POVERTY: World Bank Energy Strategy Must Address Energy Poverty and Climate Change

Athena Ballesteros and Tom Nagle : March 10, 2011


Solar panel used for lighting village homes, Sri Lanka. Photo credit: flickr/World Bank

In consultations, a range of countries and interest groups have called for an energy strategy that supports sustainable development.
The World Bank is in the final stages of drafting a new energy strategy due late April 2011. The strategy has drawn so much attention because of its potential to address two major challenges confronting developing countries – energy poverty and climate change. While the strategy could be an opportunity for the institution to tackle both challenges simultaneously, some stakeholders are concerned that it may sway too much in one direction, addressing one challenge while undermining the other.
To balance these differing opinions, the World Bank embarked on an eight month consultative process with input from client and donor countries, civil society, the private sector, and others (see Box 1). We studied the reports of the consultations carefully to distill important messages emerging from the process. There appears to be some areas of resounding agreement, while in other areas, differing perspectives emerged. The overarching message delivered to the World Bank is a demand for investments in the energy sector that produce sustainable development outcomes.

Areas of Agreement
Many stakeholders have prompted the World Bank to shift its focus to small-scale, distributed, renewable energy-based generation technologies such as solar home lighting systems or village micro-grids powered by run-of-river mini hydropower systems. Such technologies can directly address the largely unmet energy needs of the 1.5 billion poor without access to electricity, particularly in rural areas. This message was consistently delivered in various parts of the world. For example:
At the meeting in Nairobi, the private sector called for a focus on renewable technologies due to the abundance of resources on the continent, while government participants pointed to its cost-effectiveness in the long-run. Participants from academia and think tanks highlighted the efficacy of decentralized renewable energy systems in meeting the economic and social needs of the poor.
Similarly, in Laos, non-governmental organizations pointed to the impacts of the export-oriented hydropower project (Nam Theun 2) on the resource-dependent poor. Participants from the private sector and the public utilities recommended that future energy investments focus on tapping local renewable resources, including solar and hydropower, to meet the income-generating needs of the poor within the country.
In the Netherlands, the government expressed a preference for the World Bank to avoid commercially viable centralized generation projects, while Dutch private sector and NGO participants pointed out that decentralized generation would have the greatest poverty reduction impacts.
Such consensus also emerged from diverse interest groups and countries on the value of the World Bank investing in energy efficiency, supporting integrated resource planning in the energy sector and across sectors, and modernizing household fuels for cooking and heating.

Areas of Disagreement
The areas where stakeholders diverged have been familiar issues of contention on the World Bank Board. In some cases, differences of opinion between interest groups within the same country came to light. One of the most hotly contested issues was the World Bank’s role in fossil fuel lending. For example:
In Bangladesh, participants from the private sector, public utilities, and some members of parliament argued strongly against any prohibitions on the continued development of their abundant domestic coal resources, as they see it as a constraint on the country’s development goals. In contrast, the Bangladeshi government expressed a preference for developing low carbon energy sources and using coal-based resources only in exceptional cases.
In consultations with African energy ministers, South Africa argued against the World Bank discontinuing lending for fossil fuel-based projects claiming that they have no viable alternatives for baseload power vital to their pursuit of economic growth and industrialization. Instead, they prefer to see the World Bank invest in cleaner coal technologies, while simultaneously investing in renewables.
Among stakeholders in Europe, there remained concerns that continuing World Bank investments in carbon intensive fuel technologies would counteract its efforts to mitigate climate change, leading to demands for a definitive phase out of fossil fuel lending.
Similarly, there were other issues that elicited a spectrum of responses including energy subsidy reform, financing additional costs of lower carbon projects, and large scale hydropower dams.

