If you want to be credible, you need to get the units right. A Watt is a unit of power, not energy. The unit of energy consumption is Watt- hours, and the time period needs to be defined. I assume it is annualized, but it is not made explicit. In that case, it would be Watt-hours per year. Look at your Utility bill. I am really surprised you have missed this fundamental concept.
A society with electricity will always be more prosperous that one without regardless of whether electricity comes from power plants powered by burning charcoal (this is already happening under the moniker "biomass" all over Africa. Literally burning forests to produce electricity but using coal is sacrilegious our here).The romanticization of energy poverty is the most immoral things we are doing to one another on this planet.
Although electricity per capita is interesting as part of poverty, it is a bit confounded by how much of the power is used by citizens and how much by industries.
Looking at Wikipedia "Electric energy consumption", one finds that in 2022 China used only 16% of its power for residential whereas in the USA it's 37%.
Looking at electricity per capita without factoring in its usage may not always provide a reliable indicator of poverty. In some developing countries the citizens power poverty is probably more stark than it appears.
Of course, there's a large amount of scatter, and China is a bit of an outlier on the low side as Figure 5 makes clear. China developed late and was able to take full advantage of modern electrical technology. The high speed rail network is the prime example. 50,000 km of bullet trains, two-thirds of the worlds total. Those trains increase peoples' real wealth. The Western European countries tend to end up on the high GDP/kWh/y side.
But the point is CHEAP electricity is a prerequisite for wealth. All the really poor countries are in teh very SW corner of Fig 5. The scatter among these very poor countries is partially due to the amount of off grid power which does nto show up in this database.
Industrial use of electricity does not make people poor. It increases the size of the pie,
that's what GDP measures. I think what you are referring to is the income distribution. Where the output of that industrial production ends up.
Unobservable harm is indistinguishable from no harm.
Yeah, but " indistinguishable from" is not the same as "same as".
If you want to be credible, you need to get the units right. A Watt is a unit of power, not energy. The unit of energy consumption is Watt- hours, and the time period needs to be defined. I assume it is annualized, but it is not made explicit. In that case, it would be Watt-hours per year. Look at your Utility bill. I am really surprised you have missed this fundamental concept.
Gary,
Point taken. I assume you are complaining about Figure 5. I t should have been labeled by the year the kWh's were consumed which was 2024. Will fix.
A society with electricity will always be more prosperous that one without regardless of whether electricity comes from power plants powered by burning charcoal (this is already happening under the moniker "biomass" all over Africa. Literally burning forests to produce electricity but using coal is sacrilegious our here).The romanticization of energy poverty is the most immoral things we are doing to one another on this planet.
https://thekenyatimes.com/opinions/nuclear-energy-in-kenya-siaya-plant/
Agreed and that last line is a zinger. "The romanticization of energy poverty is the most immoral things we are doing to one another on this planet."
Thanks for the great repost, new to us.
Although electricity per capita is interesting as part of poverty, it is a bit confounded by how much of the power is used by citizens and how much by industries.
Looking at Wikipedia "Electric energy consumption", one finds that in 2022 China used only 16% of its power for residential whereas in the USA it's 37%.
Looking at electricity per capita without factoring in its usage may not always provide a reliable indicator of poverty. In some developing countries the citizens power poverty is probably more stark than it appears.
G,
Of course, there's a large amount of scatter, and China is a bit of an outlier on the low side as Figure 5 makes clear. China developed late and was able to take full advantage of modern electrical technology. The high speed rail network is the prime example. 50,000 km of bullet trains, two-thirds of the worlds total. Those trains increase peoples' real wealth. The Western European countries tend to end up on the high GDP/kWh/y side.
But the point is CHEAP electricity is a prerequisite for wealth. All the really poor countries are in teh very SW corner of Fig 5. The scatter among these very poor countries is partially due to the amount of off grid power which does nto show up in this database.
Industrial use of electricity does not make people poor. It increases the size of the pie,
that's what GDP measures. I think what you are referring to is the income distribution. Where the output of that industrial production ends up.