article review about issues concerning the energy resources

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• 08 August 2023

Clean energy can fuel the future — and make the world healthier

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China is on track to reach its solar-power target for 2030. Credit: Zhao Yongtao/VCG/Getty

The 2030 targets laid out by the United Nations for the seventh Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 7) are clear enough: provide affordable access to energy; expand use of renewable sources; improve energy efficiency year on year; and enhance international cooperation in support of clean-energy research, development and infrastructure. Meeting those goals, however, will be anything but simple. As seen in many of the editorials in this series examining the SDGs at their halfway stage , the world is falling short.

This is due, at least in part, to the influence of the fossil-fuel industry, which drives the economics and, often, the politics of countries large and small, rich and poor. Rising human prosperity, as measured by economic growth, has long been linked to an abundance of fossil fuels. Many politicians fear that the pursuit of clean-energy sources will compromise that economic development. The latest science clearly counters this view — but the voice of the research community is not being heard in the right places. To meet the targets embodied in SDG 7, that has to change.

There is much to be done. In 2021, some 675 million people worldwide still did not have access to electricity. This is down from 1.1 billion a decade or so ago, but the pace of progress has slowed. On the basis of current trends, 660 million people, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa, will remain without electricity by 2030. And projections indicate that some 1.9 billion people will still be using polluting and inefficient cooking systems fuelled by coal and wood (see go.nature.com/3s8d887 ). This is bad news all round: for health, biodiversity and the climate.

Carbon emissions hit new high: warning from COP27

Achieving the energy-access targets was always going to be a stretch, but progress has been slow elsewhere, too. Take energy efficiency. More energy efficiency means less pollution, and energy efficiency has increased by around 2% annually in the past few years. But meeting the target for 2030 — to double the rate of the 1990–2010 average — would require gains of around 3.4% every year for the rest of this decade.

The picture for renewable energy is similarly mixed. Despite considerable growth in wind and solar power to generate grid electricity, progress in the heat and transport sectors remains sluggish. Renewable energy’s share of total global energy consumption was just 19.1% in 2020, according to the latest UN tracking report, but one-third of that came from burning resources such as wood.

One reason for the slow progress is the continued idea that aggressive clean-energy goals will get in the way of economic development. It’s easier and more profitable for major fossil-fuel producers to simply maintain the status quo. Just last month, ministers from the G20 group of the world’s biggest economies, including the European Union, India, Saudi Arabia and the United States, failed to agree on a plan to phase out fossil fuels and triple the capacity of renewable energy by 2030.

But this is where science has a story to tell. In the past, researchers say, many models indicated that clean energy would be more expensive than that from fossil fuels, potentially pricing the poorest nations out of the market as well as driving up people’s food bills and exacerbating hunger. But the latest research suggests that the picture is more complex. Energy is a linchpin for most of the SDGs, and research that merges climate, energy and the SDGs underscores this 1 . For example, the agriculture and food-transport sectors still depend on fossil fuels, and that generates pollution that kills millions of people each year. Other links are indirect: lack of access to light at night and to online information — as a result of energy poverty — hampers educational attainment and contributes to both long- and short-term inequality.

US aims for electric-car revolution — will it work?

The lesson from research is that it might be easier, not harder, to address these challenges together. In 2021, researcher Gabriela Iacobuţă at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability in Bonn and her colleagues showed that technologies centred on renewable resources and efficiency tend to come with few trade-offs and many benefits, including improved public health and wealth, thanks to a cleaner environment and better jobs 2 . And climate scientist Bjoern Soergel at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and his colleagues found that a coordinated package of climate and development policies could achieve most of the SDGs while limiting global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels 3 .

The study assessed 56 indicators across all 17 SDGs. One proposed intervention is an international climate finance mechanism that would levy fees on carbon emissions that would be redistributed through national programmes to reduce poverty. A second focuses on promoting healthy diets — including reducing the consumption of meat, the production of which requires a lot of water, energy and land. This would benefit people on low incomes by lowering both food and energy prices.

The biggest challenge lies in translating these models to the real world. To do so, we need leaders who are not bound by outmoded thinking, are aware of the latest science and can draw on the research to build public support for the necessary energy transition. We require more national and international public institutions that are willing to address problems at the system level. And all of this needs a science community that is willing and able to champion knowledge and evidence.

Nature 620 , 245 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02510-y

Vohra, K. et al. Environ. Res. 195 , 110754 (2021).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Iacobuţă, G. I., Höhne, N., van Soest, H. L. & Leemans, R. Sustainability 13 , 10774 (2021).

Article   Google Scholar  

Soergel, B. et al. Nature Clim. Change 11 , 656–664 (2021).

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Energy, Poverty, and Health in Climate Change: A Comprehensive Review of an Emerging Literature

Sonal jessel.

1 Helibrunn Department of Population and Family Health, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY, United States

Samantha Sawyer

2 Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY, United States

Diana Hernández

Household energy is increasingly vital for maintaining good health. Unaffordable and inadequate household energy presents adverse consequences that are amplified by poverty and a changing climate. To date, the connections between energy, socioeconomic disadvantage, and well-being are generally underappreciated, and household energy connection with climate change is under-researched. Building on the energy insecurity framework, this review explores literature related to household energy, poverty, and health in order to highlight the disproportionate burdens borne by vulnerable populations in adequately meeting household energy needs. This paper is based on a comprehensive review of books, peer-reviewed articles, and reports published between 1990 and 2019, identified via databases including JSTOR and PubMed. A total of 406 publications were selected as having potential for full review, 203 received full review, and 162 were included in this paper on the basis of set inclusion criteria. From the literature review, we created an original heuristic model that describes energy insecurity as either acute or chronic, and we further explore the mediators and pathways that link energy insecurity to health. In the discussion, we posit that the extant literature does not sufficiently consider that vulnerable communities often experience energy insecurity bundled with other hardships. We also discuss energy, poverty, and health through the lens of climate change, making the criticism that most research on household energy does not consider climate change. This evidence is important for enhancing research in this field and developing programmatic and policy interventions as they pertain to energy access, affordability, and health, with special emphasis on vulnerable populations, climate change, and social inequality.

Introduction

Global energy demand and consumption have increased substantially and are expected to continue rising ( 1 ); this is particularly evident in countries with strong economic growth such as China and India ( 2 ). The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has predicted that world energy use will increase by 28% by 2040 ( 2 ). In 2017 alone, global energy demand rose 2.1%—twice as much as in 2016 ( 3 ). As climate change worsens, the demand for more energy services and the strain on existing services will increase. As of 2017, residential energy consumption accounted for 20% of the total energy consumption across all sectors in the U.S. ( 4 ). Ensuring affordability, access, and adequate production of household energy is vital for maintaining individual and population-scale health and well-being. Household energy uses include cooking, lighting, heating, cooling, cleaning, and technological, medical, and other life-sustaining devices ( 5 – 7 ). Yet, millions of households around the world live without an adequate amount of energy ( 8 ).

Adequate access to energy is encumbered by limited and faulty infrastructure, affordability challenges, and service disruptions due to disasters and extreme weather events, often linked to climate change. This phenomenon, known as energy insecurity, is defined as the “inability to adequately meet household energy needs” ( 9 ). The energy insecurity framework includes physical, economic, and behavioral dimensions that lead to or exacerbate adverse health issues ( 9 ). The physical dimension includes poor housing quality, the structure of the home environment, and inefficient appliances ( 9 ). The economic dimension consists of affordability challenges (though it is not based merely on an economic ratio or threshold), while the behavioral dimension focuses on coping strategies, social vulnerabilities, and indicators of resilience ( 9 ). This conceptual framework helps us to understand the phenomenon of energy insecurity and its consequences. This framework parallels that of food insecurity—the “disruption of food intake or eating patterns because of lack of money and other resources” ( 10 )—in that it reflects cost, quality, and health impacts.

In this article, we present the results of our review of the existing literature on energy insecurity and demonstrate the range of concerns and of approaches to resolving them. We propose the new terms- “acute” and “chronic” energy insecurity to further understand and break down household energy issues. Our findings suggest that the literature does not sufficiently consider the intersectionality of vulnerability types and multiple hardships. Furthermore, the use of numerous terms for household energy insecurity further compartmentalizes energy issues by geography and discipline, hampering the possibility for a comprehensive, or systematic literature base. This compartmentalization foregoes the opportunity to address energy insecurity as a complex, interdisciplinary, intersectional, and multidimensional issue, especially in the context of the pressing threat of climate change. For the sake of clarity, we provide below a brief overview of terms currently used to describe household energy issues as they relate to socioeconomic disadvantage, and in some cases, health.

Household Energy Terminology

Many different terms have been used to describe the demand side of energy-related hardship. Researchers, policymakers, and practitioners have popularized terms such as fuel poverty, energy burden, energy vulnerability, and energy poverty, among others. These terms differ in their geographic usage and somewhat in their methods of measurement, but all similarly reference issues related to energy consumption and affordability. Energy burden and fuel poverty are mirroring terms that are used separately in different geographic regions; the former in the U.S. and the latter mostly in the United Kingdom (U.K.), Ireland, and New Zealand. Both terms are generally defined by an economic ratio whereby households that allocate more than 10% of their gross income for indoor energy expenses are considered energy burdened or fuel poor ( 9 , 11 – 13 ). Energy poverty is generally attributed to the Global South and refers to the lack of modern energy services and low energy consumption ( 5 , 14 – 20 ). Outcomes and indicators of energy poverty center on socioeconomic development, well-being, and poverty ( 21 ). A newer term, energy vulnerability, was developed to bridge the geographical research gap between fuel poverty and energy poverty in order to shed light on energy hardship as a global problem ( 14 , 21 ). Importantly, these terms and their definitions have not yet incorporated the uncertain realities of climate change and its impact on energy, even though climate impacts are fundamentally rooted in how energy is produced and consumed, and its availability is threatened by the aftermath of extreme weather events, often caused by climate change.

Despite evidence of a strong association between energy access, affordability, and health, none of the above terms inherently focus on health. Research and policy tend to focus on the economic factors of energy burden, fuel poverty, and energy vulnerability, leading to financially-motivated interventions. For example, household-level financial subsidies (e.g., bill assistance) are a popular intervention, as opposed to more structural measures such as energy efficiency upgrades or adoption of clean energy technologies. Moreover, such an economic focus does not address the full scope of the problem, as it leaves out psychosocial and behavioral factors, among others, that contribute to energy hardship. Even energy poverty's focus on well-being and socioeconomic development omits housing quality and affordability constraints as a focus. By comparison, energy insecurity more broadly encompasses a wider spectrum of energy-related hardships that may be internal or external to an individual's experience of the phenomenon and is attuned to an expansive range of socioeconomic, psychological, and environmental determinants that produce energy-related hardship. The energy insecurity framework offers the opportunity to evaluate health predictors and outcomes in the context of climate change ( 22 ).

The present review provides an encompassing account of the relationship between energy, health, poverty, and climate change and the pathways by which these factors are interlinked. We address the critical gap in the importance of energy for population health ( 15 , 23 ) by focusing not only on medical issues but also on the cycles of social disadvantage implicated in the nexus of energy, health, and poverty. We outline the impacts of global climate change on household energy access and how it contributes to the severity of health effects and discuss the need to accommodate growing demand on energy systems. This review provides evidence that health is a necessary consideration amidst increases in global energy demand. This is particularly important when: (1) developing methods for energy efficiency and production; (2) deciphering how to distribute and provide energy to low-income, marginalized, and vulnerable households equitably; and (3) preparing for climate change and acute threats to energy access.

Paper Organization

We begin our analysis with a heuristic model linking the various factors that emerged during the review process, including the phenomena of chronic and acute energy insecurity (see Figure 2 ). This paper is organized into four thematic sections with subthemes. First, we propose new terminology to describe different manifestations of energy insecurity. Second, we review the evidence on energy insecurity and the social determinants of health by discussing the social patterning of energy insecurity by gender, age, health status, education, employment, socioeconomic status, and race. Next, we review evidence on the association between energy insecurity and place, noting the spatial inequalities in neighborhood resources and demographics that contribute to the increased likelihood that some community members will experience energy insecurity. Third, we outline findings regarding the connection between energy insecurity, housing quality, and home energy infrastructure by exploring the relationships between housing tenure, energy efficiency, and home age. Fourth, we highlight the salience of coping strategies and behaviors enacted by households experiencing energy insecurity and describe the health effects of temperature extremes, high-effort coping, and the depletion of resilience reserves. The resilience reserve is a framework that describes how resilience that should be preserved for use in a specific event, such as in response to a natural disaster, becomes depleted due to constant use in response to a greater prevalence of chronic daily struggles ( 24 ). To conclude, we summarize the findings of our review and describe the cumulative hardships of energy insecurity. In the discussion, we offer a critical analysis of the literature, highlighting that the research does not adequately consider the intersectionality of experiences of energy insecurity, infrequently employs an environmental justice framework, and lacks cohesive terminology. These critiques are discussed in relation to the growing wealth gap, increasing energy costs and demand, research into household energy in the Global South, and the inevitable impact of climate change.

This review is based on a comprehensive search for relevant literature published between 1990 and 2018 and archived in JSTOR and PubMed. The literature review conceptually frames energy issues along the lines of climate change, health, and socioeconomic factors. The literature review search was conducted using a matrix of terms in varying combinations with one another. The search terms and their categories are outlined in Table 1 . Terms from each category were searched along with terms from other categories. For example: (1) [(energy insecurity) AND (poverty) AND (climate change) AND (health)]; and then, (2) [(fuel poverty) AND (poverty) AND (climate change) AND (health)]. A term from the “Social,” “Health,” and “Energy” category was used in every search because one of our inclusion criteria is that articles discuss the relationship between household energy, health, and socioeconomic status. We did not include “climate change” as a required term for every search, as part of the review is analyzing the extent to which the existing literature on household energy considers climate change. We excluded sources about energy and climate change that did not have a health outcome or a socioeconomic focus. Any source that did not discuss energy at the household, neighborhood, or community level was also excluded. Beyond this, our criteria were purposefully broad in order to capture the breadth of topics related to household energy use, health, and climate.

Search terms used in the literature review.

The search was limited to articles in English. Books, peer-reviewed articles, and reports were included, and all other source types were excluded. Our initial database search plus additional articles added from reviewing the reference sections of various sources yielded 750 results. After discarding duplicate sources and literature that was not relevant based on title, we had 406 sources. These sources underwent title and abstract screening. At this point, we identified 203 sources for full review. Of these, 162 were analyzed and incorporated into the final manuscript ( Figure 1 ). Some sources out of the 203 identified were not included in the final manuscript due to the subsequent irrelevance of their topic once the topics discussed in the manuscript had been refined during editing.

Flow chart of literature selection and review process.

Heuristic Model

Energy insecurity can impact health in a multitude of ways. Studies on energy insecurity encompass not only direct but also indirect health impacts because they consider social determinants of health and the coping strategies people use in response to energy insecurity. Inadequate household energy has been linked to the following health outcomes for both adults and children: cardiovascular, pulmonary, and respiratory illnesses; cancer; arthritis; acute hospitalization; excess mortality in summer and winter; and anxiety, depression, and stress ( 9 , 13 , 22 , 25 ). Indirect health impacts, such as food insecurity, are also associated with energy insecurity ( 6 , 26 – 30 ). It is important to highlight how indirect health problems contribute to and compound direct health impacts related to household energy insecurity. With health as an endpoint, our innovative, original heuristic model ( Figure 2 ) tracks the multifaceted pathways that directly and indirectly link energy insecurity to health by distinguishing between chronic and acute energy insecurity.

Connection between household energy insecurity (EI) and health.

