- Email: [email protected]
Croesus gropes for riches
almost a third by the end of the
C r o e s u s
gropes
for
The acronym, WOCA, used to be translated as world outside communist areas. Current terminological exacti-
riches vast coal reserves, a goodly proportion of them in the Ukraine. The Donets
coalfield was discovered there in 1721 tude, pedantry or cant renders it as and has been mined for over a cenworld outside centrally-plannedtury, serving major concentrations of e c o n o m i e s " areas. Of the sixteen MOST population and industry in and around centrally planned economies in the the Ukraine. The field is still the world, I the one that was communist Soviets' biggest but its riches have first still tends to hog the limelight, become more and more difficult to The USSR is, after all, the other extract. So much so that, according to superpower. And it, as the archetypal Marples, despite reserves enough for centrally planned economy of our another century, coalmining has no century, might be expected to have future in the republic. The USSR's the most clearly defined and imperaofficials baulk at the technology of tive of all energy policies, working the deep, thin, steeply slopIt is difficult nowadays to think of ing seamsin the Donets basin and turn Soviet energy without the flashing, at increasingly to strip mining in Siberia. some moment arm in some mental There, and in northern Kazakhstan, recess, of the name Chernobyl. It is lie over 90% of the USSR's coal therefore totally unsurprising that a reserves. But they are remote and the book throwing light on Soviet energy climate is harsh. Thus far, the USSR policy should have been published has failed to realize the output poteuwith that name in its title. David R. tial of the Siberian and other eastern Marples actually set out to analyse the fields, Soviet nuclear power industry at large The country generates over half its but, when the Ukrainian reactor burst electricity in coalburning stations so upon the scene, the catastrophe was the difficulties of the miners go some bound to concentrate his mind and way to explaining policymakers' enalter the course of his writing. Marples thusiasm for nuclear power. Oil and is peculiarly well qualified 2 to dilate natural gas have their problems too, as on the event that took place near Kiev Marples relates. The Soviet authoron 26 April 1986, and to discourse on ities would like in the future to earn both the local and the national setting hard currency with these hydrocarof the tragedy. As he says of his bons. Meanwhile they contemplate (mapless, graphless and generally picthe export of electricity to conserve tureless) paperback, although it is a the oil, which is anyway being prostudy of the Soviet nuclear power duced at ever lower rates. Marples" industry, the emphasis is on the Ukraievidently thorough reading of the nian scene. He reports Ukrainians in Soviet press leads him to remark that, the west to have put the Chernobyl before Chernobyl, the failings of the accident down as another chapter in a oil industry were the prime economic sad twentieth century history that concern of the Soviet leaders. Again, includes a man-made famine in 1932Siberia has been the source of many of 33, the Stalinist purges of the 1930s the frustrations that have blighted the and many of the major conflicts of the hopes of past years. Marples gives the German-Soviet war of 1941-45. cost of oil production in Siberia as 'up Marples says that the Ukraine plays to six times as high as those in the an integral role in the USSR's energy Middle East'. Natural gas is the only programme. There is certainly no lack bright spot in the general gloom, the of items to programme in the USSR, a one fossil fuel of which Marples can huge country that has not yet had to report that it has caused optimism import any fuel. Among the items are over recent years. In fact, its produc-
ENERGY POLICY February 1988
century. Yet this is a relatively modest increase, writes Marples, explaining
t , , t gas reserves are to be saved as some of the more reliable hard currency earners of the future.
U r a n i u m p|tlg Because Siberia yields up its fuel resources so grudgingly the nuclear option has seemed to the central planners to be particularly apt for the Ukraine, a major energy consumer that could link the USSR more closely to her European neighbours. Even in the 1970s, the Soviet authorities were seeking supplies that could be more or less guaranteed, comments Marplcs, supplies "that did not depend on a Donbass miner working every weekend of a month, or on the Soviet railway or supply system to a distant oilfield'. The nuclear option had been up the Soviet sleeve for some time claimedly the world's first civil nuclear power station was the one at Obninsk in 1954. The time seemed ripe not just to plug an energy gap with uranium but to avoid need for Soviet oil in eastern Europe by exporting nuclear electricity to it. So the 1970s ushered in nine nuclear power stations, one of them at Chefnobyl and most of them similarly designed. With a total capacity of 12 500 MW they accounted for about 5.6% of the entire Union's electricity and 9.3% of the European supply. The five-year plan for 1981-85 was to have taken those nuclear fractions up to 14.1% and 23.8% respectively but, in Marples" words, "by the standards the Soviets have set themselves, the plan was an abject failure'. He himself dubs 'remarkable' the increase that w a s achieved, namely from 12 500 to over 25 00() MW. But that did not approach the target of 33 800 MW. Evidently, observes Marples, the USSR had, as other countries had, fallen short of schedule, even though she had no nuclear opposition to contend with and could, because of her centralized system, pour in resources. The five-year plan for 198690 remains unswervingly ambitious an output lift from 1985's 1 545 million MWh to 1 840-1 880 million MWh in
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Bookwatch
1990, 390 million MWh of these to be nuclear compared with the 170 million MWh of 1985. The USSR is also leading the development of nuclear power in other countries of eastern Europe. The Ukraine has a key role in this, exporting nuclear electricity as well as nuclear engineering to the other countries, each of which contributes her specialities to the power plants themselves. Marples indicates that the USSR, which masterminds the programme, has thus obtained much and increasing 'leverage' over her allies, But Chernobyl has affected them. The opposition that has appeared in eastern European countries will, according to Marples, make it impossible for their governments to maintain the schedule still insisted upon at the Soviet centre. The centre thus 'flies in the face of reality', for the collaborating countries have previously failed to keep up even in the most favourable circumstances. So 'increased pressure will be placed on the leader of the programme, the USSR itself, and particularly its link-up region for East European plans, Soviet Ukraine'. The Soviet centre's emphasis on nuclear power, so clearly discerned by Marples in his modest looking paperback, obtrudes less on the energy scene as it appears to Robert G. Jensen et al 3 in a much weightier volume. This well produced, academic, almost encyclopaedic work is concerned with the Soviets' resources at large and their possible global economic role. In that wide context uranium scarcely figures, although there is allusion to the USSR's uranium enrichment services as an increasingly important part of the international nuclear fuel cycle (the uranium is supplied by the nuclear power utilities in various countries and re-exported to them after processing). As Jensen explains, the resources studied are the ones that the USSR could export sufficiently to make an impact on the world market, and that bear on western policy concerns. The energy raw materials that do appear in the chapter titles are the fossil fuels. But nuclear power is not o v e r l o o k e d . It is m e n t i o n e d by, among other contributors, Robert N. North, in relation to electricity from
74
other sources, and he notes oil's fall from favour in this connection, Electricity exports took about 1% of total Soviet output in the mid-70s, states North, and were almost all to eastern Europe. Growing demand in countries there cannot be met from local coalfired, gasfired and hydroelectric stations, he goes on, and the shortfall is to be met mainly from nuclear stations. Broadly, his and other authors' accounts in the book square with Marples' with respect to the development of nuclear power for export. As the editors point out in an article of their own, the nuclear programme is concentrated in the energyshort European USSR and the series of large stations located in the western regions adjoining eastern Europe.