Our Recommendations for the World Bank
The World Bank’s leadership may find it challenging to balance all the diverse interests in one strategy document. However, what they can do is put in place a set of procedures that will allow them to objectively evaluate trade-offs and make investment decisions that support the sustainable development priorities of their clients. Such procedures, as we have argued earlier, should include:
Undertaking options assessments to investigate and transparently disclose the full range of energy options available to meet a client country’s demand before moving forward with any investment. Such assessments should be based on integrated planning processes at appropriate levels (regional, national or sub-national) that take into account resource availability and use in the energy and other sectors.
Valuing the net costs of shifting to low-carbon alternatives through the use of GHG Accounting tools to calculate the volume of emissions from projects as well as the use of pricing methods, such as market prices or shadow prices, to calculate the value of reducing or avoiding emissions in alternative options. This will help the World Bank assess the additional resources required from climate change funds to buy down the higher costs of lower carbon options. On a broader level, GHG accounting will also help the institution manage and reduce the emissions of its overall investment portfolio.
Engaging stakeholders in inclusive and transparent processes when making investment decisions to ensure equitable, pragmatic and sustainable outcomes.
Adopting robust environmental and social standards for energy investments, particularly large hydropower given its serious ecological and social footprint. Although designed for the private sector, many of the environmental, social, and human rights standards articulated in the draft IFC performance standards would provide a strong basis for safeguards at the World Bank. The energy strategy would also need to articulate standards for providing accessible means for dispute resolution for affected stakeholders.
We believe that the writing on the wall is clear – stakeholders across countries and interest groups would like the World Bank to devise an energy strategy that supports sustainable development in developing countries. It is imperative that World Bank leadership not dismiss the often polarizing debates as unnecessary noise, but instead hear the clarion call for meaningful reform in defining the institution’s role in promoting a sustainable energy future.


Tom Nagle is a research intern for the International Financial Flows and the Environment project at WRI. He is also pursuing a Masters degree in International Relations and Environmental Policy at Boston University focused on the nexus of energy and economic development.

http://www.wri.org/stories/2011/03/world-bank-energy-strategy-must-address-energy-poverty-and-climate-change

POVERTY: For Energy Poverty, Necessity is the Mother of Innovation

 03.07.11,  Cory Connolly
.

In the bone chilling cold of the high Bolivian Altiplano are numerous rural isolated villages. These villages have existed on subsistence agriculture and without electrification for centuries. In this region of the world, unique and innovative strategies to survive and cope with local circumstances are part of everyday life. With the help of hi-tech innovation in the developed world, developing nations like Bolivia can find innovative ways to pull themselves out of energy poverty.
As an example, the resilient inhabitants of Bolivia have been chewing coca leaves to combat altitude sickness for centuries; this age-old remedy is impossible to fully appreciate until you have personally been relieved of a splitting altitude induced headache. If visiting the Altiplano, you’re likely to finish chewing your coca leaves and look up to see your host pull out a cell phone that has been charged by a solar panel. While seemingly odd given the local circumstances, it shouldn’t be unexpected. In developing Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in South America, solar resources are abundant and 3 million of the country’s 10 million people live without electricity access. In fact, solar panels and solar water heaters are a relatively common site along the roadside in Bolivia and in rural villages.
So how is this still costly technology finding a foot hold in Bolivia? The developing world is more apt, in some cases, to find ingenious and efficient applications for technology. Imagine seeing someone charging their phone from a solar panel in New York City, it’s almost as odd as imagining a person chewing coca leaves as they climb the Empire State building. Yet the adage holds true, necessity and circumstance drive innovation, and developing countries aren’t short on necessity or challenging circumstances.
For six months I traveled through South America: in Bolivia and Ecuador I saw energy systems off of the grid in isolated communities; in Colombia and Peru I saw solar water heaters in rural and urban centers; and in all of these countries I saw examples of extreme energy poverty. Latin America, like much of the developing world, has a serious need and demand for cheap and clean energy.

