SUFFiciENcy EcONOMy ANd GRASSROOtS DEvElOPMENt

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The Meaning of Sufficiency Economy
International Conference
1. Introduction
Energy is fast becoming a rare commodity. The situation in villages as
compared to cities is even worse. In India, there are still more than eighty thousand
villages yet to be electrified and the cost of extending the centralized grid to remote
villages is extremely prohibitive. Moreover, excessive consumption of commercial
fossil fuels are degrading our environment and ecology as we are experiencing the
global warming due to greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion etc. Under this
scenario, renewable energy technologies like sun, wind, biomass etc. offer a clean
and viable solution.
With maturity in these technologies, they are increasingly being seen as a
promising option to meet the present and future energy demands without adversely
affecting the environment and arresting the degradation of ecology, thereby offering
large scope in manufacturing, installing, servicing and providing consultancy
regarding renewable energy based technologies, appliances and products.
There is a dire need to build a strong domestic economy and improve
competitiveness, based on a country’s potential resources and abilities, in order to
gain the benefits of globalization and to minimize adverse impacts (Wibulswasdi et
al 2010). India already imports around seventy percent of its oil requirements.
Wibulswasdi et al (2010) also said that a proper supply-side management policy is
also to be framed to help withstand the shocks and volatility arising from external
factors, such as oil and commodities prices, exchange rates etc. With good risk
management, we will be resilient and overcome these challenges. Second,
promotion of alternative energy sources such as gasohol or bio-diesel will increase
our national energy security and help protect our economy from increasingly volatile
world energy prices. These self-immunities, once in place, will lead to an increase
in the overall economic resilience of the country. (Wibulswasdi et al 2010)
In particular case of generating electricity, it is estimated that the activity
creates 11.4 billion tons of carbon emissions worldwide each year – nearly 40
percent of all energy-related carbon emissions. Renewable sources could reduce
those emissions (Cass 2011). 20 terawatt-hours were the global electricity generation
in 2008; 68 percent of this electricity was produced by burning fossil fuels (Levitan
2011).
In order to address effectively these environmental matters, together with
energy supply security concerns, radical changes in power generation, automotive
engine, and fuel technologies will probably be required. Such changes must offer the
potential for achieving negligible emissions of air pollutants and
Greenhouse gases, and must diversify the energy sector away from its present
heavy reliance on fossil fuels (and particularly gasoline in the transportation sector).
A number of technologies, including those that are solar or hydrogen-based, offer
the long term potential for an energy system that meets these criteria (Owen 2004).