Editorial Technology Solutions to Energy Issues – Dissemination strategies he system of water, energy, environment Suitable opportunities already exist for Tand agriculture comprise the four adopting environment-friendly technologies major components of the Earth system in the area of energy, transportation, water E-mail: [email protected] concerned with life support. Technology conservation and use, agriculture and industry. fuels and good practices in the use of energy, (and science) cuts across the four systems. Many of the eco-friendly technologies can deserve to be popularised, promoted and An integrated multi-level system is needed be adopted in a decentralised manner. Bio- encouraged. How can you lead campaigns to address the problem of global change with fuels potentially supply some 30 per cent of that help society make better choices? its demographic, environmental, climatic, global demand in an environment-friendly Existing mass media including biological, technological, economical, manner without significantly affecting food television, radio and print offer many social, and health components. Natural and production. While oil will not disappear opportunities. Personal interaction through human-engineered resource systems, such as in the near future and even after the recent lecture demonstrations, dialogue and debates environmental security, energy security, and surge in its prices, farm-grown bio-fuels such need to be harnessed. Efforts will have the security of food and freshwater supply have as ethanol and biodiesel will account for no objectives of bringing into focus, among already become critical. There is a growing more than a small fraction of fossil fuel use. other issues, the following: concern about the unprecedented damage Some micro-algae are efficient miniature 1. Identification of social and being done to the planet Earth. At the same biochemical factories and also good CO 2 environmental benefits of alternative time, there are many examples at different fixers. Municipal and industrial organic energy among college students; levels of society of actions for positive waste treatment for composting has received 2. Options to upgrade biomass fuels so change. inadequate attention. Recycling, reuse and they can be used for a broader range of No country can be termed a developed reduced energy consumption deserve to be markets and applications (e.g., wood country without adequate power, efficient widely encouraged as also the use of solar pellet fuels) to decision makers; transmission and equitable distribution heating and cooling and electric technologies, 3. Improving efficiency of utilising energy throughout the country. India has progressed energy-efficient design, ventilation and and its conservation to opinion makers; from a meagre 1,362 MW in1947 to about improved insulation of buildings to reduce and 128,000 MW in 2006 but this is not enough the consumption of energy in buildings. The 4. Biomethanation for the disposal of to keep pace with the rising load demand. use of safe industrial and agricultural waste organic residues and waste products Even today, there is a peak power deficit of products and other types of low-energy and of agricultural products and in animal at least 11 per cent and energy shortage of recycled building materials in construction husbandry to research scientists. about 6 per cent. There are issues of quality also should be encouraged. The next few weeks will witness every of power supply (fluctuations and stability) Possibilities and challenges of the college and university organising its cultural that are often critical. coming decade and the roles of the state, festival with opportunities for expressing Emphasis is being placed on alternative civil society and research institutions need and developing the creative potential of and renewable energy sources such as wind refining for a more just and equitable world. the participants. There are competitions energy, biomass, and solar and hydro energy Sensitising the policy makers and developing and exhibitions that demonstrate the rich in order to bridge the demand-supply gap. their capacity for better decision making is variety of forms available. Can the above This has received a major thrust under the crucial. concerns not be integrated in these creative Prime Minister’s National Action Plan for The development and dissemination expressions? Climate Change. Energy conservation and of new and environmentally sound efficiency are crucial in the power sector. technologies, including the reduction of Every unit saved is a unit generated. metal compounds as part of transportation o Anuj Sinha Editor : Er Anuj Sinha Vigyan Prasar is not responsible for the statements and opinions Address for Vigyan Prasar, C-24, expressed by the authors in their articles/write-ups published in correspondence : Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi-110 016 “Dream 2047” Tel : 011-26967532; Fax : 0120-2404437 Articles, excerpts from articles published in “Dream 2047” may e-mail : [email protected] be