Two replies from me...
Thanks for your replies to this query - and apologies for not responding sooner, I've been away for a week so only just been able to read your replies. I think the major issue I had missed that is relevant is dfference in employment generation between PV solar panels and biofuels - taking into consideration the local skills that are available, it's probably fairly unlikely that remote villagers will have skills at running complex electrical systems. So that would tip the balance in favour of biofuels, which would not require a significant amount of external input. And PV systems are unlikely to generate significant local employment - which if employment is generally high in the area, would not be a problem but this is often not the case in such rural locations. Of course you are absolutely correct that what people want is a fridge and a television, not electricity per se - that is just a convenient way of fulfilling the requirements, with an easy path to expansion. Having said that, certain countries (particularly in Asia) were poor until a few decades ago, but have made a deliberate effort to become technologically savvy - and have become richer as a result. So there is a good argument in favour of giving remote villagers the skills that will enable them to participate in a high-tech world. This is of course a slow process, and if done wrongly can of course lead to environmental disasters on the way (I think of China and its big dams here as an example). Technology, as with so many things, can be both good and bad depending on how it is used.
But some of those countries also became far less food self-sufficient, or lost it altogether, community self-reliance was more or less wrecked, there were much bigger inequity and marginalisation problems than before, often there've been many health problems they didn't have before, and environmental problems, they now have an industrialised food system they'd be better off without, and usually an ailing rural sector. Exchanged for "wealth", for the few, and consumerism for the rest. Which is not to say that it can't be done properly, but there've been too many eggs broken in a lot of those omelettes.
Next, see next. Regards Keith <snip> _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
