Exploration of Energy-Environment Relationship

ABSTRACT

Energy is acknowledged as a key input towards raising the standard of living of citizens of any country, as is evident from the correlation between per capita electricity (a proxy for all energy forms) consumption and Human Development Index (HDI). While energy sources and their manner of use can be categorized into "conventional and non-conventional" or "commercial and non-commercial" or "renewable and non-renewable", the impact on the environment from these energy sources cannot be so readily separated and classified. Again, the exploitation of energy sources (from fire wood twigs to uranium deposits) results in impacts during raw material harvesting/extraction through transportation, processing, generation, residue disposal. These may add to existing impacts from other developmental activities such as industrial growth, settlement expansion or agricultural development. Hence, one is often hard put to attribute particular environmental problems to specific energy related activities. Finally, impacts occur at many levels and in phases separated by time and space. With an understanding of these qualifications, one could justify a simplified exploration of energy-environment relationships to highlight the major issues.

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