believes the situation to be so bad that the country could be forced to become a net importer by the late 1980s. There is an irony in the commencement of this chapter with notes on the origin of the oil production and export business in Russia 4 and the closure with paragraphs declaring that, without the import of modern technology, over 18 years could be necessary to bring another upsurge in production. Most likely, in this author's view, is that the Soviets will buy foreign technology and restrain their own consumption, thus possibly attaining self-sufficiency. Less likely is admission of western and Japanese interests to help develop the USSR's resources.
East-West grid links?
A n o t h e r possibility mentioned by Meyerhoff is that shortages of oil and hard currency will drive Moscow to seek greater access to the oil of the Persian Gulf. More bluntly, 'a Soviet Union in desperate need of oil might plan to acquire oil fields in the Middle East'. Those words are not from the USA, however, they are from Norway. Heige Ole Bergesen et al s use them in a brief account of the Soviet oil industry. They see oil exports as the backbone of the USSR's foreign trade and they ponder the policies that might be adopted to keep the cornmerce fruitful. They find that the much debated conclusions reported by the C I A in 1977 (namely that the USSR had much smaller oil reserves than had been estimated, would reach peak oil production in a few years, would stop exporting oil and become a net importer by 1985, and would be unable sufficiently to substitute other fuels for oil) have been only partly borne out by events. Oil exports to the West reached record levels in 1982-84, during which period production peaked: 'Soviet' oil exports include quantities obtained from Middle Eastern countries in exchange for arms, and the USSR has brought in substitutes and conserved some oil (1% saved on domestic consumption lifts exports 7%). Production fell 2.9% in 1985 and exports dropped 12%, probably because of the unusually bad winter. But the Muscovite planners are not free to cut
The editors refer to discussions of possible ties between the Soviet and western European power grids and there are some details in the book of grid connections already made between the USSR and her eastern European satellites. Entering print in 1983, the editors and their contributors are unaware of the events that lead Marples to question the feasibility of these ambitions. But their studies guide them in the same direction, Marples' doubts are general, though he spotlights the nuclear aspect. Jensen does not even mention nuclear when h e c o n v e y s a s ' t h e o v e r w h e l m i n g conclusion of our analysis of the Soviet energy situation' that, despite the vast potential of the USSR's energy resources, 'the output of the three major fossil fuels cannot be expanded at a pace sufficient to enable the USSR to become more than a minor factor in world energy markets'. Jensen goes further and suggests that, with the exception of natural gas, the global energy exports of the USSR will be smaller in 1990 than in 1980. Jensen et al call oil a once mighty growth industry of the USSR, a continuingly important source of export earnings but one that now faces uncertain prospects. The industry is described in a long and comprehensive chapter covering history, technology, geology, reserves, potential and policy. The author, Arthur A. Meyerhoff,
USSR plan a c c e s s
to
Gulfoil?
ENERGY POLICY February 1988
Book watch
exports, say Bergesen et al. The USSR has grown dependent on imports essential ones - so 'the Soviet leadership will make substantial efforts to maintain hard currency earnings'. It is clear to these authors that maintenance or increase of oil exports is the key to success in the USSR. Gas exports cannot be expected to jump helpfully enough upwards before the late 1990s. The Norwegians' thumbnail sketch of energy policy Soviet-fashion shows a raising of unit energy requirements compared with the lowering in most industrial market economies: 33% more energy was consumed per unit GNP in the USSR than in the USA in 1983. Investment in oil conservation is recognized to cost as little as a third as much as investment in oil production, per barrel, but conservation has been neglected because the higher strategy has been extensive rather than intensive economic growth - increasing outputs by increasing inputs (eg of capital and manpower, energy and other natural resources) rather than by increasing the efficiency with which the inputs are converted into outputs, Such strategy fits what the authors call 'the basic design of the Soviet economic system, based on central planning and direction',
Eternal growth But for many years the scarcity of input factors has made the leadership call for intensive growth, which demands a local adaptability that the system does not foster. More economicutilization of e n e r g y a t e n t e r p r i s e level is prevented because managers have few incentives to save energy, They are allowed to reduce fuel consumption but not to switch fuels, even if they know that, say, oil is the dearer fuel, and they may switch only if the change is in the plan. Furthermore, the planners have taken physical quantities as their indicators: they lack the cost analysis that could ease optimization of costs and outputs. So they have not been prepared for reductions - 'the system presupposes eternal growth of output'. Enterprises cannot be led efficiencywards by introducing prices reflective of oil production's marginal cost because marginal costs
ENERGY POLICY February 1988
are rejected in principle and pricing is based on average production costs, Consequently oil remains relatively cheap. Oil could be most saved if it were diverted from use in power stations, a remedy that might be thought readily administrable from the centre. Nuclear power has indeed been growing fast but Chernobyl has intervened, reducing the country's generating capacity as well as delaying the development of the nuclear industry, The goal of 390 million MWh in 1990, 21% of the electricity output planned for that year, is now unattainable, as clearly to Bergesen et al as to Marples. According to the former the accident in the Ukraine just possibly could weaken nuclear enthusiasm and bring some reorientation of energy policy, Allocations in 1986 suggest that the favoured way ahead is continued reliance on oil (to avoid adapting the rest of the economy) but also on coal. Oil production is planned to be 635 Mt in 1990, 6.7% up on 1985's figure, Bergesen et al explore the options for procuring this, and then concentrate on the one that interests them particularly, the Barents Sea, a region with great potential but one in which no commercial discoveries have been made yet. Thus the Norwegian authors do not expect the Muscovite planners to go for big oil savings in the electricity generating sector by substituting natural gas as the power station fuel, a substitution that would be feasible if the necessary gas stores and transmission lines were developed. These analysts' post-Chernobyl view curiously echoes the pre-Chernobyl judgment expressed by Meyerhoff, who reports the slow progress of natural gas both as a substitute for oil inside the USSR and as an exported good. His fellow author, Jonathan P. Stern, 6 attributes possession of about a third of the world's natural gas reserves to the USSR but points out that the major deposits are in Siberia and hard to get. He thinks natural gas likely to predominate in the reduced total of Soviet energy exports at the end of the 1980s. The story from Sweden does not altogether chime with that from Norway. On the assessment of Ferdinand
E. Banks 7 there is extensive substitution of natural gas for oil in Soviet power stations, and the good news for Moscow's energists is in the gas sector. Banks believes that, despite 'occasional setbacks' (Chernobyl included) the USSR 'is bracing itself to dominate the Western European energy market by the end of the century'. For his part, Banks finds bracing the prospect of such domination by Soviet gas. He maintains that western Europe has everything to gain and nothing to lose, either politically or economically, from buying as much gas as possible from the USSR.
