Energy efficiency: the key to international growth.

• Author: Lenssen, Nicholas

Rapidly emerging new technologies could have great consequences for the developing worlds efforts to meet the basic needs of its growing population.

SINCE THE 1973 oil embargo, industrial countries have made large gains in using energy more economically. For the 24 member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, energy use rose only one-fifth as much as economic growth. However, these gains largely have bypassed developing countries, where use soared 20% faster than economic expansion during the same period.

Developing nation economies now require 40% more energy than industrial ones to produce the same value of goods and services. Part of the difference is due to the fact that these countries still are building energy-intensive infrastructure and related industries - but often using outdated technologies that squander energy. These gross inefficiencies - whether in wood stoves, cement plants, light bulbs, or trucks - offer innumerable opportunities to limit energy consumption and expenditures while expanding the services they provide. For instance, the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment estimates that nearly half of over-all electricity use in the South can be cut cost effectively.

To compete in increasingly integrated world markets, while still meeting their own domestic needs, developing nations will have to reap the economic savings that improved energy efficiency offers. it will take a concerted effort by consumers, businesses, and governments to capture the full potential. Individual consumers, particularly poorer ones, often can not afford to buy more efficient appliances and have no reason to do so under government policies that subsidize energy, but not efficiency. Manufacturers and importers lack incentives to reduce products' energy use, even when no additional cost is involved. Meanwhile, governments and international lending agencies usually direct their money and efforts toward simply expanding supplies, while paying little attention to how much heat or power - and how much pollution - is produced per investment dollar.

Half of Third World commercial energy consumption goes to industry. Yet, for each ton of steel or cement produced, the typical factory in the global south uses more energy than its northern counterpart. Steel plants in developing countries, for example, consume roughly one-quarter more energy than the average American one and about three-quarters more than the most efficient. Fertilizer plants in India use about twice as much oil to produce a ton of ammonia as a typical British operation does. Pulp and paper facilities consume as much as three times more energy for the same amount of output. Such records often are the result of poor maintenance and operating procedures and can be improved - given sufficient information and incentive to do so. Indonesian industries, for example, could cut energy use 11% without any capital investment, simply by changing operating procedures. Similarly, a Ghanaian survey found potential savings of at least 30% in medium- to large-scale industries.

Efficiency also is impaired by reliance on old or obsolete industrial processes - often purchased at bargain prices from northern countries. Cement plants operate in 84 of 110 developing nations, often ranking as the most energy-consuming industry. These plants typically use 50-100% more energy than the best ones in industrial countries, partially due to reliance on an antiquated wet process. In Kenya, more than two-thirds of the country's industrial energy goes to making cement. In Tunisia, a government program prompted the modernizing of cement-making in the early 1980s, and the energy efficiency of the industry was improved by 13% over eight years.

Some of the largest opportunities to save energy and money are in the electric power industry. Third...