Defining Chronic and Acute Forms of Energy Insecurity

Energy insecurity is a complicated, multifaceted issue that may be best understood by parsing out its various forms—acute and chronic energy insecurity. For this reason, we propose the incorporation of these terms into the lexicon of energy insecurity work. Chronic energy insecurity is a long-term issue that can arise from a consistent inability to afford or access adequate energy to meet household needs. An example of chronic energy insecurity would be living in a home that is consistently cold because the cost of heating is unaffordable. The lack of adequate household energy is often predicated on a number of social and demographic factors including age, gender, socioeconomic status, education, income, race, and employment status. These characteristics may have implications for earnings potential, can determine a household's ability to navigate available resources, and affect access to efficient housing and energy use patterns.

Acute energy insecurity is a short-term issue that tends to arise from infrastructural, maintenance, environmental, or other external sources that disrupt access to energy sources. Some examples of acute energy insecurity include a power outage from a hurricane or a gas shutoff from a reported leak. Interestingly, chronic energy insecurity can lead to a significant crisis point of acute energy insecurity, such as shut-offs due to non-payment. Shutoffs are an acute form of energy insecurity because, for the most part, they are short-lived, and services are reinstated upon cost recovery by the energy service provider. Three primary forms of acute energy insecurity—fuel shortages and supply issues, power outages, and shut-offs—and the links between service interruptions and ill health are described next.

Fuel Shortages and Supply Issues

Health impacts from energy access issues (when infrastructure is available) can arise when demand exceeds supply via two primary routes: (1) fuel shortages and (2) capacity of the energy infrastructure to handle excess demand during extreme weather. Fuel shortages across the world also indirectly impact health by increasing fuel cost and making sources unaffordable, leading to inaccessibility. Sometimes, other resources necessary for life are contingent on energy access. For example, during a fuel shortage, rural Iñupiaq Eskimo villages in Alaska's Northwest Arctic Borough were unable to access clean water because they did not have heat or electricity to prevent pipes from freezing ( 31 ). The shortage led to increased rates of infectious disease, hygiene-related diseases, and pneumonia ( 31 ). Fuel shortages may become worse as climate change worsens, increasing the prevalence of health issues related to energy insecurity ( 32 ).

In other instances, the energy infrastructure has proven incapable of tolerating higher than normal demands. A polar vortex, which occurred in January 2019 across the United States, brought extremely cold temperatures that strained energy systems. Some parts of the Midwest reached temperatures as low as minus 38 degrees Fahrenheit ( 33 ). An estimated 21 people died across the country from causes directly related to the polar vortex, such as death by hypothermia while indoors ( 34 ). One woman in Milwaukee died from the cold when her thermostat malfunctioned ( 34 ). In many cities, gas companies ordered households and industry to lower their heat in order to prevent citywide gas shortages ( 33 ). This compromised capacity is related to reliance on an aging infrastructure and increased demand, which is likely to be an issue over time and as weather patterns become more extreme as a result of climate change.

Power Outages

Infrastructural issues, extreme weather, and natural disasters may result in power outages and energy service interruptions. Short-term power outages often occur for the following reasons: (1) older and less reliable infrastructure; (2) overloading from high electricity demand; (3) household maintenance defects; and/or, (4) other systems fail ( 35 ). Long-term power outages are typically a result of disasters such as hurricanes. In 2017, Hurricane Maria left Puerto Rico's residents without power for an unprecedented average of 84 days. An estimated 83% of these households were in the most remote regions of Puerto Rico ( 36 ). These outages interrupted healthcare for people with chronic illnesses who required care and medication ( 36 ). Moreover, the death toll attributable to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was estimated to be 4,645 people, and 9.5% of those deaths were due to an inability to access electricity needed for respiratory equipment ( 36 ). The adverse impacts of service interruptions—both short- and long-term—are ubiquitous. Elevator shutdowns impede movement, transit systems close, medical device access can be cut off, blackouts can increase crime and cause accidents, food can spoil in warming refrigerators, temperature control can be lost, and much more ( 35 , 37 – 39 ).

Affordability challenges may lead to a different type of service interruption—shutoffs or disconnections due to non-payment. It is challenging to measure a national prevalence rate of shutoffs, because utility companies seldom, if ever, report which and how many households are shut off, and these data are generally not publicly available. Hernández and Laird ( 40 ) used the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), administered by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), to analyze the prevalence of disconnection notices and service disconnections based on a nationally representative sample of US households. Hernández and Laird ( 40 ), presenting their results at the annual conferences of the American Sociological Association (ASA) and the American Public Health Association (APHA), demonstrated that in 2015 an estimated 3% of US households were disconnected and another 15% received a disconnection notice, suggesting that there is indeed some hardship. Consistent with previously observed patterns of inequality, the authors also found that low-income households, African-American and Latino households, households with children, renters, and people living in older and poorly insulated homes were most likely to receive disconnection notices and service interruptions. Hernández and Laird's ( 40 ) research further explores the coping strategies that families resort to, such as forgoing food and medicine and keeping homes at an unhealthy temperature, that compromise health and may even lead to death. Hernández and Laird ( 40 ) found that households rely on these strategies to prevent and respond to the threat and occurrence of shutoffs ( 40 ).

Service Interruptions and Health

Shutoffs and power outages have a number of direct health impacts ( 30 , 35 , 37 ). Temperature-related issues such as hypothermia and heat stress increase when interruptions occur at times of extreme outdoor temperature. Chronic health conditions are strained by short- and long-term service interruptions in electricity and hot water services ( 30 , 41 ). Additionally, people with chronic illnesses, particularly those with cardiovascular, respiratory, and renal diseases, are often forced to seek outside medical care during interruptions, increasing the rate of hospitalization ( 35 , 42 ). Rates of all-cause and external-cause mortality are significantly higher during power-outage periods, especially when outages are due to weather events such as hurricanes, heatwaves, and snowstorms ( 30 , 35 ). Households that have faced threats of shutoffs have reported more long-term mental health issues stemming from financial, physical, and environmental stress, as well as fears and anxiety over potential future service interruptions ( 13 , 43 ).

Energy Insecurity and Social Determinants

Both acute and chronic energy insecurity are influenced by the social determinants of health, which are defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as the political, economic, and social circumstances in which people live, work, and play ( 44 ). These determinants include factors such as gender, age, health status, education, employment, socioeconomic status, and race. Here, we review literature indicating that the social determinants of health play an important role in predicting the existence of household energy difficulties and outline the importance of making a connection between the impact of climate change on social determinants of health and energy insecurity. As climate change increases the frequency, duration, and magnitude of extreme weather events, it is important to consider the populations that are most vulnerable to the impacts of such events within the context of household energy use ( 45 , 46 ).

Age and Life Course Vulnerability

Age-related vulnerabilities (i.e., being young or elderly) and exposure to environmental hazards are predictors of energy insecurity. The elderly, because they are at a higher risk of experiencing medical events during heatwaves than other populations due to a combination of social isolation, heightened physiological vulnerability, and the likelihood of not having air conditioning, are more likely to endure heat stress ( 46 – 48 ). Children are at risk of asthma, especially those living in urban, low-income communities, and are therefore in more need of adequate energy for ventilation and temperature control ( 49 – 51 ). Both the elderly and children spend more time in their home environments than other groups ( 1 ), increasing their exposure to the health risks of energy insecurity ( 52 ).

Education: Literacy and Impacts on Academic Achievement

Education, as it relates to energy insecurity, also has implications for health. Lacking sufficient knowledge and ability to navigate the bureaucracy of utility companies makes it difficult for less-educated households to address and prevent energy insecurity. Knowing how to access resources such as financial subsidies or medical certifications to prevent shutoffs requires knowledge of how such bureaucratic systems work. Understanding the risks associated with using alternative methods to address energy needs also requires education. On average, those with less educational attainment have more limited income potential, making it more difficult to afford and make energy payments ( 6 , 15 ).

Energy insecurity also perpetuates a cycle of lower educational attainment, most notably for children. Environmental stress and financial insecurity can lead to mental health issues and result in worse educational outcomes ( 53 ). The stress of energy hardship is associated with behavioral problems in children, whereby they are more likely to have low academic motivation, difficulty concentrating, and often act out ( 54 , 55 ). Children experiencing energy insecurity and food insecurity (discussed in detail in subsequent sections) are also more likely to experience intensified behavioral issues such as depression, rule-breaking behavior, and somatic complaints ( 54 ). Asthmatic children in energy-insecure households with poor air quality miss more days of school due to illness than do non-asthmatic children ( 55 , 56 ). Homes that use unsuitable energy sources expose children to toxic gasses that impair cognitive development. Additionally, children living in energy-insecure households often have trouble focusing on their homework due to noise pollution from generators, other loud energy sources, and open windows, which can lead to lower academic success ( 57 ). As a coping strategy, some households confine energy use to specific rooms to keep energy bills low or because there are limitations in their heating and cooling systems; this forces all residents to be in the same room, resulting in homework distractions and crowding, among other issues. Poor or restricted lighting to certain rooms also makes schoolwork and reading for pleasure more challenging.

Energy insecurity perpetuates the detrimental health effects associated with low-income employment. Many low-paying jobs require work in extreme temperature conditions ( 58 ), such as farming in excess heat or working in refrigerated warehouses. Those working in extreme temperature conditions are also more likely to be experiencing energy insecurity at home because they are low-income. Exposure to thermal discomfort at work and at home has a cumulative effect on temperature-sensitive health problems. Members of low-income households are also more likely to work multiple jobs to pay bills and support their families, meaning they are often physically absent from the home. This absence of caretakers can affect children's developmental needs and contribute to social deprivation and caretaker stress. Single mothers are more likely to be primary caretakers and often experience augmented impacts because they do not have a partner with whom they can share the burden and responsibility. Single mothers are also more at risk of experiencing energy insecurity compared to other groups ( 9 , 23 ).

Socioeconomic Status and Household Income

Socioeconomic factors are a predictor of energy insecurity. In most households, utilities make up a substantial portion of living costs, and in low-income households, this proportion is much greater ( 9 , 30 , 59 ). Therefore, it can be difficult for low-income households to pay for enough energy to meet household needs and also afford other expenses ( 9 , 30 ). Households at or near the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) are significantly more burdened by energy insecurity than other socioeconomic groups ( 9 ). A brief look at 2011 American Community Survey (ACS) data on the characteristics of people experiencing the gap between energy affordability and unaffordability found that 44% of low-income families (defined as below 200% of the FPL) experience economic energy insecurity compared to 2% of families who are not low-income ( 60 ). A 2016 report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) found that lower-income households experience higher median energy burden (7.2%), defined as the percentage of household income spent on energy bills, whereas non-low-income households experienced a median energy burden of 1.5% ( 61 ). Furthermore, a recent study found that low-income households in the studied U.S. cities spend on average from 10 to 20% of their income on energy bills, while wealthier households spend on average between 1.5 to 3 percent on energy bills despite being the higher consumers ( 59 ). The 2015 RECS found that the lower the income, the higher the energy expenditure and energy consumption per square foot of the home due to a number of potential factors ( 62 ). For example, socioeconomic status has major implications for affordability, access, and levels of environmental hazards in the home. Additionally, low-income households are often unable to afford utility bills and therefore live without adequate energy due to heightened conservation and/or an inability to upgrade energy-related appliances and systems ( 59 ).

Race is another social determinant of health that can predicate energy insecurity. Minorities tend to suffer from higher rates of energy cost burden than non-Hispanic whites in United States' cities ( 59 ). In the U.S., African Americans suffer more from energy insecurity than do any other racial groups ( 23 , 60 , 63 ). Of surveyed households with an African-American head of household (HOH) and children under the age of 18, 35% reported facing energy insecurity compared to 21% of Latino HOHs with children under 18 and 14% of Caucasian HOHs with children under 18 ( 60 ). Across all income levels, Black families still maintained the highest rates of energy insecurity ( 60 ). In the Washington Heights neighborhood in New York City, energy-insecure households were more likely to be black and Hispanic/Latino, low-income, and have less education ( 64 ). In Detroit, a study found that African-American households were twice as likely to be behind on utility payments and three times more likely to suffer from arrearage or shut-offs than white households ( 65 ).

When considering racial disparities, the association between environmental hazard exposure and geographical location is stronger for Black and Latino communities than for other racial groups ( 66 ). The health impacts of energy insecurity are compounded for racial-minority households that live in areas with high rates of exposure to environmental hazards energy inefficiencies ( 59 , 66 ). The disparity in the impacts of acute energy insecurity is especially apparent for minority racial groups. For example, a study by O'Neill et al. ( 67 ) found that during heatwaves in four different cities across the U.S., the rate of air conditioning use was more than two times higher among the white population than the black population, suggesting that black residents did not have access to or could not afford to use air conditioning at the same rate as white residents. Additionally, the mortality rate of black residents was significantly higher than that of other racial groups across all four cities ( 67 ). This trend could be attributed to low income levels and unaffordable electricity, which disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minority households.

Gender is another social factor associated with energy insecurity that has direct and indirect health implications. In the Global South, women and girls, who are responsible for cooking, use biomass fuel, resulting in high rates of respiratory illness. Respiratory illness from solid-fuel cooking is one of the greatest causes of premature mortality globally ( 5 , 7 , 15 , 68 ). In the Global North, women are more likely to be caretakers and spend more time at home, increasing their rate of exposure to other energy inefficiencies. Single mothers are especially vulnerable because they take on financial and psychosocial burdens alongside the responsibility of being the sole caretaker ( 23 ). It is important to note, however, that the literature in this review often fails to recognize that the separation of how gender relates to energy insecurity in the Global North vs. the Global South is reductive and essentialized, as all of the mechanisms by which women and girls are impacted by energy issues crosscut both spheres of the world.

Health Status

Illness and chronic health problems often determine energy demand and have implications for energy consumption, thereby making poor health both a predictor and outcome of energy insecurity. Residents with health conditions such as cardiovascular, pulmonary, and respiratory diseases and arthritis are sensitive to temperature extremes, meaning that a home that is too cold or too hot can exacerbate and worsen symptoms ( 13 , 69 – 71 ). People living with a chronic health condition may be especially reliant on energy-dependent devices for treatment or maintenance of their condition, lowering their ability to withstand inadequate or unavailable energy services. For example, patients with kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and cardiovascular disease (CVD) rely on dialysis and oxygen machines that require electricity ( 72 ) and diabetics must refrigerate their insulin. Cancer patients in active treatment need more heat ( 73 ), and those suffering from hypertension are more susceptible to cold stress ( 74 ). Not only do people with chronic health conditions have an increased need for energy, but they also spend more time in their households, further increasing energy use ( 75 ).

Energy Insecurity and Housing

A number of household characteristics beyond location predict the existence of unmet household energy needs. The type of housing, whether owned or rented, its level of energy efficiency, and its age are all associated with energy insecurity. Low-income and minority residents face a higher proportion of difficulties related to these housing characteristics.

Housing Tenure and Type

Energy insecurity is affected by housing tenure because renting and owning can lead to unique challenges that perpetuate energy insecurity. Low-income renters often face difficulties affording household costs ( 76 ) and tend to spend the greatest portion of their income on energy bills when compared to other socioeconomic groups ( 77 ). They also tend to live in the most structurally deficient homes due to a lack of weatherization and efficiency upgrades ( 77 ). Energy insecurity can become a chronic issue, partly because low-income renters have limited ability to persuade landlords to maintain proper upkeep and implement effective modifications related to energy efficiency ( 43 , 78 ). They also have limited social and economic capital to afford self-repairs or to hold landlords accountable through the court system ( 43 ). Low-income owners are also at risk for energy insecurity due to the high cost of upgrading homes to higher efficiency standards or because buying a home that is already efficient is expensive. Homeowners are often responsible for the entire burden of utility bills and other operational costs, including property taxes, home insurance, and water, garbage, and sewer costs. The stress of low-income housing on both renters and owners is associated with adverse mental health outcomes and poor self-rated health ( 43 , 76 ).