Monetarism Banks' contention is that the economic troubles of western industrial countries since 1973 - and nowhere more than in western Europe - have been created by some governments' lack of imagination and application of inappropriate economic theories such as monetarism, and also by the oil price shocks of the 1970s. To restore what he describes as even a semblance of the normality that existed before 1973, Banks regards an adequate supply of energy as essential for the industrial world, and he welcomes the Soviet contribution in pungent language. Negotiation should begin as soon as possible for the importation from the USSR of the huge amount of natural gas that will be needed by western Europe later this century, he urges, 'before some bright politician gets the idea that it would be better to pay a price that is 25 to 50 per cent higher for gas from some other source', s Banks reluctantly discounts nuclear power as an alternative to Soviet gas imports. He regards nuclear power as beaten only by hydroelectricity in cheapness but he considers that its political and environmental costs may be prohibitive. He has some cornments on Chernobyl. One is that the accident's main effect on Soviet planning is to deprive the non-nuclear energy sector of 5-10 billion dollarsworth of investment, for the nuclear sector will continue to be expanded as planned. Another observation is that mistakes of the sort that led to the accident must not be allowed, and that
75
Bookwatch
such technically very efficient neighbours of the USSR as Sweden should accelerate their nuclear safety research and then pass the technologyif necessary, free of charge - to the Soviets and any others that need it. Banks sees coal as a sensible option in the long run but as possibly an environmental catastrophe if a twofold or threefold increase in consump-
North-south,
of underdevelopment and emergence from that state, with particular reference to the energy sector, before they focus on their network's research. Then they delve into concepts and techniques, discourse on the choice, acquisition, processing and interpretation of data, report case studies and set forth their thoughts on how, systematically, to match a developing country's energy needs. The case studies have a chapter to themselves,
east
It may be a crumb of comfort for some southerners to know that some northerners are troubled, and even write books about, the plight of their fellow human beings on the other side. This Weltschmerz is truly on Weltscale, you might say, when the worriers are in the World Bank. As are Julio R. Gamba et al, the authors of a book 9 offered by their employer in aid of various senior people involved in industry and energy policy formulation, The writers note that industrial countries have, since the terrors of the 1970s, saved much by managing energy demand, and are still enjoying benefits although oil prices are easier. Developing countries are invited to use the present breathing space to follow suit and rationalize their energy use. Rationalization here means energy saving and fuel switching to reduce costs. It is advocated, not as an end in itself but as a part of government strategy where the aims are a better balance of payments and a generally more efficient and competitive industrial sector, Some developing countries are already on the way. In recent years they have set comprehensive programmes in train. The World Bank authors decline to judge the outcome yet though they describe the direction of change as clearly positive. They perceive that piecemeal attention to aspects of energy demand is giving way to the carrying out of national and sectoral policies and programmes, Constraints on the effective working of market mechanisms are gradually being lifted, whether by pricing or by other measures. Pricing policies are deemed harder to develop in centrally planned economies, or in mixed economies with major distortions or mar-
76
tion were attempted in the next 20 years. Imports of US coal instead of Soviet gas would, in many respects, 'not be good business for Europe', he avers, 'and in the long-run Soviet coal might even prove to be less expensive', but he adds that boosting US coal exports could begood for western Europe if it helped to prolong the economic upswing in the USA.
and
west
ket rigidities, but the innovatory pricing policies tried in such countries as China, Romania and Hungary are thought to have given experience that
modestly presented as in no way pretending to analyse local energy problems exhaustively. As the authors explain, they just thought it would be useful to share some provisonal conclusions.
