Instructions for the proofreading and editorial
aptitude test
The test item is drawn from one of our courses in Development Studies.
The test comprises a piece of original copy (attached below) and an associated proof
(Editor test.pdf). The proof has been laid out and styled according to the typographical
design created for this course. You need not concern yourself with the differences in
typographical style between the original and the proof.
Please read the proof against the original and mark any errors you find. Also mark any
points of grammar or poor style that you notice in the proof, even if these are consistent
with the original. Check illustrations and tables against their accompanying text and
point out any discrepancies you notice. One or two errors in the original have already
been corrected in the proof, so not every discrepancy between the proof and the original
is an error. Draw attention to discrepancies, but use your judgement to decide whether
the original or the proof is more likely to be correct.
6
Beyond the constraints: towards
environmental responsibility
6.1
Introduction
The course team that has produced T172 has been very consensual overall. Nobody has
raised their voices, nobody has banged a fist on the table or engaged in heated argument.
Tensions did, however, begin to appear over the various drafts of Theme 4.
Some worried whether you, the student, would relate to parts of the world far distant
from your everyday life. Others considered that the case study on the Bakun Dam was
too complex and would not give you a clear enough picture environmentally. Coal-fired
power stations in China would be better, where the environmental issues are so much
starker, rather than a hydro-electric scheme where environmental arguments are made
both ways.
SAQ 9
Some instant revision:
(a) What argument was made by the Malaysian Government that the Bakun Dam
would be environmentally friendly?
(b) What arguments were made by campaigners that the Bakun Dam might be
environmentally damaging.
Another comment was that Theme 4 was not sufficiently ‘techy’ in a course about
technology and environment. This is a difficult issue that you will come across time and
time again in your OU studies, and elsewhere, whenever an all-encompassing word like
‘technology’ is used. Different users of the word often have different understandings of
what they mean by it. Thus, a narrow understanding of technology is that it is ‘hardware’
– machines and tools. On the other hand, the definition given in a previous Open
University foundation course in technology was:
“…the application of scientific and other knowledge to practical tasks by
organisations that involve people and machines.”
This definition obviously makes technology much more than ‘machines’ (although they
are an important component). In fact, this broader understanding with its emphases on
practical tasks, knowledge and organisations that involve people as well as machines,
inevitably links technology to other facets of human life – namely, the social, economic,
political and cultural.
Nobody on the T172 course team has a purely ‘hardware’ view, but the different extents
to which different members keep technology distinct from, or consider it in relation to,
these other facets of life leads to quite subtle differences of understanding. Often this
hardly matters, but occasionally the differences surface.
The broad message, therefore, for any discussions you may have on the topic of
technology and environment is always try to clarify a common understanding of the two
terms. Most disputes arise because, although you may be using the same words, you are
talking about different things!
Returning now to the issue of whether or not Theme 4 is ‘techy’ enough, the counterargument would start from the premise that both technology and environment are
embedded in the social, economic, political and cultural facets of life. This was part of
the argument we made in Section 4. Therefore, we should not try to suggest to you that
the environmental problems of the world can be resolved by ‘technical fixes’ alone,
although, of course, technical means must be part of any solution.
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Open University course production teams would make an interesting study, where a
useful statistic would be the number of times members relate their comments to what
they perceive to be student needs. But the point here is not to shower you with the
disagreements among the course team, but to make the point that what you see written
down in the final ‘product’ invariably represents an accommodation of different
emphases (and, rarely, an accommodation of outright disagreements). You should not
regard it, therefore, as the final word on the subject, but engage critically with it yourself.
The most telling concern about Theme 4, however, was that it would end the course with
a message about the environment that was too negative. What can be done when the vast
majority of the world is so poor that it has no choice but to degrade the environment in
order to secure a livelihood today? What can be done when most of the rich minority is
uncaring beyond its immediate financial and material welfare? Are we not all
individually powerless to do anything in a globalised world dominated by huge
transnational corporations whose single-minded focus is to ‘win’ in the world market
place? And if individually we are powerless, what is the point of getting you to calculate
your green score and suggest ways in which you can improve it?
There can be no denying that these, and others that might be posed, are difficult
questions, although whether they leave a negative message or not about the environment
depends on the answers that you give to them. But just because they are difficult doesn’t
mean that we should not try and engage with them, to explore both their negative and the
positive aspects, and to look for ways of moving forward that avoids both the view that
the world would be saved if only everybody saw sense and adopted the right technologies
and the hand-wringing view that it’s all too complicated and we’re too powerless as
individuals.