Clean Energy Poverty
Today, nearly 3 billion people are living without regular access to electricity while approximately 1.5 billion people have no access to electricity at all. A recent piece by Natalie Relich emphasizes the implications that this lack of energy has on education, health, gender, hunger, poverty, and other millennium development goals (MDG). Energy poverty exacerbates the various plights of the developing world and, conversely, if alleviated, has the potential to diminish many of the world’s hardships. In a report released in June 2010, the UNDP found that access to energy has a “boosting” effect in achieving the millennium development goals.
An EIA report projects that world energy consumption will increase 49% from 2007 levels by 2035. Of this growth, it projects that the majority will come from increased fossil fuel capacity in the developing world. Improving access to energy, whether through increasing generation or improving distribution, is a key goal for international development, and it is critical that the energy that fills this gap is clean energy.
According to the EIA energy 2010 energy outlook in 2007, only about 18% of global electricity was generated by clean energy (primarily hydro-electric), while coal accounted for approximately 42% of global energy. Coal and other fossil fuels are used throughout the globe, in the developed and developing world alike, and dependence on such fuels is detrimental for a nation’s energy security, the environment, and as Michael Levi of CFR points out, is potentially detrimental to a nation’s image.
Transitioning from traditional forms of energy to clean energy will require technological breakthroughs and the necessary investments in R&D to achieve them. Making clean energy cheap must be a central goal of America and the rest of the developed world. An example from a National Geographic article is illuminating:
“…a biogas digester that takes less than a day to turn kitchen scraps and other organic waste into clean-burning methane that can be used for cooking and electricity would cost $400. ‘For people living on $2 a day, this is a tough investment,’ said Culhane. But with help to buy such systems for groups of residents, communities could easily switch from primitive cookstoves and tackle waste-related health problems at the same time.”
While providing help to buy such systems would be beneficial, if the US can develop cheap and scalable energy technologies, like these, both the producer and the purchaser would benefit greatly. And for the US, not only will developments in clean energy technology gain it economic competitiveness and energy security, but will also help to improve its international image.
Many will argue that increasing access to energy shouldn’t necessarily prioritize access to clean energy; however, increasing access to energy without it being clean energy will only address some of the problems that energy poverty creates. Energy from traditional polluting sources has negative health impacts, has the potential to cause political turmoil, and has detrimental effects on the environment and climate. As Paul Epstein has pointed out in the past, those that are afflicted by energy poverty are also those people most likely to be vulnerable to the impacts of climate change in areas such as health, education, hunger, and poverty. Energy from traditional sources will help alleviate some immediate concerns from energy poverty, but will create potentially more disastrous impacts for the world’s most vulnerable populations down the road and continue to leave the world in clean energy poverty.
As we look to the future we need to develop innovative practices and technologies that will deliver clean energy to the developed world as well as the developing world, and in doing so, we have the opportunity eliminate clean energy poverty.

