Desarrollo energético en América Latina y la economía mundial

PlOfessor Laura Randall I ENERGY RESOURCES AND INTERNATlONAL••• ping nations' action here, save, in the long run, a joint developing nation enrichment facility based on cheap electrieity. A common mar– ket in nuclear technology among developing nations or on a regional basís seems unlike1y to develop soon. OUTLOiOK FOR INTERNATIONAL ENERGY COOPERATION The outlook for cooperatíon among developing natíons on energy matters is mixed. There should be cooperatíon for solar energy deve– lopment, and its application in rural areas. The United Nations does some work in this area. But middle classes and the rich make poliey, and energy policy in developing nati.ons is largely urban in focus; it is hard to envisage a polítical mechanism for the rural poor to make their ínterests felt either within developing nations or internationaUy. Moreover, solar energy is so far a high cost, inefficient energy conver. sÍon sector at the margin of national plans: the major inequality i5 not between the developing and developed nations, but within deve– loping nations with respect to levels of energy use by various groups. jThere is no international mechanism to resolve this. Cooperatíon is also needed to provide low eost energy informatíon; however, much information is restricted. For example, intepretations of LANDSAT images that would be useful for energy development are not shared. The Economic Commission for Latín Ameriea has pro– posed a Central American technology network. Network plans, in practice, may be complicated by the fact that granting access to tech– nology is sometimes viewed as aiding the government in power, rather than the nation, so we can expect a breakdown in cooperation as members of the network approve or disapprove of various regimes. Other international policy problems that occur in the energy fieId can be only briefly mentioned here. These are that: a) The United States does not yet have an implementable poliey that has the full cooperation of the private sector. For this reason, developing nations are faced with the added cost of preparing for a11 possible United States policie.s; b) Multinationals exert considerable control over technology, tan– kers, and marketing. They do not have armies. The only way to fight a multinational is with another multinational: there are some deve. loping nations' multinationals now, as in the case of banana marke– ting. In the long run, it may be thought to be imperative for deve- 125