Housing type also influences rates of energy insecurity. Similar to homeowners, renters of single-family units face difficulties because they are responsible for the entire cost burden. Multifamily housing can be more advantageous than single-family housing because there is a shared cost with property owners. However, residents in multifamily housing and low-income tenants often lack control over the conditions (e.g., heat) of their units and have restricted ability to combat energy insecurity, mostly due to financial constraints and lack of control over housing infrastructure ( 9 ). The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), the country's largest public housing authority, has faced notorious housing quality and energy infrastructure issues that have plagued residents by severely compromising their housing experience and, likely, their physical, and mental health. One challenge is that NYCHA is not subject to the same maintenance regulations as private housing or developers, resulting in structural deficiencies and energy inefficient housing, attributable in part to deferred maintenance ( 79 ). Public housing is not alone in this regard. Rental housing, including subsidized, or affordable housing, presents challenges for renters since the property owners determine the level of energy efficiency and other aspects of housing quality. In most cases, there are no guidelines that stipulate a minimum level of efficiency, particularly in older housing that was constructed when building codes were less focused on sustainability. This conundrum, known as the “split incentive,” occurs when the incentive structure for an asset is not equally beneficial to both parties. In such cases, the deciding actor works in their own best interest, as is the case with owners who dictate the terms of housing without consideration of tenancy. Previous research demonstrates that subsidized housing recipients face an increased burden because they are more likely to rent from private landlords who neither weatherize nor optimize energy efficiency due to upfront costs and administrative encumbrances, which generally privileges the property owners and negatively impacts the tenants both economically and experientially ( 77 , 80 ).

Beyond rental and multiunit housing, people living in manufactured housing, such as trailers or mobile homes, are disproportionately impacted by physical energy insecurity. These housing structures are often not well-insulated or weatherized, so residents tend to spend a high proportion of their income on energy and heating bills. For example, the ACEEE found that mobile home residents are more likely to be energy burdened ( 61 ). Residents living in these manufactured housing types also tend to be low-income and therefore the least able to sustain high utility bill costs or afford general maintenance ( 81 ).

Energy Inefficiency

Energy inefficiency is a common housing problem and aspect of energy insecurity that has serious health implications. Energy inefficiency is marked by poor insulation, drafts, leaks, and other points of intrusion of the outside elements that make it difficult to control indoor temperatures ( 82 – 84 ). Other structural deficiencies and poor housing quality conditions, such as a lack of central air conditioning and proper ventilation, can also lead to high utility bills and unsafe conditions ( 85 ). Energy inefficiency caused by poor housing quality and structural deficiencies spurs costly utility bills that are unaffordable for low-income people ( 86 ) Poor energy efficiency has been associated with an increase in household dampness ( 85 ), which is associated with worsened arthritis symptoms, dizziness, headaches, and fevers (79), and increases the presence of mold, exacerbating medical conditions such as allergies, eczema, and asthma ( 69 , 87 – 90 ). Energy inefficiency is also associated with an increase in a number of thermal-related illnesses ( 85 ), and homes with poor ventilation and outside air infiltration have more dust mites and cockroach feces, which are known to exacerbate or lead to acute respiratory illnesses ( 27 , 91 – 93 ). Households that are unable to open windows (see also the section entitled Heat Stress and Forbearance) have the additional risk of dampness as a result of obstructed airflow ( 57 ).

A popular intervention for older and/or poorly constructed homes is retrofitting ( 87 ). However, energy efficiency without attention to ventilation can lead to excess tightness in the building envelope, thereby obstructing airflow and exacerbating the aforementioned health issues related to ventilation and air quality ( 94 ). Air-tightness due to energy efficiency improvements is also associated with increased levels of radon, which significantly increases the risk of lung cancer ( 95 , 96 ).

Age of Housing

Older housing is a frequent contributor to energy insecurity because much of the aged housing stock around the world is neither weatherized nor energy-efficient, which results in an increased prevalence of thermally inadequate home environments ( 97 ). Low-income, older and minority householders are often relegated to substandard living conditions, in part due to residence in older housing that has not been renovated ( 98 ). The effect of older, less efficient housing on energy insecurity has been studied mostly in the fuel poverty literature from northern Europe and New Zealand, where the regularity of colder outdoor temperatures heightens the need for consistent indoor heating ( 82 , 99 ). Excess winter deaths are a measure of mortality as a result of cold homes, a problem known to be caused by a lack of insulation ( 13 , 47 , 69 , 84 , 99 – 101 ). Heat stress is a common health effect of hotter outdoor temperatures, whereas newer technology such as centralized air conditioning may not exist in older homes. A lack of air conditioning contributes to heat stress, excess deaths, and hospitalizations during heatwaves ( 67 , 102 ). Therefore, the use of newer technology is important for health and safety, particularly as it relates to the prevention of premature death.

Newer homes are subject to current housing codes, many of which include public health considerations, and tend to be more energy-efficient and have fewer maintenance issues ( 97 ). Many states have ventilation standards, for example, which can combat mold from dampness and therefore reduce asthma symptoms ( 98 ). Regulations on toxin levels in homes, such as through initiatives for lead-free homes, also exist. It is, of course, easier to control risks that are never introduced into the housing sphere. Therefore, living in new housing stands to benefit occupants. However, the most vulnerable groups are often the least likely to benefit from such advantages.

Energy Insecurity and Intersectional Inequalities

Research has demonstrated that socioeconomic status and race are predictors of neighborhood, place, and presence of other hardships that can lead to or exacerbate energy insecurity. For example, residents in low-income and minority neighborhoods tend to experience issues such as increased exposure to environmental hazards, a lack of investment in housing maintenance, and poorer quality housing, all of which contribute to energy insecurity. Moreover, poverty and material hardship are complex issues in and of themselves, whereby the inability to meet basic needs extends far beyond any one category. In this section, we explore the overlapping issues that intersect with energy insecurity.

Socioeconomic Status, Race, and Place

The coalescence of socioeconomic status, race and neighborhood factors can lead to or exacerbate energy insecurity and present other hardships as well. For example, racial residential segregation, a proxy for concentrated neighborhood disadvantage, is a demonstrated predictor of energy insecurity ( 103 ). Black and Latino/a-headed households are more likely to live in an energy-insecure household because of their home's lack of energy efficiency ( 103 ). For example, NYCHA housing, predominantly inhabited by minorities, is facing a backlash over its dilapidation and lack of maintenance, which has resulted in widespread power outages, lack of heating, and the presence of mold and lead problems ( 79 ). Of these issues, NYCHA has been criticized severely for the persistent lack of available heat in its properties due to faulty boilers ( 104 ). In the winter of 2017/2018, ~80% of NYCHA residents faced a heat outage, which lasted 48 hours on average ( 105 ). Some advocates state that the difference in regulations for NYCHA housing compared to private housing is unjust and disproportionately disadvantages low-income communities of color ( 79 , 106 ).

Low-income and minority neighborhoods collectively bear the brunt of more environmental hazards in and outside of their individual households ( 50 , 107 ). For example, the siting of highly-polluting sources such as bus depots, landfills, highways, and plants or factories tend to be located in low-income communities. Low-income homes are also more likely to have maintenance defects, rodents, mold, and other poor housing conditions ( 66 ). Households in low-income and minority neighborhoods are also more likely to be overcrowded; this is especially true for immigrant populations in New York City and other urban areas. Overcrowded homes are associated with psychosocial stress, disease outbreaks, and higher asthma rates; they are also a predictor of the existence of other physical and social housing-related hardships that contribute to the burden of disease ( 93 , 98 , 108 ).

Furthermore, institutional and systemic racism and place-related social factors are drivers of higher rates of energy insecurity for minority populations. Ethnic minorities, immigrants, and indigenous groups are some examples of people who experience housing discrimination ( 57 ), a barrier to accessing more energy-efficient homes. Gentrification in many urban areas in the U.S is another social process that perpetuates racial and ethnic disparities in energy insecurity prevalence. Gentrifying or newer residents are less likely to experience energy insecurity or have an energy inefficient home compared to longer-term residents who live in older households in the area ( 97 ). Long-term residents of Washington Heights in New York City, for example, are Dominican immigrants and African Americans, and they suffer far more energy insecurity than new neighborhood residents ( 64 ).

Neighborhoods and Spatial Inequality

Energy insecurity, as we have noted, is highly correlated with spatial inequality, where residents of different neighborhoods are more or less likely to experience energy insecurity due to their neighborhood's economic, environmental, and social makeup. The mean annual energy use intensity (EUI), which is a proxy for energy insecurity by way of high energy use from low housing efficiency, is much higher in urban areas that have lower socioeconomic status, less education, and more racial minority dwellers ( 65 , 103 ). In cities that are more racially segregated, neighborhoods with low-income and minority populations are more likely to suffer from difficulties in affording or accessing energy ( 65 , 109 ). As the gentrification of urban areas continues, racial residential segregation increases such that lower socioeconomic status populations are forced to live in areas that have substandard conditions both in housing quality and neighborhood characteristics.

Low-income and racial-minority neighborhoods in urban areas often suffer from the highest amount of environmental hazard exposure through air and noise pollution and substandard sanitation ( 110 ). This increased prevalence of environmental hazards can contribute to the health impacts of existing energy insecurities. For example, housing with poor ventilation in an area with high levels of air pollution can aggravate a child's asthma. There are well-established, clear disparities in neighborhood rates of asthma due to both indoor and outdoor environmental hazards ( 50 ), and there is an association between neighborhoods with energy insecurity and asthma prevalence ( 22 ). There is also spatial inequality and disparity in the prevalence of psychosocial stress. Low-income and minority neighborhoods suffer from higher rates of stress, which can compound the negative health effects that result from their already-increased exposure to environmental hazards (e.g., air pollution) ( 111 ). For example, family stress combined with exposure to neighborhood violence has been found to increase the incidence of traffic pollution-induced asthma in children, due to the strain on psychosocial pathways ( 112 ). The spatial disparities in energy insecurity and health also exist between urban and rural areas, where some low-income rural communities do not have access to natural gas or even electricity services, whereas lack of access to electricity services is rare in urban communities ( 113 ).

Bundled Hardships: Energy and Other Insecurities

As demonstrated by this robust review, energy insecurity is a complex problem, and it does not occur in a vacuum. The hardship of energy insecurity intersects with other hardships, such that each compounds the severity of the others and contributes to detrimental health consequences. Competing needs and hardships, such as food insecurity, water insecurity, and housing insecurity, result in tradeoffs where basic needs are prioritized and sometimes foregone ( 9 , 114 , 115 ). The stress from having to make trade-offs between basic needs for food, water, housing, and energy profoundly affects adult and child mental health ( 116 , 117 ), which can exacerbate many kinds of physical health and social issues.

With food insecurity, the “heat or eat” dilemma occurs when households must decide whether to expend resources on proper nutrition or adequate energy services because they cannot access or afford both ( 28 , 30 , 118 , 119 ). Often, this dilemma leads to undernutrition, especially during the winter and summer months when there are higher energy use needs when it has been found that low-income adults and children have decreased caloric intake compared to lower-energy use months in the spring or fall ( 28 , 118 ). Other health impacts from food insecurity include acute hospital visits, poor diabetes control, developmental delays, fatigue, and behavioral issues in children ( 54 , 120 , 121 ). In response to high energy bills, people also opt out of medical and dental care, which can lead to worse health outcomes in the future ( 119 ).

Water insecurity is another co-occurring hardship. Water and electricity tend to be dependent on one another. On a large scale, hydroelectric dams need water and electricity to function, power plants need cooling water when there are high temperatures, and nuclear plants use large volumes of water ( 122 – 124 ). It is not only water that is needed for energy, but the other way around as well. At the community and household level, access to hot water can be encumbered by energy insecurity ( 30 , 41 ). When concerned about the cost of energy, some residents may cut back on hot water use ( 30 ). Furthermore, water pipes can freeze if there is a fuel shortage or shut-off in time of freezing outdoor temperatures ( 31 ). Without water, people's ability to access energy reduces.

Lastly, housing insecurity is a frequently cited competing hardship to energy insecurity ( 22 ). The dimensions of housing insecurity include frequent moves, lack of housing options, homelessness, high housing costs, overcrowding, and unstable neighborhoods ( 125 – 127 ). Households that do not have enough money to afford high-quality housing also suffer from an inability to pay high utility bills, which can result in household debt owed to utility companies. Low-income families juggling financial hardships often prioritize other financial obligations such as paying for rent or groceries, seemingly more immediate needs, over paying off debt; this behavior can leave families in prolonged debt cycles ( 128 ). Debt owed to utility companies often prevents low-income households from moving because utility debts are not transferable ( 9 ), forcing residents to continue living in poor-quality housing. A home cannot be rented without a utility account in the renter's name, which is not possible if they have arrears at another address ( 9 ). Frequent moving is also a common form of housing insecurity. Low-income families are five times more likely than higher-income families to experience eviction, resulting in a move ( 50 , 129 ). Evictions generally occur when rent prices increase beyond what a family is capable of affording. Utility shut-offs play an important role in housing insecurity, as they are often the precursors to eviction. In both instances, households may encounter the double burden of housing and energy insecurity ( 23 ). As gentrification spreads across US cities, urban housing affordability is unachievable for most low-income families, forcing evictions, moves, overcrowding, and an increase in homelessness, and while newer buildings often enjoy energy-efficiency upgrades, older homes and buildings, which are often less efficient and more expensive to operate from an energy cost perspective, do not receive such upgrades ( 64 , 130 ). In short, energy cost burdens can increase housing affordability strains whereas lower energy bills can protect against high housing costs and promote residential stability.

Energy Insecurity, Health, and Coping

Health issues are linked to energy insecurity. In particular, such direct health outcomes are often a result of indoor temperature extremes and inadequate energy access. Thermal stress occurs when residents are unable to heat or cool their homes properly, frequently due to unaffordable utility bills or an inability to access adequate services. As a result of inadequate home energy, residents resort to coping strategies, which, with chronic use, can be taxing and overburden resilience reserves.

Improvising and Coping Without Energy

Residents implement coping strategies to manage and respond to unmet energy needs; we consider this to be the behavioral dimension of energy insecurity. Despite the ingenuity and agency many people demonstrate in the face of suboptimal energy circumstances, these coping strategies have negative health implications. One such coping strategy is the use of emergency energy technology (i.e., generators), which is generally reserved for disasters but is often employed by energy-insecure households. Generator use is strongly associated with carbon monoxide (CO) fatalities, especially when the generator is placed incorrectly in the household (e.g., in the garage or outside of a bedroom window) ( 35 , 37 , 131 ). Even when placed correctly, generators constantly release CO, which in small, consistent doses can lead to cognitive decline, headaches, nausea, and dizziness. Maintenance issues can aggravate the health impacts of some coping methods, such as poorly maintained households exposing people to higher levels of toxins ( 50 ). For instance, some residents living in low-quality housing use unvented gas heaters as their primary heat source and/or hot air units that do not have ducts because they are unable to afford or access improvements. Both practices are associated with increased levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which exacerbate allergies and respiratory illness symptoms, create ear, nose, and throat irritation, and contribute to cognitive delays ( 51 , 132 ). People also resort to avoiding energy sources in their homes or use extreme conservation strategies to reduce energy expenditure. For example, some avoid using a refrigerator, which is associated with undernutrition due to a lack of fresh food in the diet, and/or avoiding hot water use, which can lead to infections and hygiene-related illnesses. Other survival strategies include practices such as only heating one room of the house, going to bed early, and using low lighting ( 114 ).

