Science and technology for Sri Lanka in the 21st century.

1
Science and technology for Sri Lanka in the 21st
century.

• Chandre Dharmawardana
• National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa
• and Université de Montreal

2
Presentations of this PPT.

• Presented (version1) as a seminar at the
  Presidential Advisors secretariat, Colombo, June
  2009
• Presented (version2) as a seminar at The
  Institute of Chemistry, Sri Lanka.
• Presented (version3) at The Open University,
  Nawala, Sri Lanka.
• Presented (version4) as a seminar at ICTA,
  Colombo.
• Available (version A) on the web, at
  http//dhweb.org/place.names/posts/dev-tech-2009.p
  pt

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What is on the plate?

• THE 4 Long-term CHALLENGES For SRI LANKA with
  population of 20x106 Increasing by 1000 a day ?
  too much for sustainability.
• 1. Sea Inundation of coastal areas due to Global
  warming. TIME TO ACT IS NOW
• 2. Population ? Energy crunch. Currently 5000
  kWh/capita increasing rapidly (USA is x50) ?
  pollution
• 3. Population ? Agriculture and water crunch
• 4. Multi-ethnic politics, There is a technical
  answer to divisive Language Politics.

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Population graphs and projections, Sri LankaHow
many to feed ? how many new jobs?
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World problems and population

• Tendency nowadays to ignore the population bomb
  claiming that populations have stabilized
• However, see
• Scientific American, June 2009 issue (this
  month)
• More than a billion in Africa have no food. See
  the new book Enough by Roger Thurow and Scott
  Kilman uncontrolled population growth.
• Religions, traditional attitudes, ethnic
  rivalry hamper population planning and family
  planning.

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Increased Population and Energy use are a result
of 20th century Technology.

• Now we urgently need Population stabilization
• Sri Lanka will have to cope with 30-50 x106
• Need lots more energy
• More energy use ? more garbage, industrial
  pollution
• More homes, no water !
• Expect 1 to 3 meters slow rise in sea level

• Education and attitudes lead to stabilization
• Need alternatives to hydro and fossil fuel
• Solar Energy, Thorium-232 (local nuclear
  energy source.)
• Replace irrigation-agriculture by vat based
  agriculture.
• Need a 2-5 meter high dyke along the coast

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Sri Lankas 1st challenge of the 21st century

• Ancient vision was irrigation and tank-centered
  agriculture. This vision is untenable for a
  comsumer-oriented 30 million population
• The nation was a leader in the hydrulic
  civilization of the ancient world
• Today we need a new technological vision

• The old hydraulic vision (Parakrama samudra,
  Mahaveli etc) has to be replaced by a vision of
  building a Dyke around the country and connective
  roads
• The Dyke is a ring road for a fast rail network,
  work, connectivity, ports, people.
• The Dyke protects SL from Global warming and from
  naval terrorism

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Sea-level increase threatInundation will cover
an area similar to the Tsunami.
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Sri Lankas 1st challenge of the 21st century

• The first need of development is security and
  undisrupted connectivity (stop inundation and
  erosion)
• The sea-level monitors in Maldives have already
  shown an increase in sea level. Sea erosion is
  real.
• Global-warming CANNOT BE IGNORED .
• SL has to start NOW to protect the island..
• Build a coastal Dyke-road and a SET of FAST
  rail-roads linked to it (public transport instead
  of cars)
• Such civil engineering creates JOBS and is
  consistent with the ancient genius of the people.

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Sri Lankas 2nd challenge of the 21st century

• The current use of electricity (0.3kWh per
  household) will have to increase by a x of 10-20
• Efficiently use garbage
• for energy and fertilizer
• SLs wind-power potential
• is not high (60,000 mW)
• Better potential for Solar
• Increase electricity Tariff to subsidize solar
  panels.

• Tropics Solar Energy. Follow Japanese Solar-
  energy policy.
• Use monazite in Thorium breeder-reactors.
  Nuclear Energy is a long-range, expensive option.
• WE LOOK AT OTHER OPTIONS e.g., biomass for gas,
• heat pumps for cololing houses.

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False claims and crackpot science

• Anything that goes against the laws of
  thermodynamics should be rejected
• Running the car by burning water! (H2O is the
  ash !).
• Energy by making alcohol from straw
• How much straw? Fermentation product has to be
  distilled (costs more energy than you get out of
  it)
• Claims that western science is not applicable
  in Sri Lanka.
• Claims that divine power can be used for making
  predictions using mediums.

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False claims and crackpot science

• Anything that goes against the laws of
  thermodynamics should be rejected
• Running the car by burning water! (H2O is the
  ash !).
• Energy by making alcohol from straw
• How much straw? Fermentation product has to be
  distilled (costs more energy than you get out of
  it)
• Claims that western science is not applicable
  in Sri Lanka.
• Claims that divine power can be used for making
  predictions using mediums.

13
Energy -repeat

• Hydro energy already exploited- expensive capital
  investment (dams, turbines, grid)
• Dendro (burning biomass) now paying off and
  carbon neutral (Dendro pioneer - Mega10 in
  Bibile)
• Solar energy NOT exploited great potential but
  expensive. Curent electricity tariff too low.
• Processing garbage for energy is A MUST
• Wind energy Sri Lanka is moderately windy
• Geothermal sources (hot springs), heat-pumps

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Comment about Solar and Wind power

• Wind-power installation costs in SL around 2m
  per mW (e.g., Kalpitiya, Haleys).
• Solar panels, 5-8 acres per mW, and 2-3m per mW
  . This price is going down. Subsidize or RAISE
  ELECRTICITY TARIFFS
• Float the solar panels on water in Tanks (cuts
  evaporation) to exploit land area.
• The ancient village tank farming concept is
  upgraded to include solar-energy farming using
  the tank area.
• 2009 prices are indicated.

