Future economy will be of 'interplanetary nature', says Abdul Kalam

Former president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam today said the future economy will be of "interplanetary nature" and it is important to evolve multidisciplinary leaders to manage energy economics efficiently.

"By 2050, India will have world's one fifth population and to provide basic requirements to them like energy and water, multidisciplinary basic science, energy efficient and cost effective technologies including harnessing solar power from space have to be developed indigenously," Kalam said.

He was speaking at the second TIFR Foundation Lecture on
'Science: The foundation of Growth'.

"Refined technologies to harness and recycle water, solar
energy and use of alternate fuels for transportation will be
some of the major challenges for scientists. Also, newer and
novel ideas have to be evolved by young science leaders," he
said.

"We need to embark on a programme in solar energy systems
and technologies, for both large, centralised applications as
well as small, decentralized requirements concurrently, for
applications in both rural and urban areas," Kalam said.

The key to success of this programme is the development
of high efficiency Photovoltaic (PV) cell using carbon nano
tubes (CNT) from the current 20% to 55% in the next two to three years and commercial production immediately.