lower capital intensiveness of a decentralized system 

 can be very attractive. 



Past experience has shown that eliminating gross 

 poverty in rural areas of developing countries will 

 necessitate a much higher per capita consumption of 

 energy. Achieving this goal by the turn of the century 

 with conventional commercial fuels might require more 

 petroleum than known world resources can provide even 

 if developed countries reduce their petroleum 

 consumption (Overseas Development Council 1977) . Thus 

 developing countries are almost forced to look 

 elsewhere for fuels for their rural populations. A 

 slowdown of population growth in addition to the 

 development and highly efficient use of indigenous 

 renewable resources are the most promising directions 

 in which to look. 



Rationale for Selecting this Topic 



Developing countries are aware of the seriousness 

 of their energy supply situation and are seeking 

 alternatives to conventional energy resources and 

 technologies, particularly in the case of wood fuel and 

 agriculture. Recent studies of energy use in rural 

 areas of Asia, Africa, and Latin America have shown 

 that noncommercial energy sources — wood fuel, crop 

 residues, dung — supply between 61 and 96 percent of the 

 total energy used. Between 69 and 97 percent of this 

 energy is used for domestic purposes, mostly for 

 cooking (Revelle 1978) . Firewood for cooking is in 

 increasingly short supply, resulting in rising costs, 

 increased foraging distances, accelerated 

 deforestation, and increased use of agricultural 

 residues and dung as fuel instead of as fertilizer. 

 Agricultural productivity is becoming more difficult to 

 maintain or is dropping because of the rising cost of 

 manufactured nitrogen fertilizers, the reduced 

 availability of dung which is being used as cooking 

 fuel, and higher cost of irrigation pumping by diesel 

 pumpsets. Moreover, additional energy is needed in 

 rural areas for agricultural mechanization and for 

 rural industry. 



The choice of energy technology and energy 

 resources — renewable or nonrenewable, indigenous or 

 imported — made by developing countries will have a 

 long-term impact on their overall development. On the 

 one hand, large-scale, centralized technologies will 

 mean increased dependence on nonrenewable fossil fuels 

 or a commitment to nuclear energy. On the other hand, 

 small-scale, decentralized energy systems (e.g., solar 

 heating and generation of steam and electricity, 

 windmills, small-scale hydroelectric plants) will be 



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