sustainable development, as well as physical processes fundamental to meeting basic human needs. As Bates et al. (2009) and de Gouvello and Durix (2008) have demonstrated, mechanical services have great potential to tremendously reduce time spent on fuelwood gathering, to improve air quality in homes, and to raise household and community incomes. As one example from Mbale, Uganda a simple briquette press with a typical commercial cost of $100 to $175 can be made onsite without electricity or welding. A sixperson team harnessing mechanical power to produce briquettes can supply up to 75 households (ten people per household) per day for cooking needs, translating into a reduction of demand for fuelwood by 300 t per year (Bates et al., 2009, p. 8). Many of these benefits have a great impact on the lives of women and children who traditionally spend substantial amounts of time gathering fuel and water and cooking in the home. In India, women in rural households spent almost 3 h cooking daily meals, an additional hour or two processing food to make it ready for cooking, and, when needed, two more hours collecting fuel (Barnes and Sen, 2004). In Nepal, without mechanical energy, women have to wake well before dawn, process daily agricultural requirements, and then cook meals, meaning access to electricity does not really save them time. Whereas electricity micro-hydro units tend to be used by one-third to one-half of all villagers, agricultural processing units tend to be used by all 92 to 97% of villagers. This means that micro-hydro units oriented toward mechanical processing can create massive social benefits, saving 30 to 110 h per month for various processing requirements such as milling, hulling, and expelling (Sovacool et al., 2011b). These examples strongly suggest that some of the most fundamental services required for reducing poverty and promoting human development involve mechanical energy and increasing the productivity of human labor. Mechanical power enables activities such as pumping, transporting, and lifting water, irrigating fields, processing crops, small-scale manufacturing, and natural resource extraction. As Bates et al. (2009) forcefully argue: Experiences show that mechanical power helps alleviate drudgery, increase work rate and substantially reduce the level of human strength needed to achieve an outcome, thus
717
increasing efficiency and output productivity, producing a wider range of improved products, and saving time and production costs y In this regard, financing of mechanical power is often one of the most cost effective ways to support poor people. Mechanical power is not merely a derivative of other forms of energy such as electricity, but an instrumental energy service in its own right.
6. Mobility Another key energy service is also generally lacking from the global discussion of energy poverty: mobility. Though precise numbers are difficult to obtain, as it is less studied, a significant proportion of the world population has transportation choices constrained by lack of infrastructure, fuel scarcity, the distances or time involved with travel, expense, or a combination of them all (Woodcock, 2007). Put another way, the energy poor often need more energy, and pay more for it, to go efficiently or quickly where they need to go (or they merely forego ‘‘going’’ altogether). For instance, most of the world’s poor do not have access to mass transportation and cannot afford private motorized vehicles. Many rely significantly on non-motorized transport, which includes walking, bicycles, rickshaws, handcarts, and animaldrawn transport (Booth et al., 2000; Kaltheier, 2002). In Wuhan, the most populous urban area in Central China, the primary form of transportation for routine trips for the lowest income quintile was walking; public transportation and bicycles came second and third (Economic Research Institute, 2003). For non-routine trips, people typically used taxis, public transportation, and walking. In Douala, the largest city in Cameroon, walking is the primary mode of transportation among the poor. Additionally, without access to private vehicles, the majority of the poor rely on public transportation, such as buses, taxis, light trucks, jitneys, and ‘‘unauthorized’’ cabs for transport to work and other daily mobility needs (World Bank, 2004). Many of the rural poor are unable to use motorized transportation due to lack of suitable road networks; thus, the vast majority of the rural poor walk, with other infrastructural impediments such as lack of foot and cycle paths further curbing mobility (World Bank, 2002). For both the rural and urban poor, low mobility—regardless of the technology or mode of transport involved—stifles the attainment of better living standards. It reduces the ability to earn income, strains economic resources, and limits access to education and health services and markets. Many poor communities depend on shared or hired motorized transport for daily mobility, disproportionally straining the budgets of poor families. For instance, in New Delhi, poor households spend approximately 20 to 25% of their income attempting to meet daily mobility needs (Kaltheier, 2002). Low mobility is particularly burdensome for the rural poor because it consumes a significant amount of their non-economic assets, such as physical capital and time. For instance, in Bhutan, 96% of the country’s poor live in rural areas and must walk hours or even days to reach the nearest road (IFAD, 2011). In rural Brazil, poor children often walk for more than an hour to arrive to school or to the location of school buses (Carvalho et al., 2010). The urban poor who commute ‘‘in town’’ daily for employment endure long travel distances, crowded shared transportation, traffic congestion, and walking segments at the beginning or end of the trip. The urban poor walk more than the urban nonpoor and confront limited safe walking spaces. In Indian cities, less than one-half of major roads have sidewalks. For the sidewalks that exist, pedestrian spaces become eroded by street
718
B.K. Sovacool et al. / Energy Policy 42 (2012) 715–719
vendors and vehicle parking, leaving pedestrians vulnerable to traffic accidents and injury (World Bank, 2002, 2004). Furthermore, low mobility disproportionally impacts poor women in rural areas. For an energy poor family in rural Zimbabwe, mothers and daughters walk twice a week approximately 1.5 h to gather 80 pounds of firewood (Booth, 2000). In some African countries, women expend up to 8 h of their day collecting water, sometimes walking ten miles daily (Sovacool, 2011a). While improved cookstoves, access to mechanical services, and electricity can certainly alleviate some of this burden, improving mobility is equally important. Providing poor populations with greater access to mobility has, among other things, been linked with an increased use of social services and higher involvement in the political process (Gannon et al., 2002). Mobility provides opportunities for the poor to increase their earning potential, to visit hospitals, shop for cheaper goods, and attain educational and employment goals.