could be useful to others. In fact, One of their topics, the role of wood much has been learnt in all the and charcoal, is, they admit, a subject rationalizing countries, and the les- that has been emphasized over and sons are retailed by the authors. They over again. But they tell how case show how to design, start, carry out studies provided the network with and monitor programmes, and they information on the use of wood and mention the essential roles of govern- charcoal, and how analysis of the data ment and the possible contributions of enabled the researchers to challenge development and financial institutions simplistic assertions. The need to base (including the World Bank). forecasts and planning on numerous Investment support is the main fea- data is thus made clear, the authors ture of the cooperation offered to suggest, and the validity of the analyThird World states by the European tical approach is brought out. Community but, according to Etienne Energy forecasting or energy planDavignon, 1° the Community has also ning may be more important, they played a helpful part in the devising of infer at the end, than the energy techniques for energy analysis and sector's size in an economy might management. Mere transfer of the suggest, which is a truth extending techniques used in the industrial world northwards as well as suffusing the would fail, and more soin this connec- south. But a more particular, and a tion than in any other, writes Davig- more poignant, observation that they n o n i n hispreface to a b o o k summariz- also make concerns 'the dramatic ing the results of study by an inter- effects of the world crisis on the national network of research balance of payments of numerous organizations. II Their joint en- developing countries'. The energy deavours were in quest of innovatory constraint bears heavily here, and the analytical, forecasting and decision authors think it may stimulate search methods for developing countries, for new development styles. which they believe to possess common characteristics distinguishing them clearly from industrial ones. The tradi- T o p down methods deplored tional methods for industrialcountries Returning from generalities to hard are mentioned only to stress their cases: omission from the subject matter. The boast is that the project made con- Both ex-post and ex-ante evaluation of tinuous south-south cooperation woodfuel-related schemes are an integral part of effective scheme choice and implepossible, as well as north-south. The mentation. No single method of evaluation product is a set of 'methodological or data gathering can be deemed appropritools' that 'will be used in forecasting ate under all circumstances, and usually a studies, energy planning operations mix of different types of evaluation exerand energy policy choices', cises (continuous monitoring and longterm appraisal), different techniques of The authors examine the character data gathering (questionnaires, group dis-
ENERGY POLICY February 1988
Book wal('h cussions+ games) and different analytical tools would be needed to arrive at an adequate assessment, However, this time we hear not the network choir but a single voice. It comes from one of the countries represented in the network, India, and it reinforces some of the message conveyed in the CEC report. Dr Biua Agarwal has greatly revised the mongraph she wrote in 1980 as a research fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, before the 'firewood crisis' had been fully recognized by energists. Her book I+ does not, alas, bring news of triumph over the problem, Although policymakers saw and see the problem, their programmes did and continue to rely on technological improvements, laments Agarwal, for she does not see solution in the laboratory or the workshop. For her, the problem is "rooted in the sociopolitics of poverty and structural inequalities, and the associated maldistribution of scarce natural resources
between uses and users'. She deplores the top down methods ofimplementation, usually involving bureaucrats heavily but the rural poor hardly at all, and she is as unsurprised by the small popularity of better stoves as she is by the frustration of village woodlot schemes that require communal cooperation. She claims that her 1980 monograph's criticisms of woodfuel programmes are "even more valid today - strengthened and substantiated by many more instances of usually predictable scheme failures', Agarwal's paperback is a critique of the hardware improvement and tree planting approaches to solution of the woodfuel problem in Third World countries. Many of the people for whom the wood stoves are intended are too poor to buy even a very cheap specimen. Imposed silviculture excites hostility. The author reasons that 'some fundamental restructuring towards equality in the social and economic base of many Third World countries, as well as changes at the
ideological level, would need to be a necessary part of efforts to alleviate the woodfuel crisis' but she thinks it unlikely that such a restructuring will come from above. Rather does she look to 'grass roots organizations of the underprivileged' for the pressure to bring change about. She detects a glimmer of hope in the emergence, in some countries, of ecological protest movements among tribal and other rural communities, and also of urban groups p r o m o t i n g e n v i r o n m e n t a l awareness. In Agarwal's view people want not merely to defend themselves against state policies but also to restore +the lost balance between society and nature'. Maybe hers is a call for Third World revolutions of a kind, with some sorts of people's republics at the end of them, but not (one suspects) republics that are centrally planned economies, Soviet style.
1Would any reader of Energy Policy disagree that these are China, USSR, Albania, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Kampuchea, Laos, Mongolia, North Korea, Poland, Romania, Vietnam and Yugoslavia? Perhaps that list is the best definition of WOCA. 2David R. Marples, Chemobyl and Nuclear Power in the USSR, Macmillan Press Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS, UK, 1987, 240 pp, £25. Marpies is a research professor at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Canada, takes particular interest in Soviet energy, and is a specialist on the Ukraine. 3Robert G. Jensen, Theodore Shabad and Arthur W. Wright (editors), Soviet Natural Resources in the World Economy, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637, USA, 1983, 719 pp, £76.50. 4The author notes the ancients' exploitation of oil springs in the CaspianCaucasus region and the worship of the 'eternal fires' of Baku. There were 52 wells in Baku in 1737, 82 in 1829. In Meyerhoff's words, 'The Czarist government anticipated the modern petroleum industry when it drilled a well for oil at what is now the giant Bibi-Eibat field in 1871 '. 5Helge Ole Bergeson, Arild Moe and Willy IZlstreng, Soviet Oil and Security Interests in the Barents Sea, Frances Pinter (Pub-
lishers) Ltd, 25 Floral Street, London WC2E 9DS, UK, 1987, 159 pp, £20. Bergeson is a senior research fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Oslo, Norway. He has special responsibility for issues of international energy and Soviet foreign policy. Moe directs Soviet studies at the same institute. Its director is Qstreng, who is also on the board of the Law of the Sea Institute, Hawaii. 6Joint Energy Programme, Chatham House, London. 7Ferdinand E. Banks, The Political Economy of Natural Gas, Croom Helm Ltd, Provident House, Burrell Row, Beckenham, Kent BR3 1AT, UK, 1987, 200 pp, £30. Banks is an associate research professor at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, and a visiting professor at the University of Stockholm, Sweden. BNot all the ironies in this book are intentional. Beginning a section on units and conversion factors the author promises to be 'more thorough than is usually the case' and almost immediately follows with a table in which the factor (he calls it a power) 1015 is said to mean a thousand million and the factor 10TM is said to mean a million million. ~Julio R. Gamba, David A. Caplin and John J. Mulckhuyse, Industrial Energy Rationalization in Developing Countries, Johns Hopkins University Press (for the World
Bank), Baltimore, MD, USA, 1986, 125 pp. 1°Vice-president, CEC. 11Anon, Energy and Development. What Challenges? Which Methods? Synthesis and Conclusions, Lavoisier Publishing AG, Ringstrasse 39, CH-4106, Therwil, Basel, Switzerland. The report was prepared for the CEC directorate-general for energy under the aegis of the following network of research centres: Arab Center for Energy Studies, Kuwait;Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand; Centro de Investigacion y Planificacion del Medio Ambiente, Santiago, Chile; Coordena~&o des Programas de P6s-Gradua~&o de Engenharia - Area Interdisciplinar de Energia, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Environment et Developpement du Tiers-Monde, Dakar, Senegal; Instituto de Economia Energetica, Bariloche, Argentina, Institut Economique et Juridique de I'Energie, Grenoble, France; Instituto de Investigaclones Electricas, Cuernavaca, Mexico; Institute of Nuclear Energy Technology, Beijing, China; Tata Energy Research Institute, New Delhi, India. 12BinaAgarwal, Cold Hearths and Barren Slopes: The Woodfuel Crisis in the Third World, Zed Books Ltd, 57 Caledonian Road, London N1 9B4, UK, 1986, 225 pp. Dr Agarwal wrote the book in this form after joining the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, India.
