August Andrews
2/20/15
Energy Justice
Case Study: Energy Poverty in India
India is one of the largest nations in the world, with a population of 1.25 billion people. This makes India the second most populous country in the world, second only to China. Despite its massive population and massive workforce, a large portion of India still lives in energy poverty. An average of about thirty five percent of India’s population is caught in energy poverty. Energy poverty is where people, just like having low or no access to money in economic poverty, have little to no access to electricity and the benefits that come with it. In India, with electricity come many injustices whether there is a lack of it or an abundance. These injustices take many forms but many revolve round the energy justice framework points of due process, availability, and intragenerational equity.
Due process is an important aspect of the energy justice framework. Due process is based on human rights and that in the processes of producing energy or extracting it that these rights must be respected. Due process also involves the human rights justices or injustices in an absence of electricity as well through a number of things like access to clean drinking water, education, the right to live a healthy life and many more. In rural India energy poverty is much greater because of the difficulties in rural electrification similar to America in the early 1900s, including cost of putting in lines, maintenance from harsh conditions or vegetation. Another factor to consider in electrification is the economic variable of putting a lot of resources into extending the energy grid to an area that is sparsely populated or where many may not be able to afford electricity and installation on a seasonal agrarian income. In the absence of electricity the most popular form of light energy is kerosene lamps. Before the revolution of incandescent lighting kerosene was the most up to date and popular lighting source, with the oil industry rising with it. While it may be one of the best non-electric sources of light, kerosene has some drawbacks. The first of these is the level of light, much dimmer than electric lights, and the lamps require much maintenance for them to work well, with constant cleaning and trimming of the wick. A bigger problem and injustice lies however in the fumes it puts off. Like any burning substance kerosene produces smoke, acting as an indoor air pollutant. While this may not seem like a large issue just from lighting, it has to be taken into account also that most people in rural India use biomass as an energy source for cooking and heating. Breathing in this poorly combusted biomass smoke as well as kerosene smoke is harmful to the people living there, causing respiratory issues and even death. The annual death toll from this in India is estimated to be 500,000 deaths. That’s 25 times the entire population of Carlisle dying in a year, just from fumes from cooking and lighting. This is a great injustice to due process because simply from a lack of electricity, many people’s health and lives are detrimentally effected. Another injustice coming from this is the time and money that has to be spent to get these forms of energy. It is estimated that rural households spend ten percent of their income on biomass fuels or kerosene. This income could be used for other things such as electricity which would cover those needs and extend to other parts of household life as well, improving the standard of living there. Often these people have to go get these resources themselves, which can also endanger their health. In impoverished parts of the world, women out gathering biomass fuels are at greater risk the further they go from home to things such as assault and rape but also just hazards associated with it such as lifting heavy loads of wood.
Availability of electricity is also an aspect of the energy justice framework where injustices are found in India’s energy poverty. This part of the energy justice framework revolves around access to a reliable and stable source of electricity. Light can play a large role in household life, one way it is especially important is to children in school. In homes where they have access to electric light, children have access to sufficient light at night to study by. On average these students have been shown to study more than children in homes without electricity. This puts the children in non-electrified homes at an automatic disadvantage to peers that have access to electricity. The lack of availability is also an injustice because it affects economic opportunity for many people. Studies show that women in households with electricity on average work seventeen percent more hours than in households without. Because of access to electricity they no longer have to spend time, energy, or income gathering biomass fuel and can spend this time earning a living and adding to the household income. Electrification of random households also showed that electrification can reduce poverty by thirteen percent, supporting the ability of electrification to improve standard of living in these households. Electrified villages and towns also have better economic opportunity because with electricity they can keep their shops open for longer hours and at night, giving them more time to earn a living as opposed to shops that may not have electricity. This is an injustice because since these people don’t have access they are at an economic opportunity disadvantage to electrified homes. While electrification boasts the ability to improve standard of living and economic opportunity, it is also limited by the lack of reliable and secure energy services in these areas. If energy providers and services are poorly operated these homes can’t take advantage of the electricity or tap into its full potential. In fact, because of this almost all rural homes also have kerosene lamps for when the power goes out or services are down. This is an injustice because it is limiting the availability of needed energy because of the inefficiencies of an industry. This unreliability of energy services also makes the state more reluctant to electrify rural areas, prolonging the injustices occurring there.
While the injustices of energy poverty in India provide great injustices, the processes involved in obtaining that energy also bring with them their own set of injustices. While these issues cross paths with many of the points of the energy justice framework, one that involves many of the issues with energy production is intragenerational equity. Intragenerational equity is being responsible for and taking today’s actions, knowing that they will affect the lives of future generations. Because of intragenerational equity when you discuss the injustices of energy poverty, you also have to examine the injustices of producing more energy to electrify. India’s primary form of energy is coal because it is relatively cheap and is largely domestically produced, but coal’s production and use brings its own set of injustices. Coal mining has historically been a very dangerous job, usually done underground, but the mines found now in India look like a different planet. The most common form of coal mining in India is now open pit mining. Some injustices that comes from this are that the overburden, which must be removed to get to the coal, is toxic. The mine itself also provides the injustice of displacing people with improper or no compensation, rooting up families future generations and their ways of life. This is especially problematic for tribal peoples because they rely on the land around them to sustain them and can’t just move to a big city and try to find work. These tribal peoples also live in some of the most mineral and resource rich areas, putting them at high risk. The reason these things are intragenerational equity issues is because once the coal is gone there will be no jobs or energy being produced with the mine’s coal, there will just be nothing left but something that looks like it should belong on mars and the harmful effects to the people and environment around it for generations to come.
Energy poverty is a complex problem, involving many moving parts in both the government and the private sector. The injustices associated with energy poverty cover many parts of the energy justice framework, but some of the most prominent are ones involving due process, intragenerational equity, and availability. India is following the path blazed by other countries to electrify and will likely find many of the same problems they did, with electricity first coming to the wealthy and the cities and with government efforts allowing it to spread to the masses and rural areas. The injustices of energy poverty involving due process are many aspects of health related issues such as injury from collecting fuel and respiratory problems from the combustion of that fuel. The injustices of availability are the results of a lack of electricity like decreased economic opportunities as well as children in electrified homes being at automatic advantage over other students who may not have electricity available to them. The most pressing issues of intragenerational equity did not come from energy poverty itself, but instead from the solution to the problem. By building more coal mines and plants they are degrading their environment, and leaving future generations with a much more scarred and polluted world than they found it. India needs energy, but the world doesn’t need more coal. Instead of choosing the cheaper option of relying on coal for their energy needs, India should put those funds and labor into renewable energy and programs that work directly with communities to bring them electricity.
Works Cited
Sovacool, Benjamin K., and Michael H. Dworkin. Global Energy Justice: Problems, Principles, and Practices. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2014. Print.
Khandker, Shahidur R., Hussain A. Samad, Rubaba Ali, and Douglas F. Barnes. “Who Benefits Most from Rural Electrification? Evidence in India.” The Energy Journal(2014). World Bank. Web. 16 Mar. 2015. <www.worldbank.org>.
I did not know where to find the information to cite my other two in class sources, but my other two in class sources were: “Rich Lands Poor People CSE”, and the “India Energy Challenges” reading