freely reproduced with due acknowledgement/credit, provided website : http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in periodicals in which they are reproduced are distributed free. Published and Printed by Dr. Subodh Mahanti on behalf of Vigyan Prasar, C-24, Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi - 110 016 and Printed at Aravali Printers & Publishers Pvt. Ltd., W-30, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-II, New Delhi-110 020. Ph. : 01126388830-32 Editor: Er Anuj Sinha 39 Dream 2047, October 2010, Vol. 13 No. 1 Humphry Davy Founder of Electrochemistry Subodh Mahanti E-mail: [email protected] “I have learned more from my mistakes than from my successes.” Humphry Davy wide coverage in newspapers and magazines. “Language is not only the vehicle of thought; it is a great and efficient instrument in Through his public lectures he popularised thinking.” his experimental discoveries in chemistry, Humphry Davy electrochemistry, agriculture, geology, and catalysis. Davy’s popular lectures helped the Royal Institution become a social and umphry Davy made important Davy invented the Davy lamp (1815), financial success. Hcontributions to the development of which allowed miners to work safely in Davy was an enthusiastic poet and chemistry. To realise the importance of his presence of inflammable gases. Davy had he wrote a number of poems. He had contribution we should understand the state found in 1801 that nitrous oxide had the friendly terms with eminent poets like of chemistry in his time. To do this we quote ability to entirely take away the sensation of William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Samuel here from The History of Science in the pain and thus it was a hint that it could be Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), and Robert Nineteenth Century by Ray Spangenburg used as anaesthetic in surgery. However, his Southey (1774-1843). Coleridge said that and Diane K Moser: “The year was 1829 suggestion was not taken up for another half if Davy “had not been the first chemist, he (referring to the year in which Davy died), a century. would have been the first poet of his age.” and for chemistry, the century had only just Davy was a great science populariser. Southey declared that “he (Davy) had all the begun, bolstered by the atomic theory of John He joined the newly established Royal elements of a poet; he only wanted the art.” Dalton, the new tool invented by Volta and Institution as a chemist in 1801 where John Ayrton Paris said that Davy’s verses the extraordinary discoveries of new elements, he gave public lectures accompanied by “bear the stamp of lofty genius.” It can be to continue to search out more new elements experimental demonstrations. He conducted said that Davy could have become a noted and to make sense of the vast jungle of poet if had pursued his interest in poetry molecules that form with the element carbon. seriously. However, many point out that Progress in all these fields was soon to come.” his sporadic writings did not show any true We should also remember that in England poetic imagination. when Davy was trying to pursue a career in Humphry Davy was born on 17 science only the Royal Astronomer could be December 1778 at Penzance in Cornwall, described as a professional scientist. UK. His father Robert Davy was a wood- Davy is mostly known today for carver. He was representative of a very old his discovery of metals namely sodium, family—his ancestors could be traced as potassium, calcium, magnesium, barium far back as 1635. Robert Davy took his through electrolysis of their compounds. profession as more of a hobby rather than a He also discovered boron. He established means of earning money. Humphry’s mother the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Grace Davy (nee Millet) had been adopted It was Davy who put an end to Lavoisier’s by John Tonkin, an eminent surgeon of theory that oxygen is an essential component Penzance after the untimely death of her of acids. In 1806, he delivered the Bakerine parents. It was Tonkin who first placed Davy Lecture. The lecture, which was titled “On in a preparatory school. Tonkin was very Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity”, was much impressed by the progress made by hailed by Jons Jacob Berzelius as “one of the Humphry Davy the boy and so he persuaded Davy’s father best memoirs which has ever enriched the to send him to a better school. And so, at theory of chemistry.” The Bakerian Lecture experiments in different areas of science and an early age Davy was sent to Penzance is a prize lecture of the Royal Society which had wonderful ability of storytelling. By Grammar School, where he studied under was established by Henry Baker in 1775 his dramatic presentation he could easily Rev. J. C. Coryton. Young Davy displayed an when he left 100 pounds for a spoken lecture captivate his audience. His lectures used to unusual inquisitiveness to acquire knowledge by a Fellow on such part of natural history or be attended by a large number of people.