ENERGY P O L I C Y F e b r u a r y 1 9 8 8
ArthurConway
Harrow, UK
77
C r o e s u s
gropes
for
The acronym, WOCA, used to be translated as world outside communist areas. Current terminological exacti-
riches vast coal reserves, a goodly proportion of them in the Ukraine. The Donets
coalfield was discovered there in 1721 tude, pedantry or cant renders it as and has been mined for over a cenworld outside centrally-plannedtury, serving major concentrations of e c o n o m i e s " areas. Of the sixteen MOST population and industry in and around centrally planned economies in the the Ukraine. The field is still the world, I the one that was communist Soviets' biggest but its riches have first still tends to hog the limelight, become more and more difficult to The USSR is, after all, the other extract. So much so that, according to superpower. And it, as the archetypal Marples, despite reserves enough for centrally planned economy of our another century, coalmining has no century, might be expected to have future in the republic. The USSR's the most clearly defined and imperaofficials baulk at the technology of tive of all energy policies, working the deep, thin, steeply slopIt is difficult nowadays to think of ing seamsin the Donets basin and turn Soviet energy without the flashing, at increasingly to strip mining in Siberia. some moment arm in some mental There, and in northern Kazakhstan, recess, of the name Chernobyl. It is lie over 90% of the USSR's coal therefore totally unsurprising that a reserves. But they are remote and the book throwing light on Soviet energy climate is harsh. Thus far, the USSR policy should have been published has failed to realize the output poteuwith that name in its title. David R. tial of the Siberian and other eastern Marples actually set out to analyse the fields, Soviet nuclear power industry at large The country generates over half its but, when the Ukrainian reactor burst electricity in coalburning stations so upon the scene, the catastrophe was the difficulties of the miners go some bound to concentrate his mind and way to explaining policymakers' enalter the course of his writing. Marples thusiasm for nuclear power. Oil and is peculiarly well qualified 2 to dilate natural gas have their problems too, as on the event that took place near Kiev Marples relates. The Soviet authoron 26 April 1986, and to discourse on ities would like in the future to earn both the local and the national setting hard currency with these hydrocarof the tragedy. As he says of his bons. Meanwhile they contemplate (mapless, graphless and generally picthe export of electricity to conserve tureless) paperback, although it is a the oil, which is anyway being prostudy of the Soviet nuclear power duced at ever lower rates. Marples" industry, the emphasis is on the Ukraievidently thorough reading of the nian scene. He reports Ukrainians in Soviet press leads him to remark that, the west to have put the Chernobyl before Chernobyl, the failings of the accident down as another chapter in a oil industry were the prime economic sad twentieth century history that concern of the Soviet leaders. Again, includes a man-made famine in 1932Siberia has been the source of many of 33, the Stalinist purges of the 1930s the frustrations that have blighted the and many of the major conflicts of the hopes of past years. Marples gives the German-Soviet war of 1941-45. cost of oil production in Siberia as 'up Marples says that the Ukraine plays to six times as high as those in the an integral role in the USSR's energy Middle East'. Natural gas is the only programme. There is certainly no lack bright spot in the general gloom, the of items to programme in the USSR, a one fossil fuel of which Marples can huge country that has not yet had to report that it has caused optimism import any fuel. Among the items are over recent years. In fact, its produc-
ENERGY POLICY February 1988
century. Yet this is a relatively modest increase, writes Marples, explaining
t , , t gas reserves are to be saved as some of the more reliable hard currency earners of the future.
U r a n i u m p|tlg Because Siberia yields up its fuel resources so grudgingly the nuclear option has seemed to the central planners to be particularly apt for the Ukraine, a major energy consumer that could link the USSR more closely to her European neighbours. Even in the 1970s, the Soviet authorities were seeking supplies that could be more or less guaranteed, comments Marplcs, supplies "that did not depend on a Donbass miner working every weekend of a month, or on the Soviet railway or supply system to a distant oilfield'. The nuclear option had been up the Soviet sleeve for some time claimedly the world's first civil nuclear power station was the one at Obninsk in 1954. The time seemed ripe not just to plug an energy gap with uranium but to avoid need for Soviet oil in eastern Europe by exporting nuclear electricity to it. So the 1970s ushered in nine nuclear power stations, one of them at Chefnobyl and most of them similarly designed. With a total capacity of 12 500 MW they accounted for about 5.6% of the entire Union's electricity and 9.3% of the European supply. The five-year plan for 1981-85 was to have taken those nuclear fractions up to 14.1% and 23.8% respectively but, in Marples" words, "by the standards the Soviets have set themselves, the plan was an abject failure'. He himself dubs 'remarkable' the increase that w a s achieved, namely from 12 500 to over 25 00() MW. But that did not approach the target of 33 800 MW. Evidently, observes Marples, the USSR had, as other countries had, fallen short of schedule, even though she had no nuclear opposition to contend with and could, because of her centralized system, pour in resources. The five-year plan for 198690 remains unswervingly ambitious an output lift from 1985's 1 545 million MWh to 1 840-1 880 million MWh in
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1990, 390 million MWh of these to be nuclear compared with the 170 million MWh of 1985. The USSR is also leading the development of nuclear power in other countries of eastern Europe. The Ukraine has a key role in this, exporting nuclear electricity as well as nuclear engineering to the other countries, each of which contributes her specialities to the power plants themselves. Marples indicates that the USSR, which masterminds the programme, has thus obtained much and increasing 'leverage' over her allies, But Chernobyl has affected them. The opposition that has appeared in eastern European countries will, according to Marples, make it impossible for their governments to maintain the schedule still insisted upon at the Soviet centre. The centre thus 'flies in the face of reality', for the collaborating countries have previously failed to keep up even in the most favourable circumstances. So 'increased pressure will be placed on the leader of the programme, the USSR itself, and particularly its link-up region for East European plans, Soviet Ukraine'. The Soviet centre's emphasis on nuclear power, so clearly discerned by Marples in his modest looking paperback, obtrudes less on the energy scene as it appears to Robert G. Jensen et al 3 in a much weightier volume. This well produced, academic, almost encyclopaedic work is concerned with the Soviets' resources at large and their possible global economic role. In that wide context uranium scarcely figures, although there is allusion to the USSR's uranium enrichment services as an increasingly important part of the international nuclear fuel cycle (the uranium is supplied by the nuclear power utilities in various countries and re-exported to them after processing). As Jensen explains, the resources studied are the ones that the USSR could export sufficiently to make an impact on the world market, and that bear on western policy concerns. The energy raw materials that do appear in the chapter titles are the fossil fuels. But nuclear power is not o v e r l o o k e d . It is m e n t i o n e d by, among other contributors, Robert N. North, in relation to electricity from
74
other sources, and he notes oil's fall from favour in this connection, Electricity exports took about 1% of total Soviet output in the mid-70s, states North, and were almost all to eastern Europe. Growing demand in countries there cannot be met from local coalfired, gasfired and hydroelectric stations, he goes on, and the shortfall is to be met mainly from nuclear stations. Broadly, his and other authors' accounts in the book square with Marples' with respect to the development of nuclear power for export. As the editors point out in an article of their own, the nuclear programme is concentrated in the energyshort European USSR and the series of large stations located in the western regions adjoining eastern Europe.