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Sri lankas 3rd tech challenge of the 21st
century agriculture water shortage

• Mahavaeli type projects no longer viable.
• Practice minimum-water agriculture.
• More Evaporation with global warming.
• Bio-technology and DNA based farming - (Plant
  breeding and controlled-GM)

• Grow in vats where the correct DNA produces,
  e.g., tomato or soya paste or vegetarian
  chicken from nutrients.
• Shading tanks with solar panels to cut
  evaporation
• Nitrogen fixation to generated nutrients
• Biotech approach to garbage

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Agriculture, fertilizers and poisons

• The expanding population CANNOT be fed using
  purely green methods.
• There is heavy overuse of pesticides, and
  fertilizers in Sri Lanka educate our farmers
  reg. Arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), and over run of
  phosphates etc., in water due to over-use.
• Power plants using coal emit As, Hg, SO2 etc.
• Big infrastructure and irrigation projects
  release As, Hg, heavy metals to the environment.
• POPULATION HAS TO BE STABILIZED.
• School Curricula have to deal with these topics.

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Communication - Sri Lankas 4th Sc. Tech.
challenge

• Communicate in Sinhala, Tamil, Hindi, English,
  Chinese, i.e., multi-lingualism needed in the
  global market but people are mostly unilingual.
• Diffuse the danger of Language politics.
• Quantitative thinking
• for the general public.

• The technological revolution already provides
  adequate (but imperfect) on the spot
  translations - check your browser
• Computers, internet, and information tech. for
  every one
• Mathematics

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E-language

• Language barriers (Sinhala, Tamil, English)
• - basis of political agitation and civil strife
• - hampers commerce and development
• - yet we live in a global village
• There is a technical solution to these political
  problems.
• Exploit the tech. solution !!!!

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Consider three aspects of e-language

• 1. Connecting Sinhala and Tamil writing to the
  ASCII keyboard easiest part
• 2. Rendering spoken Sinhala to spoken Tamil
• and vice versa, for example., in a cell-phone
  conversation.
• 3. Translation of a Sinhala text into Tamil and
  vice versa by a click on your browser.
• (translation is imperfect but adequate
  already available for European languages)
• WE are NOT looking for translation of poetry or
  literature.
• Translating precise legal text is actually
  easy!!!!

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E-language, objective- page1

• Keys on a cellphone or keyboard (English) to
  Sinhala or Tamil mapping schemes- nothing new
  Every symbol grouping has a Unicode value and a
  corresponding Sinhala letter grouping. See
• www.ucs.cmb.ac.lk/trl/services/econvert/t1.h
  tml
• Hence we can write on a standard English
  Microsoft keyboard and output directly into
  Sinhlala or Tamil letters.
• The cellphone does the translation/volcalization

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E-language, objective page2

• Multi-lingual conversations from one mobile to
  another is a feasibility. Each person talks in
  his/her language.
• Tamil and Sinhala have nearly the same
  grammatical structure and colloquial structure.
• If a Sinhala sentence be taken and each word be
  replaced with the corresponding Tamil word, you
  already get a meaningful Tamil form.
• This is ENOUGH for most conversations via a
  mobile telephone!

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Mulit-lingual conversations in Sinhala-Tamil-Engli
sh

• Cell-phone accuracy translations can be done in
  several ways
• Hardware using micro-processors (chips)
• Software in the cell-phone memory
• Hybrid approaches
• ICTA can best approach this problem at the
  software level.
• Same software for Sinhala?Tamil browser
  interfaces.

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Multi-lingual Text messaging

• Many cell-phone talk, twitter, blog, e-mail
  facebook etc., involve text messaging
• This involves the use of the standard ascii
  keyboard.
• Text messages written in one language (say,
  Tamil) can be instantly rendered into sinhala and
  BOTH the Tamil and Sinhala Unicod versions can be
  presented to the subscriber.
• THIS WILL mostly RESOLVE THE LANGUAGE POLITICS
  that has plagued this country for over half a
  century.

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E-democracy

• Given an electronically connected society, at
  least SOME aspects of government can be carried
  out by immediate e-voting.
• Example legislation regarding information
  processing etc., can be put to the IT community
  and their opinion can be assessed via the
  internet and cell-phone links.
• Eventually, elections can be conducted
  electronically, avoiding the enormous expenditure
  involved in the current style of electioneering

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Managing e-waste

• In western countries, obsolete computers and
  electronic equipment constitute the fastest
  growing waste sector e-waste
• E-waste contains toxic elements like Ga, In, As
• USA exports 80 of its e-waste to developing
  countries, contravening international treaties
• We should require every seller of electronic
  equipment to take back the defunct unit which
  should NOT be put into normal garbage.

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Conclusions regarding Language Politics

• Information Technology (IT) can radically change
  the confrontational character of language
  politics by offering a cheap technical solution
  making language legislation and devolution
  irrelevant.
• IT can democratize the process of government by
  make it very easy to consult the public
  electronically.
• We have to deal efficiently with e-waste (toxic).

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Conclusion

• FOUR BASIC challenges Rising sea level, Energy
  shortage, water shortages, and E-communication.
• The glory of the ancient hydraulic society can
  be surpassed by the Sri Lankans in the 21st
  Century.There is a wealth of competent local
  expertise but poor vision.
• The energy sector is the key to development.
  Raise electricity tariffs, subsidize Solar power.
• Political and economic success is tied DIRECTLY
  to Science Tech. and NOT TO CONSTITUTIONAL
  HAGGLING, or rejecting western science due to
  misguided nationalism.
• Use technological solutions to political
  problems.