The Need for Energy in 3rd World Countries

• "One billion people – mostly concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia – live their daily lives without electricity. This represents a fundamental barrier to progress for a sizeable proportion of the world’s population, and has impacts on a wide range of development indicators, including health, education, food security, gender equality, livelihoods, and poverty reduction." - Access to Energy is at the Heart of Development (worldbank.org)

• How can these people grow in their communities and villages without the access to energy and what it gives. Having simple things like a fridge can make saving food so much easier and can open up time in their lives to do other things. Like use their computer to do online classes or work online.

• Why is there no energy already there?

"Power utility companies usually borrow money to build power plants, transmission and distribution power lines. They prefer areas with dense population because the electricity bills collected from customers can eventually pay-off the borrowed money and help them make profits. Naturally, building long power lines for a small number of customers is not favored by utility companies." - Duo, Hanzhen (Youngzine.org)

• Solar panels are a really quick and easy way to bring energy to any place. The sun rises and sets everyday, and in Africa there is a whole lot of sun.
• The hard part about solar panels is finding a way to store the energy as it may not be used while the panel is collecting throughout the day. The cool thing is that there is an easy way to fix this problem: hook up the solar panel to a battery either within the house or in an outside unit and let the battery collect the energy while the household is not using it throughout the day. Then there is stored energy that can be used throughout the evening when the sun is down.
• Companies like Asian Development Bank have already begun this work of setting up solar panels in remote villages in places like Tajikistan. https://youngzine.org/news/our-earth/solar-power-brings-hope-remote-villages

• Through efforts of the UN and other governing bodies many non-profits have started to meet these needs and use what they have to help others.
• "SunFarmer, based in the United States, is one of several non-profit organizations that helps bring reliable and affordable solar electricity to hospitals and schools in remote developing areas. The market for solar-powered products (such as televisions, radios and even water pumps) is growing as well. As part of the Sustainable Energy for All campaign, the UN created the Energy Access Practitioner Network in 2011. The Network facilitates the delivery of energy services to developing countries and supports the implementation of new renewable technologies." - Liao, Kristy (borgenproject.org)

So, to recap, I would like to explore the need for energy in developing countries and see how the western world can meet these needs using the technology and funds that we have. To better the whole world! I think that may of the things we have been learning about geography can be applied to this topic. The impact of regions and where you live (how to get energy), and the human-environment interaction to get energy.