believes the situation to be so bad that the country could be forced to become a net importer by the late 1980s. There is an irony in the commencement of this chapter with notes on the origin of the oil production and export business in Russia 4 and the closure with paragraphs declaring that, without the import of modern technology, over 18 years could be necessary to bring another upsurge in production. Most likely, in this author's view, is that the Soviets will buy foreign technology and restrain their own consumption, thus possibly attaining self-sufficiency. Less likely is admission of western and Japanese interests to help develop the USSR's resources.
East-West grid links?
A n o t h e r possibility mentioned by Meyerhoff is that shortages of oil and hard currency will drive Moscow to seek greater access to the oil of the Persian Gulf. More bluntly, 'a Soviet Union in desperate need of oil might plan to acquire oil fields in the Middle East'. Those words are not from the USA, however, they are from Norway. Heige Ole Bergesen et al s use them in a brief account of the Soviet oil industry. They see oil exports as the backbone of the USSR's foreign trade and they ponder the policies that might be adopted to keep the cornmerce fruitful. They find that the much debated conclusions reported by the C I A in 1977 (namely that the USSR had much smaller oil reserves than had been estimated, would reach peak oil production in a few years, would stop exporting oil and become a net importer by 1985, and would be unable sufficiently to substitute other fuels for oil) have been only partly borne out by events. Oil exports to the West reached record levels in 1982-84, during which period production peaked: 'Soviet' oil exports include quantities obtained from Middle Eastern countries in exchange for arms, and the USSR has brought in substitutes and conserved some oil (1% saved on domestic consumption lifts exports 7%). Production fell 2.9% in 1985 and exports dropped 12%, probably because of the unusually bad winter. But the Muscovite planners are not free to cut
The editors refer to discussions of possible ties between the Soviet and western European power grids and there are some details in the book of grid connections already made between the USSR and her eastern European satellites. Entering print in 1983, the editors and their contributors are unaware of the events that lead Marples to question the feasibility of these ambitions. But their studies guide them in the same direction, Marples' doubts are general, though he spotlights the nuclear aspect. Jensen does not even mention nuclear when h e c o n v e y s a s ' t h e o v e r w h e l m i n g conclusion of our analysis of the Soviet energy situation' that, despite the vast potential of the USSR's energy resources, 'the output of the three major fossil fuels cannot be expanded at a pace sufficient to enable the USSR to become more than a minor factor in world energy markets'. Jensen goes further and suggests that, with the exception of natural gas, the global energy exports of the USSR will be smaller in 1990 than in 1980. Jensen et al call oil a once mighty growth industry of the USSR, a continuingly important source of export earnings but one that now faces uncertain prospects. The industry is described in a long and comprehensive chapter covering history, technology, geology, reserves, potential and policy. The author, Arthur A. Meyerhoff,
USSR plan a c c e s s
to
Gulfoil?
ENERGY POLICY February 1988
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exports, say Bergesen et al. The USSR has grown dependent on imports essential ones - so 'the Soviet leadership will make substantial efforts to maintain hard currency earnings'. It is clear to these authors that maintenance or increase of oil exports is the key to success in the USSR. Gas exports cannot be expected to jump helpfully enough upwards before the late 1990s. The Norwegians' thumbnail sketch of energy policy Soviet-fashion shows a raising of unit energy requirements compared with the lowering in most industrial market economies: 33% more energy was consumed per unit GNP in the USSR than in the USA in 1983. Investment in oil conservation is recognized to cost as little as a third as much as investment in oil production, per barrel, but conservation has been neglected because the higher strategy has been extensive rather than intensive economic growth - increasing outputs by increasing inputs (eg of capital and manpower, energy and other natural resources) rather than by increasing the efficiency with which the inputs are converted into outputs, Such strategy fits what the authors call 'the basic design of the Soviet economic system, based on central planning and direction',
Eternal growth But for many years the scarcity of input factors has made the leadership call for intensive growth, which demands a local adaptability that the system does not foster. More economicutilization of e n e r g y a t e n t e r p r i s e level is prevented because managers have few incentives to save energy, They are allowed to reduce fuel consumption but not to switch fuels, even if they know that, say, oil is the dearer fuel, and they may switch only if the change is in the plan. Furthermore, the planners have taken physical quantities as their indicators: they lack the cost analysis that could ease optimization of costs and outputs. So they have not been prepared for reductions - 'the system presupposes eternal growth of output'. Enterprises cannot be led efficiencywards by introducing prices reflective of oil production's marginal cost because marginal costs
ENERGY POLICY February 1988
are rejected in principle and pricing is based on average production costs, Consequently oil remains relatively cheap. Oil could be most saved if it were diverted from use in power stations, a remedy that might be thought readily administrable from the centre. Nuclear power has indeed been growing fast but Chernobyl has intervened, reducing the country's generating capacity as well as delaying the development of the nuclear industry, The goal of 390 million MWh in 1990, 21% of the electricity output planned for that year, is now unattainable, as clearly to Bergesen et al as to Marples. According to the former the accident in the Ukraine just possibly could weaken nuclear enthusiasm and bring some reorientation of energy policy, Allocations in 1986 suggest that the favoured way ahead is continued reliance on oil (to avoid adapting the rest of the economy) but also on coal. Oil production is planned to be 635 Mt in 1990, 6.7% up on 1985's figure, Bergesen et al explore the options for procuring this, and then concentrate on the one that interests them particularly, the Barents Sea, a region with great potential but one in which no commercial discoveries have been made yet. Thus the Norwegian authors do not expect the Muscovite planners to go for big oil savings in the electricity generating sector by substituting natural gas as the power station fuel, a substitution that would be feasible if the necessary gas stores and transmission lines were developed. These analysts' post-Chernobyl view curiously echoes the pre-Chernobyl judgment expressed by Meyerhoff, who reports the slow progress of natural gas both as a substitute for oil inside the USSR and as an exported good. His fellow author, Jonathan P. Stern, 6 attributes possession of about a third of the world's natural gas reserves to the USSR but points out that the major deposits are in Siberia and hard to get. He thinks natural gas likely to predominate in the reduced total of Soviet energy exports at the end of the 1980s. The story from Sweden does not altogether chime with that from Norway. On the assessment of Ferdinand
E. Banks 7 there is extensive substitution of natural gas for oil in Soviet power stations, and the good news for Moscow's energists is in the gas sector. Banks believes that, despite 'occasional setbacks' (Chernobyl included) the USSR 'is bracing itself to dominate the Western European energy market by the end of the century'. For his part, Banks finds bracing the prospect of such domination by Soviet gas. He maintains that western Europe has everything to gain and nothing to lose, either politically or economically, from buying as much gas as possible from the USSR.
