Appropriate Technology: Efficacy versus efficiency

Appropriate Technology is often described as having:

1) Limited impact on the environment

2) Sensitivity to ethical, cultural, social and economical aspects of the targeted community

3) Fewer resource requirements which can decrease maintenance and reduce overall costs

AT can be small scale, use small manufacturing & use footprints, which in turn can make it ecologically and socially benign.  AT can also include "leapfrog technology", benefitting from the hard lessons learned in the developed world: avoid polluting technology such as coal fired plants, decrease cement usage, limit carbon output, etc.

By the same token AT can also be labor intensive versus capital intensive.  This idea of efficacy versus efficiency is an important one.  When the nearest grid connection is 25+ km, away a pedal generator will be one of the best way to create electricity to power battery driven LED lights (for example).  An operator will be earning an income.  User fees can support the operator.  The enterprise will be effective in creating a fairly benign form of power. The power created, compared to the power we get from the socket in our walls, will not be efficient.  But the US had 100 years to develop the infrastructure to create and deliver that electricity efficiently, and thus cheaply.

Intermediate Technology can be a synonym for appropriate technology.  This phrase was coined by EF Schumacher to describe technology which is significantly more effective and expensive that traditional methods, but still an order of magnitude (10 times?) cheaper that developed world technology.  It is technology that proponents argue can be easily purchased and used by poor people and according to proponents can lead to greater productivity while minimizing social dislocation.  Much intermediate technology can also be built and serviced using locally available materials and knowledge.