The former executive vice president of both Global Exploration for Royal Dutch Shell and Exploration and Commercial for Shell Upstream Americas, Dr. David Lawrence retired from Shell in 2013. He is currently Chairman of Lawrence Energy Group LLC, a Director of Stone Energy, and Chairman of the Yale Climate and Energy Institute Advisory Board, David Lawrence maintains Energy Perspectives, a blog at www.lawrence1energy.blogspot.com, where he discusses solutions for energy poverty and is a contributor to the Energy Collective.

1. Energy Poverty and Some of Its
Impacts
David Lawrence, Shell

2. Introduction
• The former executive vice president of both Global
Exploration for Royal Dutch Shell and Exploration and
Commercial for Shell Upstream Americas, Dr. David
Lawrence retired from Shell in 2013. He is currently
Chairman of Lawrence Energy Group LLC, a Director of Stone
Energy, and Chairman of the Yale Climate and Energy
Institute Advisory Board, David Lawrence maintains Energy
Perspectives, a blog at www.lawrence1energy.blogspot.com,
where he discusses solutions for energy poverty and is a
contributor to the Energy Collective.
Energy is a necessity of modern life. Access to electricity
makes health care possible, including by powering hospital
lights and heat and the refrigeration of vaccines.

3. Energy Poverty
• It allows businesses to function and students to receive
an education. Access to electricity also makes it possible
to cook foods without polluting indoor air.
Up to 1.2 billion people, which amounts to about 17
percent of the world’s population, have no access to
electricity. An even larger proportion of the global
population, 38 percent, has no access to clean cooking
facilities, but instead uses wood or biomass to cook
indoors. Consequently, 3.5 million people, mostly
women and children, die of cooking-related respiratory
illnesses annually. Hence, by addressing energy poverty,
literally millions of lives could be saved.