Cold Stress and Coping

In the winter, cold homes due to a lack of proper heating lead to excess deaths and a number of health problems ( 13 , 47 , 69 , 99 , 100 , 133 , 134 ). Cardiovascular symptoms as a result of inadequately heated homes are a prevalent cause of medical issues ( 69 , 135 ), and rates of hypertension increase in cold temperatures, which can lead to strokes and heart attacks ( 69 , 74 , 101 , 135 ). The elderly and people that are already diagnosed with CVD are more at risk of heart attack and stroke due to cold stress ( 13 , 47 ). Furthermore, research has found that arthritis symptoms worsen in cold homes ( 12 ). The rate of pneumonia and other infections, mostly among children, increases due to suppressed immune function from the cold ( 70 ), and upper and lower respiratory symptoms, such as coughing and wheezing, are worsened by the cold as well ( 69 , 99 , 100 ). Asthmatic residents and caretakers of asthmatic children living in inadequately heated homes report higher rates of poor well-being and more frequent hospital visits ( 27 , 136 ). Alzheimer's patients have a higher rate of mortality from a combination of physiological and behavioral factors as a result of the cold ( 137 ). Poorer well-being and financial strain from an increased number of medical visits can exacerbate mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, that may already be heightened due to the stress of energy insecurity ( 114 ).

In response to a cold home, many households cope by using alternative heating methods that have a direct impact on health ( 23 ). For example, using generators and stoves to provide heat also results in the release of toxic gasses such as NO 2 and CO that can impair cognitive function, exacerbate respiratory illnesses, and cause mortality ( 35 , 49 , 51 , 138 – 140 ). The use of space heaters or ovens as alternative heat sources can also increase the risk of fire and injury, which could potentially lead to displacement or death ( 23 , 104 ).

Heat Stress and Forbearance

Heat stress occurs when households are unable to afford or access energy to cool their homes. The health effects from this type of energy insecurity, such as increased morbidity and mortality rates, are most often seen during heatwaves when excess heat from outside conditions creates heat stress ( 135 , 141 , 142 ). Cardiovascular issues such as heat strokes, hypertension, and heart attack, dehydration, hyperthermia, and nervous system morbidities are examples of health impacts that occur under heat stress ( 69 , 135 , 143 ). Other health effects include a higher likelihood of acute renal failure ( 42 ) and increased sleep disturbances as a result of the extreme heat in inadequately cooled homes, which can exacerbate mental health conditions triggered by the stress of energy insecurity ( 53 , 57 ). This increase in morbidity and mortality is motivated by other social determinants of health that predict energy insecurity ( 142 ).

Coping mechanisms for dealing with heat stress have their own related stressors and issues. For example, opening windows for ventilation and relief from heat may seem like an easy, free solution to cool down warm homes; however, in neighborhoods that are perceived to be unsafe, many people cannot or do not travel to cooler locations nor do they leave windows open due to fear of crime and violence ( 141 , 144 ). Furthermore, open windows expose households to noise pollution, particularly in urban areas where there is high traffic flow, which causes sleep disturbances and obstructed concentration on tasks ( 57 ). Open windows also increase the infiltration of outdoor air pollution, such as from motor vehicle exhaust, that is associated with respiratory and cardiovascular health risks ( 57 ).

High-Effort Coping and Resilience Reserves

Energy insecurity plays a role in depleting a person's resilience reserve ( 24 ). The resilience reserve framework offers a different lens than does past resilience research, which found that marginalized groups were less resilient because they had less social and material support and more life stressors ( 145 ). The resilience reserve framework argues instead that marginalized groups that contend with social, economic, medical, physical, and geographic vulnerabilities expend resilience resources to manage everyday hardships, leaving less opportunity to accumulate the psychological and material means with which to respond to and recover from large shocks such as extreme climate events ( 24 ). Therefore, after a disaster, marginalized groups have greater difficulties coping and rebounding, because they have already depleted their reserves. For example, years after Hurricane Sandy, which occurred in 2012, low-income NYCHA residents reported longstanding physical and psychosocial difficulties, citing the Hurricane's exacerbation of existing hardships and emotional trauma ( 24 ). Specifically, NYCHA residents cited the lack of electricity, heat, and functional elevators as a source of struggle, not just after the Hurricane, but before it as well. Housing, economic, and energy-related hardships had long been a source of chronic stress, constantly gnawing at their resilience reserve before the hurricane hit ( 24 ). One risk of an increased frequency of extreme weather events is the potential to exacerbate existing hardships and deeply impact the resilience capacity of vulnerable populations as they confront a growing number of social, economic, health, and energy challenges on a normal basis.

Energy insecurity is a multifaceted phenomenon with short- and long-term iterations influenced by social determinants and a changing climate, ultimately impacting health. This paper reviews existing literature in order to trace the pathways by which chronic and acute energy insecurity directly and indirectly result in various adverse health conditions. Our heuristic model is a unique contribution to the literature that intends to depict seemingly far-flung factors associated with energy, poverty, health, and climate change. We demonstrate the disproportionate effects on vulnerable populations and the mechanisms of household energy that lead to poor health and excess death. Contributors to acute energy insecurity include power outages, fuel shortages, supply issues, and shut-offs stemming from affordability challenges. For the most part, these acute issues are short-lived, though their impact can still be significant for short- and long-term health, well-being, and survival. Meanwhile, the fundamental causes of chronic energy insecurity are rooted in socioeconomic disadvantage as determined by race, income, educational level, position within the life course, and medical conditions that affect energy needs and dependency. It is also deeply affected by housing quality and the concentration of inefficient housing at the neighborhood level that is unfortunately closely patterned along the axes of social inequality and racial residential segregation. The literature suggests that the social determinants of health, housing characteristics, and neighborhood quality seem to predict and/or exacerbate household energy insecurity. As a result, residents turn to coping methods that can have a number of negative health consequences, such as toxic exposure from generators, fires from space heaters, noise pollution and crime from open windows, and many more. Energy production and infrastructure, both globally and locally, contribute to energy insecurity in terms of access and environmental degradation. High energy demand can strain systems, weather events can create power outages, and affordably issues can lead to shut-offs and arrearages. The result of such energy insecurity contributes to outcomes such as psychosocial stress and mental health issues, poor sleep, cardiovascular and respiratory issues, and heat stress, among others. These energy-related difficulties can also deplete people's resilience reserves, such that affected populations are less able to bounce back from acute and chronic hardships. In the context of climate change, more wear-and-tear on the energy systems, housing infrastructure, and population health seems inevitable.

The following discussion offers a critical analysis of the vast but disjointed literature on energy insecurity. One critique of the present literature is that much of it lacks an environmental justice framework, which should be integral to energy insecurity research, and we exemplify this issue by discussing the lack of intersectional consideration of the rising wealth gap, coupled with increasing urbanization, and energy transitions. Second, we explore connections to energy-related issues in the Global South. Although the Global South was not the focus of this review, energy-related issues are prevalent across countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and must be taken into consideration when designing interventions, because energy reform anywhere has global implications. Lastly, we discuss the current and future impact of climate change on energy insecurity and the need for greater consideration of climate change when conducting research on energy insecurity. We contend that the use of acute and chronic energy insecurity terminology can be helpful to researchers using a climate change framework because it separates the direct energy-related effects of climate events (acute) from more long-term effects (chronic).

Wealth Inequality, Urbanization. Energy Transitions, and Environmental Justice

As energy becomes more expensive and the wealth gap increases in the U.S., poorer households may have greater difficulty affording adequate household energy. The difference in the proportion of income allocated to paying for energy bills could grow wider between the rich and the poor; low-income households may increasingly spend a higher proportion of their income on energy bills, because energy bills may increase at a rate faster than does their income ( 22 ). In contrast, wealthier households may experience an increase in their income at a rate that can sustain the increased price of energy. Take, for example, the yellow vest protests in France, which were incited by increased fuel costs. Wealth inequality should be addressed in energy insecurity literature, not only to ensure that lower-income households can afford and access energy through evidence-based policy but because socioeconomic status plays a direct role in determining a persons' health environment beyond energy needs.

The growing wealth gap is influenced by the exponential influx of people to urban areas, which do not have adequate infrastructure to provide for the growing population. As urbanization increases, more people are expected to benefit from urban advantage—the idea that there are health benefits to living in urban vs. rural areas ( 146 ). However, higher-income urban residents tend to benefit more from the urban advantage, and more often, low-income residents are left in unhealthy, poorly maintained neighborhood and residential environments ( 146 ). Thus, poorer residents are left without support and endure intergenerational socioeconomic hardships that prevent families from accumulating wealth. Constantly coping with hardships is financially costly, and high energy bills can be an obstacle to saving money among low-income households ( 9 ). Higher-income residents, on the other hand, pay less of their household income toward energy bills and benefit from more efficient and comfortable living environments.

The growing wealth gap between black and white families could also worsen disparate racial impacts as it relates to the intersection of energy, health, and poverty ( 147 , 148 ). Energy transitions from fossil fuels to renewables such as wind and solar may also contribute to a growing gap because white-collar businesses and wealthier households are able to control and obtain financing for renewable energy, whereas poorer, minority populations are unable to grow their use of renewable energy technology because the cost is prohibitive and access is difficult given the cost, lack of social capital, and lack of education around renewables ( 130 ). African Americans have been historically excluded from opportunities for social and economic mobility, and, in the energy sphere, they are also unduly burdened. The literature has failed to explicitly acknowledge the racial divides in energy-related hardship related to cost, comfort, and efficiency and the protracted uptake of the cleanest energy technologies among minoritized groups. It is important to recognize how an increasing wealth gap will perpetuate energy insecurity, further impacting the ability of low-income and minority families to afford adequate energy. Identifying racially based injustices has been critical to advances in environmental justice, and here too, we see a potential for greater analysis of the racial disparities in energy insecurity and related health and social outcomes.

Energy Insecurity and the Global South

While this review has focused on energy implications in the U.S. and the Global North, many of the same issues are relevant to the Global South. Few articles discussed in this review use a framework of intersectionality to discuss the burden that inordinately affects marginalized populations around the world. Research on global household energy insecurity that uses environmental justice and intersectional frameworks could more adequately analyze this topic. In the Global South, millions of households lack adequate energy sources ( 149 ). It is vital that we find methods to expand modern energy services to reach more of the population ( 150 ). However, more systematically speaking, energy is dispersed unjustly and inequitably around the world ( 151 , 152 ). Some populations have greater energy access than they need, while others do not have enough ( 8 ). We know that reducing carbon emissions worldwide is vital for addressing climate change, but it is also important to address the unequal distribution of energy sources. Health impacts from energy poverty in the Global South exist partially due to limited access to modern energy technologies. One example is the increased risk of COPD and heart disease from air pollutants that stem from cooking with biomass fuels rather than using electric or gas stoves ( 7 , 19 , 153 , 154 ). Households using biomass cookstoves, for instance, face the dilemma of inhaling toxic pollutants from cooking or not eating—both of which have significant health implications. About one-third of the world, almost entirely in the Global South, relies on solid fuel sources such as wood and crop waste for cooking fuel ( 5 , 7 ). Burning solid fuels for cooking creates indoor air pollution, which is significantly associated with stroke, ischemic heart disease, COPD, lung cancer, and pneumonia. The health impacts of solid-fuel cooking disproportionately impact women and children, who are exposed to higher pollution due to spending a larger amount of their time cooking than do men. Of the 1.3 million COPD deaths among women, about 511,000 are attributable to indoor cooking pollution. In contrast, of the 1.4 million COPD deaths among men, a much smaller proportion−173,000 cases—are attributable to indoor cooking pollution ( 7 ). Increasing the prevalence of and access to cleaner fuels for stoves around the world could significantly reduce these negative health outcomes.

In the same way that people of color in the U.S. disproportionately experience energy insecurity, people of color and those living in lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) around the world disproportionately bear the burden of an inequitable global energy system. Globally, people of color bear the burden of household energy insecurity. To this day, 1.3 billion people, most of whom live in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, lack access to modern energy services ( 155 ). Of the total number of people lacking electricity access worldwide, 41.3% of the people live in African countries, 28.5% live in India, 27.3% live in other Asian countries, and 2.2% live in Latin American countries ( 155 ). Countries of color are also more likely to shoulder the impacts of climate change, though they are less responsible for carbon emissions and environmental degradation, and their ability to withstand and rebuild from weather events is lower than higher-income countries ( 156 ).

Climate Change and Energy Insecurity

The literature reviewed here does not adequately demonstrate a thoughtful link to climate change that goes beyond the concepts of adaptation and mitigation. Future research should examine the impact that climate change will have on energy insecurity. We propose that the concepts of acute and chronic energy insecurity may allow future researchers to expand upon and better evaluate the effects of climate change on household energy. Climate change worsens the direct and indirect health outcomes of energy insecurity and exacerbates cumulative risk, such that those already experiencing energy insecurity are most affected by climate events because they are less able to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disaster events ( 157 ). Communities that are most vulnerable to daily hardships are also most vulnerable to the impact of weather events, and the disparity worsens with repeated shocks from climate change ( 156 ). For instance, mortality from heatwaves disproportionately affects older, minority, and low-income residents who are less equipped socially, economically, and physiologically to withstand high temperatures. After the 1995 Chicago heatwave, there was clear demographic disparity in mortality rates—lower-income and older people died at much higher rates than the rest of the population ( 48 ). These populations were much more vulnerable to heat stress due to living in decaying housing, lack of access to medical services, and social isolation ( 48 ). Without movement toward addressing the world's substandard housing, medical, and financial systems, natural disasters could continue to disenfranchise marginalized populations, intensifying and worsening existing stressors. Though some of the literature critically appraised in this review discusses weather events, the vast majority did not explicitly discuss climate change. Research should incorporate and explore the detrimental implications of climate change when evaluating energy insecurity in order to better prepare for future climate scenarios.

While vulnerable populations tend to be hit harder by climate change-related weather events all people are affected by climate change. Climate change-related energy insecurity issues, therefore, could impact anyone regardless of socioeconomic status ( 158 ). Severe weather events will lead to acute energy insecurity such as power outages that can affect anyone. More frequent heatwaves will significantly increase energy demand, the need for expanded energy systems, dependence on household air conditioning for entire populations ( 45 , 93 , 141 , 142 , 159 ). Power outages from heatwaves and storms can put anyone at risk of medical difficulties. Furthermore, storms are increasing in frequency and severity allover the world, putting people at risk of cut off energy access. And regardless of socioeconomic status, people resort to using emergency energy systems (e.g., generators) or non-energy methods during storms or disasters, which puts residents at risk of CO poisoning ( 160 ). It is difficult for residents with chronic illnesses to withstand acute energy insecurity from storm-related power outages ( 141 , 161 ). As shown in these examples, energy insecurity, particularly acute energy insecurity, may become more prevalent for all people as climate change worsens. Notwithstanding the importance of the issue, a demonstrable gap in the literature exists, given that only one-third of the sources included in this review discuss climate change in relation to energy insecurity.

Strengths and Limitations

This review paper was inspired by a desire to comprehensively understand the predictors and outcomes of energy insecurity. The household energy literature spans many disciplines and research methods. As a result, we drew from a large interdisciplinary pool of research in order to capture enough relevant sources on this topic. The broad inclusion criteria allowed us to find articles that spanned many disciplines and methods to give us a realistic look at the full range of the household energy insecurity literature. Though the breadth of information about household energy is a strength, it was also challenging in that it demonstrated a clear lack of cohesion and systematic guidelines around research on household energy. Therefore, making connections and critiques across these fields of research and sources presented a formidable challenge, though we have done our best to synthesize the literature and draw conclusions from it. The papers vary significantly not only in focus but in scientific quality and rigor—some are more descriptive in nature, while others are more empirical. Many of the studies were not rigorously designed, and for the most part, the literature proved to be quite underdeveloped overall. This review did not assess for quality or eliminate studies on the basis of potential bias. The challenge of a highly dispersed evidence base led us to develop our heuristic model, which attempts to conceptually unify the literature on household energy and health.

