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Raise petrol prices, expert tells government

An Institution of Mechanical Engineers product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jan 13, 2006

Energy expert and fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers urges the government to increase petrol prices and take urgent action to avert a fuel crisis.

An energy expert and fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers is urging the government to increase petrol prices and take urgent action to avert a fuel crisis.

Professor Rob Thring has hit out at the lack of government funding for research into alternative energy sources.

He is calling on the government to find alternative ways of powering the UK's motor fleet if a major petrol crisis is to be avoided.

"Events have shown in recent months that we are like drug addicts, hooked on petroleum," he said.

"Without petroleum we would not be able to get to work, nor to the supermarket, and there'd be no food in the supermarket anyway since it all arrives by truck".

"Clearly, if we can all use motor vehicles so freely fuel is too cheap".

Thring is calling on the government to invest more money into researching the relevant technology and in demonstrating to people that these new technologies are feasible and practical.

Currently around £3m per year of government cash is spent in this field.

Thring believes this needs to be increased to more than £30m per year for the UK to keep up with countries such as the USA and Japan.

Without increased investment he believes the country will remain addicted to petroleum and will face a major crisis in the future when this source of fuel runs short.

He has spent years researching polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells, which he believes need to be developed rapidly if we want to continue using motor vehicles in the future.

PEM fuel cells, also called proton exchange membrane fuel cells, use hydrogen fuel and oxygen from the air to produce electricity.

The extra revenue which would be produced from increased petrol prices would be ploughed into fuel cell research.

"The petroleum pool is not unlimited, and in about 100 years we have depleted what took millions of years for nature to generate".

"Some time soon, and predictions vary from three years to 20 years, petroleum production will peak and start to decline".

"At that point, the price will skyrocket".

"We need to put the technology in place to cope with that, but it will take 10 years to develop - so we need to start now".

Thring believes harnessing wind power and other renewable energy sources, such as wave power and biomass, is vital to the survival of the UK economy.

He estimates that to power all the cars in the country using hydrogen fuel cells we would need around 20,000 wind turbines across the UK, which is roughly the same amount of existing electricity pylons.

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