“All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it’s up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences.”
―Albert Camus, The Plague

Sometimes I’m reminded just how luxurious our First World problems can be: I can’t find the cell-phone charger and my iPhone battery is drained; the power went out and now the Internet is down; and yes, I burned the rice again because I walked away from my clean-burning gas stove.

While these issues may feel important to us in economically developed nations, according to the International Energy Agency, over 1.3 billion people have no access to electricity and 2.7 billion people subsist without clean cooking facilities.  Clearly, the lack of universal electrification is a dire social problem with widespread economic consequences, and unfortunately, given anemic levels of investment and foreign aid, this gap is not going to close anytime soon.  In the meantime, nearly 2 million people a year will die prematurely, because without connections to the power grid, they must cook their food and heat their homes with wood, animal dung, crop waste, coal, or other fuels that produce high levels of indoor pollutants.

Let’s put those 2 million yearly deaths into perspective: Tuberculosis kills about 1.7 million people each year, 1.6 million perish from pneumococcal diseases, 780,000  a year succumb to malaria, and in 2010, 1.8 million people died from AIDS.  The lack of household energy, which forces these forgotten millions to rely on open fires and leaky stoves, is a major risk factor for pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer, largely among women and children.  According to the World Health Organization, progress in providing access to clean-burning cooking fuels has been “negligible.”

Recently, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, formulated an initiative to make sustainable energy available for all by 2030.  The plan to achieve this includes doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.  All the right words seem to be conveyed:

Sustainable energy—energy that is accessible, cleaner and more efficient—powers opportunity.  It grows economies.  It lights up homes, schools and hospitals.  It empowers women and local communities.  And it paves a path out of poverty to greater prosperity for all.

Even with an action plan, ongoing committee meetings, and collaborative thinking about how to get the right stakeholders to the table, the concept of “sustainable energy leading to greater prosperity for all,” does not come close to framing the issue properly, in a manner that leads to immediate action that will change the lives of energy-impoverished people. The fundamental issue of electrification and clean household energy is not about empowerment, it is about survival.

Energy poverty needs to be viewed as a global health crisis, and treated in exactly the same way that other consolidated initiatives have worked to stop the spread of deadly disease.  Rapid deployment of technologies, such as natural gas-fired generation and off-grid renewable resource projects that support new power sources, delivery, and clean in-home cooking and heating solutions are the vaccine to the threats created by limited access to energy that impact human health, education, and economic opportunities in stricken countries.  Politicians, bureaucrats, and special interest groups that cause fragmentation and confusion need to compromise quickly by realizing that they are impeding serious efforts to fight this plague by holding their interests over the heads of people who can’t even turn on a light.

Images courtesy of D.light and Mera Gao Power.

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The IEA’s Clean Energy Progress Report, released ahead of an international meeting of government energy leaders this week in Abu Dhabi, notes that countries have spent $17 billion on renewable energy and energy efficiency research during the last 10 years — less than a third of the $56 billion directed to nuclear energy research. As much as $22 billion has gone toward fossil fuel research during the same period.

A marked shift occurred in 2009, when governments recognized “that clean energy is a driving force for economic recovery.” Public sector investments in energy research and development “rose to its highest level ever, eclipsing the previous high achieved during the oil crisis of the 1970s.” But as stimulus programs petered out, spending levels for 2010 fell to close to 2008 levels.

If countries are going to meet clean energy and carbon reduction targets (not to mention the larger goals of sustainable and affordable energy) they will need to adopt a longer view, says IEA. “Higher spending levels must be sustained over the long term and spending priorities need to shift,” the agency writes, away from nuclear and fossil fuels, and toward renewables and efficiency. Fossil fuels in 2009 received $312 billion in consumption subsidies, compared to $57 billion for renewable energy. Clean energy ministers, according to IEA, should provide incentives for private sector investments in energy projects, using tax credits, “innovative public/private partnerships,” and “market-creating mechanisms.”