7. The complexity of energy poverty What these four energy services, or the lack of them, reveal is that energy poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon irreducible to merely two services or two sets of technology. One potential and more nuanced way to conceptualize energy poverty would be to conceive of energy services as existing in a matrix. The United Nations Secretary General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change, an intergovernmental body composed of representatives from businesses, the United Nations, and research institutes, recently suggested that energy access actually ought to be categorized into an incremental matrix shown in Table 1. In this matrix, first come basic human needs that can be met with electricity consumption of 50–100 kWh per person per year, 50–100 kg of oil equivalent or modern fuel per person per year, and the ownership of an improved cookstove. Second are productive uses, such as access to mechanical energy for agriculture or irrigation, commercial energy, or liquid transport fuels. Consumption here rises to 500–1000 kWh per person per year plus 150 kg of oil equivalent. Third are modern needs, which include the use of domestic appliances, cooling and space heating, hot and cold water, and private transportation, which in the aggregate result in the consumption of about 2000 kWh per person per year and 250–450 kg of oil equivalent. The matrix includes all four key energy services (lighting, heating, mechanical power, and mobility). This matrix is just one first step towards recognizing that energy poverty indices, however they are structured, need to be more complex and contextually driven. Nonetheless, this finding
challenges conventional definitions and approaches to energy poverty in four ways. First, it reminds us that any attempts to elevate energy access within national and international energy policy should learn from the modern shift in development theory and avoid adopting overly technical approaches. Development practitioners warn that the kind of ‘‘mass customization of technologies and delivery models’’ that Bazilian et al. (2010, p. 5410) advocate risks effectively depoliticizing the underlying patterns of injustice that create and maintain inequities in the delivery of energy services. Without careful consideration of cultural and demographic sensitivities now commonplace among development practitioners, reframing energy poverty as an essential element in national and international energy planning merely could reify the modes of domination that deeply influence the lives of the planet’s energy poor. Second, one way to avoid abandoning altogether the evolution of development theory is for energy planners and development practitioners to strive to see energy poverty as a services-oriented issue, or a fundamental human rights concern, rather than a fuel or technological issue. As Amory Lovins (1976, p. 65) ruminated many decades ago, ‘‘people do not want electricity or oil, nor such economic abstractions as ‘residential services’, but rather comfortable rooms, light, vehicular motion, food, tables, and other real things’’. This means we ought to be moving towards ‘‘mobility security’’ and ‘‘light security’’ rather than ‘‘oil security’’ and ‘‘electrification’’. Third, the relationship between our four energy services and energy poverty is synergistic and the services interact in ways we are only beginning to comprehend. The fact that the majority of the world’s development experts—including some of the authors’ earlier works in addition to publications from groups within the United Nations and International Energy Agency—continue to measure energy poverty as two dimensional (‘‘heat’’ and ‘‘light,’’ or ‘‘cookstoves’’ and ‘‘electricity’’) tells us just how far we need to go in pushing mechanical power and mobility as rightfully desirable attributes. Moreover, lack of access to any of the four services can inhibit or exacerbate the use of the others. For example, lack of access to mobility can influence the availability or price of kerosene (lighting), fuelwood collection times (impacting heating and cooking), and transporting processed products to market (mechanical power). This means that energy poverty and energy services have an interactive relationship, and should not be viewed independently of each other. Lastly, if one accepts these earlier findings, then new ways of quantifying and measuring energy poverty, and collecting data about it, are needed. A few specific recommendations include:
Directing the World Bank, International Energy Agency, World Health Organization, United Nations, and other organizations
Table 1 Energy services and access levels. Source: UN-Energy, 2010. Level
Electricity use
kWh per person per year
Solid fuel use
Mobility
Kilograms of oil equivalent per person per year
Basic human needs
Lighting, health, education, and communication
50–100
Cooking and heating
None, walking or bicycling
50–100
Productive uses
Agriculture, water pumping for irrigation, fertilizer, mechanized tilling, processing
500–1000
Minimal
Mass transit, motorcycle, or scooter
150
Modern society needs
Domestic appliances, cooling, heating
2000
Minimal
Private transportation
250–450
B.K. Sovacool et al. / Energy Policy 42 (2012) 715–719
to start collecting information on mobility and mechanical power. Building on the Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index forthcoming by Nussbaumer et al. (2012), which analyzes the adequacy and applicability of existing instruments to measure energy poverty and proposes a novel way of measuring its intensity. Developing methodologies that enable the integration of all four energy services discussed here—lighting, heating and cooking, mechanical power, and mobility—into national and international development and energy targets and strategies. Raising awareness and building the capacity of communities and national governments so that they, themselves, can inform policymakers about their needs and local solutions to energy poverty. Implementing financing initiatives to both scale-up and sensitize energy development programs so that universal energy access can be achieved without eroding cultural norms or retrenching current unjust patterns of energy production and use.
