Mehmood ul Haque

MT Technologies (Pvt.)Ltd.,

Karachi Pakistan 

After watching a program on Discovery about a car in Brasil that runs on 4 fuel types, ethanol, e85, gasoline or Liquid Natural Gas(CNG), I was intriged. Why can't american car manufacturers do this?

It seems that any of the big three auto makers doesn't want to let go of thir status and help out the environment by making cars that are more fuel efficient or flexible in what goes into the gas tank.

Meet a company in Brazil that is doing just that. Magneti Marelli has taken their 4 fuel power train and brought it to American soil. Currently Magneti Marelli has several ventures that they are working on, but the one of interest is their POWER TRAIN innovations. Two power train component manufacturing plants are located in North America. One in Farmington Hills Mi. and the other in Sanford NC.

What does this mean for you and me? Magneti Marelli is building the fuel systems that will run cleaner and more efficient than anything on the North American market today. Their proprietary ECU(Electronic Control Unit analyzes what fuel is in the tank regardless of what it is and changes the way the fuel and dpak is deleivered to the engine. This ECU makes transferring from one fuel type to another seamless. If ethanol is cheaper this week, you can fill it with ethanol, next week it might be E85 or CNG, no matter to this engine.

With their commitment to making a power train that can run cleaner and more efficiently, Magneti Marelli is a leader in flex-fuel technology. I have heard of no other company that boasts a Tetra-fuel configuration.

Their website isn't flashy, but it doesn't need to be. Check them out.

http://www.magnetimarelli.com/english/powertrain_home.php

As time goes on, I become more concerned with the news coming from our government and other news mediums.

As I see it we are in the midst of a politically made crisis. The ruling bodies have known since the 70's that this was inevitable and yet chose to do nothing about it. Now today, the rich oil companies and their investors are reaping record profits while you and I scrape together every spare penny to put into our gas tanks.

Why?

Because the corporate entities, oil companies and car manufacturers have been bedfellows for nearly 30 years. They have quashed every attempt at producing more energy efficient vehicles at every turn so that their partners in crime could reap the rewards of growing gasoline demands.

I firmly believe that there is technology out there to produce an engine that can easily get 50 or even 100 miles per gallon of gasoline, or even better, run without the need for gasoline whatsoever.

Let us take Hydrogen as a single example. There are back yard enthusiasts right now that are converting vehicles to run on hydrogen gas produced from plain water. Thats right, water. If you and I have the motivation to build such a device and augment our fuel economy by 25% to 75% then why can't a multi-billion dollar industry do it?

The short answer is, they don't want to. They have lulled the US into a fossil-fuel dependant mentality. Good for their pockets, bad for the common citizen. What would happen of this technology was implemented on just a small portion of vehicles? We would no longer be captive to the oil industry and billions of dollars on oil profits would be lost.

I hate to have a fatalist view of this situation, but it is getting out of hand and I do not like where world events are leading us. Here is what I see is going to happen. The public will revolt causing the government to repeal drilling bans on the outer continental shelf as well as along coastlines and in other protected areas. If it happens today, it is already too late. This will cause more intense dissent by the people which will then trigger the government to release part of the national oil reserve. This will have a short reversal of escalating gas prices, but I stress 'short' or stop gap fix.

As the National Reserve quota level is reached, the price will jump again. By now, the competition for fuel has reached outside the US to other countries. Shipping companies will suffer the high cost of doing business and in turn pass the cost of transportation on to the middle-man. Truckers have to move products to market and they have to pass the cost on to the retailer. The retailer has to pass these rising costs on to the already stressed consumer marketplace, and prices for everything across the board will skyrocket.

Worst case is that there is a catastrophic failure somewhere in the fuel chain which causes our food supply to be disrupted. Larger cities will be the hardest hit and there will be rioting, looting, thefts, murders and chaos. There will be no area of the marketplace that is not hit by this in my opinion. If we have not already gone to war over oil, it will be inevitable once food shortages are reported. Here is where biblical revelation may possibly come true. Famine and disease will hit the North American continent threatening our way of life. Emergency farming plans will be put into effect where all available tillable soil will be used to grow food since imports will be literally non-existant.

What can we do? I do not have the answer. I know what I am doing. Using less gasoline. Looking for ways to increase efficiency of my car. Tire pressure, tune up, Hydrogen booster. I am looking into solar for my home. At some point I would love to be totally off-grid. It is just a matter of how much time do we have and how much money can I afford to spend to be independent of utilities.

I am planting a larger garden this year than in years past and I urge others to do the same. Even window box gardens will help. Recycle, reuse, and use freecycle to cut down on waste and teach our children how to be self sufficient.

I don't know what the future holds for us, but I am getting ready for the worst and hoping for the best.