Smart Villages/LCEDN webinar series For more information, please go to e4sv.org https://e4sv.org/events/webinar-energy-and-transport Transport is an often overlooked aspect of rural development and linkage to energy access and productive use of energy in the developing world, but it is of critical importance. Not only does transportation rely on a source of energy (and hence transport can itself become a productive use of energy), but an effective transport infrastructure is a critical part of allowing mobility, access to markets, establishment of distribution chains (both to access energy generating equipment as well as marketing services, goods and products). In this webinar, we were joined by experts presenting on diverse aspects of this complex challenge, including Prof Gina Porter and Dr Arash Azizi of the University of Durham, Dipak Gyawali, former Minister of Water Resources in Nepal and Chair of the Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, and Dr Ben Campbell from the UK Low Carbon Energy Development Network. As usual, we provided an opportunity for the participants joining the webinar to put questions to the speakers, for them to be answered during the session.

1. Looks like a truck, quacks like a truck, but is not a truck –
What IS it? … A DESAKOTA phenomenon!
Dipak Gyawali
Nepal Academy of Science and Technology & Nepal Water Conservation Foundation
Durham University Webinar on Rural Energy Access and Decarbonized Transport
26th April 2018

2. 41st Pani Satsang
Date: Sunday, November 23, 2014
Time: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Venue: Nepal Academy of Science and Technology,
Khumaltar, Lalitpur, Nepal
CARBON NEUTRAL PATHWAYS IN NEPAL WITH A
SPECIAL FOCUS ON ROPEWAYS AND ELECTRIC
TRANSPORT

3. This way of going to school
(or market) is definitely more
preferable than walking two
extra hours to the nearest
suspension bridge…
But a little help from an
electric motor powered by a
micro-hydro in a better
designed cabin is even
better….

4. D. Gyawali et al, 2004. Ropeways in Nepal: Context, Constraint and Co-Evolution.
Kathmandu: Nepal Water Conservation Foundation and Kathmandu Electric Vehicle
Alliance. http://www.nwcf.org.np/cms/resources/pdf/Ropeway.pdf
Perhaps the issue of ropeways demands a similar approach, one based on self-
confidence and a willingness to accept an unquantifiable challenge. In Nepal, the
distance from the nearest road is a crucial determinant of development, which
suggests that the obvious answer to the need to boost living standard is to build
more roads. Yet in a mountainous environment where roads are technically very
difficult to build and transaction costs very high, the obvious answer may not be
the right one.
Perhaps the first step is essentially conceptual: to think in terms of rural access
rather than road construction.
L. Barnaby Smith, Former British Ambassador to Nepal in the Foreword to
Ropeways in Nepal

5. Lessons from Ropeways in Nepal: Context, Constraint and
Co-Evolution.
Three times cheaper to build than an equivalent, cheap
gravel “green road”, and about three times shorter
(hairpin bends of mountain roads versus “as the crow
flies” for ropeways
Eight times quicker to install (in one dry season;
cheapest road minimum of four years)
Two times more energy efficient (34 MJ/ton for
ropeway vs 53 MJ/ton for road; Bhattedanda Milkway:
Rs 7000/month of NEA hydro vs Rs 34000/month of
diesel)

6. From: Gyawali, Thompson, and Verweij (2017, EARTHSCAN Routledge)
Aid, Technology and Development: The Lessons from Nepal
https://www.routledge.com/Aid-Technology-and-Development-The-Lessons-from-Nepal/Thompson-
Gyawali-Verweij/p/book/9781138656918
Also discussed in: http://bulletin.ids.ac.uk/idsbo/article/view/2822