Achim Steiner (Germany), the Administrator of the United Nations Development Program, asserted that “technology and innovation can also make a difference” in preventing Afghanistan’s dive into universal poverty, but his solution for its electrical power was straight out of the “technological apartheid” textbook: Solar panels.
Afghanistan has a pitifully low level of installed electricity generating capacity, less than 1% that of the U.S. on a per capita basis. To industrialize and develop the nation requires a massive increase in energy production, which could only effectively be led by hydrocarbons.