If we are right about the complex multidimensionality of energy poverty, then we functionally need to increase the topics and metrics we associate with it, and be more sensitive to those that suffer from it. Perhaps only then will we be able to effectively lift the world’s poorest out of their persistent state of energy deprivation. References Adkins, E., et al., 2010. Off-grid energy services for the poor: introducing LED lighting in the millennium villages project in Malawi. Energy Policy 38, 1087–1097. Barnes, D.F., Sen, M. 2004. The Impact of Energy on Women’s Lives in Rural India. Washington, D.C.: Joint UNDP/World Bank Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme (ESMAP). Bates, Liz, et al., 2009. Expanding Energy Access in Developing Countries: The Role of Mechanical Power. Practical Action Report (Washington, D.C.: UNDP). Bazilian, Morgan, Sagar, Ambuj, Detchon, Reid, Kandeh, Yumkella, 2010. More heat and light. Energy Policy 38, 5409–5412. Bazilian, M., Cordes, L., Nussbaumer, P., Yager, A., 2011. Partnerships for access to modern cooking fuels and technologies. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 3, 1–6. Birol, Fatih, 2007. Energy economics: a place for energy poverty on the agenda? The Energy Journal 28 (3), 1–6. Brown, M.A., Sovacool., B.K., 2011. Climate Change and Global Energy Security: Technology and Policy Options. MIT Press, Cambridge. Booth, D., et al., 2000. Poverty and Transport. World Bank (Available at)/http:// www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/2689.pdfS. Carvalho, W.L., et al., 2010. Rural school transportation in emerging countries: the Brazilian case. Research in Transportation Economics 29, 401–409. Chambers, R., 2005. Ideas for Development. Earthscan, London. Crewe, E., Sundar S., Young P., 2010. Building a Better Stove: The Sri Lanka Experience (Colombo). D’Agostino, A.L., Sovacool, B.K., Trott, K., Ramos, C.R., Saleem, S., Ong., Y., 2011. What’s the state of energy studies research? A content analysis of three leading journals from 1999–2008. Energy 36 (1), 508–519. de Gouvello, Christophe, Laurent, Durix. 2008. Maximizing the Productive Uses of Electricity to Increase the Impact of Rural Electrification Programs. An Operational Methodology. Formal Report 332/08. Washington, D.C.: UNDP/ ESMAP. Economic Research Institute, 2003. ‘‘A Lifetime of Walking’’ Poverty and Transportation in Wuhan. Wuhan University /http://www.gtkp.com/assets/uploads/ 20091127-162217-5468-Wuhan.pdfS.
719
Gannon, C., et al., 2002. Transport. In: Klugman, Jeni (Ed.), A Sourcebook for Poverty Reduction Strategies. , The World Bank, Washington, DC, pp. 326–367. Gupta, Anil K., 1997. The honey-bee network: linking knowledge-rich grassroots innovations. Development 40 (4), 36–40. Hutton, Guy, Eva, Rehfuess, Fabrizio, Tediosi, 2008. Evaluation of the costs and benefits of household energy and health interventions. In: Proceedings of the Presentation to the Clean Cooking Fuels & Technologies Workshop, June 16–17, 2008, Istanbul, Turkey. International Energy Agency, 2006. World Energy Outlook 2006. OECD, Paris. International Energy Agency, United Nations Development Program, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, 2010. Energy Poverty: How to Make Modern Energy Access Universal?. OECD, Paris. International Fund for Agricultural Development, 2011. Rural Poverty in Bhutan. Available at /http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/web/guest/country/home/ tags/bhutanS. Kaltheier, R.M., 2002. Urban transport and poverty in developing countries. Division 44 Environmental Management, Water, Energy, Transport. Available at /http://www.gtkp.com/assets/uploads/20091127-182046-6236-en-urbantransport-and-poverty.pdfS. Kammen, Daniel M., Dove, Michael R., 1997. The virtues of mundane science. Environment 39 (6), 10–41. Lovins, Amory B., 1976. Energy strategy: the road not taken. Foreign Affairs 55 (1), 65. ¨ Legros, Gwe´naelle, Havet, Ines, Bruce, Nigel, Sophie, Bonjour, Kamal, Rijal, Minoru, Takada, Carlos, Dora, 2009. The Energy Access Situation in Developing Countries: A Review Focusing on the Least Developed Countries and SubSaharan Africa. World Health Organization and United Nations Development Program, New York. Mahat, Ishara, 2008. Poverty, Development and Wellbeing: Dimensions of Social Change. University of Ottawa, Ottawa. Matthews, S., 2006. Responding to poverty in the light of the post-development debate: some insights from the NGO Enda Graf Sahel. Africa Development 31 (4), 52–72. Mills, E., 2005. The specter of fuel-based lighting. Science 308, 1263–1264. Mills, Evan, 2006. Alternatives to Fuel-based Lighting in Rural Areas of Developing Countries. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley. Nussbaumer, Patrick, Bazilian, Morgan, Vijay, Modi, 2012. Measuring energy poverty: Focusing on what matters. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. Olz, Samantha, Ralph, Sims, Nicolai, Kirchner. Contributions of Renewables to Energy Security International Energy Agency Information Paper (Paris: OECD, April, 2007). Pode, R., 2010. Solution to enhance the acceptability of solar-powered LED lighting technology. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 14, 1096–1103. Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2011. Developing Public–Private Renewable Energy Partnerships to Expand Energy Access South Royalton, VT: Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School, Report for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for the Asia Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand, November. Sovacool, B.K., Saleem, S., D’Agostino, A.L., Ramos, C.R., Trott, K., Ong, Y., 2011a. What About Social Science and Interdisciplinarity? A 10-year Content Analysis of Energy Policy. In: Goldblatt, D.L., et al. (Eds.), Tackling Long-Term Global Energy Problems: The Contribution of Social Sciences. , Springer, New York. Sovacool, B.K., Bambawale, M.J., Gippner, O., Dhakal, S., 2011b. Electrification in the Mountain Kingdom: the implications of the Nepal Power Development Project (NPDP). Energy for Sustainable Development 15 (3), 254–265. UN-Energy, 2010. Energy for a Sustainable Future: The Secretary-General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change Summary Report and Recommendations (New York: UN, April 28, 2010). Woodcock, J., 2007. Energy and transport. The Lancet 9592 (370), 1078–1088. World Bank, 2002. Cities on the Move: A World Bank Urban Transport Strategy Review. (Washington D.C.). World Bank, 2004. Poverty and Urban Mobility in Douala. /http://hal.archives-ou vertes.fr/docs/00/08/77/81/PDF/Douala_en.pdfS. World Bank, 2011a. Household Cookstoves, Environment, Health & Climate Change: A New Look at an Old Problem. World Bank, Washington, D.C.. World Health Organization, 2005. Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update 2005. WHO, Copenhagen.
