Desarrollo energético en América Latina y la economía mundial

Professor Abbas Alnasrawi I ENERGY AND THE DEVELOPING COUNT'r..ES This trend of rising energy consumption in developing countries has continued to the present day. Thus between 1970 and 1977, while the world per capita consumption of commercial energy increased by 10% and that of the developed countries increased by 8%, the corres– ponding increase for Third World countries was 29%. In global terms, the consumption of commerdal energy of the developing countries increased from 6.2% in 1955 to 8.2% in 1970 and to 10.2% in 1977. The structure of energy consumption has also changed since 1955. In that year the contributions of the various sources oE energy to NODes total consumption were as follows: oil 64%; solid fuel 31%: natural gas 3% and hydro and nuclear electricity 2%. In 1970 the contributions of these sources were as follows: oil 68%: solid fuels 22%; natural gas 7% and hydro and nuclear electricity 3%. Combi· ning the contribution of both oH and natural gas relative to total energy consumption, we notice that their share of the energy market has increased from 67% to 75%. The obverse side of this change is the obvious fact that coal had 10st part oí its share of the market by contributing only 22% oí the energy consumption in 1970 as compa– red with 31% in 1955 5 • The foregoing analysis of trends in demand for energy and in the composition of the sources oí energy reveals two important changes. First, that consumption of commercial energy in NODes has increased at a much higher rate than the world's average. Second, that oil had increased its contribution to total energy consumption. lt should be added in this context that most, ií not all of the energy imported by the energy deficient developing countries took the form of oil. There are several explanations for these changes. The most important and most encompassing explanation of the rise in energy consumption is rooted in the very development strategy which was adopted by Third World countries over the last three decades. This development strategy was modeled after the successful economic growth experience of the developed countries. This is turn meant that the desired higher leveIs of output were both capital and energy intensive. "\Vhile this kind oí development strategy was indeed successful in the West as it was preceded by an agricultural revolution, it tended to create dual economies in the Third World countries. Such economies are characterized by a modern industrial capital and energy intensive sector and a traditional agricultural sector where a high ratio of the rural population in many Third "VorId countries remained