Colombo, March 22:

Sir Arthur C Clarke, the renowned British science fiction writer and visionary who died here on Wednesday, had predicted that cheap and clean fuel might be available in plenty by 2048.

“Scientific research carried out by dozens of teams across the world during the past few years — much of it in secrecy and away from the sceptical eyes of the media — now indicate that the age of cheap and clean energy may be imminent: well ahead of my predicted timeframe,” Clarke wrote in the December 16, 1998, issue of the Sri Lankan weekly Sunday Observer.

“If commercial applications become feasible in the coming decade, nobody in 2048 needs to worry about a shortage of energy,” he predicted. Clarke was indeed alarmed by the world’s dependence on oil and coal as sources of energy. He said on his 90th birthday last year, that he did not want the world to be ‘baked by the burning of coal and oil’.

Clarke advocated clean and cheap sources of energy because he wanted all to get it. “Options such as wind and biomass have all been proven, while other methods such as Ocean Thermal Energy Conservation (OTEC) — for which Trincomalee harbour (in eastern Sri Lanka) is well suited — are less widely known and tested,” he said.

It is interesting that Clarke did not mention nuclear energy. He did not give it as an option even for Sri Lanka, which is energy starved acutely. Perhaps in his view, nuclear energy was too costly and fraught with dangers.

Known as the father of satellite communication, which he predicted in 1945, Clarke believed in communication facilities being made available to all, but he believed communication alone would not solve the world’s problems.

“The biggest challenge for Sri Lankans in 2000s would be achieving better communication and understanding among the different ethnic, religious and cultural groups and sub-groups all of whom call this their mother land. For material progress and econo-mic growth would come to nothing, if we

allow primitive forces of territoriality and aggression to rule our minds.”