Open Clean Energy Innovation
Innovation is defined as a new idea, method, or device. A new device or invention is a critical component of advancing a clean energy agenda for the United States and the world. Making clean energy cheap through invention can be complemented by innovation in practice and use of such technologies. Innovative uses of technologies can lead to efficiency, can create markets, and can address a variety of needs. In the developing world, innovative uses of technology seem to come as second nature as such populations face pressing challenges on a daily basis.
In South American cities like Curitiba, Brazil and Medellin, Colombia world class transportation systems—using technologies largely developed in other parts of the world—help limit greenhouse gas emissions and transport people from place to place using innovative designs and methods. In Peru, solar panels are allowing for rural internet access in 130 Andean communities for the first time. If the US can supply the technological innovation, then the developing world will, out of necessity, provide the methodological innovation. Combine technological innovation with innovative methods of application and we might develop solutions to energy poverty.
Nearly two years ago a presentation by Clay Shirky, a professor at NYU, gave State Department officials a new perspective on innovation and development. The presentation, given at the State Department as an attempt to inject new energy and ideas into development and foreign policy, primarily focused on social networking and communication, yet its lessons can be more widely applied. Shirky emphasized that more than any other time in history, due to the spread of technology and social media, innovation has the ability to be a multidirectional process. Traditionally innovative technology and practices travel from the developed world to the developing, but with the spread of various enabling technologies and social media this is no longer the case—innovation is just as likely to arise in the developing world and travel to the developed.
His simple example is easily extrapolated to other technologies and circumstances: citizens in Nigeria used frontline SMS technology to monitor elections in 2007. This strategy pioneered in the developing world has now been seen in action in elections in the United States and other developed countries. It doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to see innovative uses of clean technologies also originating in the developing world.
It’s often said that “necessity is the mother of invention” and who knows more about necessity than the people living in the developing world? Granted, innovation in clean energy production and distribution is an expensive undertaking with a record $243 billion invested in clean energy globally in 2010. In this sense the developed world and large, rapidly developing countries like China maintain an advantage, but in the developing world more problems lead to a need for more solutions.
What seems likely is that developing countries will innovate in practice and uses, while the developed world will address more expensive technical solutions. Innovated uses will surely effect technological goals, the products of which will be uniquely suited to address energy poverty. Clean energy, its advancement, and its production will benefit both parties where they need it most: jobs in the US and electricity in the developing world. We must invest in innovative clean energy generation, distribution, and energy efficiency, but we also must not be afraid to look to the developing world for organic and innovative uses and applications of existing and future technologies.
One such avenue for this sharing of information, and a way to facilitate this exchange, is through the voluntary carbon market that exists in the US. The United States did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol; however, the US is the center of the $387 million dollar voluntary carbon market. This offers a possible forum for exchanges in innovative technologies and applications of technologies. Government initiatives to encourage voluntary carbon reductions and carbon offsets can help garner innovative development of clean energy abroad and at home as a complement to government funding for clean energy research.
For example, the US DOE program Climate Leaders helps companies identify and meet voluntary goals through onsite reductions and the purchase of carbon offsets (domestically and internationally). Voluntary offsets are typically cheaper and more open to new technologies than the regulated CDM or the EU-ETS. This gives US companies and investors a chance to try different technologies and practices to reduce emissions and offers a natural way for technology and funding to be transferred to areas with the necessity and circumstances that will drive innovative usage.

Seeking Boredom
When the US and the Soviet Union engaged in an all out “Space Race” driving innovation and competition in satellite technology and space travel, the benefits weren’t confined to the two competitors’ borders. Satellite technology now helps us watch television, use GPS, track weather patterns, monitor deforestation in the Amazon, and has aided global society in myriad of other ways. As we look forward, energy is the central piece to global development, stability, and resilience. Clearly, innovation will be critical to any US strategy in competing in clean energy and in a clean economy. To transition away from carbon intensive fuels to clean fuels will present the developed world with its own set of challenges, different than installing clean energy in places that are seeking electrification for the first time. US innovation in clean technology will benefit the globe and international development goals; simultaneously, understanding the needs, circumstances, and potential contributions of the developing world will also aid the US push for an economy of innovation.
Clay Shirky has been quoted saying that “…tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.” Shirky, a social media guru, was referring to social media and cell phones in this context, but the quote can also be applied to clean technology. We need to make clean energy technology like solar panels and wind turbines, so cheap, scalable, and “boring” that they can be used throughout the developing world. Once technological innovation in clean energies has taken hold then we will see how innovative uses and implementation originating in the developing world can provide new solutions for the world as a whole.
http://leadenergy.org/2011/03/for-energy-poverty-necessity-is-the-mother-of-innovation/

POVERTY: Seawater greenhouse plan for Jordan

Hanan Al Kiswany : 9 February 2011

 Artist's impression of the Aqaba demonstration centre: The Sahara Forest Project Foundation/Screenergy