IEA says fossil fuel subsidies ought to be “phased out,” and governments should establish a price for carbon emissions, which are two ideas that face significant obstacles in Washington. Today’s report comes on the heels of a 2012 budget proposal from House Republicans that promises to continue tax benefits for oil companies while cutting “government bureaucracies seeking to impose a job-destroying national energy tax,” as well as spending on “applied and commercial [energy] research or development projects best left to the private sector,” as Greenwire reports.

The IEA, meanwhile, emphasizes a need for cooperation between the public and private sectors, and for support that goes beyond tax breaks or grants. The agency urges governments to clear “non-economic barriers” for renewable energy research, development, demonstration and deployment, which can range from administrative burdens to the somewhat nebulous challenge of public acceptance and awareness. The agency also calls for governments to “facilitate the uptake of clean energy technologies into energy systems by supporting integration of technologies such as smart grids,” and to guarantee specific levels of support for different technologies that would decrease as they become more competitive.

The right combination of policies and could deliver nothing short of “a clean energy revolution,” says the IEA. For examples, the agency points to Denmark’s successful cultivation of biomass and wind since the 1980s, and to China’s leap to achieve three times the installed wind power capacity of India in just five years.

You can check out the full report here.

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“This might be the golden age for natural gas,” Birol said at the World Future Energy Summit, a conference organized by Abu Dhabi to position itself as a key player in a global shift toward renewable energy. “Natural gas might penetrate the market at a higher rate than any of us has anticipated. If natural gas market continues to follow its path, then life for renewable energy may be tougher than we think.”

Global demand for natural gas is set to rise by 44 percent by 2035, with China and the Middle East driving the bulk of the demand, Birol said. Supply of what he called “unconventional gas,” which refers to gas that isn’t easily pumped (such as natural gas from shale formation), will likely account for 35 percent of the global supply by 2035, he added.

The U.S. and Canada have seen a surge in producing shale gas in recent years, but new supplier countries will surely emerge in the coming decades, he said. Abu Dhabi also announced Thursday that its oil company has selected Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum as a partner for a $10 billion plan to extract what’s called sour gas in the emirate. Sour gas contains high concentration of hydrogen sulfide and is difficult and dangerous to extract.

Middle East is one of the regions that will help to drive the 36 percent jump in the global energy demand by 2035. Not surprisingly, China will lead the pack for more energy.

The abundance of natural gas in the marketplace now has given it a new persona as a somewhat eco-friendly form of fossil fuel. Burning natural gas to produce electricity emits about half of the carbon dioxide emissions as burning coal. But let’s not forget that natural gas is still a type of fossil fuel.

The abundance of the gas supply means it’s cheap – so cheap that even natural gas evangelist T. Boone Pickens doesn’t consider it a profitable investment. That has caused a glut in the market, Birol said. The “gas glut will peak soon, but it may dissipate only very slowly,” he added.

Still, IEA is bullish that renewable energy will widen its market share because many governments claim they are committed to adopting policies to reduce carbon emissions. Renewable energy consumption, including hydropower will likely triple between 2008 and 2035, and most of that energy will take the form of electricity. Renewable energy’s share of the electricity supply is predicted to grow to 32 percent in 2035 from 19 percent in 2008, the IEA said.

Some have argued that natural gas, no matter its abundance or pricing, will not have a huge impact in areas that have policies that mandate a growing use of renewable electricity. For example, in the U.S., some states require their utilities to increase their purchase of renewable electricity. At the same time, some renewable energy investors say a lack of national policy to address climate change by the U.S. has dampened investments in renewable energy.

Alex O’Cinneide, director of Abu Dhabi’s cleantech investment arm called Masdar Capital, said China has become an attractive hunting ground for investors because the country has strong policies and capital commitments to bolster renewable energy development. A fund Masdar raised jointly with Deutsche Bank recently invested $50 million in a Chinese wind company.

“Western investors, if you have companies in Silicon Valley and you try to find a market there, you will see there is no (government) support,” O’Cinneide said during a panel discussion at the conference.

Disclaimer: Abu Dhabi government paid for my flight and lodging for the conference.

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Image courtesy of sirdle.

