Good evening, Sri Lanka!

Once I did carry the title ‘Good Morning Sri Lanka!’ for this same column. Times have passed and I do not see any improvements along the lines that I advocated or expected to happen in mornings.

Indeed sad, but in advocacy and especially when you believe that the suggestions are worthwhile, you never give up. After such a ‘brisk’ beginning to our mornings a day would pass by – whether we like it or not – and it is time for a beautiful sunset.

For the betterment of our economy we sincerely hope that many would come from afar and queue to watch this spectacle along the coastline or from up in a hill. Of course it is the beauty of sunset in the Indian Ocean that is unquestionable and if we are out to make some dollars in the process, it is a human decision.

The salient point that I wish to make is that we must try to understand beauty in all its forms and the ensuing depth of the message of living well on this planet and not converting all and sundry into economic activities which then tends to take out the meaning of life on earth.

Innovative actions

As the sun sets in the evening, propelling all of us into darkness, innovative actions are quite important as our intentions are to create the day time environment artificially and to continue doing what we have been doing all day long and much more.

Nature’s call to rest and rejuvenate is not our way in this era but to ensure tag lines such as the ‘city that never sleeps,’ ‘city of light,’ etc. With artificial illumination being the order of the day, it is consumption of energy that finally delivers this result and at night times we may not be treading lightly on our ground as a result. Again, an objective should not be to turn sleeping cities to sleazy cities and claim growth and prosperity.

This aspect of lighting up the world today is receiving extra attention from many quarters including star gazers who feels that the night sky becoming no longer available to them. Some consider the psychological stresses that are developing as a result of subliminal messages that the body receives from cities being not so quiet when the body clock is indicating that it is time to rest.

This drowning out the stars due to light pollution is an ongoing study and with the capability to view our earth from above, satellite imagery is used to generate pictures of cities and continents to demonstrate and study the problem.

As a result we do have a composite picture of the world – the world at night – and we may despair over the fact that the Dark Continent is indeed dark and discuss ways to light up Africa! The ‘world at night’ picture indeed shows quite clearly the lit-up areas, showing developed economies and in developing economies the urbanised townships and capital cities, though the intensities may not match New York, Berlin, Paris and London.

‘Show of light’

The lesson some take up is that all cities must aspire to head in this direction in line with the ‘slick city image’. We may remember at one time Colombo took to the skies to view the city when it planned to move onto a ‘lights are on always’ image and at that moment when the journalists were on air, the grid failed due to a technical glitch – perhaps not being able to handle the sudden surge in demand.

It is important that just to create marketing statements, energy should not be wasted in this manner and a gradual development due to activities is another matter. Having gone in this consumption direction, some cities interestingly today have now enacted laws limiting the amount of skyward emissions permissible at night.

It is a realisation that mere show of ‘light’ is not something one should be proud about and that we need to understand the consequence of our consuming habits in a better way when we are looking at development and quality of life therein.

Power consumption

The simple message under this title is more down to earth perhaps. In Sri Lanka people are not aware that most of our electricity consumption is taking place at night time. This means that when the sun is set, it is a time to worry for the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB).

A simple curve of power consumption across a 24 hour time span indicates that as night time approaches, the power demand is picking up and hitting the maximum demand point. One can think that is fine as it is night time that we need energy to switch on lights and carry on activities. However, the message is if you take a developed economy, you may not observe this profile. The maximum electricity demand takes place during daytime when economic activities such as manufacturing and services are at its peak time. This consumption considered in a classical economic sense gives a return on investment. Our night time consumption is yielding a return is questionable, especially when you analyse to some depth the nature of engagements and their quality.

Meaningless information

Like in the morning time in Sri Lanka, some changes are necessary in the evening as well! Not an easy aspect to state and position in one’s mind. After a hard day’s work it is time for most to switch and enjoy TV. This enjoyment is costing the economy today so much as when you analyse the contents, the reward for a hard day’s work should not be in this manner.

There has to be a conscious understanding that purely pouring meaningless information and discussions without substance but using high quality expensive energy should not be the order of the day.

Leading by example is not merely pacifying demand though whatever the way. When meeting demand this way, the tendency is to fill the airways with material with much less thought and attention.

Just consider news on a channel that is most popular and one will have a mandatory scene of crying and wailing over an incident with graphic imagery. The ‘negative content’ of news is quite visible and it is unfortunate that we do not have detailed statistics on composition as a whole. Considering that news is what has happened, it is not possible to be all positive and full of smiles when the world around you is exploding, yet a sense of responsibility should prevail when you hand over a compilation of news to the listener.

In Sri Lanka the TV set if encircled by the whole family in most cases and that too should be kept in mind. There will be great interest in ensuring that during peak time whether the advertisement was aired as costs for a few seconds is astronomical.

The news that goes in between comes at no cost but taken broadly has no real meaningful value either. It is this transition of getting people ready for the next day and stage of growth via positive reinforcement that is necessary as a change in news and views.

Even in debating what one can learn is that the participants are ill informed or least prepared to carry out an in-depth discussion in a civilised manner. It is this demand that we subsidise today by providing consumers with electricity at below the purchasing price.

Function of the Fourth Estate

One may find in developed economies that industries enjoy more favourable electricity unit prices than general consumers due to the factoring of productivity. Our preconceived idea of what the audience needs to be told is quite important to understand.

Do we try to elevate listeners to a new height or are we to satisfy their basic desires? The Fourth Estate is quite important and it has an important function. The way it functions and what it selects to communicate can have an enormous influence over the populace.

Especially in electronic media with a higher carbon footprint and understanding that each second of electricity consumption today is a loss for the institution that provides this basic need, it is important that we understand this basic fact and pursue ways and means to improve ourselves.

We should note that currently CEB loses Rs. 137 million a day and is carrying huge annual operating losses, in billions of rupees, as a result and this has been the economic story of CEB for some time. These are rupees that we can ill afford to lose. Unfortunately these developments mean that it is not a ‘superstar’ State institution.

A true return for each milliwatt consumed is important as to paraphrase King Parakramabahu – not a single watt should flow and cascade and dissipate without a meaningful contribution to the citizen and society.

With a fantastic morning and day well spent, Sri Lankans should have an evening that is memorable. That is quality of life in a day. The present mix of how one goes through a day, well analysed, may show otherwise. It is important that we deliver a well meaning good evening to the nation and in line with treading lightly on mother earth.

(Professor Ajith de Alwis is Professor of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. With an initial BSc Chemical engineering Honours degree from Moratuwa, he proceeded to the University of Cambridge for his PhD. He is a Science Team Leader at the Sri Lanka Nanotechnology Institute. He can be reached via email on [email protected])