Energy and Sustainable Development: Environmental Impacts of Energy Use in Africa

Abstract

More than half of the world's population relies on dung, wood, crop waste or coal to meet their most basic energy needs [15]. In 1992, 24 million tones of charcoal were consumed worldwide. Developing countries account for nearly all of this consumption, and Africa alone consumes about half of the world's production. Charcoal production has increased by about a third from 1981 to 1992, and is expected to increase with the rapidly growing population in the developing world. Despite the cooking advantages of charcoal and charcoal's ranking on the cooking ladder, this preliminary review suggests that charcoal may be far more damaging to the environment than the less preferable biomass fuels, biomass residues and fuelwood [3]. This study indicates that charcoal is problematic from energy, environmental and social perspective and is likely to be used as long as the feedstock supply and the demand from impoverished people in the developing world exist. The potential environmental problems associated with charcoal use are exposure of users to high carbon monoxide concentration levels during cooking and emission of relatively large quantities of nitrogen oxides. As a consequence of the fast-growing energy requirements and the increasing use of low-grade domestic fuels, air pollution has increased considerably in recent years in Africa [14].