LITTLE ROCK — Something big is expected to appear on the world scene (and perhaps economy) come August.
No, I’m talking something really, really big, yet “mini” at the same time. And it’s coming not from the United States, but instead out of India.
The MiniCat is believed to be big-yet efficient-enough to transform the planet, entire economies (including our own) and daily home and business life.
The only thing we have to do is sit back and watch to see if the oil companies, petro-based auto manufacturers and our elected politicians will allow Tata Motors of India to begin mass-producing and selling the world’s first car powered solely by compressed air.
This vehicle that releases zero emissions supposedly is only months away from becoming a reality. It’s been developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Negre for Luxembourg based company MDI.
MiniCat is a light, urban vehicle with a tubular chassis made of fiberglass and constructed with glue rather than welds. It would operate completely with a simple microprocessor rather than wiring and likely cost Americans less than $11,000 (by the time they ship them over here and we tax the dickens out of them).
Designers report the car would have a range of about 185 miles between refueling with air with its own onboard compressor and should run operators about a 10th the cost of gasoline. Refueling stations with advanced compressor systems across the country could recharge a car in about three minutes.
A MiniCat resembles a minivan (you can see one on the Internet) and supposedly could achieve speeds of up to 60 miles an hour. In other words, it would be much more convenient, efficient and functional than electric vehicles.
As a momentary aside here: Has anyone else ever considered how much of that electricity intended to operate our “green” fuel economy comes from our coal-fired and nuclear plants?
This is why I’m enthused to learn about Tata’s MiniCat and its revolutionary compressed-air-fueled engine.
Yet it also causes me to wonder where America’s innovators have been during this latest “gas crisis” while India’s have been busy creating such an alternative.
The air car can recharge overnight in about three to four hours and would require virtually no routine maintenance, just a liter of vegetable oil every 30,000 miles. It also wouldn’t need an ignition key as we’ve known them, just an access card that will be read from a pants pocket.
Finally, since the clean-air discharge temperature in Tata’s car runs between zero and 15 degrees below, it can be used to cool the vehicle with no loss of power.
As one observer noted, it sounds almost too good to be true. I say it sounds like an invention that could, and should, have been developed in America in the aftermath of our first Captives-of-the Middle-East manufactured “gas crisis” way back in the late 1970s. Remember those gas lines and political pledges to end our dependence on foreign oil 40 years back?
Can anyone else hold your nose yet again and utter the word “politics?” Glad she’s found
I suspect most parents and grandparents who’d earlier read about that missing teenage girl from Bella Vista released a sigh of relief along with me to see her found March 16 in Aderdeen, Wash.
Joleen Gibson, 14, had been missing since March 10. Police believed she’d run away with an 18-year-old boyfriend, also from Bella Vista.
But in this day and age when entire cable channels are devoted to people who are abducted or just disappear, you can never assume the fate of a pretty teen girl who goes missing.
In this case, Joleen is headed back home while her boyfriend faces criminal charges because of their age difference. If he’d been just four months younger, the Washington authorities say they wouldn’t have had a case.
I’m still not certain how I feel about charging Joleen’s boyfriend with a crime because they ran off together.
Sure, they shouldn’t have run off together. The poor mother has been through hell. And thankfully her daughter is safe.
But most of us who were 18 or 14 once also understand the power and influence of young “love” (i.e., attachment) and those infernal hormones that drive young folks to do irrational things like drive too fast, consume too much and pledge undying love in the teenage years.
I just find it hard to view this young man with no previous record of transgressions with the law and an obvious sense of caring for his younger girlfriend (and a mutual sense of irresponsibility) as a criminal.
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Mike Masterson is opinion editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Northwest edition.
Editorial, Pages 11 on 03/26/2012