[Letters]Electric thoughts

Kepco: This company has become an emblem of Korean indigenous and modern industry as it contributes a lot to national life.

Thus, as one of Korea’s great companies it compares favorably with other players typically mentioned whenever an assessment is made of contributions in shaping the development of national industries and modern Korean society.

Fittingly, the word lyuk - literally, “power” - is embodied in its corporate name (Hankook Jeonlyuk) as the company provides the nation with lots of energy for both body and spirit.

I, on the other hand, look at the meaning of this word differently.

Generally the term electrical power [energy] is understood as electricity produced at generating plants and transmitted to power the machineries of industry for manufacturing, run transportation systems, provide lighting, enable communications and other needs of modern society.

Electricity is therefore perceived generally as mass supply of charged protons and electrons.

Since the Industrial Revolution, many scientists and engineers have taken it for granted that [electric] power could be generalized in terms of horsepower instead of the total amount of electricity or electrons, quickening the development of modern industry in the Western world.

My thinking is that if water is taken as a metaphor for electricity, the intensity of water flow from a waterfall or discharged power from a dam and reservoir could represent electrical voltage and the capacity of a river stream or ocean current.

Water stream would represent amperes in this metaphor because, like electricity, water stream should flow very long distances uninterrupted, out to sea.

To take the comparison further, a dam or piles of rocks hindering a stream is similar to resistance, and operating a water mill using flowing water is comparable to a load or charge useful for lighting or operating a motor, among other things.

In conclusion, I think we should take account of the entirety of water bodies [available to us] - in our dams and reservoirs, seas, rivers and lakes as stored electricity.

For reasons described above, I suggest the our thinking about electricity should be revised, shifting from the term jeonlyuk, “electric power” as reflected in Kepco’s name, to jeonlyang, or the power capacity [stored, ready to be harnessed] in our abundance of water bodies.

In English, I think it means, loosely, “massive electricity”.

Yoon Hyung-joon, Seoul, bluepie1@hanmail.net