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Energy Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol
Forum
What moves and works: Broadening the consideration of energy poverty Benjamin K. Sovacool a,n, Christopher Cooper a, Morgan Bazilian b, Katie Johnson a, David Zoppo a, Shannon Clarke a, Jay Eidsness a, Meredith Crafton a, Thiyagarajan Velumail c, Hilal A. Raza d a
Energy Security and Justice Program, Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School, United States Electricity Research Centre, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland c United Nations Development Program Asia-Pacific Regional Centre, Bangkok, Thailand d South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Energy Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan b
a r t i c l e i n f o
abstract
Article history: Received 22 November 2011 Accepted 5 December 2011 Available online 27 December 2011
Greater detail on the specific technological and planning challenges facing energy-deprived developing economies is required to improve energy policy making and development assistance practice. The current literature tends to highlight electricity services, and, to a lesser extent, clean cooking. This article calls for a closer look at mobility and mechanical power as essential energy services in addition to a refinement of the specific institutional arrangements needed to reduce energy poverty and deprivation. This article augments and refines arguments made by Morgan Bazilian and his colleagues in their viewpoint ‘‘More Heat and Light’’. & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Energy poverty Energy access Rural electrification
1. Introduction Energy poverty, generally defined as a lack of access to electricity and dependence on traditional use of biomass for cooking and heating, remains an enduring global problem (see International Energy Agency, 2010; Bazilian et al., 2010). As many readers of this journal are aware, approximately 1.4 billion people still lived without electricity in 2009, a further one billion had access only to intermittent or unreliable electricity networks, and an additional 2.7 billion people depended entirely on wood, charcoal, dung, and solid fuels for their domestic energy needs. Fifty–five percent of those without access to electricity, as well as 72.3% of those dependent on traditional fuels, reside in Asia. The search for fuels and services is an arduous and continual burden for billions of people around the world. Lack of access to modern energy not only limits opportunities for income generation and blunts efforts to escape poverty, but also disproportionately impacts women and children and contributes to global deforestation and climate change (Sovacool, 2011). Strikingly, indoor air pollution (mostly from cooking traditional solid fuels) is the third most significant global cause of morbidity and mortality, after only poor water and sanitation, and malnutrition. By 2030, if trends continue, indoor air pollution will likely kill
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 802 831 1053; fax: þ1 802 831 1158. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (B.K. Sovacool). 0301-4215/$ - see front matter & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2011.12.007
more people than malaria, tuberculosis, or HIV/AIDS (Legros et al., 2009). Despite its importance, the topic of energy poverty has been largely neglected in energy planning discussions and energy publications in an OECD context. Kammen and Dove (1997) wrote more than a decade ago that advanced and modern technologies related to electricity and motorized transport (think ‘‘nuclear reactors’’ and ‘‘electric vehicles’’) were highly favored topics of energy policy discussion. However, ‘‘mundane’’ technologies— such as cookstoves, biogas units, heating and cooling systems, and other less ‘‘state-of-the-art’’ topics—were minimally discussed, even though these technologies affected the greatest number of people and had the most substantial impact on the environment in everyday life. Ten years later, Birol (2007), the Chief Economist for the International Energy Agency, argued that, ‘‘unfortunately, the energy-economics community has given far less attention to the challenge of energy poverty among the world’s poorest people’’. And most recently, a series of content analyses of the top energy journals, including this one, noted that only three percent of authors came from least developed countries and only eight percent of papers addressed topics related to energy poverty and energy development (D’Agostino et al., 2011; Sovacool et al., 2011a). For these reasons, the recent academic and political focus from the international community on issues of energy access, energy poverty, and rural electrification is most welcome. To help further the discussion, we briefly allude to the causes of energy poverty, as well as some of the quantifiable benefits in transitioning away
716
B.K. Sovacool et al. / Energy Policy 42 (2012) 715–719
from it. We also emphasize mechanical power and mobility as equally important energy services along with heat and light.
2. Augmenting a ‘‘New Approach’’ Bazilian et al. (2010) posit that addressing energy poverty as only one among several dimensions of development has led to a lack of effective institutions, business models, and appropriate regulations designed to achieve universal energy access. Fundamentally, Bazilian and his colleagues propose elevating issues of energy poverty by reframing energy access as an integral part of national and international energy planning. They note, ‘‘ycurrent efforts are woefully insufficient in scale, scope, and design, and attempting to address the issue solely as part of wider poverty reduction policies is likely to be sub-optimal’’. Still, it remains unclear exactly how this reframing would overcome the technical, governance, and financing issues that bedevil efforts by national governments and international development agencies to achieve universal energy access. Prior to the 1990s, the development paradigm was dominated by the idea that the proper role of civil society was to provide ‘‘poor’’ people with the material resources and services that were readily available to the ‘‘rich’’ (Gupta, 1997). The modern era, however, has brought about a radical shift within the development community. Development institutions are finally moving away from simply promoting the transformation of the underdeveloped into the developed, and increasingly focusing on empowering people to achieve their own wellbeing through economic, social, and cultural progress, defined by the people themselves (Mahat, 2008; Chambers, 2005). It is this ‘‘post-development’’ perspective that has allowed some international aid agencies and national policymakers alike to recognize the complexity of causal relations that lead to the conditions responsible for global energy poverty (Matthews, 2006, p. 55). Thus, a more nuanced approach that is inclusive of the new development approaches, along with strengthening national organizations, and ensuring a strong political ‘‘voice’’ is required. While energy poverty may lack priority within the ‘‘wide scope of development activities at the international level’’, global development practice over the past several years has evolved a cultural sensitivity and critical sensibility that may be essential to widespread progress on universal energy access (Mahat, 2008). The absence of this critical approach in energy policymaking may be one reason that conventional definitions of energy security fail to consider mechanical power and mobility as indispensable to energy access as lighting and heating.
