A press release issued yesterday by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim outlined a campaign headed by UN and the World Bank to encourage financing to extend modern energy services to everyone in the world by 2030.
They are calling for:
A concerted effort by governments, international agencies, civil society and private sector to mobilize financing to deliver universal access to modern energy services such as lighting, clean cooking solutions and power for productive purposes in developing countries, as well as scaled-up energy efficiency, especially in the world’s highest-energy consuming countries.
World Bank President Kim said that to achieve this goal, $600-800 billion per year would need to be committed to the various projects that would be funded. He also stated that the World Bank would not commit any resources to nuclear power, but would focus on wind, solar, geothermal and hydro as clean energy sources, and by pushing for greater energy efficiency.
This is a very different approach than that being advocated by proponents of nuclear power like Bill Gates, James Hansen and many others who say that it is the only available technology that can realistically meet our energy needs without producing greenhouse gases.
Until a more powerful, efficient, and clean alternative is available, I find it hard to see how the funding that is proposed here will be forthcoming. Of course, many readers here will be hoping that before too long, LENR will be considered by leaders around the world as an obvious choice for providing cheap and clean energy to those areas that are in most need of it. If and when the E-Cat (or similar) arrives on the scene and is recognized widely as a viable energy source I would expect all the projections and calculations of bodies like the UN, the World Bank and others to change significantly, making their goals of energy for all seem much more attainable.