My Comment!
The cost of crude oil is skyrocketing and no-one is denying that each individual has to make some very careful adjustments to their way of spending. But what is the real issue? Does society have to depend on crude oil and its products so heavily? Who are the decision makers and what true knowledge do they have of the society and its needs?
All these questions are legitimate questions and in the main no official, whether corporate or government has adequately answered them. As a columnist, I believe there are strong arguments for implementing all forms of energy as long as it is the best for the area and incorporates the safety of the people. Too many officials have too many agendas that serve no one but themselves. What I believe should happen is an agenda where even the small person is listened to and the person who might just have a possible solution is not scoffed at but also listened to.
In a recent visit to University of California at Davis I met with Professor Andy Frank. What this gentleman had to say made a lot of sense. From what I can gather many others also agree with me but I do not hear many corporate bosses or politicians echoing Professor Frank’s praise and common sense approach to saving part of our environment.
His main interest is the car industry where vehicles running on any form of gasoline whether petrol, diesel etc have an average efficiency of 35%. That means that
of all the energy you pour into your vehicles petrol or diesel tank, only 35% will be used in making that vehicle move forward or backwards, the rest being wasted in making parts move, overcoming friction, heating up the engine block or just plainly being spat out the exhaust.
What Professor Frank and his post graduate students have achieved, not once but in several vehicles from cars to SUV’s is an amazing 90%+ efficiency result. How you might ask? Well if you remove all the movable parts that just cause a lot of friction and replace them with less movable parts you end up with less heat in the body. If you take a large engine and replace it with a smaller engine and have an electric motor installed as well and replace the small battery with two larger batteries and have the ability to plug the batteries into your homes power supply for recharging, you are on the way to increase the vehicles efficiency. And do not think you have lost power. The power in this combination has proved to outclass even some of the largest V8’s.
So cleverly has the Frank team perfected this that they see the average person who travels no more than say 80 to 100kms (50 to 60 miles) per day being able to complete these distance without using a drop of petrol or diesel or LPG. The cost is the electricity it took to recharge the batteries and that could even be done using the low off peak rate. They have estimated that in California where the cost of petrol was US$3.39 per gallon at the time of our meeting, the car would cover the same distance running at US$0.04 per gallon.
Now whether the man and his followers are good story tellers or onto something great, you would think that governments and the car industry would be storming to his door. Professor Frank claims that if the car industry adopted his Plug and Hybrid Motor, then his country would reduce its gasoline requirements by one quarter and that would mean the US would have sustainable gasoline reserves for their use for many years to come.
It makes one wonder why the powers to be do not seem to be interested or do they have another agenda. Most normal folks would at least check it out before they dismissed such a proposal.
Further information on Professor Frank’s ideas can be found at http://www.team-fate.net.
Peter Sawley
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Footnote: Since returning to Australia Professor Frank, in conjunction with fellow UC Davis Professor Paul Erickson, has now completed a three hybrid vehicle running on electricity, hydrogen and gasoline.
An Australian concerned with sustainability. 
