ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19261, 27 August 1924, Page 7

ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE

AUSTRALASIAN ASSOCIATION. ADDRESS ON POWER DEVELOP- , MENT. Ftoeb Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. ADELAIDE, August 26. The Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science has opened, a large number of delegates attending. In the course of bis introductory remarks the newly elected president. Sir John Monash, said that since the last meeting of the association, at Wellington, the outstanding science happening in Australia had been the Pan-Pacific Congress in Melbourne and Sydney last year, the great success of which had undoubtedly been due to the preparatory work done at Wellington. Sir John then delivered an. exhaustive address on the subject of ‘‘Power Development,” with special reference to the greatly increased application, during the last 40 years, of electrical energy to the service of man. ‘‘Electric energy,” he said, ‘‘has become the servitor of humanity. Its utility is assuredly destined to expand until it may even dominate future civilisation. In the course of a single generation we have witnessed tho almost complete obliteration of a social and economic condition, which was thought to have been the acme of progress. Factories, industrial plants and workshops, belching forth pollution through forests of chimney stacks, are almost a thing of the past. Those which still survive are rightly deemed an anachronism. The horse-drawn tram, only very recently thought to be an indispensable public utility, has become a relic of the past. The days of tire steam-railway-locoraotive are numbered. Electro-chemical and electro-metallurgical processes, entirely unheard of a bare decade or two ago, have superceded methods then looked upon as fully perfected. Motive pqrwer in almost every form has become the offspring of electricity. Even our homes have been invaded, and the conditions of domestic life have been wholly transformed. The civilised world is becoming, by a process of peaceful penetration, steadily, but none the less surely, electrified.” After tracing the growth of the consumption of electrical energy Sir John Monash went on to discuss the sources of power and to compare tho advantages of the two chief sources—water and fuel of all grades. Water-power, ho stated, was not necessarily, or even generally, cheaper than heat-power. Nor could the whole available water-power resources of the world provide, even fractionally, for the ultimate needs of mankind. Indeed, when the climax of the electrical era had been reached, that was, when the possibilities of serving human needs, by the exclusive use of electric energy had reached their maximum, the demand for electricity was likely to exceed, by many times, the most sanguine expectations of to-dav. Passing on, the sneaker dealt in turn with the neea for ilie conservation’ of the fuel resources of the world; problems of generation, transmission, control, and automatic operation; tho linking up of systems; and finally the economic and social factors that entered into the use of electricity as' the servant of man ‘‘Most of all,” he concluded, ‘‘it is into rural territories that the amenities of city life are steadily penetrating. Applications of electricity to farm operations and farm domestic life are rapidly spreading, as in dairying, in pumping, in agriculture, and in the driving of farm machinery in general. In this way, electricity may play an important role in the problems of decentralisation, and particularly so when industries not greatly affected by transportation considerations, of which they are many, may have for their establishment a wide range of selection of provincial localities, provided that they are furnished with electric services. ”