Socialwok builds on the infrastructure of Google Apps to provide document and calendar sharing and storage, as well as real-time notifications via Google Talk instant messaging. Note, however, that your organization doesn’t need to use Google Apps to take advantage of Socialwok.

Socialwok’s web interface lets you create one or more timelines of news, links and comments that look a lot like Facebook or Friendfeed. From these timelines, one can send private messages. Updates can also be imported from Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, blogs and custom URLs. Feeds can be designated any way you like, and each feed can be set to be available only to people within your organization, or clients can be invited to participate in a specific feed.

There’s also a nicely laid-out mobile version of the Socialwok interface.

Socialwok is an early offering of the Google Apps Marketplace: third-party add-ons that integrate with Google Apps. In theory, this should make installation a snap — Google Apps administrators can just visit the Marketplace page for Socialwok, click “Add it now,” and follow the prompts. In practice, setting up the service is not as simple as one might like. Once Socialwok is installed into Google Apps, the administrator must invite her co-workers to join the group, and each member must accept the invitation. After that, everyone must “follow” each other. To get notifications via Google Talk, one needs to accept a friend request from the Socialwok app.

For those who want to display Socialwok within Gmail, there are a couple more steps. Each user has to enable the “Add any gadget by URL” option in Labs, then paste the URL of the Socialwok gadget into Gmail settings. I found the gadget useful, but there is a delay of several seconds every time one moves from Google Apps to Socialwok, so I ended up keeping both screens open in separate tabs.

Socialwok’s help function explains how to set up and use the service pretty well. But at the moment, Socialwok is not seamless enough for me. The steps needed to set up each member of a group may be more than many administrators care to take on. However, if you and your colleagues spend all day in the Google Apps web interface, give Socialwok a whirl. It’s free, and definitely has potential.

Have you used Socialwok?

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According to the IEA’s executive director, Nobuo Tanaka, 1,700 TWh is equal to the current combined total residential electricity consumption of the U.S. and Japan — yeah, so no small number. And that power usage will need an additional generating capacity of 280 GW to accommodate it.

The good news is that through already available hardware and software, consumer electronic power usage could be cut in half, says the IEA. The largest improvement will come through making software work more effectively on the devices, ensuring that energy is consumed only when needed. Software and chip entrepreneurs, looking for a place of innovation in the cross over between IT and green, making gadgets consume less energy could be an interesting play.

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The Paris-based IEA, founded in 1974 after the oil crisis, is an energy policy adviser to 28 member countries, including the U.S., the UK, Germany, Japan and Australia. The group said without a shift in government policy and spending, global energy demand will expand by 45 percent by 2030, including the need for four times the current oil capacity of Saudi Arabia, leading to an eventual global temperature increase of up to 6 degrees Celsius.

Even without a shift in policy, renewables stand to do very well over the next few years, overtaking natural gas soon after 2010 to become the second largest source of electricity behind coal — but you have to go by the IEA’s definition of “renewable,” which includes massive amounts of hydro power, likely including the not-so-environmentally-friendly Three Gorges Dam in China.

To keep the global temperature in check, the IEA said a carbon cap and trade system is needed in the world’s wealthier nations, as well as emissions agreements covering industries like iron and steel, cement, aviation and road transport. To keep greenhouse gas concentrations stabilized at 550 parts per million, the group said national policies will also need to be implemented for all industries in developing countries and worldwide in the buildings sector.

Most of the $4.1 trillion the IEA says is needed would be spent on the demand side, with $17 per person per year spent worldwide through 2030 on more efficient cars, appliances and buildings. This “550 Policy Scenario” (referring to the target level fro atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases) aims to cut the predicted rise in temperature to a slightly less catastrophic 3 degrees Celsius.

That extra spending would come on top of the $26.3 million the IEA said will already be spent on energy supply infrastructure through 2030, even without a push for renewables. The good news that comes along with the extra investment, in addition to a cut in greenhouse gases, is savings of more than $7 trillion from energy efficiencies.

An even more drastic energy scenario was proposed in the report, which would result in temperatures going up by only 2 degrees Celsius, but the IEA said it would be tough to achieve even if the wealthier nations reduced their emissions to zero.

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