I know that many of you probably got this e-mail at the height of the gas prices this summer.

With fuel prices touching nearly $150 per barrel, it was time we heard of some breakthrough that would try to think out of the box and get away from the limited range electric car. India’s largest automaker Tata Motors is set to start producing the world’s first commercial air-powered vehicle, the car that runs on air, compressed air to be specific. The Air Car uses compressed air, as opposed to the gas-and-oxygen explosions of internal-combustion models, to push its engine’s pistons. The Air Car, called the MiniCAT could cost around $8177 US in India and would have a range of around 300 km between refuels. The cost of a refill would be about $2 US.

When I looked it over I thought that this would be a brilliant move forward in alternative energy vehicles.
I knew that this could work because of my previous work history in underground mining. A lot of the equipment from jackleg drills, mucking machines to massive diamond drills are used underground and powered by compressed air. These are not manby pamby weak-kneed toys but industrial powerhouses.

Years ago as an underground miner I remember clearing hundreds of tons of rock and ore by using a mucking machine to load underground trains. These were run on compressed air being pumped via airlines from the surface. The compressed air acted as the propellant used to activate the machines pistons. This worked similarly to a gas engine that would use an internal explosion to force the pistons. The great advantage of compressed in the limited underground environment was that instead of producing a noxious exhaust like internal combustion engines emit, the air motors exhausts cold air that could in turn be breathed safely by the miners. No carbon emissions. I have first hand knowledge that this technology works.

I remember a story overheard as young on how an inventor had produced the prototype for the 100-mile to the gallon carburetor. I thought this was a great advance in automotive technology. I asked when the inventor was going to release this product. What I was told is that the oil/automotive companies had quashed the amazing product by paying millions to silence the inventor. It would have cut to deeply into their profits. This is one of many Urban Legends that I would hear throughout my adult life.
What I’m afraid of now is that the automotive giants or the oil companies could actually kill this innovative product. Think about it. A really competitive product that doesn’t use any gas or electricity. I can see why the oil companies would be terrified but with the Big Three screaming for bailouts why are they not at the forefront of this technology. Why did it need a brave investor from India to back the research for this product?
If were serious about ending our dependence on a single major fuel source ( OIL) or depending on weak and limited range replacements ( electric cars) this is the first real alternative I have come across. I will be keeping a very close eye on this technology and will cross my fingers that it will succeed.

Air Car! Runs on compressed air!

Air Car by Guy Negre on CNN

Hello everyone. After a three-month absence I’m back.
They say nothing kills a blog faster than not keeping a schedule. If this blog had any readers it would have suffered dramatically but I don’t think anyone noticed that I wasn’t there for a while. Anyway here I am and today I’m going to broach the proposed Automakers government bailout and other tidbits.
Seems like Canadian interests in Detroit and Washington are considering a bailout of the Big Three automakers. Most polls that I have seen in recent days indicate that the public are not enamoured of using their tax dollars to bailout private companies.
Most workers in the States make an average of $15/hour and government would want taxpayers to subsidize the companies whose autoworkers make $75 dollar/hour. Doesn’t seem quite fair does it.
Now the automakers are claiming that failing to help them survive the current financial crisis would hurt average families and deal a “catastrophic” blow to the economy of both Canada and the US.
They say that if one automaker is allowed to go bankrupt, the entire sector would crumble because they share the same suppliers, resulting in millions of lost jobs and diminished government tax revenue.
If you think about it this is throwing money at companies that have failed to fix their businesses over the years and will only delay their bankruptcy. They have claimed that they have lost billions of dollars and eliminated 500,000 U.S. jobs over the past 15 years. These were in the good years of massive prosperity in North America. Do you think that maybe there is something wrong with their business plan? All this is happening while the unions in Canada are unwilling to budge from their positions in the hope of helping their own employers.
Remember the $75/hour jobs. I think they might have a little manoeuvring room and lend a hand instead of letting taxpayers take all the risk in bailing them out.
What’s really curious is that government is ready to throw bucketfuls of money at the automakers but did not offer the forest industry a sou for their bailouts.
The forest industry in Canada is larger that both the automakers and the arrow space industry combined. When their industry started to fail several years ago they knew that they had to adapt or go out of business. The BC NDP government in the 90’s actually tried a $400 million dollar bailout of Skeena Cellulose. It failed miserably leaving the taxpayers of the province holding the bag. Several years and thousand of job losses later the industry id now lean and mean. They may not be selling many 2X4’s but they are ready to take on the world when the time comes.
Instead of asking for handouts now would be time for the automobile industry to cull the deadwood start being innovative and start looking at he future not as a black hole but an opportunity to produce better more affordable products that taxpayers are genuinely happy to buy.

It took 9 excrutiating days of hand wringing but like the daffodils in spring , theres more to come.

I could never quite put my finger on it but a recent letter to the editor of The National Post makes a lot of sense in explaining our lack of medals.
Last year Australia received $190 million and have an accumulated 20 medals as of this writing. According to the people that blame it on just lack of funds, Canada’s $150 million in training funds so far has not produced any medals. If you followed their logic we should have about 3/4 of Australians medal count or 15. According to the disappointed athletes interviewed after an event, many of them bested their Canadian records back home. If we were only competing against our own we would be gold holders at all these events.
We’re at the world Olympics. Canadian bests do not count if everyone else is beating the crap out of us.
I think we should review our psychological training in this country. Our athletes work harder than anyone else in the world yet they don’t seem to come out with the fire in the belly that the medal-winning athletes are approaching these games with.
I feel for the Canadian athletes that have trained and put their hearts and souls for these competitions but I also feel for the rest of the country who are having a hard time finding the pride needed to watch these games.

Team Canada at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Qualifying Event