3. Lighting One in three people in the world obtain light from ‘‘traditional’’ fuels and collectively pay 20% of global lighting costs (about $40 billion per year), but receive just 0.1% of the world’s lighting energy services (Mills, 2005, 2006). We briefly consider some of the small-scale, innovative responses to this energy service for those unfamiliar with them. Communities and households can utilize technologies such as biogas digesters, solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, small wind energy systems, and micro-hydro dams to provide lighting without connecting to a fossil fuel powered electric-grid or relying on liquid fuels. The electricity from these distributed systems can be used to power incandescent lamps, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), and white light emitting diodes (WLEDs). While households continue to use incandescent lamps widely, WLED and CFL technologies use less energy, provide better light, and have
significantly longer lamp life (Pode, 2010). Solar PV lanterns also provide a viable alternative in some circumstances to fuel or electricity-based lighting for about $25 to $30 a lantern (Adkins et al., 2010). Utilizing traditional fuel-based technologies for lighting has dire consequences for the world’s poorest people. First, fuel-based technologies are more expensive. After 50,000 h of use, kerosene lamps cost $1251 to operate, while incandescent lamps cost $175, CFLs cost $75, and WLEDs cost $20 to operate (Pode, 2010). Moreover, rural households spend as much as one-quarter of their household budgets on fuel for illumination without even taking into account losses in productivity and other indirect costs (Adkins et al., 2010). Second, using fuel-based technologies has severe health implications. The World Bank estimates that 780 million women and children inhale particulate-laden kerosene fumes while performing daily tasks in their homes. Kerosene fumes contain nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and volatile organic compounds, which cause eye, nose, throat, and lung infections, respiratory problems, and cancer in those that inhale them (Pode, 2010). Additionally, utilizing fuel-based lighting contributes to severe burns and accidental fires (Adkins et al., 2010). Access to modern lighting technologies, conversely, can yield substantial benefits. For example, a study conducted for the Millennium Villages Project in Malawi indicated that when households switched from kerosene lamps to solar lamps, their annual expenditures on lighting dropped by $47.06 per household, excluding the cost of the lantern ($29.78), in a country where average monthly per capita GDP is $66 (Adkins et al., 2010). The majority of households had an average payback of less than a year for these lamps.
4. Heating and cooking Electricity accounts for roughly 17% of global final energy demand, yet low temperature heat accounts for about 44%. Globally, this means that people use more energy for heating—typically by burning woody biomass—than for any other purpose (Olz et al., 2007, pp. 40–46). The majority of households in the developing world—about three out of every four—rely on traditional stoves for their cooking and heating needs. Traditional stoves range from ‘‘three-stone open fires to substantial brick and mortar models and ones with chimneys’’ (World Bank, 2011a, p. 3). These stoves emit a significant amount of smoke into the home, which can cause acute respiratory illnesses among inhabitants (World Health Organization, 2005). They also can cause significant environmental problems. Because these stoves are highly inefficient (as much as 90% of their energy content is wasted), they require a significant amount of fuel—almost two tons of biomass per family per year. These consumption patterns strain local timber resources and can cause ‘‘wood fuel crises’’ when wood is harvested faster than it is grown (Crewe et al., 2010, p. 2). Furthermore, studies suggest that the burning of biomass also exacerbates climate change. Households in developing countries can burn as much as 730 t of biomass annually, which translates into more than one billion tons of carbon dioxide in aggregate (World Health Organization, 2005). Improved cookstoves (ICS) offer a promising alternative. Though ‘‘improved stove’’ is a broad term, it generally includes stoves that improve energy efficiency, remove indoor air pollution, and reduce the ‘‘drudgery’’ of fuel gathering (World Bank, 2011a). Specifically, these stoves usually have a chimney and can be fueled with soft biomass, crop residue, or firewood. They have more efficient combustion chambers, utilize more durable materials, contain more insulation, and can cook more food at once.
B.K. Sovacool et al. / Energy Policy 42 (2012) 715–719
Some of these stoves can even be connected to space heaters, radiators, or pipes so that heat can be distributed throughout households (Brown and Sovacool, 2011). Because there is a ‘‘correlation between access to modern cooking and social and economic development’’, ICS generally improve the quality of life in households that adopt them (Bazilian et al., 2011). Hutton et al. (2008) compared the economic costs of investing in new cookstoves—including the expense of fuel, program costs, and capital costs for technology—to their corresponding benefits, such as reduced health care expenses, productivity gains, time savings, and improvement of the environment. They studied these costs and benefits in 11 developing countries from 2005 to 2015, and found that an investment of $650 million would produce $105 billion in benefits per year. Similarly, the International Energy Agency (2006) noted that switching to LPG stoves at the global scale would cost about $13.6 billion but would produce annual benefits exceeding $91 billion.