When considering the substantial impact that inadequate household energy can have on population health, we recognize the need to adopt policies and practices that protect people from energy insecurity. This review sought to highlight how energy needs are important for all aspects of daily living and for protection against the effects of acute insecurities in the context of climate change. Climate change threatens life on earth as we know it, and our collective vulnerabilities to energy hardship need to be addressed with extreme urgency ( 162 ). By using energy insecurity as a framework for understanding the nexus of effects of unmet household energy needs, we can draw connections between the direct effects of inadequate household energy, such as hypertension from a cold home, and how social vulnerabilities and co-occurring hardships contribute to the problem. With this broader framework, we can begin to understand how policies that address food insecurity, housing insecurity, structural and institutional racism, neighborhood segregation, education inequality, income inequality, and so many other social issues, will also affect energy insecurity and together impact population health. Studying the energy–health–justice nexus through the lens of acute and chronic energy insecurity presents a novel and innovative direction for public health research, advocacy, and policy that can be used to improve the health of people in the U.S. and around the world.

Author Contributions

SJ, SS, and DH contributed to the conception and design of the review, performed the analysis, contributed to manuscript revision, response to comments from reviewers, read and approved the submitted version of the review, and all accountable of all aspects of the review, including its accuracy and integrity. SJ organized the database and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. SS and DH wrote sections of the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Funding. The writing of this manuscript was partially supported by a JPB Environmental Health Fellowship granted to DH and managed by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Grant and by a career development award from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (grant P30ES009089).

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Acknowledgements, references cited.

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Renewable Energy: Current and Potential Issues: Renewable energy technologies could, if developed and implemented, provide nearly 50% of US energy needs; this would require about 17% of US land resources

David Pimentel ( [email protected] ) is a professor, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-0901.

Megan Herz, Michele Glickstein, Mathew Zimmerman, Richard Allen, Katrina Becker, Jeff Evans, Benita Hussain, Ryan Sarsfeld, Anat Grosfeld, and Thomas Seidel are graduate students, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-0901.

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David Pimentel, Megan Herz, Michele Glickstein, Mathew Zimmerman, Richard Allen, Katrina Becker, Jeff Evans, Benita Hussain, Ryan Sarsfeld, Anat Grosfeld, Thomas Seidel, Renewable Energy: Current and Potential Issues: Renewable energy technologies could, if developed and implemented, provide nearly 50% of US energy needs; this would require about 17% of US land resources, BioScience , Volume 52, Issue 12, December 2002, Pages 1111–1120, https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052[1111:RECAPI]2.0.CO;2

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The United States faces energy shortages and increasing energy prices within the next few decades ( Duncan 2001 ). Coal, petroleum, natural gas, and other mined fuels provide 75% of US electricity and 93% of other US energy needs ( USBC 2001 ). On average, every year each American uses about 93,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh), equivalent to 8000 liters of oil, for all purposes, including transportation, heating, and cooling ( USBC 2001 ). About 12 kWh (one liter of gasoline) costs as much as $0.50, and this cost is projected to increase significantly in the next decade ( Schumer 2001 ).

The United States, having consumed from 82% to 88% of its proved oil reserves ( API 1999 ), now imports more than 60% of its oil at an annual cost of approximately $75 billion ( USBC 2001 ). General production, import, and consumption trends and forecasts suggest that within 20 years the United States will be importing from 80% to 90% of its oil. The US population of more than 285 million is growing each year, and the 3.6 trillion kWh of electricity produced annually at a cost of $0.07 to $0.20 per kWh are becoming insufficient for the country's current needs. As energy becomes more scarce and more expensive, the future contribution of renewable energy sources will be vital ( USBC 2001 ).

Fossil fuel consumption is the major contributor to the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) in the atmosphere, a key cause of global warming ( Schneider et al. 2000 ). Global warming reduces agricultural production and causes other biological and social problems ( Schneider et al. 2000 ). The United States, with less than 4% of the world population, emits 22% of the CO 2 from burning fossil fuels, more than any other nation. Reducing fossil fuel consumption may slow the rate of global warming ( Schneider et al. 2000 ).

Diverse renewable energy sources currently provide only about 8% of US needs and about 14% of world needs (table 1) , although the development and use of renewable energy is expected to increase as fossil fuel supplies decline. Several different technologies are projected to provide the United States most of its renewable energy in the future: hydroelectric systems, biomass, wind power, solar thermal systems, photovoltaic systems, passive energy systems, geothermal systems, biogas, ethanol, methanol, and vegetable oil. In this article, we assess the potential of these various renewable energy technologies for supplying the future needs of the United States and the world in terms of land requirements, environmental benefits and risks, and energetic and economic costs.

Hydroelectric systems

Hydropower contributes significantly to world energy, providing 6.5% of the supply (table 1) . In the United States, hydroelectric plants produce approximately 989 billion kWh (1 kWh = 860 kilocalories [kcal] = 3.6 megajoules), or 11% of the nation's electricity, each year at a cost of $0.02 per kWh ( table 2 ; USBC 2001 ). Development and rehabilitation of existing dams in the United States could produce an additional 60 billion kWh per year (table 3) .

Hydroelectric plants, however, require considerable land for their water storage reservoirs. An average of 75,000 hectares (ha) of reservoir land area and 14 trillion liters of water are required per 1 billion kWh per year produced ( table 2 ; Pimentel et al. 1994 , Gleick and Adams 2000 ). Based on regional estimates of US land use and average annual energy generation, reservoirs currently cover approximately 26 million ha of the total 917 million ha of land area in the United States ( Pimentel 2001 ). To develop the remaining best candidate sites, assuming land requirements similar to those in past developments, an additional 17 million ha of land would be required for water storage (table 3) .

Despite the benefits of hydroelectric power, the plants cause major environmental problems. The impounded water frequently covers valuable, agriculturally productive, alluvial bottomland. Furthermore, dams alter the existing plants, animals, and microbes in the ecosystem ( Ligon et al. 1995 , Nilsson and Berggren 2000 ). Fish species may significantly decline in river systems because of these numerous ecological changes ( Brown and Moyle 1993 ). Within the reservoirs, fluctuations of water levels alter shorelines, cause downstream erosion, change physiochemical factors such as water temperature and chemicals, and affect aquatic communities. Sediments build up behind the dams, reducing their effectiveness and creating another major environmental problem.

Biomass energy systems

Although most biomass is burned for cooking and heating, it can also be converted into electricity. Under sustainable forest conditions in both temperate and tropical ecosystems, approximately 3 dry metric tons (t) per ha per year of woody biomass can be harvested sustainably ( Birdsey 1992 , Repetto 1992 , Trainer 1995 , Ferguson 2001 ). Although this amount of woody biomass has a gross energy yield of 13.5 million kcal, approximately 33 liters of diesel fuel per ha, plus the embodied energy, are expended for cutting and collecting the wood for transport to an electric power plant. Thus, the energy input–output ratio for such a system is calculated to be 1:22.

The cost of producing 1 kWh of electricity from woody biomass is about $0.058, which is competitive with other systems for electricity production (table 2) . Approximately 3 kWh of thermal energy is expended to produce 1 kWh of electricity, an energy input–output ratio of 1:7 ( table 2 ; Pimentel 2001 ).

Per capita consumption of woody biomass for heat in the United States amounts to 625 kilograms (kg) per year. In developing nations, use of diverse biomass resources (wood, crop residues, and dung) ranges from 630 kg per capita ( Kitani 1999 ) to approximately 1000 kg per capita ( Hall 1992 ). Developing countries use only about 500 liters of oil equivalents of fossil energy per capita, compared with nearly 8000 liters of oil equivalents of fossil energy used per capita in the United States.

Woody biomass could supply the United States with about 1.5 × 10 12 kWh (5 quads thermal equivalent) of its total gross energy supply by the year 2050, provided that approximately 102 million ha were available (table 3) . A city of 100,000 people using the biomass from a sustainable forest (3 t per ha per year) for electricity would require approximately 200,000 ha of forest area, based on an average electrical demand of slightly more than 1 billion kWh (electrical energy [e]) (860 kcal = 1 kWh) (table 2) .

The environmental effects of burning biomass are less harmful than those associated with coal, but more harmful than those associated with natural gas ( Pimentel 2001 ). Biomass combustion releases more than 200 different chemical pollutants, including 14 carcinogens and 4 cocarcinogens, into the atmosphere ( Alfheim and Ramdahl 1986 , Godish 1991 ). Globally, but especially in developing nations where people cook with fuelwood over open fires, approximately four billion people suffer from continuous exposure to smoke ( World Bank 1992 , WHO/UNEP 1993 , Reddy et al. 1997 ). In the United States, wood smoke kills 30,000 people each year ( EPA 2002 ). However, the pollutants from electric plants that use wood and other biomass can be controlled.

For many centuries, wind power has provided energy to pump water and to run mills and other machines. Today, turbines with a capacity of at least 500 kW produce most commercially wind-generated electricity. Operating at an ideal location, one of these turbines can run at maximum 30% efficiency and yield an energy output of 1.3 million kWh (e) per year ( AWEA 2000a ). An initial investment of approximately $500,000 for a 500 kW capacity turbine ( Nelson 1996 ), operating at 30% efficiency, will yield an input–output ratio of 1:5 over 30 years of operation (table 2) . During the 30-year life of the system, the annual operating costs amount to $40,500 ( Nelson 1996 ). The estimated cost of electricity generated is $0.07 per kWh (e) (table 2) .

In the United States, 2502 megawatts (MW) of installed wind generators produce about 6.6 billion kWh of electrical energy per year ( Chambers 2000 ). The American Wind Energy Association ( AWEA 2000b ) estimates that the United States could support a capacity of 30,000 MW by the year 2010, producing 75 billion kWh (e) per year at a capacity of 30%, or approximately 2% of the annual US electrical consumption. If all economically feasible land sites were developed, the full potential of wind power would be about 675 billion kWh (e) ( AWEA 2000b ). Offshore sites could provide an additional 102 billion kWh (e) ( Gaudiosi 1996 ), making the total estimated potential of wind power 777 billion kWh (e), or 23% of current electrical use.

Widespread development of wind power is limited by the availability of sites with sufficient wind (at least 20 kilometers [km] per hour) and the number of wind machines that the site can accommodate. In California's Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, an average of one 50 kW turbine per 1.8 ha allows sufficient spacing to produce maximum power ( Smith and Ilyin 1991 ). Based on this figure, approximately 13,700 ha of land is needed to supply 1 billion kWh per year (table 2) . Because the turbines themselves occupy only approximately 2% of the area, most of the land can be used for vegetables, nursery stock, and cattle ( DP Energy 2002 , NRC 2002 ). However, it may be impractical to produce corn or other grains because the heavy equipment used in this type of farming could not operate easily between the turbines.

An investigation of the environmental impacts of wind energy production reveals a few hazards. Locating the wind turbines in or near the flyways of migrating birds and wildlife refuges may result in birds colliding with the supporting towers and rotating blades ( Kellet 1990 ). For this reason, Clarke (1991) suggests that wind farms be located at least 300 meters (m) from nature reserves to reduce the risk to birds. The estimated 13,000 wind turbines installed in the United States have killed fewer than 300 birds per year ( Kerlinger 2000 ). Proper siting and improved repellant technology, such as strobe lights or paint patterns, might further reduce the number of birds killed.

The rotating magnets in the turbine electrical generator produce a low level of electromagnetic interference that can affect television and radio signals within 2 to 3 km of large installations ( IEA 1987 ). Fortunately, with the widespread use of cable networks or line-of-sight microwave satellite transmission, both television and radio are unaffected by this interference.

The noise caused by rotating blades is another unavoidable side effect of wind turbine operation. Beyond 2.1 km, however, the largest turbines are inaudible even downwind. At a distance of 400 m, the noise level is about 56 decibels ( IEA 1987 ), corresponding roughly to the noise level of a home air-conditioning unit.

Solar thermal conversion systems

Solar thermal energy systems collect the sun's radiant energy and convert it into heat. This heat can be used directly for household and industrial purposes or to produce steam to drive turbines that produce electricity. These systems range in complexity from solar ponds to electricity-generating parabolic troughs. In the material that follows, we convert thermal energy into electricity to facilitate comparison with other solar energy technologies.

Solar ponds.

Solar ponds are used to capture radiation and store the energy at temperatures of nearly 100 degrees Celsius (°C). Constructed ponds can be made into solar ponds by creating a layered salt concentration gradient. The layers prevent natural convection, trapping the heat collected from solar radiation in the bottom layer of brine. The hot brine from the bottom of the pond is piped out to use for heat, for generating electricity, or both.

For successful operation of a solar pond, the salt concentration gradient and the water level must be maintained. A solar pond covering 4000 ha loses approximately 3 billion liters of water per year (750,000 liters per ha per year) under arid conditions ( Tabor and Doran 1990 ). The solar ponds in Israel have been closed because of such problems. To counteract the water loss and the upward diffusion of salt in the ponds, the dilute salt water at the surface of the ponds has to be replaced with fresh water and salt added to the lower layer.

The efficiency of solar ponds in converting solar radiation into heat is estimated to be approximately 1:4 (that is, 1 kWh of input provides 4 kWh of output), assuming a 30-year life for the solar pond (table 2) . Electricity produced by a 100 ha (1 km 2 ) solar pond costs approximately $0.15 per kWh ( Kishore 1993 ).

Some hazards are associated with solar ponds, but most can be avoided with careful management. It is essential to use plastic liners to make the ponds leakproof and prevent contamination of the adjacent soil and groundwater with salt. The degradation of soil quality caused by sodium chloride can be avoided by using an ammonium salt fertilizer ( Hull 1986 ). Burrowing animals must be kept away from the ponds by buried screening ( Dickson and Yates 1983 ).

Parabolic troughs.

Another solar thermal technology that concentrates solar radiation for large-scale energy production is the parabolic trough. A parabolic trough, shaped like the bottom half of a large drainpipe, reflects sunlight to a central receiver tube that runs above it. Pressurized water and other fluids are heated in the tube and used to generate steam, which can drive turbogenerators for electricity production or provide heat energy for industry.

Parabolic troughs that have entered the commercial market have the potential for efficient electricity production because they can achieve high turbine inlet temperatures ( Winter et al. 1991 ). Assuming peak efficiency and favorable sunlight conditions, the land requirements for the central receiver technology are approximately 1100 ha per 1 billion kWh per year (table 2) . The energy input–output ratio is calculated to be 1:5 (table 2) . Solar thermal receivers are estimated to produce electricity at a cost of approximately $0.07 to $0.09 per kWh ( DOE/EREN 2001 ).

The potential environmental impacts of solar thermal receivers include the accidental or emergency release of toxic chemicals used in the heat transfer system ( Baechler and Lee 1991 ). Water scarcity can also be a problem in arid regions.

Photovoltaic systems

Photovoltaic cells have the potential to provide a significant portion of future US and world electrical energy ( Gregory et al. 1997 ). Photovoltaic cells produce electricity when sunlight excites electrons in the cells. The most promising photovoltaic cells in terms of cost, mass production, and relatively high efficiency are those manufactured using silicon. Because the size of the unit is flexible and adaptable, photovoltaic cells can be used in homes, industries, and utilities.

