people with more money can
afford to use more energy for
traveling, more heating and
lighting. They can also buy more
energy consuming appliance and
good such as TV's, dishwashers
and washing machines
More energy is required
to build homes in MEDCs
as they require more
bricks, glass, tiles and
piping etc. Also they have
more contents such as
furniture and appliances
the prices of energy are low enough
that affluent societies have little difficulty
affording them and can afford to be very
wasteful. Poorer societies more not be
able to afford much and this may hinder
their development
Relative cost of energy
Where energy is locally
abundant, easy to extract
or not heavily taxed it is
relativley cheap
petrol is much cheaper in the
USA than the UK, which
means that it can be used
more for the same price
Conservation of
energy is likely to a
lower priority if energy
is relatively cheap
Level of industry
industrialised countries use a lot
more energy in the processing
and transportation of goods
Energy is needed for the construction,
heating, lighting and lighting of the
buildings and the manufacture of the
equipment used
People working in industry will also use
more energy than those working in the rural
sector e.g agriculture
Type of indusrty
different types of industry
require different amounts of
energy.
Heavy primary industries such as
aluminium, extract and chemically
process materials, which requires
the most energy
the maufacturing of fertilsers also
requires large amounts of energy as
the Haber process is involved
Social and environmental awareness
Countries that have always had problems with
energy supplies such as Denmark and Norway
have cultural traditions of using energy resources
carefully
In the UK, abundance of coal has made us
use energy wastefully. The discovery of
North sea oil and gas has extended our
extravagent use of energy as coal declines.
Climate
Areas with cold winter require
more heating while hot climates
may need cooling
Good building design can
reduce the need for energy to
power heating systems and
air conditioning