5. Mechanical power As discussed, most of the literature on energy access has an explicit (or implicit) focus on provision of light and heat. However, this misses an instrumental energy service: mechanical power. Put simply, mechanical power increases the efficiency and effectiveness of productive activities supporting sustainable development, as well as physical processes fundamental to meeting basic human needs. As Bates et al. (2009) and de Gouvello and Durix (2008) have demonstrated, mechanical services have great potential to tremendously reduce time spent on fuelwood gathering, to improve air quality in homes, and to raise household and community incomes. As one example from Mbale, Uganda a simple briquette press with a typical commercial cost of $100 to $175 can be made onsite without electricity or welding. A sixperson team harnessing mechanical power to produce briquettes can supply up to 75 households (ten people per household) per day for cooking needs, translating into a reduction of demand for fuelwood by 300 t per year (Bates et al., 2009, p. 8). Many of these benefits have a great impact on the lives of women and children who traditionally spend substantial amounts of time gathering fuel and water and cooking in the home. In India, women in rural households spent almost 3 h cooking daily meals, an additional hour or two processing food to make it ready for cooking, and, when needed, two more hours collecting fuel (Barnes and Sen, 2004). In Nepal, without mechanical energy, women have to wake well before dawn, process daily agricultural requirements, and then cook meals, meaning access to electricity does not really save them time. Whereas electricity micro-hydro units tend to be used by one-third to one-half of all villagers, agricultural processing units tend to be used by all 92 to 97% of villagers. This means that micro-hydro units oriented toward mechanical processing can create massive social benefits, saving 30 to 110 h per month for various processing requirements such as milling, hulling, and expelling (Sovacool et al., 2011b). These examples strongly suggest that some of the most fundamental services required for reducing poverty and promoting human development involve mechanical energy and increasing the productivity of human labor. Mechanical power enables activities such as pumping, transporting, and lifting water, irrigating fields, processing crops, small-scale manufacturing, and natural resource extraction. As Bates et al. (2009) forcefully argue: Experiences show that mechanical power helps alleviate drudgery, increase work rate and substantially reduce the level of human strength needed to achieve an outcome, thus
717
increasing efficiency and output productivity, producing a wider range of improved products, and saving time and production costs y In this regard, financing of mechanical power is often one of the most cost effective ways to support poor people. Mechanical power is not merely a derivative of other forms of energy such as electricity, but an instrumental energy service in its own right.
6. Mobility Another key energy service is also generally lacking from the global discussion of energy poverty: mobility. Though precise numbers are difficult to obtain, as it is less studied, a significant proportion of the world population has transportation choices constrained by lack of infrastructure, fuel scarcity, the distances or time involved with travel, expense, or a combination of them all (Woodcock, 2007). Put another way, the energy poor often need more energy, and pay more for it, to go efficiently or quickly where they need to go (or they merely forego ‘‘going’’ altogether). For instance, most of the world’s poor do not have access to mass transportation and cannot afford private motorized vehicles. Many rely significantly on non-motorized transport, which includes walking, bicycles, rickshaws, handcarts, and animaldrawn transport (Booth et al., 2000; Kaltheier, 2002). In Wuhan, the most populous urban area in Central China, the primary form of transportation for routine trips for the lowest income quintile was walking; public transportation and bicycles came second and third (Economic Research Institute, 2003). For non-routine trips, people typically used taxis, public transportation, and walking. In Douala, the largest city in Cameroon, walking is the primary mode of transportation among the poor. Additionally, without access to private vehicles, the majority of the poor rely on public transportation, such as buses, taxis, light trucks, jitneys, and ‘‘unauthorized’’ cabs for transport to work and other daily mobility needs (World Bank, 2004). Many of the rural poor are unable to use motorized transportation due to lack of suitable road networks; thus, the vast majority of the rural poor walk, with other infrastructural impediments such as lack of foot and cycle paths further curbing mobility (World Bank, 2002). For both the rural and urban poor, low mobility—regardless of the technology or mode of transport involved—stifles the attainment of better living standards. It reduces the ability to earn income, strains economic resources, and limits access to education and health services and markets. Many poor communities depend on shared or hired motorized transport for daily mobility, disproportionally straining the budgets of poor families. For instance, in New Delhi, poor households spend approximately 20 to 25% of their income attempting to meet daily mobility needs (Kaltheier, 2002). Low mobility is particularly burdensome for the rural poor because it consumes a significant amount of their non-economic assets, such as physical capital and time. For instance, in Bhutan, 96% of the country’s poor live in rural areas and must walk hours or even days to reach the nearest road (IFAD, 2011). In rural Brazil, poor children often walk for more than an hour to arrive to school or to the location of school buses (Carvalho et al., 2010). The urban poor who commute ‘‘in town’’ daily for employment endure long travel distances, crowded shared transportation, traffic congestion, and walking segments at the beginning or end of the trip. The urban poor walk more than the urban nonpoor and confront limited safe walking spaces. In Indian cities, less than one-half of major roads have sidewalks. For the sidewalks that exist, pedestrian spaces become eroded by street
718
B.K. Sovacool et al. / Energy Policy 42 (2012) 715–719
vendors and vehicle parking, leaving pedestrians vulnerable to traffic accidents and injury (World Bank, 2002, 2004). Furthermore, low mobility disproportionally impacts poor women in rural areas. For an energy poor family in rural Zimbabwe, mothers and daughters walk twice a week approximately 1.5 h to gather 80 pounds of firewood (Booth, 2000). In some African countries, women expend up to 8 h of their day collecting water, sometimes walking ten miles daily (Sovacool, 2011a). While improved cookstoves, access to mechanical services, and electricity can certainly alleviate some of this burden, improving mobility is equally important. Providing poor populations with greater access to mobility has, among other things, been linked with an increased use of social services and higher involvement in the political process (Gannon et al., 2002). Mobility provides opportunities for the poor to increase their earning potential, to visit hospitals, shop for cheaper goods, and attain educational and employment goals.