Thus, we end Theme 4 with discussion of some of the big questions. Please use our
discussion recorded here as a springboard for your own ideas. We don’t claim to have the
‘answers’, but we do claim that together we can learn to help secure ‘our common
future’.
6.3
*Refer to Part 4 of the
Energy File for further
discussion of alternative
electricity generation
technologies.
Question 1: Technological leapfrog or long slog?
This question (the phrase is borrowed from Forbes and Wield, 1999) relates to the course
team discussion, mentioned above, about ‘technical fixes’. It can be applied directly to
the Bakun Dam case study by asking whether it is necessary for development to have
these kinds of project, or can similar aims be achieved (in this case, securing a reliable
electricity supply) using other, less socially and environmentally contentious,
technologies?* The big hydro-electric dam might be the ‘old orthodoxy’ for creating
energy infrastructure in many parts of the world, but can it be superseded by technologies
such as wind power, solar power or wave/tidal power, as discussed in Theme 1 and the
Energy File? In other words, just because this has been the way in the past, does it have
to be the same now or in the future given technological developments? Is technological
leapfrogging possible?
One optimist on this score is David Wallace, a senior policy analyst working for the
International Energy Agency in Paris. Although it is not happening generally at present,
he suggests that what he terms ‘sustainable industrialisation’ in developing countries can
be achieved more easily than transformation of the industrial economies of the North (the
latter being more set in their ways). Although the technologies will be developed mainly
in the industrialised countries, they will be transferred to and adopted by the South,
assisted, he envisages, by international aid (Wallace, quoted in Chataway & Allen,
1999).
There is, in fact, some evidence at a ‘macro-’ level that technological leapfrogging has
happened already in the field of energy generation as successive countries have
industrialised.
42
THEME 4 THINKING GLOBALLY
Exercise 12
Examine Figure 6.1, which shows the change in energy intensity of a number of
industrialised countries over a period of time?
(a) Describe the general trend that most countries have followed over time.
(b) What does Figure 6.1 tell us about the peak energy intensity of the different
countries represented?
(c) What does Figure 6.1 tell us about the energy intensities of the countries
represented during the last two decades of the 20th century?
Spend about 10 minutes on this activity before referring to the discussion below.
Energy intensity: the
amount of energy
consumed per unit of
economic output. See also
Part 4 of the Energy File
for a fuller discussion.
Figure 6.1 Long-term historical evolution of the energy intensity of industrialized countries.
Discussion
For each of the countries, with the possible exception of Japan, there has been an
initial rise in energy intensity, then a peak, followed by a decline. The rises and peaks
have roughly followed the periods when these countries industrialised. Thus Britain,
the first industrialiser, peaked first (sometime between 1860 and 1990), followed by
the USA, Germany and France. Japan’s energy intensity was still rising generally in
1970, when the data for that country end, but there are signs that it too is beginning to
peak. This is consistent with the other countries, because Japan’s period of
industrialisation has principally been during the latter half of the twentieth century.
The peaks have also been at lower energy intensities as the countries have
successively industrialised. The implication as José Goldemberg, the source of Figure
6.1, puts it, is that later industrialisers have adopted ‘innovative and modern, more
energy-efficient industrial processes and technologies’ (Goldemberg, 1996, p.77).
Thus, at a broad, ‘macro-’ level, technological leapfrogging has occurred as countries
have successively industrialised. In the last two decades of the twentieth century these
energy intensities of different countries have converged (although the data on the USA
are less clear cut), indicating that industrialised countries are converging in their use
of modern technologies.*
[video icon]
As stated, the evidence we have presented for technological leapfrogging has been at a
broad, ‘macro’- level, using energy intensity as an indicator. Let us now return to the
specific, ‘micro-’ level Bakun Dam project and briefly examine some of the technical
alternatives that might have constituted technological leapfrogging.
*Further discussion of the
possibility (or not) of
reconciling environmental
concerns with those of free We must remember that the proponents of the Bakun Dam stressed its credentials in
trade are contained in
harnessing renewable resources (the area’s abundant rainfall) for electricity generation.
Video 4 Empowering the
We are assuming, therefore, that we would want to think of less damaging alternatives
World.
especially in the renewable energy field, rather than revert to other ‘old orthodoxies’,
such as fossil fuels or nuclear power.
This Exercise gets you to
extract relevant
information from a range
of sources in order to
illuminate an issue.
