Robert Thring a fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and Professor of Fuel Cell Engineering at Loughborough University, is urging the Government to increase fuel prices and take urgent action to avert a fuel crisis.
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 is spent on fuel cell technology, and Thring is calling for a tenfold increase in funding 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.
Thring 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 fuel 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,"
he said.