The Scottish chemist William Ramsay (Glasgow, 1852 – High Wycombe, 1916) carried out the researches that made him famous in the last decade of the 19th century. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of the noble gases (1904). Thanks to his fame, his talents as a consult were in considerable demand in a variety of sectors. Ramsay chaired the British Association for the Advancement of Science. His opening speech at the Portsmouth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held in August 1911 was focused on the energy resources.