[AMMAN] Seawater greenhouses, solar power plants and other new green technologies will be brought together in Jordan in an attempt to turn its desert into a producer of crops, fresh water and electricity.
The governments of Jordan and Norway signed an agreement last month (11 January) to build a 20-hectare demonstration centre near Aqaba on the Red Sea. They will work with the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) and the Sahara Forest Project (SFP), an environmental technology group based in Norway, to start building the centre in 2012, and expect it to be operating by 2015.
The project would channel sea water into the desert where 'greenhouses' would be able to grow crops without any need to pipe fresh water. This is achieved by evaporating the seawater on grilles at the entrance to the greenhouse so that the air which is entering becomes moist and cool. As it leaves the greenhouse the air is then exposed to heating and cooling, at the end of which pure water condenses out and can be used to water the greenhouse crops.
The concentrated solar power plant, which uses the sun's heat to create steam that drives a turbine to produce electricity, would power the greenhouse and in turn be cooled by greenhouse water.
"The Jordanian government supports investing in such technologies that could help save water in a country suffering water scarcity," Mohammed S. Turk, chief executive officer of the Aqaba Development Corporation (ADC), told SciDev.Net. He said the project would provide a cheaper way to desalinate water for use in desert land reclamation than current desalination technologies, but added that the "feasibility studies that will be done on it will show if it will be successful in Jordan or not".
"This project will face many challenges, such as cost, expandability, sustainability and system reliability in sometimes harsh desert conditions in Jordan," Issa Batarseh, president of the Princess Sumaya University for Technology, told SciDev.Net.
According to Batarseh, there are two further advantages for Jordan in hosting such a project. The first is that it will raise public awareness about green technology. The second is the opportunity it will provide for Jordanian engineers and researchers to gain hands-on experience and the expertise needed to make these technologies suitable for large-scale production.
"I expect this system to be very expensive in capital cost, but it might prove to be profitable in the long run," said Anwar M. Battikhi, professor of soil physics and irrigation at the University of Jordan. "Instead of conventional crops, like tomatoes, cucumber and watermelon … the centre would plant profitable crops, like strawberries, flowers and hybrid seed, aimed for export to Western markets."
According to the agreement, Jordan will provide the 20-hectare site in the Aqaba governorate, 360 kilometres south of the capital, Amman, and a corridor to pipe sea water from the Red Sea, and Norway will provide US$600,000 for three feasibility studies. Further investment from the private sector is also expected for the construction of the demonstration centre.
If the project is economically successful, the Aqaba authorities will provide another 200 hectares for expansion, Turk said.
The world's first commercial example of a seawater greenhouse, a 2,000-square-metre unit in Port Augusta, Australia, harvested its first crop of tomatoes in December.

http://www.scidev.net/en/news/seawater-greenhouse-plan-for-jordan-.html

POVERTY: Solar power

Solar power could help alleviate rural poverty. David J. Grimshaw and Sian Lewis shine a light on its progress, potential and pitfalls.
Increasing access to energy is critical to ensuring socioeconomic development in the world's poorest countries.
An estimated 1.5 billion people in developing countries have no access to electricity, with more than 80 per cent of these living in sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia. [1]
The problem is most acute in remote areas: 89 per cent of people in rural sub-Saharan Africa live without electricity, which is more than twice the proportion (46 per cent) in urban areas. [1]
For these people, even access to a small amount of electricity could lead to life-saving improvements in agricultural productivity, health, education, communications and access to clean water.
Options for expanding access to electricity in developing countries tend to focus on increasing centralised energy from fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal, by expanding grid electricity. But this approach has little benefit for the rural poor. Grid extension in these areas is either impractical or too expensive.
Neither does this strategy help tackle climate change. Power already accounts for 26 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and while most of this comes from the developed world, by 2030 developing countries are predicted to use 70 per cent more total annual energy than developed nations.[2]
There is therefore a clear need for pro-poor, low-carbon ways to improve access to electricity in the developing world — solar power could be one such solution.
Place in the sun
The Earth receives more solar energy in one hour than the world population consumes in an entire year.
Almost all developing countries have enormous solar power potential — most of Africa, for example, has around 325 days of strong sunlight a year, delivering, on average, more than 6 kWh energy per square metre a day (see Figure 1).
The Desertec Foundation, a joint German and Jordanian company, estimates that covering just one per cent of global deserts in solar panels could power the whole world.
http://www.scidev.net/en/features/solar-power-for-the-poor-facts-and-figures-1.html