Monetarism Banks' contention is that the economic troubles of western industrial countries since 1973 - and nowhere more than in western Europe - have been created by some governments' lack of imagination and application of inappropriate economic theories such as monetarism, and also by the oil price shocks of the 1970s. To restore what he describes as even a semblance of the normality that existed before 1973, Banks regards an adequate supply of energy as essential for the industrial world, and he welcomes the Soviet contribution in pungent language. Negotiation should begin as soon as possible for the importation from the USSR of the huge amount of natural gas that will be needed by western Europe later this century, he urges, 'before some bright politician gets the idea that it would be better to pay a price that is 25 to 50 per cent higher for gas from some other source', s Banks reluctantly discounts nuclear power as an alternative to Soviet gas imports. He regards nuclear power as beaten only by hydroelectricity in cheapness but he considers that its political and environmental costs may be prohibitive. He has some cornments on Chernobyl. One is that the accident's main effect on Soviet planning is to deprive the non-nuclear energy sector of 5-10 billion dollarsworth of investment, for the nuclear sector will continue to be expanded as planned. Another observation is that mistakes of the sort that led to the accident must not be allowed, and that
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such technically very efficient neighbours of the USSR as Sweden should accelerate their nuclear safety research and then pass the technologyif necessary, free of charge - to the Soviets and any others that need it. Banks sees coal as a sensible option in the long run but as possibly an environmental catastrophe if a twofold or threefold increase in consump-
North-south,
of underdevelopment and emergence from that state, with particular reference to the energy sector, before they focus on their network's research. Then they delve into concepts and techniques, discourse on the choice, acquisition, processing and interpretation of data, report case studies and set forth their thoughts on how, systematically, to match a developing country's energy needs. The case studies have a chapter to themselves,
east
It may be a crumb of comfort for some southerners to know that some northerners are troubled, and even write books about, the plight of their fellow human beings on the other side. This Weltschmerz is truly on Weltscale, you might say, when the worriers are in the World Bank. As are Julio R. Gamba et al, the authors of a book 9 offered by their employer in aid of various senior people involved in industry and energy policy formulation, The writers note that industrial countries have, since the terrors of the 1970s, saved much by managing energy demand, and are still enjoying benefits although oil prices are easier. Developing countries are invited to use the present breathing space to follow suit and rationalize their energy use. Rationalization here means energy saving and fuel switching to reduce costs. It is advocated, not as an end in itself but as a part of government strategy where the aims are a better balance of payments and a generally more efficient and competitive industrial sector, Some developing countries are already on the way. In recent years they have set comprehensive programmes in train. The World Bank authors decline to judge the outcome yet though they describe the direction of change as clearly positive. They perceive that piecemeal attention to aspects of energy demand is giving way to the carrying out of national and sectoral policies and programmes, Constraints on the effective working of market mechanisms are gradually being lifted, whether by pricing or by other measures. Pricing policies are deemed harder to develop in centrally planned economies, or in mixed economies with major distortions or mar-
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tion were attempted in the next 20 years. Imports of US coal instead of Soviet gas would, in many respects, 'not be good business for Europe', he avers, 'and in the long-run Soviet coal might even prove to be less expensive', but he adds that boosting US coal exports could begood for western Europe if it helped to prolong the economic upswing in the USA.
and
west
ket rigidities, but the innovatory pricing policies tried in such countries as China, Romania and Hungary are thought to have given experience that
modestly presented as in no way pretending to analyse local energy problems exhaustively. As the authors explain, they just thought it would be useful to share some provisonal conclusions.