However, photovoltaic cells need improvements to make them economically competitive before their use can become widespread. Test cells have reached efficiencies ranging from 20% to 25% ( Sorensen 2000 ), but the durability of photovoltaic cells must be lengthened and production costs reduced several times to make their use economically feasible.

Production of electricity from photovoltaic cells currently costs $0.12 to $0.20 per kWh ( DOE 2000 ). Using mass-produced photovoltaic cells with about 18% efficiency, 1 billion kWh per year of electricity could be produced on approximately 2800 ha of land, which is sufficient to supply the electrical energy needs of 100,000 people ( table 2 ; DOE 2001 ). Locating the photovoltaic cells on the roofs of homes, industries, and other buildings would reduce the need for additional land by an estimated 20% and reduce transmission costs. However, because storage systems such as batteries cannot store energy for extended periods, photovoltaics require conventional backup systems.

The energy input for making the structural materials of a photovoltaic system capable of delivering 1 billion kWh during a life of 30 years is calculated to be approximately 143 million kWh. Thus, the energy input–output ratio for the modules is about 1:7 ( table 2 ; Knapp and Jester 2000 ).

The major environmental problem associated with photovoltaic systems is the use of toxic chemicals, such as cadmium sulfide and gallium arsenide, in their manufacture ( Bradley 1997 ). Because these chemicals are highly toxic and persist in the environment for centuries, disposal and recycling of the materials in inoperative cells could become a major problem.

Hydrogen and fuel cells

Using solar electric technologies for its production, gaseous hydrogen produced by the electrolysis of water has the potential to serve as a renewable fuel to power vehicles and generate electricity. In addition, hydrogen can be used as an energy storage system for various electric solar energy technologies ( Winter and Nitsch 1988 , MacKenzie 1994 ).

The material and energy inputs for a hydrogen production facility are primarily those needed to build and run a solar electric production facility, like photovoltaics and hydropower. The energy required to produce 1 billion kWh of hydrogen is 1.4 billion kWh of electricity ( Ogden and Nitsch 1993 , Kreutz and Ogden 2000 ). Photovoltaic cells (table 2) currently require 2800 ha per 1 billion kWh; therefore, a total of 3920 ha would be needed to supply the equivalent of 1 billion kWh of hydrogen fuel. The water required for electrolytic production of 1 billion kWh per year equivalent of hydrogen is approximately 300 million liters per year ( Voigt 1984 ). On a per capita basis, this amounts to 3000 liters of water per year. The liquefaction of hydrogen requires significant energy inputs because the hydrogen must be cooled to about −253°C and pressurized. About 30% of the hydrogen energy is required for the liquefaction process ( Peschka 1992 , Trainer 1995 ).

Liquid hydrogen fuel occupies about three times the volume of an energy equivalent of gasoline. Storing 25 kg of gasoline requires a tank weighing 17 kg, whereas storing 9.5 kg of hydrogen requires a tank weighing 55 kg ( Peschka 1987 , 1992 ). Although the hydrogen storage vessel is large, hydrogen burns 1.33 times more efficiently than gasoline in automobiles ( Bockris and Wass 1988 ). In tests, a Plymouth liquid hydrogen vehicle, with a tank weighing about 90 kg and 144 liters of liquid hydrogen, has a cruising range in traffic of 480 km with a fuel efficiency of 3.3 km per liter ( MacKenzie 1994 ). However, even taking into account its greater fuel efficiency, commercial hydrogen is more expensive at present than gasoline. About 3.7 kg of gasoline sells for about $1.20, whereas 1 kg of liquid hydrogen with the same energy equivalent sells for about $2.70 ( Ecoglobe 2001 ).

Fuel cells using hydrogen are an environmentally clean, quiet, and efficient method of generating electricity and heat from natural gas and other fuels. Fuel cells are electrochemical devices, much like storage batteries, that use energy from the chemical synthesis of water to produce electricity. The fuel cell provides a way to burn hydrogen using oxygen, capturing the electrical energy released ( Larminie and Dicks 2000 ). Stored hydrogen is fed into a fuel cell apparatus along with oxygen from the atmosphere, producing effective electrical energy ( Larminie and Dicks 2000 ). The conversion of hydrogen into direct current (DC) using a fuel cell is about 40% efficient.

The major costs of fuel cells are the electrolytes, catalysts, and storage. Phosphoric acid fuel cells (PAFCs) and proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMs) are the most widely used and most efficient. PAFCs have an efficiency of 40% to 45%, compared to diesel engine efficiency of 36% to 39%. However, PAFCs are complex and have high costs because they operate at temperatures of 50° to 100°C ( DOE 1999 ). A fuel cell PEM engine costs $500 per kW, compared to $50 per kW for a gasoline engine ( DOE 1999 ), leading to a total price of approximately $100,000 for an automobile running on fuel cells ( Ogden and Nitsch 1993 ). These prices are for specially built vehicles, and the costs should decline as they are mass-produced. There is high demand for fuel cell–equipped vehicles in the United States ( Larminie and Dicks 2000 ).

Hydrogen has serious explosive risks because it is difficult to contain within steel tanks. Mixing with oxygen can result in intense flames because hydrogen burns more quickly than gasoline and diesel fuels ( Peschka 1992 ). Other environmental impacts are associated with the solar electric technologies used in hydrogen production. Water for the production of hydrogen may be a problem in arid regions of the United States and the world.

Passive heating and cooling of buildings

Approximately 20% (5.5 kWh × 10 12 [19 quads]) of the fossil energy used each year in the United States is used for heating and cooling buildings and for heating hot water ( USBC 2001 ). At present only about 0.3 quads of energy are being saved by technologies that employ passive and active solar heating and cooling of buildings (table 3) , which means that the potential for energy savings through increased energy efficiency and through the use of solar technologies for buildings is tremendous. Estimates suggest that the amount of energy lost through poorly insulated windows and doors is approximately 1.1 × 10 12 kWh (3.8 quads) each year—the approximate energy equivalent of all the oil pumped in Alaska per year ( EETD 2001 ).

Both new and established homes can be fitted with solar heating and cooling systems. Installing passive solar systems in new homes is less costly than retrofitting existing homes. Based on the cost of construction and the amount of energy saved, measured in terms of reduced heating and cooling costs over 10 years, the estimated returns of passive solar heating and cooling range from $0.02 to $0.10 per kWh ( Balcomb 1992 ).

Improvements in passive solar technology are making it more effective and less expensive than in the past ( Bilgen 2000 ). Current research in window design focuses on the development of “superwindows” with high insulating values and “smart” or electrochromic windows that can respond to electric current, temperature, or sunlight to control the admission of light energy ( Roos and Karlsson 1994 , DOE 2000 ).

Although none of the passive heating and cooling technologies requires land, they are not without problems. Some indirect problems with land use may arise, concerning such issues as tree removal, shading, and rights to the sun ( Simpson and McPherson 1998 ). Glare from collectors and glazing may create hazards to automobile drivers and airline pilots. Also, when houses are designed to be extremely energy efficient and airtight, indoor air quality becomes a concern because of indoor air pollutants. However, well-designed ventilation systems with heat exchangers can take care of this problem.

Geothermal systems

Geothermal energy uses natural heat present in Earth's interior. Examples are geysers and hot springs, like those at Yellowstone National Park in the United States. Geothermal energy sources are divided into three categories: hydrothermal, geopressured–geothermal, and hot dry rock. The hydrothermal system is the simplest and most commonly used one for electricity generation. The boiling liquid underground is utilized through wells, high internal pressure drives, or pumps. In the United States, nearly 3000 MW of installed electric generation comes from hydrothermal resources, and this figure is projected to increase by 1500 MW within the next 20 years ( DOE/EIA 1991 , 2001 ).

Most of the geothermal sites for electrical generation are located in California, Nevada, and Utah ( DOE/EIA 1991 ). Electrical generation costs for geothermal plants in the West range from $0.06 to $0.30 per kWh ( Gawlik and Kutscher 2000 ), suggesting that this technology offers potential to produce electricity economically. The US Department of Energy and the Energy Information Administration ( DOE/EIA 1991 , 2001 ) project that geothermal electric generation may grow three- to fourfold during the next 20 to 40 years. However, other investigations are not as optimistic and, in fact, suggest that geothermal energy systems are not renewable because the sources tend to decline over 40 to 100 years ( Bradley 1997 , Youngquist 1997 , Cassedy 2000 ). Existing drilling opportunities for geothermal resources are limited to a few sites in the United States and the world ( Youngquist 1997 ).

Potential environmental problems with geothermal energy include water shortages, air pollution, waste effluent disposal, subsidence, and noise ( DOE/EIA 1991 ). The wastes produced in the sludge include toxic metals such as arsenic, boron, lead, mercury, radon, and vanadium ( DOE/EIA 1991 ). Water shortages are an important limitation in some regions ( OECD 1998 ). Geothermal systems produce hydrogen sulfide, a potential air pollutant; however, this product could be processed and removed for use in industry ( Bradley 1997 ). Overall, the environmental costs of geothermal energy appear to be minimal relative to those of fossil fuel systems.

Wet biomass materials can be converted effectively into usable energy with anaerobic microbes. In the United States, livestock dung is normally gravity fed or intermittently pumped through a plug-flow digester, which is a long, lined, insulated pit in the earth. Bacteria break down volatile solids in the manure and convert them into methane gas (65%) and carbon dioxide (35%) ( Pimentel 2001 ). A flexible liner stretches over the pit and collects the biogas, inflating like a balloon. The biogas may be used to heat the digester, to heat farm buildings, or to produce electricity. A large facility capable of processing the dung from 500 cows costs nearly $300,000 ( EPA 2000 ). The Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA 2000 ) estimates that more than 2000 digesters could be economically installed in the United States.

The amount of biogas produced is determined by the temperature of the system, the microbes present, the volatile solids content of the feedstock, and the retention time. A plug-flow digester with an average manure retention time of about 16 days under winter conditions (−17.4°C) produced 452,000 kcal per day and used 262,000 kcal per day to heat the digester to 35°C ( Jewell et al. 1980 ). Using the same digester during summer conditions (15.6°C) but reducing the retention time to 10.4 days, the yield in biogas was 524,000 kcal per day, with 157,000 kcal per day used for heating the digester ( Jewell et al. 1980 ). The energy input–output ratios for the digester in these winter and summer conditions were 1:1.7 and 1:3.3, respectively. The energy output of biogas digesters has changed little over the past two decades ( Sommer and Husted 1995 , Hartman et al. 2000 ).

In developing countries such as India, biogas digesters typically treat the dung from 15 to 30 cattle from a single family or a small village. The resulting energy produced for cooking saves forests and preserves the nutrients in the dung. The capital cost for an Indian biogas unit ranges from $500 to $900 ( Kishore 1993 ). The price value of one kWh of biogas in India is about $0.06 ( Dutta et al. 1997 ). The total cost of producing about 10 million kcal of biogas is estimated to be $321, assuming the cost of labor to be $7 per hour; hence, the biogas has a value of $356. Manure processed for biogas has little odor and retains its fertilizer value ( Pimentel 2001 ).

Biofuels: Ethanol, methanol, and vegetable oil

Petroleum, essential for the transportation sector and the chemical industry, makes up approximately 40% of total US energy consumption. Clearly, as the supply diminishes, a shift from petroleum to alternative liquid fuels will be necessary. This analysis focuses on the potential of three fuel types: ethanol, methanol, and vegetable oil. Burned in internal combustion engines, these fuels release less carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide than gasoline and diesel fuels; however, because the production of most of these biofuels requires more total fossil energy than they produce as a biofuel, they contribute to air pollution and global warming ( Pimentel 2001 ).

Ethanol production in the United States using corn is heavily subsidized by public tax money ( Pimentel 2001 ). However, numerous studies have concluded that ethanol production does not enhance energy security, is not a renewable energy source, is not an economical fuel, and does not ensure clean air. Furthermore, its production uses land suitable for crop production ( Weisz and Marshall 1980 , Pimentel 1991 , Youngquist 1997 , Pimentel 2001 ). Ethanol produced using sugarcane is more energy efficient than that produced using corn; however, more fossil energy is still required to produce a liter of ethanol than the energy output in ethanol ( Pimentel et al. 1988 ).

The total energy input to produce 1000 liters of ethanol in a large plant is 8.7 million kcal ( Pimentel 2001 ). However, 1000 liters of ethanol has an energy value of only 5.1 million kcal and represents a net energy loss of 3.6 million kcal per 1000 liters of ethanol produced. Put another way, about 70% more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that ethanol contains ( Pimentel 2001 ).

Methanol can be produced from a gasifier–pyrolysis reactor using biomass as a feedstock ( Hos and Groenveld 1987 , Jenkins 1999 ). The yield from 1 t of dry wood is about 370 liters of methanol ( Ellington et al. 1993 , Osburn and Osburn 2001 ). For a plant with economies of scale to operate efficiently, more than 1.5 million ha of sustainable forest would be required to supply it ( Pimentel 2001 ). Biomass is generally not available in such enormous quantities, even from extensive forests, at acceptable prices. Most methanol today is produced from natural gas.

Processed vegetable oils from sunflower, soybean, rape, and other oil plants can be used as fuel in diesel engines. Unfortunately, producing vegetable oils for use in diesel engines is costly in terms of both time and energy ( Pimentel 2001 ).

Transition to renewable energy alternatives

Despite the environmental and economic benefits of renewable energy, the transition to large-scale use of this energy presents some difficulties. Renewable energy technologies, all of which require land for collection and production, must compete with agriculture, forestry, and urbanization for land in the United States and the world. The United States already devotes as much prime cropland per capita to food production as is possible, given the size of the US population, and the world has only half the cropland per capita that it needs for a diverse diet and an adequate supply of essential nutrients ( USBC 2001 , USDA 2001 ). In fact, more than 3 billion people are already malnourished in the world ( WHO 1996 , 2000 ). According to some sources, the world and US population could double in the next 50 and 70 years, respectively; all the available cropland and forest land would be required to provide vital food and forest products ( PRB 2001 ).

As the growing US and world populations demand increased electricity and liquid fuels, constraints like land availability and high investment costs will restrict the potential development of renewable energy technologies. Energy use is projected on the basis of current growth to increase from the current consumption of nearly 100 quads to approximately 145 quads by 2050 ( USBC 2001 ). Land availability is also a problem, with the US population increasing by about 3.3 million people each year ( USBC 2001 ). Each person added requires about 0.4 ha (1 acre) of land for urbanization and highways and about 0.5 ha of cropland ( Vesterby and Krupa 2001 ).

Renewable energy systems require more labor than fossil energy systems. For example, wood-fired steam plants require several times more workers than coal-fired plants ( Pimentel et al. 1988 , Giampietro et al. 1998 ).

An additional complication in the transition to renewable energies is the relationship between the location of ideal production sites and large population centers. Ideal locations for renewable energy technologies are often remote, such as deserts of the American Southwest or wind farms located kilometers offshore. Although these sites provide the most efficient generation of energy, delivering this energy to consumers presents a logistical problem. For instance, networks of distribution cables must be installed, costing about $179,000 per kilometer of 115-kilovolt lines ( DOE/EIA 2002 ). A percentage of the power delivered is lost as a function of electrical resistance in the distribution cable. There are five complex alternating current electrical networks in North America, and four of these are tied together by DC lines ( Casazz 1996 ). Based on these networks, it is estimated that electricity can be transmitted up to 1500 km.

A sixfold increase in installed technologies would provide the United States with approximately 13.1 × 10 12 (thermal) kWh (45 quads) of energy, less than half of current US consumption (table 1) . This level of energy production would require about 159 million ha of land (17% of US land area). This percentage is an estimate and could increase or decrease, depending on how the technologies evolve and energy conservation is encouraged.

