One of the most curious facts about energy is that economies use more of it even as they use it more efficiently. This strikes us as strange because many of us have heard that making cars, buildings, and factories more energy efficient is the key to cheaply and quickly reducing energy consumption, and thus pollution.
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IEA: Cookstoves are great but energy poverty still looms large on the horizon
The IEA said in an excerpt of its 2010 World Energy Outlook that some 1.2 billion people, equivalent to China’s population, would still have no electricity by 2030 if governments made no change to existing policies, down from 1.4 billion currently. The $36 billion per year only represented 3 percent of global energy investments projected by the agency to 2030.
Marketing to the BoP, the death of appropriate technology, and false green solutions
Best of the Web, Monday, 13th September (Click on the titles to read the full story.) 1. If you’re trying to sell stoves or briquettes to the energy poor, then this one’s for you! Marketing to the bottom of the pyramid – Almost a third of the world’s population earns $2.50 or less a day. The enormity of this disparity takes my breath away, but there’s an interesting flip side to it: That’s a market of more than five billion dollars a day. Add the next segment ($5 a day) and it’s easy to see that every single day, the Continue reading
The Twitteruniverse roundup: MDG failure, money talks, mapping the biosphere, and delivering energy to the energy-poor
Folks, We’re back from Labor Day, the long weekend that marks the unofficial end of summer and the start of the rest of the business year here in America. Before we launch into a new, fresh round of stories about energy poverty alleviation and energy efficient biomass combustion solutions, we want to share with you a roundup of stories that caught our attention on the Twitterverse over the week-end. UN researchers say its 15-year anti-poverty plan fails to address jobs, income equality. – “The United Nations is ignoring the critical role of jobs and income equality in its 15-year strategy Continue reading
Tanzania: Charcoal-making in five easy pieces
We published last month an interview with Dennis Tessier of ARTI-TZ, a Tanzania-based non-profit working to promote the manufacturing and marketing of briquettes made from the char produced in improved charcoal kilns. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Tanzania’s forests are disappearing at a whopping rate of 4,200 square kilometers (1,620 sq. miles) annually. That’s about four times the size of New York City or half the size of Virunga National Park in the DRC. In our Q&A with Dennis he mentioned ARTI-Tanzania’s Waste to Wealth (W2W) project and we wanted to find out more. Below Continue reading