7. The complexity of energy poverty What these four energy services, or the lack of them, reveal is that energy poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon irreducible to merely two services or two sets of technology. One potential and more nuanced way to conceptualize energy poverty would be to conceive of energy services as existing in a matrix. The United Nations Secretary General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change, an intergovernmental body composed of representatives from businesses, the United Nations, and research institutes, recently suggested that energy access actually ought to be categorized into an incremental matrix shown in Table 1. In this matrix, first come basic human needs that can be met with electricity consumption of 50–100 kWh per person per year, 50–100 kg of oil equivalent or modern fuel per person per year, and the ownership of an improved cookstove. Second are productive uses, such as access to mechanical energy for agriculture or irrigation, commercial energy, or liquid transport fuels. Consumption here rises to 500–1000 kWh per person per year plus 150 kg of oil equivalent. Third are modern needs, which include the use of domestic appliances, cooling and space heating, hot and cold water, and private transportation, which in the aggregate result in the consumption of about 2000 kWh per person per year and 250–450 kg of oil equivalent. The matrix includes all four key energy services (lighting, heating, mechanical power, and mobility). This matrix is just one first step towards recognizing that energy poverty indices, however they are structured, need to be more complex and contextually driven. Nonetheless, this finding
challenges conventional definitions and approaches to energy poverty in four ways. First, it reminds us that any attempts to elevate energy access within national and international energy policy should learn from the modern shift in development theory and avoid adopting overly technical approaches. Development practitioners warn that the kind of ‘‘mass customization of technologies and delivery models’’ that Bazilian et al. (2010, p. 5410) advocate risks effectively depoliticizing the underlying patterns of injustice that create and maintain inequities in the delivery of energy services. Without careful consideration of cultural and demographic sensitivities now commonplace among development practitioners, reframing energy poverty as an essential element in national and international energy planning merely could reify the modes of domination that deeply influence the lives of the planet’s energy poor. Second, one way to avoid abandoning altogether the evolution of development theory is for energy planners and development practitioners to strive to see energy poverty as a services-oriented issue, or a fundamental human rights concern, rather than a fuel or technological issue. As Amory Lovins (1976, p. 65) ruminated many decades ago, ‘‘people do not want electricity or oil, nor such economic abstractions as ‘residential services’, but rather comfortable rooms, light, vehicular motion, food, tables, and other real things’’. This means we ought to be moving towards ‘‘mobility security’’ and ‘‘light security’’ rather than ‘‘oil security’’ and ‘‘electrification’’. Third, the relationship between our four energy services and energy poverty is synergistic and the services interact in ways we are only beginning to comprehend. The fact that the majority of the world’s development experts—including some of the authors’ earlier works in addition to publications from groups within the United Nations and International Energy Agency—continue to measure energy poverty as two dimensional (‘‘heat’’ and ‘‘light,’’ or ‘‘cookstoves’’ and ‘‘electricity’’) tells us just how far we need to go in pushing mechanical power and mobility as rightfully desirable attributes. Moreover, lack of access to any of the four services can inhibit or exacerbate the use of the others. For example, lack of access to mobility can influence the availability or price of kerosene (lighting), fuelwood collection times (impacting heating and cooking), and transporting processed products to market (mechanical power). This means that energy poverty and energy services have an interactive relationship, and should not be viewed independently of each other. Lastly, if one accepts these earlier findings, then new ways of quantifying and measuring energy poverty, and collecting data about it, are needed. A few specific recommendations include:
Directing the World Bank, International Energy Agency, World Health Organization, United Nations, and other organizations
Table 1 Energy services and access levels. Source: UN-Energy, 2010. Level
Electricity use
kWh per person per year
Solid fuel use
Mobility
Kilograms of oil equivalent per person per year
Basic human needs
Lighting, health, education, and communication
50–100
Cooking and heating
None, walking or bicycling
50–100
Productive uses
Agriculture, water pumping for irrigation, fertilizer, mechanized tilling, processing
500–1000
Minimal
Mass transit, motorcycle, or scooter
150
Modern society needs
Domestic appliances, cooling, heating
2000
Minimal
Private transportation
250–450
B.K. Sovacool et al. / Energy Policy 42 (2012) 715–719
to start collecting information on mobility and mechanical power. Building on the Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index forthcoming by Nussbaumer et al. (2012), which analyzes the adequacy and applicability of existing instruments to measure energy poverty and proposes a novel way of measuring its intensity. Developing methodologies that enable the integration of all four energy services discussed here—lighting, heating and cooking, mechanical power, and mobility—into national and international development and energy targets and strategies. Raising awareness and building the capacity of communities and national governments so that they, themselves, can inform policymakers about their needs and local solutions to energy poverty. Implementing financing initiatives to both scale-up and sensitize energy development programs so that universal energy access can be achieved without eroding cultural norms or retrenching current unjust patterns of energy production and use.
