Wise News Communique 383
Energy and Development

The Windmill Example

John (or Juan or Hans) lives in a third world country. He works in the local shoe factory. The energy for the shoe factory comes from a nuclear power plant. Some of the shoes from the factory are sent to the capital city of John's country and some of the shoes are exported to the cities of Europe and North America where they are sold cheaply to Helen, for whom they are the tenth new pair of shoes in a year. John can't afford to buy a pair of the shoes he makes because they cost the equivalent of one month of his wages. John has a wife and three children and his wages are not enought to provide for all their needs. Because of his low wages John sometimes fights with his wife and his children are often hungry. But John feels luckier than many of his friends who are not able to find paid work.

Then one day all the nuclear plants in John's country are exchanged for renewable energy technologies. The energy for the shoe factory is provided by a windfarm. The windfarm uses wind turbine generators developed by a transnational company. The company carries out the planning and the installation of the windfarm with the same lack of local participation and the same assumption of growth in overall energy supply as was the case for the construction of the nuclear power plant before. Now the problems and dangers from the nuclear plant have been removed. But John is still working in the shoe factory on a too-low wage, his wife is still unhappy, his children are still hungry and many of his friends are still unemployed. Meanwhile, in the city, Helen buys her eleventh pair of shoes of the year.

The environmental impact of the energy technology has been reduced but the social conditions have remained the same: there has been no increase in local participation in the development process and no increase in living standards. What needs to be done to improve the quality of life not only for John, his wife and their children but also for Helen?