An inhabitant of the African continent consumes an average of 13 times less energy than a European and 26 times less than an American. The challenge is to reduce these inequities even as world population rises and access to energy resources becomes increasingly difficult.

Just like access to water, access to energy is a condition for social and economic development. Energy is vital for every aspect of life: it converts heat into cold, cold into heat, moves people and objects, and provides light and communication, among many other things. But as the world's population grows and demand rises, the obstacles to its availability and use loom larger today than ever. The challenge of the 21st century will be to supply energy in sufficient quantity to everyone while limiting the environmental effects.

Demand for energy has exploded since the beginning of the 20th century, in tandem with the world's rising population and economic growth. In 2005, world consumption of primary energy was 10.5 billion toe. Oil is the dominant source of energy (36.4%), followed by coal (27.8%), natural gas (23.5%), hydropower (6.3%) and nuclear power (6%). The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that world demand for primary energy could reach 16.5 billion toe by 2030 at an average economic growth rate of 3.2% and world population of more than 8.1 billion people, 80% of whom live in developing countries.

Inequitable consumption

Where is most primary energy consumed on our planet? Asia comes first. In 2005, with its population exploding and economies thriving, it consumed 3.4 billion toe, or almost 32.5% of the world total. North America comes second, at 26.6%, with the voracious appetite its consumers have for energy. The European Union, with its less dynamic economic growth and energy conservation programs in various member nations, is only in third place, at 16.3%. Which countries consume the most? Not surprisingly, the developed countries (i.e. member nations of the OECD and the former USSR), whose population of around 1.5 billion people consumes 6.5 billion toe. The other 4.5 billion human beings on Earth consume 4 billion toe. In other words, 25% of the world's people consume 62% of its primary energy. The correlation between energy utilization and human development is evident, but it's difficult to establish causal links. Usually, energy has an indirect influence on indicators such as malnutrition, life expectancy at birth, or access to potable water. Nonetheless, energy consumption mirrors the inequalities among peoples and is indicative of different standards of  living. The disparities are striking when consumption is measured by number of inhabitants rather than by region or economic center. In 2003, a European consumed an average of 4 toe per year (4.41 for a Frenchman), while an inhabitant of the African continent consumed about 0.3 toe – that's 13 times less.

If everyone on the planet consumed as much energy as the average European, we would have consumed about 30 billion toe rather than the 10 billion actually recorded! An energy system that tolerates such inequity is neither sustainable nor acceptable, since there can be no development without energy. Yet it's difficult to identify an "ideal" consumption level. Are the energy needs of each inhabitant met with 0.52 toe, as in India, or with 7.84 toe, as in the United States?

Electricity's disenfranchised

About 1.6 billion people had no access to electricity in 2002. According to the IEA, there will still be 1.4 billion disenfranchised in 2030. Most of them live in Asia and Africa and, to a lesser extent, in South America. For the IEA, Africa is the only area where the number of people deprived of electricity will increase by 2030. Local programs, mainly power generation systems based on renewables, particularly photovoltaic solar energy, are nonetheless being implemented. Multiple decentralized rural electrification programs (DRE) are being deployed in "difficult" areas such as South Africa, Mali, Algeria, Morocco and Chile. Sometimes, this means installing solar panels to supply residential electricity. In that case, the equipment usually consists of a 50 or 75 peak watt panel (pw), a battery and a load regulator that can power three or four low-consumption light bulbs and one or two electrical outlets. The panels are sometimes used to power irrigation pumps. On rare occasions, they are used to power mobile communication systems.

Most developing countries have adequate sunshine, and some of them, including Algeria, Egypt, Mexico and India, are examining the potential for concentrated solar power plants using hermodynamic cycles, as in California. The kilowatt-hour they generate is less expensive than photovoltaic electricity, though more expensive than electricity from fossil fuels, and they can generate power when needed using supplemental fuel. They could play a significant role in supplying power to cities in developing countries.

Energy access and sustainable development

Access to energy is hard to reconcile with concerns about sustainable development. For the poorest countries, the only sources of energy are supplied by nature, mainly forests. According to the IEA, more than 75% of people living on less than $2 per day use biomass as their main source of energy (60%)¹. But use of these resources, considered especially eco-friendly, causes deforestation in these regions and impoverishes their inhabitants even more by depleting their sole source of energy. What's more, biomass poses considerable health concerns, because it is used poorly more often than not. Pollution inside the family home is a curse afflicting mostly children and women. Emerging countries, meanwhile, consume growing amounts of energy to keep pace with economic development, often pushing environmental concerns aside. Energy consumption, mainly of fossil fuels, is up sharply in developing countries due to growing population, urbanization and economic development. Their greenhouse gas emissions will therefore increase, though they'll still be low on a per capita basis compared with those of OECD countries. Controlling energy demand is therefore a priority for developing countries.

Still, it's difficult to strike a balance among often contradictory goals for economic growth, environmental protection and human development. Sustainable development is doubly challenged with the need to support economic development while modernizing energy access in rural areas and controlling energy consumption in urban areas.

Energy efficiency: a new resource

For more than one billion people, there is an urgent need for access to energy, which will be an issue for the entire planet as fossil fuels are depleted. This unavoidable trend means that all energy options must be kept open, without exception, and energy efficiency must be increased. The only way to produce more energy without increasing CO² emissions is to develop nuclear power and renewable energies. But nuclear power is not the solution for every country. It's of little interest to countries with a low population density, yet is a very appealing way to supply energy in densely populated areas. At the same time, emerging countries and developing countries would have to commit to less energy-intensive and cleaner solutions than in developed countries. This will be difficult, because it means they would need access to highly innovative – and therefore expensive – technologies. Remember that "carbon" fuels (fossil fuels, coal) represent 87.7% of the world's energy consumption. Yet at the current rate of consumption, we have 42 years of proven reserves of oil, 64 years of natural gas, and 164 of coal, according to the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2006. Barring a miracle, there can only be compromise, which will affect everyone's lifestyle, especially in developed countries, where inhabitants will have to change their ways to curb perpetually rising consumption and CO² emissions. Since human development and economic growth appear to be linked to the consumption of fossil fuels for the moment, more "virtuous" attitudes in the West will, to some extent, "conserve" fossil resources for the underprivileged, who still don't have access to them.

1. This «traditional» biomass, based on wood scraps, herbaceous plants and animal waste, is not clean and has a low energy yield. That's not the case for the so-called «commercial» biomass (or bioenergy), used mainly in developed countries to produce energy on an industrial scale in the form of heat and electricity (biocombustibles) or for transportation (biofuels).