Conservation was the buzzword at the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght, Co Dublin, yesterday. More than 400 students looked into microscopes, played with bubble machines and watched chemical reactions as part of EnergyLink, an exhibition about energy and its uses.
Eight private companies and six State-run agencies are taking part in the exhibition as part of Science Week Ireland 1998.
Educational programmes such as EnergyLink help to educate young people about the role which greater energy efficiency can play in the long-term protection of the environment, said Dr David Taylor, director of the Irish Energy Centre.
Irish industry accounts for 22 per cent of final energy consumption each year and spends about £75 million on it, according to the centre.
The companies participating in the exhibition are among the 66 that are part of an energy self-audit scheme which has saved more than £2 million worth of energy a year. The scheme has also reduced the levels of CO 2 emissions, which Ireland is committed to under the United Nations Kyoto agreement.
"Students are very much aware that fossil fuels are a finite resource and are contributing to the greenhouse effect," said Mr Dave O'Connor, an ESB renewables manager. "They appreciate Ireland, like every other country, is going to have to move towards energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy."
Describing that appreciation as "critical", Mr Fergus O'Sullivan, of Virginia Milk Products, said students would remember what they learned.
"I guarantee that a lot of those kids will go home and look for energy-efficient lights."