IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v23y2005i2p173-189.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Electrifying Rural Guatemala: Central Policy and Rural Reality

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew J Taylor

    (Department of Geography, University of Denver, Denver, CO 80208, USA)

Abstract

Towards the end of the 20th century Guatemala embarked on an ambitious rural electrification plan: central planners in the Ministry of Energy and Mines hope to connect 90% of homes to the national electricity grid by 2004. Energy for the increased demand comes from floating power plants anchored in Guatemala's Pacific port, a new coal-fired power plant, and numerous small-scale hydroelectric plants. So far, rural electrification, in terms of connected households, has proceeded to plan. However, the success of the rural electrification program belies energy realities and the development needs of rural Guatemala. Data from in-depth interviews and household surveys in Ixcán, Guatemala, show that rural residents prefer other forms of development—like the introduction of potable water, or improved schooling. Electricity, farmers state, only provides rural families with a few hours of light at night because they cannot afford to pay for appliances or for increased consumption of electricity. Fieldwork in rural areas also reveals that the introduction of electricity will not change patterns of firewood consumption; firewood is the basic survival fuel for most rural Guatemalans. Development funds may be better spent on locally run and organized forestry initiatives to ensure reliable sources of firewood for the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew J Taylor, 2005. "Electrifying Rural Guatemala: Central Policy and Rural Reality," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 23(2), pages 173-189, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:23:y:2005:i:2:p:173-189
    DOI: 10.1068/c14r
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/c14r
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/c14r?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. An, Li & Lupi, Frank & Liu, Jianguo & Linderman, Marc A. & Huang, Jinyan, 2002. "Modeling the choice to switch from fuelwood to electricity: Implications for giant panda habitat conservation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 445-457, September.
    2. Hosier, Richard H. & Bernstein, Mark A. & Hildebrandt, Eric, 1992. "Energy development, regional cooperation, and CO2 emissions in Central America," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 297-309, April.
    3. Brouwer, Inge D. & Hoorweg, Jan C. & van Liere, Marti J., 1997. "When households run out of fuel: Responses of rural households to decreasing fuelwood availability, Ntcheu District, Malawi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 255-266, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ding, Haoyuan & Qin, Cong & Shi, Kang, 2018. "Development through electrification: Evidence from rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 313-328.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Chengchao & Yang, Yusheng & Zhang, Yaoqi, 2012. "Rural household livelihood change, fuelwood substitution, and hilly ecosystem restoration: Evidence from China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 2475-2482.
    2. Maes, Wouter H. & Verbist, Bruno, 2012. "Increasing the sustainability of household cooking in developing countries: Policy implications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 4204-4221.
    3. Fisher, Monica G. & Shively, Gerald E. & Buccola, Steven T., 2002. "An Empirical Investigation Of Activity Choice, Labor Allocation, And Forest Use In Southern Malawi," Staff Papers 28616, Purdue University, Department of Agricultural Economics.
    4. John Eakins & Bernadette Power & Gordon Sirr, 2024. "An Analysis of Households Choice of Solid Fuels as a Primary and Supplementary Heating Fuel," The Energy Journal, , vol. 45(2), pages 91-109, March.
    5. Christophe Muller & Huijie Yan, 2018. "Household Fuel Use in Rural China," AMSE Working Papers 1808, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    6. Jagger, Pamela & Shively, Gerald, 2014. "Land use change, fuel use and respiratory health in Uganda," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 713-726.
    7. Frank Adusah-Poku & Samuel Adams & Kwame Adjei-Mantey, 2023. "Does the gender of the household head affect household energy choice in Ghana? An empirical analysis," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(7), pages 6049-6070, July.
    8. Behera, Bhagirath & Rahut, Dil Bahadur & Jeetendra, Aryal & Ali, Akhter, 2015. "Household collection and use of biomass energy sources in South Asia," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 468-480.
    9. Muller, Christophe & Yan, Huijie, 2018. "Household fuel use in developing countries: Review of theory and evidence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 429-439.
    10. Li, Fanlue & He, Ke & Wang, Yuejie & Zhang, Junbiao, 2021. "Does Indoor Air Pollution from Solid Fuels Influence the Mental Health of Rural Residents? Evidence from China," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315024, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Harry Hoffmann & Götz Uckert & Constance Rybak & Frieder Graef & Klas Sander & Stefan Sieber, 2018. "Efficiency scenarios of charcoal production and consumption – a village case study from Western Tanzania," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 10(4), pages 925-938, August.
    12. Vikram S. Negi & R.K. Maikhuri, 2017. "Forest resources consumption pattern in Govind Wildlife Sanctuary, Western Himalaya, India," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 60(7), pages 1235-1252, July.
    13. Lupi, Frank & Kaplowitz, Michael D. & Hoehn, John P., 2003. "A Split-Sample Test Of Experimental Designs For Stated Choice Models Of Environmental Valuation," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22073, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    14. Irina Klytchnikova & Michael Lokshin, 2009. "Measuring Welfare Gains from Better Quality Infrastructure," Journal of Infrastructure Development, India Development Foundation, vol. 1(2), pages 87-109, December.
    15. Nerfa, Lauren & Rhemtulla, Jeanine M. & Zerriffi, Hisham, 2020. "Forest dependence is more than forest income: Development of a new index of forest product collection and livelihood resources," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    16. William Cavendish, 1998. "The complexity of the commons: environmental resource demands in rural Zimbabwe," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/1999-08, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    17. Esther O. Lamidi, 2019. "Household composition and experiences of food insecurity in Nigeria: the role of social capital, education, and time use," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 11(1), pages 201-218, February.
    18. Abdullah, Sabah & Mariel, Petr, 2010. "Choice experiment study on the willingness to pay to improve electricity services," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 4570-4581, August.
    19. Javier Escobal & Sonia Laszlo, 2008. "Measurement Error in Access to Markets," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(2), pages 209-243, April.
    20. Wei Liu & Christine A Vogt & Junyan Luo & Guangming He & Kenneth A Frank & Jianguo Liu, 2012. "Drivers and Socioeconomic Impacts of Tourism Participation in Protected Areas," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(4), pages 1-13, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:23:y:2005:i:2:p:173-189. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.