Be down-to-earth for science
Learned from Nerdy Science Blog that Malaysia cabinet still busying to discuss budget for sending second so-called Malaysian Astronaut into space in 2011. I just wonder why can’t they be down-to-earth for science in Malaysia. We no need fancy projects to stimulate interest of people for science.
I would prefer that money be channelled to right researchers for meaningful and useful scientific researches for example Bioenergy. Beware, channelled the money transparently without corruption to right place, right policies, and right person not someone you are in favour although he/she may knows nothing about science!
Europe and US are paying a lot of attention on bioenergy researches. The fossil fuels we are using now are going to be finished. Malaysia is going to be 100% fuel importer country after 2011. Any solid plan we have heard from our Government now? We are still struggling on “Ketuanan Melayu”, special rights, ……, you name it.
After 2011, I believe goods which closely related to fossil fuels will have big impact on their production cost. We might expected the next wave of price of goods hike. Do we have any solid proposal for that? Now, they are talking about budget to send second Astronaut into space in 2011.
I’m attending series of talks here. There is a proposal in EU to develop clean solar fuels. The idea of clean solar fuels is no greenhouse gas will release at the end of process when the fuels are being use. They are working on plants, cyanobacteria and algae for this clean solar fuels. This is not a sole show research but involving biology, chemistry, physic, biotechnology, bioinformatics, social science, and many different disciplines to work together.
The main problem they are having is the sunlight. Day time in Northern Europe is short especially in Winter. During Winter, the ponds, lakes, rivers, and seas are cover by ice. The environment make the researches a bit difficult but people still making promising progress. Malaysia, more than 10 hours sunlight daily, our ponds, lakes, rivers, and sea will not frozen. We have suitable environment, many natural resources and huge biodiversity for meaningful or fundamental scientific researches. Should we sit down and ask ourselves what we have archived in term of science and cultural?
What a shame if the cabinet still continue thinking about budget to send second astronaut into space in 2011. IF, if, if they are really not interested in science perhaps they can spare this amount of money for the basic needs of society like provide proper public transportations.
For the sake of people, we have so many fundamental problems to be solved in our nation, spend the money for proper usages not for showing off. Be down-to-earth, please.
TechTags Plugin [ down-to-earth | astronaut | space | cyanobacteria | algae | plants | fossil fuels ]
April 15th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
they’re just too ambitious and can’t look through the future.
April 15th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
it’s a trendsetting. Now every parents, kids thinking of becoming astronaut. Every school coming up with aerospace engineering. Everyone is going into aeroscape studies. Everyone wants to go to space. see, our leader is a trend setter, making us to believe, think, like, talk the same way. But it only last like few years. mostly, they want an achievement which can be seen like sending a man to the space rather than some data of studies/research on bioenergy or whatever field to make a better living
KJ: Agree. Just a joke in my mind, everyone becomes astronaut finally but there is no more fossil fuels for the rocket to use as energy. Then, how?
April 15th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
hello, sorry, i was editing the 2nd part of the writing (yea, that’s me).
have a look at better eng version. :P
KJ: I knew is you
April 16th, 2008 at 3:29 am
they use solid fuel or liquid fuel, mostly Liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen nowadays. The problem is they want glamour, not future. in another word, short sighted! Malaysia have a lot of solid biomas, biogas from slaughter house, wastewater ponds, mini-hydro. all these can be converted to RE. But the problem is TNB does not has the grid connected to all these ulu-ulu area. End up, the biogas they trap, biomass they burn in boiler, the RE produce cannot be exported to the grid. Only own use, excess gas flare it, excess biomas still ok, sell it to other plant, at least still can help to reduce fossil usage.
KJ: “No fuel for rocket” was merely a bad joke which can’t make people laugh.
As I mentioned in my post entry, we have many resources and people in position don’t know how to down-to-earth to fully utilise these resources. We have a good potential to develop on second generation biofuels because of the weather, the environment, and the raw materials we have. However, have they really thought down-to-earth? After all, we are still depending on technologies from other nations. We are still buying technologies. We blame them sell us technologies with expensive price.
April 16th, 2008 at 6:50 am
eee…really ah? 2011 malaysia net importer?? i heard from a BP high rank ppl here told me Petronas has more reserved than BP woh…..
KJ: The oil we have in Malaysia is only available up to 2011 if we can’t find any new source from our own land. Therefore, by the year 2011, we are no longer fossil fuels producer. The reserved oil can be finished in one day. For long run, the alternative and meaningful researches should be pay attention to not keep on sending people into Space, right? That amount of money could be used for other fundamental usages for example improve public transportation systems if they are not really interested in Science.
April 16th, 2008 at 8:15 am
[...] « Be down-to-earth for science [...]
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:11 am
[...] said already in my previous article and other bloggers have had their opinion voiced too (here, here). Be practical, we have so many [...]