The great energy divide

IN RURAL areas, the use of collected biomass continues to burgeon because the availability of alternate sources of energy has increased more tardily than expected. The poorest of the rural poor are far more dependent on non-commercial sources of energy like wood, dung, and agricultural wastes than the urban poor. The country's hill regions continue to be dependent on firewood, while in the plains people use dung cakes and crop residues. Lighting gobbles up most of the fuel purchased commercially in rural areas; in urban areas, it is cooking.