Economy
Where a Billion People Still Live Without Electricity
Many of them in urban areas.
In the West, sustainability often means a better light bulb, or a new lithium-ion battery in an electric car, or a smarter way of powering all the appliances we've long since grown dependent on. The fate of global sustainability, however, is ultimately tied to the billion-plus people worldwide who still have no electricity at all.
In the coming decades, we have to figure out how to rein in energy use as a planet – while ramping up alternative sources of it – even as we deliver electricity for the first time to 17 percent of the world's population.