THE USES MADE BY MAN OF NATURE’S RESOURCES

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26220, 18 September 1950, Page 6

THE USES MADE BY MAN OF NATURE’S RESOURCES

ENERGY

(By a Special Correspondent of "The Times")

Birmingham, Aug. 30.—Members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science assembled in the town hall here to-night to hear their president. Sir Harold Hartley, F.R.S., deliver his inaugural address on “Man’s Use of Energy.” It is the association’s sixth visit to Birmingham—the present occasion is the 112th annual meeting—and it was a happy coincidence ’ and a special pleasure to them all, said the president, that this is the jubilee year of the university. Addressing its Vice-Chancellor, Sir Harold Hartley said: “Although your university is young, as universities go, you inherit the traditions of learning ■and culture that have flourished in Birmingham ever since the days of that brilliant galaxy of talent—Darwin, Galton, Boulton, Watt, Priestley, and their friends—the Lunar Society.” The president reminded his audience that it was only a century since man first understood the full import of the word energy and its significance as the driving force of all physical and chemical change, and of life itself—what Clerk-Maxwell called ‘the go of things.” Yet it had been man s use of energy that shaped so largely the material progress of the human race. The Brain’s Needs Referring to man’s personal need of energy, he. said it was significant that no less than a quarter of the intake went to the brain, even when the organs of external sensation were at rest. It seemed an enormous consumption for the brain’s weight, but the energy had to sustain the active state of the 10.000 m. nerve cells of which the brain was composed. Even in sleep the subconscious mind was working with the flow of energy, and •^T?«T Could say how much we owed to it? In our researches we can plan our measurements and observations accumulate new facts, but the flash’ of inspiration that marks the great advances comes from the ‘deep wells of unconscious cerebration’; it is not command Li f e is dynamic, and the slender thread on which it ha Frnm S ceaaeless flow oi energy." oraEn, ‘s®. fasclnatin g unsolved the tS^d 3 ‘ enb ° n -. S ’ r Haro,d Hartley of P ro .gress in the art creaMd g fni h the c " vlron rnent he had creasTna f C-.U ? f Wlth its ever-in-easing call for energy What X a X re to ad m U ‘a he ?^&an£ h S energy t 0 man to-day? It was tho SJjJt}? ll ®): of huffl an effort; but the effects of energy were not fnunH >»-> raluH Ort - ? nd Productivity alone The ness whk-b "‘?- a "aw world consciousthefr due tlme must show ests lnesca Pable community of inter-

World Reserves xhe sufficiency oi the world’s soSn for e tE: rgy W . as - but a Se recent tb ® t eou “‘ries that had few. showedXt ? h °e Pa^F d n ‘ S u S ia £ y i n could C c°la?m ieS - ° f “I? rema inder none so that ’ThTi, a m, l ch as 1 Par cent., for new‘toil deve lopment might call ior new techniques. Those ineoinliconsSJn fle ™ d tO - day in une ?P al The tmequal distribution of energy sources, the president crea’sin? U im m^ kc its - tra nsport of inThi I 'tnpprtance in the future. P ° Sslblllty of transmitting elecMahSS SY e r long distances by nigh-voltage direct current had passed inc fnr P H rlm ? ntal stage and was waitshouM ho''a’PP’nent; by that means it hloev. 3 possible to transmit large han. k l ?L energ l economically for pernaps a thousand miles by underground or submarine cable, and thus to link ?°” sumin g with new and d?stmit sources of hydro-electric power BrHi^h Was l h e possibility of linking the ™rinv a*’bJ :uro £‘ e , an « rids - thus sebacitv t balance between capacity and requirements by taking canacitv g an°d fh e ason .a' variations in Such the dlvers ‘ty of demands, for us offered an opportunity Hon With share .’P European co-opera-wlthout raising the delicate prob°f at'Pra-national authority. The nhv?™ ln favoured spots were another S h U J C t of energy, and if more courage had been shown in pre-war years m carrying out schemes like the Severn barrage they might to-day be

economical and saving fuel. It was tantalising to think of the immense amount of energy reach ng I the earth by solar radiation and the small use' we made of it. The energy passing to surface was some 50,000 times as great as our consumption; many experiments had. been tried to make more use of that radiation but none had so far produced an economic solution. “We surely have a duty to posterity to pursue long-term researches in this fteld while we are living on reserves.”

Turning to the story of nuclear energy, Sir Harold Hartley said that it showed what could be done if science were used lavishly with all the resources of the modern world to penetrate Nature’s secrets. Now came the task of using her great storehouse for the good of man. To-day the unsolved problems of those peaceful uses loomed large; once more we saw how hard it was to be creative compared with the ease with which man could destroy. But with the world’s need of energy it would be a tragedy if the fear of competition from nuclear piles were to delay in any way the immediate development of the more conventional and better understood sources of energy. The by-products and radiations of nuclear plants were so dangerous to life that their operation was mad* possible only by automatic controls. This brought the president to the last chapter in man’s use of energy—the new science of auto-mechanisms, which could take the place of # the human senses and control machines. “These modern robots may seem to bring us nearer to the fear of Erewhon of the mastery of the machine, but just as the machine was the saver of manual labour, they are substitutes' for the drudgery of the human brain.”

The Load of Atlas « Yet, In claiming the superiority of those man-made mechanisms for a specific purpose over man himself, there was one exception. “No automechanism has. I think, approached the delicate perception of the sensory organ with which my brother chemists are so well endowed—‘Their noses infinitely wise. Their minds being memories of smells.’ ’’

“Have I claimed too m,uch for progress—progress, that missing word among the Greeks? Have we replaced the Golden Ages by an Age of Steel? Has man’s use of energy brought happiness or not?” There was no yardstick that could tell us. We saw today the stirring of a new world cqnsciousness that must in time bear fruit, a new awareness of the load the modern Atlas had to bear, the problems we must face: the growing strain of increasing population, the malnutrition and endemic sickness of perhaps half the world, the inequalities between the more forward and the backward peonies, the . gradual depletion of resources and their unequal distribution. and. by no means least, the human problem of changing the way of life and outlook of many millions. The hope lay in man’s new understanding of Nature’s processes, in his more efficient use of her resources, and in the growing recognition of the dependence of one nation upon another.

Those problems, the president said in conclusion, were the challenge to the science and engineering of our time Only they could solve them—if allowed, and if men’s minds were bent on quest of plenty, not on quest of power. Their orderly solution must depend on a knowledge ,o' the conditions and needs of each country, 9 n a survey of its natural resources, its human geography, its economic structure, and its capacity to produce and consume. The limiting factors would then appear and the problems they presented could be attacked in their right order. The over-riding importance of such surveys was slowly > lng 1 F ec °£ n ised and the technique °f making them was under way. Only then could the natural wealth of the world, distributed in such an accidental way. best be used to meet its growing demands. In all those ?^ ns - ener Sy would play a vital part, indeed, “on man’s wise use of energy depends so much the future of this troubled world.”