Less Developed Countries (LDC's) now have a total of about 2.8 billion people, or approximately 70 percent of the total world population. World populations and current energy consumption are such that is all the world's countries came up to the U.S. per capita energy use, the world's consumption would multiply by a factor of seven. For the LDC's, energy development will be an increasingly important issue. Hydropower technology is on the shelf, and available now, of proven feasibility both technically and economically, and presents a sound and rational energy solution from the environmental viewpoint. It is a technology which could be useful to the Less Developed Countries for the long term, irrespective of the shift from abundant low-cost fossil fuel options or the development of more exotic alternate energy technologies. With its continuing replenishment and nondepleting characteristics, it remains one of the most attractive sources of energy. The nature of water resources includes a distributive element which makes it ideal for rural development. The apparent shift in development policy, from the traditional "top-down" industrialization approach to the "bottoms-up" reach the village approach, requires decentralized applications of energy resources attainable through development of hydropower in many regions of the world. Distributed Small Scale Hydropower (SSH) systems offer excellent opportunities to augment energy supplies to many rural areas. Also, in a modest way the development of a community infrastructure, training of operating and maintenance personnel, and initiation of small scale agribusiness enterprises may be undertaken. Each of these activities could result in relatively major contributions to the improvement of quality of life. SSH sites are found in abundancy in most mountainous regions and offer sensible possibilities for decentralized applications in LDC's.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:rtd-1489 |
| Date | 01 July 1980 |
| Creators | Harper, Stephen R. |
| Publisher | University of Central Florida |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Retrospective Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Public Domain |
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