If we are right about the complex multidimensionality of energy poverty, then we functionally need to increase the topics and metrics we associate with it, and be more sensitive to those that suffer from it. Perhaps only then will we be able to effectively lift the world’s poorest out of their persistent state of energy deprivation. References Adkins, E., et al., 2010. Off-grid energy services for the poor: introducing LED lighting in the millennium villages project in Malawi. Energy Policy 38, 1087–1097. Barnes, D.F., Sen, M. 2004. The Impact of Energy on Women’s Lives in Rural India. Washington, D.C.: Joint UNDP/World Bank Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme (ESMAP). Bates, Liz, et al., 2009. Expanding Energy Access in Developing Countries: The Role of Mechanical Power. Practical Action Report (Washington, D.C.: UNDP). Bazilian, Morgan, Sagar, Ambuj, Detchon, Reid, Kandeh, Yumkella, 2010. More heat and light. Energy Policy 38, 5409–5412. Bazilian, M., Cordes, L., Nussbaumer, P., Yager, A., 2011. Partnerships for access to modern cooking fuels and technologies. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 3, 1–6. Birol, Fatih, 2007. Energy economics: a place for energy poverty on the agenda? The Energy Journal 28 (3), 1–6. Brown, M.A., Sovacool., B.K., 2011. Climate Change and Global Energy Security: Technology and Policy Options. MIT Press, Cambridge. Booth, D., et al., 2000. Poverty and Transport. World Bank (Available at)/http:// www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/2689.pdfS. Carvalho, W.L., et al., 2010. Rural school transportation in emerging countries: the Brazilian case. Research in Transportation Economics 29, 401–409. Chambers, R., 2005. Ideas for Development. Earthscan, London. Crewe, E., Sundar S., Young P., 2010. Building a Better Stove: The Sri Lanka Experience (Colombo). D’Agostino, A.L., Sovacool, B.K., Trott, K., Ramos, C.R., Saleem, S., Ong., Y., 2011. What’s the state of energy studies research? A content analysis of three leading journals from 1999–2008. Energy 36 (1), 508–519. de Gouvello, Christophe, Laurent, Durix. 2008. Maximizing the Productive Uses of Electricity to Increase the Impact of Rural Electrification Programs. An Operational Methodology. Formal Report 332/08. Washington, D.C.: UNDP/ ESMAP. Economic Research Institute, 2003. ‘‘A Lifetime of Walking’’ Poverty and Transportation in Wuhan. Wuhan University /http://www.gtkp.com/assets/uploads/ 20091127-162217-5468-Wuhan.pdfS.
719
Gannon, C., et al., 2002. Transport. In: Klugman, Jeni (Ed.), A Sourcebook for Poverty Reduction Strategies. , The World Bank, Washington, DC, pp. 326–367. Gupta, Anil K., 1997. The honey-bee network: linking knowledge-rich grassroots innovations. Development 40 (4), 36–40. Hutton, Guy, Eva, Rehfuess, Fabrizio, Tediosi, 2008. Evaluation of the costs and benefits of household energy and health interventions. In: Proceedings of the Presentation to the Clean Cooking Fuels & Technologies Workshop, June 16–17, 2008, Istanbul, Turkey. International Energy Agency, 2006. World Energy Outlook 2006. OECD, Paris. International Energy Agency, United Nations Development Program, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, 2010. Energy Poverty: How to Make Modern Energy Access Universal?. OECD, Paris. International Fund for Agricultural Development, 2011. Rural Poverty in Bhutan. Available at /http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/web/guest/country/home/ tags/bhutanS. Kaltheier, R.M., 2002. Urban transport and poverty in developing countries. Division 44 Environmental Management, Water, Energy, Transport. Available at /http://www.gtkp.com/assets/uploads/20091127-182046-6236-en-urbantransport-and-poverty.pdfS. Kammen, Daniel M., Dove, Michael R., 1997. The virtues of mundane science. Environment 39 (6), 10–41. Lovins, Amory B., 1976. Energy strategy: the road not taken. Foreign Affairs 55 (1), 65. ¨ Legros, Gwe´naelle, Havet, Ines, Bruce, Nigel, Sophie, Bonjour, Kamal, Rijal, Minoru, Takada, Carlos, Dora, 2009. The Energy Access Situation in Developing Countries: A Review Focusing on the Least Developed Countries and SubSaharan Africa. World Health Organization and United Nations Development Program, New York. Mahat, Ishara, 2008. Poverty, Development and Wellbeing: Dimensions of Social Change. University of Ottawa, Ottawa. Matthews, S., 2006. Responding to poverty in the light of the post-development debate: some insights from the NGO Enda Graf Sahel. Africa Development 31 (4), 52–72. Mills, E., 2005. The specter of fuel-based lighting. Science 308, 1263–1264. Mills, Evan, 2006. Alternatives to Fuel-based Lighting in Rural Areas of Developing Countries. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley. Nussbaumer, Patrick, Bazilian, Morgan, Vijay, Modi, 2012. Measuring energy poverty: Focusing on what matters. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. Olz, Samantha, Ralph, Sims, Nicolai, Kirchner. Contributions of Renewables to Energy Security International Energy Agency Information Paper (Paris: OECD, April, 2007). Pode, R., 2010. Solution to enhance the acceptability of solar-powered LED lighting technology. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 14, 1096–1103. Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2011. Developing Public–Private Renewable Energy Partnerships to Expand Energy Access South Royalton, VT: Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School, Report for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for the Asia Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand, November. Sovacool, B.K., Saleem, S., D’Agostino, A.L., Ramos, C.R., Trott, K., Ong, Y., 2011a. What About Social Science and Interdisciplinarity? A 10-year Content Analysis of Energy Policy. In: Goldblatt, D.L., et al. (Eds.), Tackling Long-Term Global Energy Problems: The Contribution of Social Sciences. , Springer, New York. Sovacool, B.K., Bambawale, M.J., Gippner, O., Dhakal, S., 2011b. Electrification in the Mountain Kingdom: the implications of the Nepal Power Development Project (NPDP). Energy for Sustainable Development 15 (3), 254–265. UN-Energy, 2010. Energy for a Sustainable Future: The Secretary-General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change Summary Report and Recommendations (New York: UN, April 28, 2010). Woodcock, J., 2007. Energy and transport. The Lancet 9592 (370), 1078–1088. World Bank, 2002. Cities on the Move: A World Bank Urban Transport Strategy Review. (Washington D.C.). World Bank, 2004. Poverty and Urban Mobility in Douala. /http://hal.archives-ou vertes.fr/docs/00/08/77/81/PDF/Douala_en.pdfS. World Bank, 2011a. Household Cookstoves, Environment, Health & Climate Change: A New Look at an Old Problem. World Bank, Washington, D.C.. World Health Organization, 2005. Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update 2005. WHO, Copenhagen.