Energy Ladder
Energy ladder shows the improvement of energy use corresponding to an increase in the household income. Basically, as income increases, the energy types used by households would be cleaner and more efficient, but more expensive as moving from traditional biomasses to electricity. "Households at lower levels of income and development tend to be at the bottom of the energy ladder, using fuel that is cheap and locally available but not very clean nor efficient. According to the World Health Organization, over three billion people worldwide are at these lower rungs, depending on biomass fuels—crop waste, dung, wood, leaves, etc.—and coal to meet their energy needs. A disproportionate number of these individuals reside in Asia and Africa: 95% of the population in Afghanistan uses these fuels, 95% in Chad, 87% in Ghana, 82% in India, 80% in China, and so forth. As incomes rise, we would expect that households would substitute to higher quality fuel choices. However, this process has been quite slow. In fact, the World Bank reports that the use of biomass for all energy sources had remained constant at about 25% since 1975."
Read more about this topic: Energy Poverty
Famous quotes containing the words energy and/or ladder:
“A government deriving its energy from the will of the society, and operating, by the reason of its measures, on the understanding and interest of the society ... is the government for which philosophy has been searching and humanity been fighting from the most remote ages ... which it is the glory of America to have invented, and her unrivalled happiness to possess.”
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