The opening of Béla Lipták’s address during his January 2008 India lecture tour, as reported by Ramani Lyman, then district director of the International Society of Automation’s Asia-Pacific district.

This lecture is about mankind’s overloaded, sinking ship and about the debate in progress on its deck. One passenger argues that the ship is not sinking at all, but is just rocking with the waves. Another thinks that there is nothing to do because the leak will plug itself. Others on the top deck are sharpening their knives to be ready when it is time to fight for the food and water remaining in the kitchen. This lecture speaks to those passengers who think that it is time to start plugging the hole in the hull of our common ship.

This lecture is about solutions and the future. It is also about closing the debate on our energy future by substituting facts for opinions. It proposes building the world’s first full-size, 1,000-megawatt solar power plant combined with hydrogen storage for continuous operation, in order to demonstrate the feasibility and establish the cost of a clean and inexhaustible energy future. Clean-energy technology is not a bubble; it will change the energy marketplace as the transition to renewable energy moves into high gear.

Source: Ramani Lyman, ISA Asia-Pacific District report, in Magyar Lobbi, February 8, 2008. See also the Hungarian-language summary on “Szoláris Hidrogén Kísérleti Üzem: Lipták Béla Találmánya.”