Worldwide, approximately 408 quads of all types of energy are used by the population of more than 6 billion people (table 1) . Using available renewable energy technologies, an estimated 200 quads of renewable energy could be produced worldwide on about 20% of the land area of the world. A self-sustaining renewable energy system producing 200 quads of energy per year for about 2 billion people would provide each person with about 5000 liters of oil equivalents per year—approximately half of America's current consumption per year, but an increase for most people of the world ( Pimentel et al. 1999 ).

The first priority of the US energy program should be for individuals, communities, and industries to conserve fossil fuel resources by using renewable resources and by reducing consumption. Other developed countries have proved that high productivity and a high standard of living can be achieved with the use of half the energy expenditure of the United States ( Pimentel et al. 1999 ). In the United States, fossil energy subsidies of approximately $40 billion per year should be withdrawn and the savings invested in renewable energy research and education to encourage the development and implementation of renewable technologies. If the United States became a leader in the development of renewable energy technologies, then it would likely capture the world market for this industry ( Shute 2001 ).

This assessment of renewable energy technologies confirms that these techniques have the potential to provide the nation with alternatives to meet approximately half of future US energy needs. To develop this potential, the United States would have to commit to the development and implementation of non–fossil fuel technologies and energy conservation. The implementation of renewable energy technologies would reduce many of the current environmental problems associated with fossil fuel production and use.

The immediate priority of the United States should be to speed the transition from the reliance on nonrenewable fossil energy resources to reliance on renewable energy technologies. Various combinations of renewable technologies should be developed, consistent with the characteristics of the different geographic regions in the United States. A combination of the renewable technologies listed in table 3 should provide the United States with an estimated 45 quads of renewable energy by 2050. These technologies should be able to provide this much energy without interfering with required food and forest production.

If the United States does not commit itself to the transition from fossil to renewable energy during the next decade or two, the economy and national security will be at risk. It is of paramount importance that US residents work together to conserve energy, land, water, and biological resources. To ensure a reasonable standard of living in the future, there must be a fair balance between human population density and use of energy, land, water, and biological resources.

We thank the following people for reading an earlier draft of this article and for their many helpful suggestions: Louis Albright, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Allen Bartlett, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO; Richard C. Duncan, Institute on Energy and Man, Seattle, WA; Andrew R. B. Ferguson, Optimum Population Trust, Oxon, United Kingdom; Tillman Gerngross, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; O. J. Lougheed, Irkutsk, Siberia; Norman Myers, Oxford University, United Kingdom; Marcia Pimentel, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Nancy Rader, California Wind Energy Association; Kurt Roos, US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC; Frank Roselle-Calle, King's College, London; Peter Salonius, Canadian Forest Service, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada; Jack Scurlock, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN; Henry Stone, Ionia, NY; Ted Trainer, University of New South Wales, Australia; Mohan K. Wali, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; Paul B. Weisz, State College, PA; William Jewell, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Walter Youngquist, Eugene, OR.

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Table 1. Fossil and solar energy use in the United States and world, in kilowatt-hours and quads.

Table 2. Land resource requirements and total energy inputs for construction of facilities that produce 1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year.

Table 3. Current and projected US gross annual energy supply from various renewable energy technologies, based on the thermal equivalent and required land area.

Author notes

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Energy, Sustainability and Society

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The world’s energy problem

The world faces two energy problems: most of our energy still produces greenhouse gas emissions, and hundreds of millions lack access to energy..

The world lacks safe, low-carbon, and cheap large-scale energy alternatives to fossil fuels. Until we scale up those alternatives the world will continue to face the two energy problems of today. The energy problem that receives most attention is the link between energy access and greenhouse gas emissions. But the world has another global energy problem that is just as big: hundreds of millions of people lack access to sufficient energy entirely, with terrible consequences to themselves and the environment.

The problem that dominates the public discussion on energy is climate change. A climate crisis endangers the natural environment around us, our wellbeing today and the wellbeing of those who come after us.

It is the production of energy that is responsible for 87% of global greenhouse gas emissions and as the chart below shows, people in the richest countries have the very highest emissions.

This chart here will guide us through the discussion of the world's energy problem. It shows the per capita CO2 emissions on the vertical axis against the average income in that country on the horizontal axis.

In countries where people have an average income between $15,000 and $20,000, per capita CO 2 emissions are close to the global average ( 4.8 tonnes CO 2 per year). In every country where people's average income is above $25,000 the average emissions per capita are higher than the global average.

The world’s CO 2 emissions have been rising quickly and reached 36.6 billion tonnes in 2018 . As long as we are emitting greenhouse gases their concentration in the atmosphere increases . To bring climate change to an end the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere needs to stabilize and to achieve this the world’s greenhouse gas emissions have to decline towards net-zero.

To bring emissions down towards net-zero will be one of the world’s biggest challenges in the years ahead. But the world’s energy problem is actually even larger than that, because the world has not one, but two energy problems.

The twin problems of global energy

The first energy problem: those that have low carbon emissions lack access to energy.

The first global energy problem relates to the left-hand side of the scatter-plot above.

People in very poor countries have very low emissions. On average, people in the US emit more carbon dioxide in 4 days than people in poor countries – such as Ethiopia, Uganda, or Malawi – emit in an entire year. 1

The reason that the emissions of the poor are low is that they lack access to modern energy and technology. The energy problem of the poorer half of the world is energy poverty . The two charts below show that large shares of people in countries with a GDP per capita of less than $25,000 do not have access to electricity and clean cooking fuels. 2

The lack of access to these technologies causes some of the worst global problems of our time.

When people lack access to modern energy sources for cooking and heating, they rely on solid fuel sources – mostly firewood, but also dung and crop waste. This comes at a massive cost to the health of people in energy poverty: indoor air pollution , which the WHO calls "the world's largest single environmental health risk." 3 For the poorest people in the world it is the largest risk factor for early death and global health research suggests that indoor air pollution is responsible for 1.6 million deaths each year, twice the death count of poor sanitation. 4

The use of wood as a source of energy also has a negative impact on the environment around us. The reliance on fuelwood is the reason why poverty is linked to deforestation. The FAO reports that on the African continent the reliance on wood as fuel is the single most important driver of forest degradation. 5 Across East, Central, and West Africa fuelwood provides more than half of the total energy. 6

Lastly, the lack of access to energy subjects people to a life in poverty. No electricity means no refrigeration of food; no washing machine or dishwasher; and no light at night. You might have seen the photos of children sitting under a street lamp at night to do their homework. 7

The first energy problem of the world is the problem of energy poverty – those that do not have sufficient access to modern energy sources suffer poor living conditions as a result.

The second energy problem: those that have access to energy produce greenhouse gas emissions that are too high

The second energy problem is the one that is more well known, and relates to the right hand-side of the scatterplot above: greenhouse gas emissions are too high.

Those that need to reduce emissions the most are the extremely rich. Diana Ivanova and Richard Wood (2020) have just shown that the richest 1% in the EU emit on average 43 tonnes of CO 2 annually – 9-times as much as the global average of 4.8 tonnes. 8

The focus on the rich, however, can give the impression that it is only the emissions of the extremely rich that are the problem. What isn’t made clear enough in the public debate is that for the world's energy supply to be sustainable the greenhouse gas emissions of the majority of the world population are currently too high. The problem is larger for the extremely rich, but it isn’t limited to them.

The Paris Agreement's goal is to keep the increase of the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and “to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”. 9

To achieve this goal emissions have to decline to net-zero within the coming decades.

Within richer countries, where few are suffering from energy poverty, even the emissions of the very poorest people are far higher. The paper by Ivanova and Wood shows that in countries like Germany, Ireland, and Greece more than 99% of households have per capita emissions of more than 2.4 tonnes per year.

The only countries that have emissions that are close to zero are those where the majority suffers from energy poverty. 10 The countries that are closest are the very poorest countries in Africa : Malawi, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But this comes at a large cost to themselves as this chart shows. In no poor country do people have living standards that are comparable to those of people in richer countries.

And since living conditions are better where GDP per capita is higher, it is also the case that CO 2 emissions are higher where living conditions are better. Emissions are high where child mortality is the lowest , where children have good access to education, and where few of them suffer from hunger .

The reason for this is that as soon as people get access to energy from fossil fuels their emissions are too high to be sustainable over the long run (see here ).

People need access to energy for a good life. But in a world where fossil fuels are the dominant source of energy, access to modern energy means that carbon emissions are too high.

The more accurate description of the second global energy problem is therefore: the majority of the world population – all those who are not very poor – have greenhouse gas emissions that are far too high to be sustainable over the long run.

The current alternatives are energy poverty or fossil-fuels and greenhouse gases

The chart here is a version of the scatter plot above and summarizes the two global energy problems: In purple are those that live in energy poverty, in blue those whose greenhouse gas emissions are too high if we want to avoid severe climate change.

So far I have looked at the global energy problem in a static way, but the world is changing  of course.

For millennia all of our ancestors lived in the pink bubble: the reliance on wood meant they suffered from indoor air pollution; the necessity of acquiring fuelwood and agricultural land meant deforestation; and minimal technology meant that our ancestors lived in conditions of extreme poverty.

In the last two centuries more and more people have moved from the purple to the blue area in the chart. In many ways this is a very positive development. Economic growth and increased access to modern energy improved people's living conditions. In rich countries almost no one dies from indoor air pollution and living conditions are much better in many ways as we've seen above. It also meant that we made progress against the ecological downside of energy poverty: The link between poverty and the reliance on fuelwood is one of the key reasons why deforestation declines with economic growth. 11 And progress in that direction has been fast: on any average day in the last decade 315,000 people in the world got access to electricity for the first time in their life.

But while living conditions improved, greenhouse gas emissions increased.

The chart shows what this meant for greenhouse gas emissions over the last generation. The chart is a version of the scatter plot above, but it shows the change over time – from 1990 to the latest available data.

The data is now also plotted on log-log scales which has the advantage that you can see the rates of change easily. On a logarithmic axis the steepness of the line corresponds to the rate of change. What the chart shows is that low- and middle-income countries increased their emissions at very similar rates.

By default the chart shows the change of income and emission for the 14 countries that are home to more than 100 million people, but you can add other countries to the chart.

What has been true in the past two decades will be true in the future. For the poorer three-quarters of the world income growth means catching up with the good living conditions of the richer world, but unless there are cheap alternatives to fossil fuels it also means catching up with the high emissions of the richer world.

Our challenge: find large-scale energy alternatives to fossil fuels that are affordable, safe and sustainable

The task for our generation is therefore twofold: since the majority of the world still lives in poor conditions, we have to continue to make progress in our fight against energy poverty. But success in this fight will only translate into good living conditions for today’s young generation when we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.

Key to making progress on both of these fronts is the source of energy and its price . Those living in energy poverty cannot afford sufficient energy and those that left the worst poverty behind rely on fossil fuels to meet their energy needs.

Once we look at it this way it becomes clear that the twin energy problems are really the two sides of one big problem. We lack large-scale energy alternatives to fossil fuels that are cheap, safe, and sustainable.

This last version of the scatter plot shows what it would mean to have such energy sources at scale. It would allow the world to leave the unsustainable current alternatives behind and make the transition to the bottom right corner of the chart: the area marked with the green rectangle where emissions are net-zero and everyone has left energy poverty behind.

Without these technologies we are trapped in a world where we have only bad alternatives: Low-income countries that fail to meet the needs of the current generation; high-income countries that compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs; and middle-income countries that fail on both counts.

Since we have not developed all the technologies that are required to make this transition possible large scale innovation is required for the world to make this transition. This is the case for most sectors that cause carbon emissions , in particular in the transport (shipping, aviation, road transport) and heating sectors, but also cement production and agriculture.

One sector where we have developed several alternatives to fossil fuels is electricity. Nuclear power and renewables emit far less carbon (and are much safer) than fossil fuels. Still, as the last chart shows, their share in global electricity production hasn't changed much: only increasing from 36% to 38% in the last three decades.

But it is possible to do better. Some countries have scaled up nuclear power and renewables and are doing much better than the global average. You can see this if you change the chart to show the data for France and Sweden – in France 92% of electricity comes from low carbon sources, in Sweden it is 99%. The consequence of countries doing better in this respect should be that they are closer to the sustainable energy world of the future. The scatter plot above shows that this is the case.

But for the global energy supply – especially outside the electricity sector – the world is still far away from a solution to the world's energy problem.

Every country is still very far away from providing clean, safe, and affordable energy at a massive scale and unless we make rapid progress in developing these technologies we will remain stuck in the two unsustainable alternatives of today: energy poverty or greenhouse gas emissions.

As can be seen from the chart, the ratio of emissions is 17.49t / 0.2t = 87.45. And 365 days/87.45=4.17 days

It is worth looking into the cutoffs for what it means – according to these international statistics – to have access to energy. The cutoffs are low.

See Raising Global Energy Ambitions: The 1,000 kWh Modern Energy Minimum and IEA (2020) – Defining energy access: 2020 methodology, IEA, Paris.

WHO (2014) – Frequently Asked Questions – Ambient and Household Air Pollution and Health . Update 2014

While it is certain that the death toll of indoor air pollution is high, there are widely differing estimates. At the higher end of the spectrum, the WHO estimates a death count of more than twice that. We discuss it in our entry on indoor air pollution .

The 2018 estimate for premature deaths due to poor sanitation is from the same analysis, the Global Burden of Disease study. See here .

FAO and UNEP. 2020. The State of the World’s Forests 2020. Forests, biodiversity and people. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca8642en

The same report also reports that an estimated 880 million people worldwide are collecting fuelwood or producing charcoal with it.

This is according to the IEA's World Energy Balances 2020. Here is a visualization of the data.

The second largest energy source across the three regions is oil and the third is gas.

The photo shows students study under the streetlights at Conakry airport in Guinea. It was taken by Rebecca Blackwell for the Associated Press.

It was published by the New York Times here .

The global average is 4.8 tonnes per capita . The richest 1% of individuals in the EU emit 43 tonnes per capita – according to Ivanova D, Wood R (2020). The unequal distribution of household carbon footprints in Europe and its link to sustainability. Global Sustainability 3, e18, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2020.12

On Our World in Data my colleague Hannah Ritchie has looked into a related question and also found that the highest emissions are concentrated among a relatively small share of the global population: High-income countries are home to only 16% of the world population, yet they are responsible for almost half (46%) of the world’s emissions.

Article 2 of the Paris Agreement states the goal in section 1a: “Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.”

It is an interesting question whether there are some subnational regions in richer countries where a larger group of people has extremely low emissions; it might possibly be the case in regions that rely on nuclear energy or renewables (likely hydro power) or where aforestation is happening rapidly.

Crespo Cuaresma, J., Danylo, O., Fritz, S. et al. Economic Development and Forest Cover: Evidence from Satellite Data. Sci Rep 7, 40678 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep40678

Bruce N, Rehfuess E, Mehta S, et al. Indoor Air Pollution. In: Jamison DT, Breman JG, Measham AR, et al., editors. Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries. 2nd edition. Washington (DC): The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank; 2006. Chapter 42. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11760/ Co-published by Oxford University Press, New York.

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How the energy crisis started, how global energy markets are impacting our daily life, and what governments are doing about it

Global Energy Crisis

• English English

What is the energy crisis?

Record prices, fuel shortages, rising poverty, slowing economies: the first energy crisis that's truly global.

Energy markets began to tighten in 2021 because of a variety of factors, including the extraordinarily rapid economic rebound following the pandemic. But the situation escalated dramatically into a full-blown global energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The price of natural gas reached record highs, and as a result so did electricity in some markets. Oil prices hit their highest level since 2008. 

