Energy in the developing world : real energy crisis

This is a book about the energy crisis facing the developing world, the three-quarters of mankind where the average consumption of energy per capita is at the level achieved in most of the European nations and in North America a century ago. Such low energy usage is accompanied by inadequate diets, poor health care, a low degree of industrialization, and, too often, a general socio-economic malaise.

There are, consequently, few global problems which, in decades to come, could equal the task of substantially increasing the energy availability for some 3 billion people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This book tries to bring together a variety of perspectives needed to appreciate the nature and the magnitude of this formidable problem and the options available for its alleviation.

Global and general views in the first two sections, dealing with energy and development and energy resources and uses, are followed by about a dozen national profiles. The energetics of the world's two most populous countries-China and India-and of Brazil, Latin America's largest nation, is dealt with in greater detail in three separate sections. Shorter reviews are presented in the last two parts devoted to Africa and to Asia and Central America.