Exercise 13
(a) Refer to the following sources:
Part 4 of the Energy File, which discusses several renewable energy technologies;
Box 7 below, which is taken from the World Bank’s annual development report for
1999/2000;
Table 6.1 below, which summarises the ‘state of the art’ with respect to renewable
power generation technologies (but note that the source of this Table is 1994, so
things will have moved on).
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43
(b) From your limited knowledge of Malaysia’s physical geography that was provided
in the case study, select some possible renewable energy candidates that might help
satisfy the country’s electricity needs. What general problems for widespread
adoption are associated with your selection?
Table 6.1 Summary of renewable power generation technologies
Technology
Biomass
Geothermal
Technical
status
Current
commercial
status
Currently
exploited
capacity (mW)
Agricultural
residues
R–D
A
50 000
Energy crops
R–D
A
500
Urban wastes
R–D
A
1000
Biogas
D
A
1000
Hydrothermal
M
E
10 000
Geopressurised
R
U
0
R–D
U
0
Magma
R
U
0
Small scale
M
A
19 500
Large scale
M
A
627 000
Tidal
M
A?
263
Tidal stream
R
U
0
Shoreline wave
R–D
A?
1
Offshore wave
R
U
1
Ocean thermal
(OTEC)
R–D
A
0
R
U
0
Solar thermal
electrical
R–D
U
350
Solar thermal
M
E
Solar architecture
D–M
E
Photovoltaics
D–M
A
Thermochemical
R–M
A?
R
U
Onshore
D–M
A
2000
Offshore
D
A?
5
Wind pumps
M
A
Hot dry rocks
Hydroelectric
Ocean
Salinity gradient
Solar
Photochemical
Wind
380
Key: Technical status: R, Research; D, Demonstrated;
Commercial status: U, Uneconomic; A, Economic in certain areas or niche markets; E, Economic.
Note: By 1994 ‘Wind’ technology had increased from 2000 MW to 10 000 MW and ‘Photovoltaics’ was
approaching 1000 MW.
Source: IEA/OECD (1994) Energy and Environment Technology to Respond to Global Climate Concerns,
Scoping Study 1994, IEA/OECD, Paris.
Box 6.7
Falling costs for renewable energy
Renewable energy resources offer enormous potential for producing electricity,
particularly in developing countries, which often have an abundant supply of sun,
water, wind, biomass, and other energy sources. This potential remains largely
44
THEME 4 THINKING GLOBALLY
untapped, mainly because of lack of familiarity with renewable energy technologies
and because of their relatively high up-front costs. But two trends indicate that the
future may be brighter for renewable energy sources in developing countries.
First, in certain niche areas, the costs of renewable energy are already competitive
with conventional energy resources, even at the low fossil fuel prices of the late
1990s. Conventional power generation has two less costly competitors: minihydropower sites and biomass cogeneration facilities. These facilities are located
close to population centers or to transmission lines (into which they feed their
power). A number of solar photovoltaic systems are feasible for off-grid power
generation. These systems are most useful in rural areas far from the main power
grid and in sparsely populated areas where low demand makes the cost of extending
the grid prohibitive.
Second, it has become clear that creating competitive, market-type conditions
significantly reduces the costs of using renewable energy technologies. In Indonesia,
once it became known that the World Bank and the GEF (the World Bank’s General
Environmental Facility, discussed later in this Theme) would finance a large
renewable power project, potential vendors began to cut prices to secure their
position in the emerging market. Competition also reduced the costs of windgenerated power under the United Kingdom’s Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation (NFFO)
scheme. Under the NFFO, renewable energy projects are selected in competitive
bidding and receive an output subsidy financed by a levy on electricity generated
with fossil fuels that applies to all electricity consumers. By November 1998, five
NFFO bidding rounds had taken place. Bid prices – the lowest as well as the average
bid – for wind energy declined dramatically, falling from an average of around 18
cents per kilowatt-hour in 1991 to 5.1 cents per kilowatt-hour in 1998. (Declining
prices for fossil fuels during this period meant that the relative costs of renewable
technology fell more slowly.)
Although technological progress is clearly essential to reducing the costs of using
renewable energy technologies, sector reform, including the removal of subsidies on
fossil fuels and open competition, can also be an important factor. Whether
managed, as in the United Kingdom, or spontaneous, as in Indonesia, reform has
helped drive technological advance and has encouraged the efficient use of
technology.
(Source: World Bank, 1999, World Development Report 1999/2000, p.98.)
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