could be useful to others. In fact, One of their topics, the role of wood much has been learnt in all the and charcoal, is, they admit, a subject rationalizing countries, and the les- that has been emphasized over and sons are retailed by the authors. They over again. But they tell how case show how to design, start, carry out studies provided the network with and monitor programmes, and they information on the use of wood and mention the essential roles of govern- charcoal, and how analysis of the data ment and the possible contributions of enabled the researchers to challenge development and financial institutions simplistic assertions. The need to base (including the World Bank). forecasts and planning on numerous Investment support is the main fea- data is thus made clear, the authors ture of the cooperation offered to suggest, and the validity of the analyThird World states by the European tical approach is brought out. Community but, according to Etienne Energy forecasting or energy planDavignon, 1° the Community has also ning may be more important, they played a helpful part in the devising of infer at the end, than the energy techniques for energy analysis and sector's size in an economy might management. Mere transfer of the suggest, which is a truth extending techniques used in the industrial world northwards as well as suffusing the would fail, and more soin this connec- south. But a more particular, and a tion than in any other, writes Davig- more poignant, observation that they n o n i n hispreface to a b o o k summariz- also make concerns 'the dramatic ing the results of study by an inter- effects of the world crisis on the national network of research balance of payments of numerous organizations. II Their joint en- developing countries'. The energy deavours were in quest of innovatory constraint bears heavily here, and the analytical, forecasting and decision authors think it may stimulate search methods for developing countries, for new development styles. which they believe to possess common characteristics distinguishing them clearly from industrial ones. The tradi- T o p down methods deplored tional methods for industrialcountries Returning from generalities to hard are mentioned only to stress their cases: omission from the subject matter. The boast is that the project made con- Both ex-post and ex-ante evaluation of tinuous south-south cooperation woodfuel-related schemes are an integral part of effective scheme choice and implepossible, as well as north-south. The mentation. No single method of evaluation product is a set of 'methodological or data gathering can be deemed appropritools' that 'will be used in forecasting ate under all circumstances, and usually a studies, energy planning operations mix of different types of evaluation exerand energy policy choices', cises (continuous monitoring and longterm appraisal), different techniques of The authors examine the character data gathering (questionnaires, group dis-
ENERGY POLICY February 1988
Book wal('h cussions+ games) and different analytical tools would be needed to arrive at an adequate assessment, However, this time we hear not the network choir but a single voice. It comes from one of the countries represented in the network, India, and it reinforces some of the message conveyed in the CEC report. Dr Biua Agarwal has greatly revised the mongraph she wrote in 1980 as a research fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, before the 'firewood crisis' had been fully recognized by energists. Her book I+ does not, alas, bring news of triumph over the problem, Although policymakers saw and see the problem, their programmes did and continue to rely on technological improvements, laments Agarwal, for she does not see solution in the laboratory or the workshop. For her, the problem is "rooted in the sociopolitics of poverty and structural inequalities, and the associated maldistribution of scarce natural resources
between uses and users'. She deplores the top down methods ofimplementation, usually involving bureaucrats heavily but the rural poor hardly at all, and she is as unsurprised by the small popularity of better stoves as she is by the frustration of village woodlot schemes that require communal cooperation. She claims that her 1980 monograph's criticisms of woodfuel programmes are "even more valid today - strengthened and substantiated by many more instances of usually predictable scheme failures', Agarwal's paperback is a critique of the hardware improvement and tree planting approaches to solution of the woodfuel problem in Third World countries. Many of the people for whom the wood stoves are intended are too poor to buy even a very cheap specimen. Imposed silviculture excites hostility. The author reasons that 'some fundamental restructuring towards equality in the social and economic base of many Third World countries, as well as changes at the
ideological level, would need to be a necessary part of efforts to alleviate the woodfuel crisis' but she thinks it unlikely that such a restructuring will come from above. Rather does she look to 'grass roots organizations of the underprivileged' for the pressure to bring change about. She detects a glimmer of hope in the emergence, in some countries, of ecological protest movements among tribal and other rural communities, and also of urban groups p r o m o t i n g e n v i r o n m e n t a l awareness. In Agarwal's view people want not merely to defend themselves against state policies but also to restore +the lost balance between society and nature'. Maybe hers is a call for Third World revolutions of a kind, with some sorts of people's republics at the end of them, but not (one suspects) republics that are centrally planned economies, Soviet style.
1Would any reader of Energy Policy disagree that these are China, USSR, Albania, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Kampuchea, Laos, Mongolia, North Korea, Poland, Romania, Vietnam and Yugoslavia? Perhaps that list is the best definition of WOCA. 2David R. Marples, Chemobyl and Nuclear Power in the USSR, Macmillan Press Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS, UK, 1987, 240 pp, £25. Marpies is a research professor at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Canada, takes particular interest in Soviet energy, and is a specialist on the Ukraine. 3Robert G. Jensen, Theodore Shabad and Arthur W. Wright (editors), Soviet Natural Resources in the World Economy, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637, USA, 1983, 719 pp, £76.50. 4The author notes the ancients' exploitation of oil springs in the CaspianCaucasus region and the worship of the 'eternal fires' of Baku. There were 52 wells in Baku in 1737, 82 in 1829. In Meyerhoff's words, 'The Czarist government anticipated the modern petroleum industry when it drilled a well for oil at what is now the giant Bibi-Eibat field in 1871 '. 5Helge Ole Bergeson, Arild Moe and Willy IZlstreng, Soviet Oil and Security Interests in the Barents Sea, Frances Pinter (Pub-
lishers) Ltd, 25 Floral Street, London WC2E 9DS, UK, 1987, 159 pp, £20. Bergeson is a senior research fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Oslo, Norway. He has special responsibility for issues of international energy and Soviet foreign policy. Moe directs Soviet studies at the same institute. Its director is Qstreng, who is also on the board of the Law of the Sea Institute, Hawaii. 6Joint Energy Programme, Chatham House, London. 7Ferdinand E. Banks, The Political Economy of Natural Gas, Croom Helm Ltd, Provident House, Burrell Row, Beckenham, Kent BR3 1AT, UK, 1987, 200 pp, £30. Banks is an associate research professor at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, and a visiting professor at the University of Stockholm, Sweden. BNot all the ironies in this book are intentional. Beginning a section on units and conversion factors the author promises to be 'more thorough than is usually the case' and almost immediately follows with a table in which the factor (he calls it a power) 1015 is said to mean a thousand million and the factor 10TM is said to mean a million million. ~Julio R. Gamba, David A. Caplin and John J. Mulckhuyse, Industrial Energy Rationalization in Developing Countries, Johns Hopkins University Press (for the World
Bank), Baltimore, MD, USA, 1986, 125 pp. 1°Vice-president, CEC. 11Anon, Energy and Development. What Challenges? Which Methods? Synthesis and Conclusions, Lavoisier Publishing AG, Ringstrasse 39, CH-4106, Therwil, Basel, Switzerland. The report was prepared for the CEC directorate-general for energy under the aegis of the following network of research centres: Arab Center for Energy Studies, Kuwait;Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand; Centro de Investigacion y Planificacion del Medio Ambiente, Santiago, Chile; Coordena~&o des Programas de P6s-Gradua~&o de Engenharia - Area Interdisciplinar de Energia, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Environment et Developpement du Tiers-Monde, Dakar, Senegal; Instituto de Economia Energetica, Bariloche, Argentina, Institut Economique et Juridique de I'Energie, Grenoble, France; Instituto de Investigaclones Electricas, Cuernavaca, Mexico; Institute of Nuclear Energy Technology, Beijing, China; Tata Energy Research Institute, New Delhi, India. 12BinaAgarwal, Cold Hearths and Barren Slopes: The Woodfuel Crisis in the Third World, Zed Books Ltd, 57 Caledonian Road, London N1 9B4, UK, 1986, 225 pp. Dr Agarwal wrote the book in this form after joining the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, India.
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