Higher energy prices have contributed to painfully high inflation, pushed families into poverty, forced some factories to curtail output or even shut down, and slowed economic growth to the point that some countries are heading towards severe recession. Europe, whose gas supply is uniquely vulnerable because of its historic reliance on Russia, could face gas rationing this winter, while many emerging economies are seeing sharply higher energy import bills and fuel shortages. While today’s energy crisis shares some parallels with the oil shocks of the 1970s, there are important differences. Today’s crisis involves all fossil fuels, while the 1970s price shocks were largely limited to oil at a time when the global economy was much more dependent on oil, and less dependent on gas. The entire word economy is much more interlinked than it was 50 years ago, magnifying the impact. That’s why we can refer to this as the first truly global energy crisis.

Some gas-intensive manufacturing plants in Europe have curtailed output because they can’t afford to keep operating, while in China some have simply had their power supply cut. In emerging and developing economies, where the share of household budgets spent on energy and food is already large, higher energy bills have increased extreme poverty and set back progress towards achieving universal and affordable energy access. Even in advanced economies, rising prices have impacted vulnerable households and caused significant economic, social and political strains.

Climate policies have been blamed in some quarters for contributing to the recent run-up in energy prices, but there is no evidence. In fact, a greater supply of clean energy sources and technologies would have protected consumers and mitigated some of the upward pressure on fuel prices.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine drove European and Asian gas prices to record highs

Evolution of key regional natural gas prices, june 2021-october 2022, what is causing it, disrupted supply chains, bad weather, low investment, and then came russia's invasion of ukraine.

Energy prices have been rising since 2021 because of the rapid economic recovery, weather conditions in various parts of the world, maintenance work that had been delayed by the pandemic, and earlier decisions by oil and gas companies and exporting countries to reduce investments. Russia began withholding gas supplies to Europe in 2021, months ahead of its invasion of Ukraine. All that led to already tight supplies. Russia’s attack on Ukraine greatly exacerbated the situation . The United States and the EU imposed a series of sanctions on Russia and many European countries declared their intention to phase out Russian gas imports completely. Meanwhile, Russia has increasingly curtailed or even turned off its export pipelines. Russia is by far the world’s largest exporter of fossil fuels, and a particularly important supplier to Europe. In 2021, a quarter of all energy consumed in the EU came from Russia. As Europe sought to replace Russian gas, it bid up prices of US, Australian and Qatari ship-borne liquefied natural gas (LNG), raising prices and diverting supply away from traditional LNG customers in Asia. Because gas frequently sets the price at which electricity is sold, power prices soared as well. Both LNG producers and importers are rushing to build new infrastructure to increase how much LNG can be traded internationally, but these costly projects take years to come online. Oil prices also initially soared as international trade routes were reconfigured after the United States, many European countries and some of their Asian allies said they would no longer buy Russian oil. Some shippers have declined to carry Russian oil because of sanctions and insurance risk. Many large oil producers were unable to boost supply to meet rising demand – even with the incentive of sky-high prices – because of a lack of investment in recent years. While prices have come down from their peaks, the outlook is uncertain with new rounds of European sanctions on Russia kicking in later this year.

What is being done?

Pandemic hangovers and rising interest rates limit public responses, while some countries turn to coal.

Some governments are looking to cushion the blow for customers and businesses, either through direct assistance, or by limiting prices for consumers and then paying energy providers the difference. But with inflation in many countries well above target and budget deficits already large because of emergency spending during the Covid-19 pandemic, the scope for cushioning the impact is more limited than in early 2020. Rising inflation has triggered increases in short-term interest rates in many countries, slowing down economic growth. Europeans have rushed to increase gas imports from alternative producers such as Algeria, Norway and Azerbaijan. Several countries have resumed or expanded the use of coal for power generation, and some are extending the lives of nuclear plants slated for de-commissioning. EU members have also introduced gas storage obligations, and agreed on voluntary targets to cut gas and electricity demand by 15% this winter through efficiency measures, greater use of renewables, and support for efficiency improvements. To ensure adequate oil supplies, the IEA and its members responded with the two largest ever releases of emergency oil stocks. With two decisions – on 1 March 2022 and 1 April – the IEA coordinated the release of some 182 million barrels of emergency oil from public stocks or obligated stocks held by industry. Some IEA member countries independently released additional public stocks, resulting in a total of over 240 million barrels being released between March and November 2022.

The IEA has also published action plans to cut oil use with immediate impact, as well as plans for how Europe can reduce its reliance on Russian gas and how common citizens can reduce their energy consumption . The invasion has sparked a reappraisal of energy policies and priorities, calling into question the viability of decades of infrastructure and investment decisions, and profoundly reorientating international energy trade. Gas had been expected to play a key role in many countries as a lower-emitting "bridge" between dirtier fossil fuels and renewable energies. But today’s crisis has called into question natural gas’ reliability.

The current crisis could accelerate the rollout of cleaner, sustainable renewable energy such as wind and solar, just as the 1970s oil shocks spurred major advances in energy efficiency, as well as in nuclear, solar and wind power. The crisis has also underscored the importance of investing in robust gas and power network infrastructure to better integrate regional markets. The EU’s RePowerEU, presented in May 2022 and the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act , passed in August 2022, both contain major initiatives to develop energy efficiency and promote renewable energies. 

The global energy crisis can be a historic turning point

Energy saving tips

1. Heating: turn it down

Lower your thermostat by just 1°C to save around 7% of your heating energy and cut an average bill by EUR 50-70 a year. Always set your thermostat as low as feels comfortable, and wear warm clothes indoors. Use a programmable thermostat to set the temperature to 15°C while you sleep and 10°C when the house is unoccupied. This cuts up to 10% a year off heating bills. Try to only heat the room you’re in or the rooms you use regularly.

The same idea applies in hot weather. Turn off air-conditioning when you’re out. Set the overall temperature 1 °C warmer to cut bills by up to 10%. And only cool the room you’re in.

2. Boiler: adjust the settings

Default boiler settings are often higher than you need. Lower the hot water temperature to save 8% of your heating energy and cut EUR 100 off an average bill.  You may have to have the plumber come once if you have a complex modern combi boiler and can’t figure out the manual. Make sure you follow local recommendations or consult your boiler manual. Swap a bath for a shower to spend less energy heating water. And if you already use a shower, take a shorter one. Hot water tanks and pipes should be insulated to stop heat escaping. Clean wood- and pellet-burning heaters regularly with a wire brush to keep them working efficiently.

3. Warm air: seal it in

Close windows and doors, insulate pipes and draught-proof around windows, chimneys and other gaps to keep the warm air inside. Unless your home is very new, you will lose heat through draughty doors and windows, gaps in the floor, or up the chimney. Draught-proof these gaps with sealant or weather stripping to save up to EUR 100 a year. Install tight-fitting curtains or shades on windows to retain even more heat. Close fireplace and chimney openings (unless a fire is burning) to stop warm air escaping straight up the chimney. And if you never use your fireplace, seal the chimney to stop heat escaping.

4. Lightbulbs: swap them out

Replace old lightbulbs with new LED ones, and only keep on the lights you need. LED bulbs are more efficient than incandescent and halogen lights, they burn out less frequently, and save around EUR 10 a year per bulb. Check the energy label when buying bulbs, and aim for A (the most efficient) rather than G (the least efficient). The simplest and easiest way to save energy is to turn lights off when you leave a room.

5. Grab a bike

Walking or cycling are great alternatives to driving for short journeys, and they help save money, cut emissions and reduce congestion. If you can, leave your car at home for shorter journeys; especially if it’s a larger car. Share your ride with neighbours, friends and colleagues to save energy and money. You’ll also see big savings and health benefits if you travel by bike. Many governments also offer incentives for electric bikes.

6. Use public transport

For longer distances where walking or cycling is impractical, public transport still reduces energy use, congestion and air pollution. If you’re going on a longer trip, consider leaving your car at home and taking the train. Buy a season ticket to save money over time. Your workplace or local government might also offer incentives for travel passes. Plan your trip in advance to save on tickets and find the best route.

7. Drive smarter

Optimise your driving style to reduce fuel consumption: drive smoothly and at lower speeds on motorways, close windows at high speeds and make sure your tires are properly inflated. Try to take routes that avoid heavy traffic and turn off the engine when you’re not moving. Drive 10 km/h slower on motorways to cut your fuel bill by around EUR 60 per year. Driving steadily between 50-90 km/h can also save fuel. When driving faster than 80 km/h, it’s more efficient to use A/C, rather than opening your windows. And service your engine regularly to maintain energy efficiency.

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Coal, one of humankind’s earliest fuel sources, is still used today to generate electricity. However, over time, there has been a shift in demand for cheaper and cleaner fuel options, such as the nonrenewable energy source of natural gas, and renewable options like solar power and wind energy. Each energy resource has its advantages and disadvantages.

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We Can Get the Electricity We Need Without Frying the Planet (or Our Pocketbooks)

By Jonathan Mingle

Mr. Mingle is an independent journalist and the author of “Gaslight: The Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Fight for America’s Energy Future.”

Electric utilities from Georgia to Wisconsin to Virginia are predicting a dizzying surge in power demand from new industrial facilities, electric vehicles and, most of all, the data centers that store our digital photos and will enable large-language models for artificial intelligence. For months now, they have been signaling that they won’t be able to keep up.

To keep the lights on, many utility companies are proposing to build dozens of new power plants that burn natural gas. North Carolina-based Duke Energy alone wants to add 8.9 gigawatts of new gas-fired capacity — more than the entire country added in 2023. Using their own projections of soaring energy demands as justification, these companies are also pushing back on the climate targets set by their states and the Biden administration.

If state regulators sign off on these plans, they will be gambling with our country’s future. We need to electrify everything from cars to appliances to slow climate change, but we won’t be able to reach our climate goals if we power all of those machines with dirty energy.

There is a better way. But to get there, legislators will need to overhaul the incentives driving utilities to double down on natural gas, so that they can turn a profit without cooking the planet.

Companies like Duke, Dominion Energy and Georgia Power argue that they need more gas-fired plants to reliably provide power during times of peak demand — for instance, on a hot summer weekday afternoon when home cooling systems and data servers are all humming at maximum output, and the grid strains to keep up. But those peaks tend to materialize only for a few dozen hours per year, and there are ways to deal with them that don’t require a massive amount of new methane-burning infrastructure.

The real reason the utilities want to build these plants is quite simple: The more stuff they build, the more money they make. Regulators let utilities charge their customers enough money to cover what they spend on assets like combustion turbines and wires, plus a generous rate of return (up to 10 percent) for their investors. This longstanding arrangement incentivizes power providers to build expensive things whether society needs them or not, in lieu of lower-cost, cleaner options, and to invoke their duty to keep the lights on as a post hoc rationalization.

This dynamic can push some companies to extreme lengths in pursuit of gas-generated profits. Nearly a decade ago, Dominion and Duke partnered to build a 600-mile-long pipeline across West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, largely to supply their own new power plants. Back then, the companies cited their own forecasts of rising energy demand and claimed more gas supply was needed to back up intermittent wind- and solar-generated power coming onto the grid. But it soon became clear that there wasn’t any need for those plants, and most were canceled. The pipeline’s core premise had proved to be a mirage. And in 2020 , faced with relentless grass-roots opposition, Dominion and Duke finally abandoned it.

It makes sense that Dominion and Duke executives would pursue these potentially lucrative investments; their job is to maximize returns for their shareholders. But utilities aren’t like other shareholder-owned companies. They are granted the right to be monopolies in exchange for providing essential services to society. And regulators’ job is to hold them accountable to the public interest. This century-old model is in dire need of an upgrade, so that utilities can be compensated for achieving goals — such as using clean, affordable energy and building a resilient grid — that are in everyone’s interest.

Although breathless forecasts of artificial intelligence gobbling up all of our power supply may or may not prove correct, there’s no question that after decades of remaining mostly flat, electricity demand is increasing. Fortunately, utilities have plenty of ways to meet this new need.

They include “ virtual power plants ” — when technologies such as home batteries, rooftop solar systems, smart water heaters and thermostats are linked together and managed via software to provide the same services as a conventional power plant. Utilities in Vermont, Colorado and Massachusetts are already using them, to quickly respond to rising demand at a much lower cost than operating natural gas combustion turbines. According to one estimate , virtual power plants could lower U.S. utilities’ costs by as much as $35 billion over the next decade.

Utilities could also accelerate efforts to replace outdated transmission lines with newer ones that can carry double the electric current and to bring more battery storage online. They can compensate customers for using less energy during times when demand is high and invest far more in energy efficiency, helping customers to adopt devices that use less electricity.

All of these solutions would save customers money and reduce carbon emissions. They could, according to a Department of Energy analysis , meet the entire projected growth in U.S. peak electricity demand over the next decade.

Sure, they wouldn’t provide utilities nearly as much money as building new gas-fired power plants. But that’s why public utility commissions must step in to require utilities to make investments that benefit the climate and their customers, without scaring off their shareholders. What’s needed is not more regulation, just smarter regulation.

There are promising signs that this shift is already underway. In Connecticut, where customers pay some of the highest electricity rates in the nation, the chairwoman of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority has created a program to test-drive tweaks to utilities’ incentive structure, as part of a larger initiative to build an “equitable, modern electric grid.”

More than a dozen other state legislatures have directed regulators to impose or study some kind of performance-based regulation to reward utilities based on what they do , instead of on how much they spend . This move has predictably elicited pushback from some companies, which believe that their traditional business models are under threat. But others have embraced the new opportunities: Hawaii’s approach has earned the support of the state’s biggest electric utility.

We need utilities to succeed now more than ever before. But the definition of success needs to evolve. We need them not only to shore up a grid being battered by extreme weather and wildfires fueled by climate change, but also to fully embrace the work of phasing out fossil fuels.

The United States has very little chance of reining in its emissions without investor-owned utilities putting their expertise and deep resources to work. We can’t build a carbon-free energy system without them — or without regulators and lawmakers willing to compel them to accelerate, rather than postpone, the clean energy transition.

Jonathan Mingle is an independent journalist and the author of “Gaslight: The Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Fight for America’s Energy Future.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Sustainable development and the exploitation of mineral and energy resources: a review

• Review Article
• Published: October 2002
• Volume 91 , pages 723–745, ( 2002 )

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• F.-W. Wellmer 1 &
• J. Becker-Platen 1  

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Natural resources, e.g., metals, industrial minerals, water, and soil, are the essential basis for our economy and well-being. We have to know where these raw materials come from and how they are mined. Sustainable development requires the maintenance, rational use and enhancement of natural resources, as well as a balanced consideration of ecology, economy and social justice. Four general rules concerning the implementation of sustainable development for renewable and non-renewable resources are discussed. Examples of the consumption of selected materials from historical times to the present day are presented, as well as of regional distribution, usage (in contrast to consumption), lifetimes of resources, the supply-and-demand cycle, recycling and substitution in modern times. To fulfill the requirement of sustainable development, the efficiency with which resources are utilized has to be improved. The learning process, often driven by financial rewards, leads from one technology to a better one, thus increasing the efficiency of the use of a resource or commodity. Examples of learning curves are discussed. Industrial countries have to transfer their advanced technologies to developing countries in order to avoid undesirable development in the mining industry and use of natural resources in those regions. The use of the best available technology by the mining industry, taking into account economic considerations, and the necessity to establish environmental guidelines are essential if environmental impact of the production of non-renewable resources is to be minimized. Far more critical than the production of non-renewable resources under the aspect of sustainable development and the capacity of the pollutant sinks of the Earth is the element of natural attenuation with regard to the resources soil and water.

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Wellmer, .FW., Becker-Platen, .J. Sustainable development and the exploitation of mineral and energy resources: a review. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 91 , 723–745 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-002-0267-x

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Received : 04 September 2001

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Issue Date : October 2002

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-002-0267-x

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