New trends in physics teaching, v.4; The ... - unesdoc - Unesco

New Trends in Physics Teaching IV
desert. In many countries it appears that wood is being used for fuel at rates faster than their
forests can sustain. Many more are experiencing severe fuelwood shortages around densely
populated areas.
In addition, as wood becomes more and more difficult to obtain there is a tendency to use
animal and crop residues, with serious implications for agriculture. This seems to be particularly
significant in the drier areas of Africa, much of South Asia and some parts of Latin America.
To tackle this problem, some countries, including the Philippines and the Republic of Korea,
have launched promising afforestation schemes on a large scale. With the use of appropriate fastgrowing
trees it seems possible to make an area yield five times as much fuelwood as a natural
forest.
In China, Taiwan, India and the Republic of Korea, biogas plants are in use. However, economies
of scale make them more viable for relatively wealthy families with four or five head of cattle
and enough land to use the sludge produced for fertilizer. An Indian subsidy programme for
biogas plants was discontinued when it was found to have increased the effective price of dung,
causing hardship to the poor.
Alcohol fermented from agricultural products can be used for cooking, but it is more costly
than petroleum and production is still small scale, except in Brazil.
Fuel for industry and for transport, however, must come mainly from oil, gas and coal. Of the
oil-exporting countries, Nigeria and Indonesia also have significant reserves of coal. The countries
with a high economic growth rate, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the
Republic of Korea, Taiwan and Uruguay, are expected to have to import oil and sometimes coal
during the next decade. The remaining developing countries are expected to depend mainly on
domestically produced fuel with some imported oil.
A LAST WORD
It seems appropriate to let the Brandt Report [7] have the last word.
Energy shortages take many forms. Sudden rises in petroleum prices affect all countries; but while pleasure
motoring continues on a large scale, fishermen in poor island communities like the Maldives may not get oil at
all to operate their boats, or farmers in India or Pakistan to work their irrigation pumps. The energy crisis in
much of Africa and Asia means the shortage of firewood: poor families have to search further and further to
find wood to cook their rice and wheat, while more of the land is denuded of trees. Many developing countries
are experiencing balance of payment difficulties or economic stringency as higher expenditure on fuel forces cuts
elsewhere. The long-term solutions lie in the development of alternative and renewable energy sources but the
short-term difficulties are acute. Both require nothing less than a global strategy for energy.
REFERENCES
Information has been obtained from a wide variety of sources including the following:
1. COOK, E. Man, Energy, Society. San Francisco, Calif., W.H. Freeman & Co., 1976.
2. Energy and Power. Scientific American (New York), Vol. 225, No. 3, September 1971.
3. Energy in Profile. London, Shell International Petroleum Co. Ltd., 1980.
4. Energy Prospects to 1985. Paris, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 1974.
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