As I was slowly waking up, reading the Guardian yesterday morning, waiting for the kettle to boil and the toaster to pop, suddenly the lights flickered and went out.  “Damn, another power cut” I thought, “not to worry, it’ll come on again in a minute.”  We live at the far end of the energy distribution system, so cuts are not uncommon, but are usually short.

On the drive to work I began to reflect on how essential energy is to the way we live our lives.  I had to stop reading the paper, because it was too dark.  The heating went off.  I had orange juice and cereal for breakfast instead of the usual coffee and toast.  I showered by candlelight (which was quite nice really) and left for work with wet hair.   None of this ruined my day and I was able to adapt my routine so the inconvenience was minimal. 

But for many people in the developing world – 1.6 billion people in total – life without energy is a permanent feature.  Cooking the meal can only be started when wood has been collected for the fire.  Students can only study during the hours of daylight, or risk their eyesight with candlelight.  Small businesses that could benefit from labour saving devices such as electric sewing machines and power saws are stuck with slower, less efficient equipment.  There are no refrigerators to keep fresh food edible for longer or machines to grind your grain into flour.  Everything must be done by hand – and it is hard, time consuming work.

It is not as though it would be hard to put an end to this energy divide.  Practical Action have been working with communities to install small scale renewable wind and micro hydro systems for many years.   Main tenance training for community members is an essential part of these schemes, so they can be kept in good working order.  These villages can look forward to a more prosperous and productive future.   For a relatively small investment in global terms, this prosperity could be extended to the rest of the 1.6 billion.  And this is the icing on the cake – its practically carbon free.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 11:49 am and is filed under Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.