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Energy and environmental challenges for developed and developing countries
Author(s) -
Ottinger Richard L.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
natural resources forum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.646
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1477-8947
pISSN - 0165-0203
DOI - 10.1111/j.1477-8947.1992.tb00543.x
Subject(s) - developing country , per capita , capital (architecture) , business , energy consumption , energy (signal processing) , energy supply , natural resource economics , capital cost , consumption (sociology) , economics , economic growth , engineering , macroeconomics , population , social science , demography , statistics , mathematics , archaeology , sociology , electrical engineering , history
A supply‐oriented strategy which accepts current projections of development energy demands, and seeks to satisfy them, based on acquiring capital‐intensive technologies requiring imported fuels is doomed to failure. Developing countries which follow such a strategy will be unable to meet either their energy needs or the basic development needs of their people. To the extent that their energy needs are thus met, it will be at horrendous cost of capital desperately needed for economic and social improvement in non‐energy sectors and with tragic environmental consequences to the developing countries and to the world [17]. The opposite of a supply‐oriented strategy is a demand‐control one. Commercially available or near commercial energy efficient technologies will permit the developing countries to raise the standard of living of their people with only a modest increase in per capita energy consumption.