Desarrollo energético en América Latina y la economía mundial

Professor Abbas Alnasrawi I ENERGY AND THE DEVELOPING OOUNTRIES countries, the contribution of oil to total energy consumption is pro– jected to decline from 70% to 58% for non-OPEe oil exporting coun– tries while for the oil importing countries the contribution of oi1 is projected to decline from 54% to 50% during the same periodo It is worth noting that for both subgroups the contribution of hydro, nuclear and geothermal power is projected to rise from 12% in 1975 to 17% in 1985 2 °. The contribution of new sources of energy is in the last analysis dependent in both developed and developing countries on the extent to which these countries are capable of solving the multitude of technological, financial and environmental constraints related to the development of new sources. Finally, it should be mentioned that the price of crude oi! has declined in real terms since 1974, a fact that will continue to lessen incentives for both conservation and the development of substitutes at any significant scale. VI. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK The question of energy in the developing countries is a complex and muItifaceted one since it intersects with the whole issue of economic development, the dependency of developing countries on the develo– ped economies and the heterogeneous nature of the developing coun– tries. The central issue facing the developing countries is one of development strategy. Development policies in most Third World countries tended over the last three decades to associ:ate development with growth. There has been, therefore, a constant emphasis on the acquisition of goods, services and production techniques which tended to be both capital and energy intensive. Attempting to imitate the development experience of the industrialized countries has proven to be costly and will continue to be so until a fundamental re-exami. nation of the priorities of resource utilization and development is undertaken. Those net energy importing countries whose economic base is neither flexible nor diversified are most likely to suffer in the event of a reduction in energy supplies. These countries cannot, unlike the developed countries, respond to fluctuating energy supplies and prices through conservation. Nor are they likely to be the beneficiaries, in either the near or intermediate term, of new sources of energy. "World Bank. A Program to Accelerate, op. cit. 45