GUEST EDITORIAL: Renewable Energy and Development

Due to concerns about burning fossil fuels, which is the principal cause of carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere and by inference the main catalyst for global warming, there is a concerted effort to increase the share of renewable energy worldwide. In additon, for truly sustainable development, most energy will have to be renewable. By far the largest current form of renewable energy is from so called ‘traditional’ biomass––wood, crop residues and dung––used mainly by people in developing countries for household cooking (an estimated 500 million households), the service sector and by (rural) industries to manufacture charcoal and to provide heat, steam and electricity for crop drying, food processing, brick/tile and ceramic manufacture, and beverage production. Final renewable energy consumption accounts for 18% of total energy use in 2006 of which 13% or nearly three quarters is traditional biomass (Ren21 2007).