Attacking world electricity poverty

Three million dying from lung disease in poverty locations is just a number, right? Stalin once said "One life is a tragedy, a million lives is just a statistic". But let's put three million into perspective. When there is a tragic airplane crash in wealthy countries killing several people, it makes news for days and initiates thorough investigations.

More people die annually in poverty around the world from cooking over open fires than would die if an airliner with 320 passengers crashed every hour of the day, and every day of the year. Of course, the world should not tolerate that, yet we still have three million deaths per year from cooking over open fires.

Other analogies to put three million deaths annually into perspective:

• That is more deaths annually than have died in all the natural disasters in the 21^st Century.
• Three million is also ten times the deaths caused by the entire Russian/Ukraine war (high estimate is 300,000).
• Tragically, almost an equal number of three million die in poverty from communicable diseases caused by unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation facilities.

Because of the immensity of these tragedies, the world needs to mount a major effort by all the countries, foundations, financial institutions and corporations of the world to bring LPG stoves, safe water and electricity to the poor of the world. The LPG stoves could be provided faster and with less funding, so should be done while continuous and uninterruptible electricity is being built out.

Most countries in Africa have good fossil fuel reserves so why don't Africans have electricity? One of the reasons, besides poverty, is because for five decades or more, Western World governments, and a loose cabal of financial institutions including the UN and World bank have blocked financing fossil fuel systems in the developing world. At the Africa summit in Washington earlier this year, Secretary Chris Wright said:

Western countries such as the United States have for years been "shamelessly" telling Africa that coal is bad and not to develop it. That's just nonsense, 100 percent nonsense…Coal transformed our world and made it better, extended life expectancy and grew opportunities, and coal globally will be the largest source of electricity for decades to come. That's not a policy, that's not a desire, that's just a reality.

Globally there are 3 billion people using less electricity annually than required to run a standard refrigerator, many are limited to one tenth that. The availability of limited electricity has been a great leap forward because it has provided communication and minimum lighting, but it is totally inadequate to support industry. Eliminating poverty requires jobs, and jobs require industry, and that requires cheap reliable electricity.

Surprisingly, these poor people have cell phones, so they are aware of the wonderful benefits from electricity in the developed world and are determined to get it. This pent-up demand has created a huge market for electricity in the developing world. It is urgently needed now, so initially it must be fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, but nuclear should be included as quickly as possible.

The World bank says there are now 720 million living in extreme poverty defined as less than $3/day. To combat poverty, we need jobs and good industrial jobs require cheap, reliable electricity.

Wealthy countries should stop pursuing the least reliable source of electricity generation that is NOT continuous nor reliable, via weather dependent wind turbines and solar panels, and should focus on improving the well-being of the billions on this planet who live in poverty. That positive direction for ALL of mankind will vastly increase the demand for, and thus the energy associated with, all conventional products and services from home heating and cooling, to transportation, healthcare, and more.