Electricity consumption in North Korea

Over the weekend, U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly, on a year-long mission to the International Space Station, tweeted a couple of images that graphically displays the depth of economic deprivation in North Korea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The good news is that North Korea is a great conserver of electricity. The bad news is that the country’s electrical consumption has dropped so much that many people don’t have it!

Back in 1980, there wasn’t a significant gap in electricity use between the two Koreas with electricity consumption in North Korea hitting 20.2 billion kilowatt hours versus 32.06 billion kilowatt hours in South Korea, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

By 2012, North Korea was using only 15.72 billion kilowatt hours while South Korea’s consumption had surged to 482.38 billion kilowatt hours. [In above photo, South Korean lights are shown at bottom right, directly below the North Korean darkness.]

[MarketWatch] 

This entry was posted in DPRK Government, Humanitarian Aid and Relief by Grant Montgomery.