EPA ignores the REAL inventor of the best Hybrid car

The EPA is quite happy with itself for its recent report but seems to ignore the inventor and patent holder of their "great " idea -- Hydraulic Energy Storage transmission patent # US3903696, yr. 1975, by Mr. Vincent Carman(that is really his name no joke LOL) . Now I for one will be happy if this invention can come to market and achieve the possible 45% -50% increase in gas efficiency.(Kids-That's about a 100 miles to the gallon!) No toxic chemical heavy batteries to carry around, it is light weight and off the shelf technology. The problem is they ignored, stone walled and manipulated the inventor for 30 years, then stole his idea. Was it so his patent will run out and now EPA can be the "heroes" and manufacture it? Or maybe the laws of physics have changed in 30 years?

Read the old Boston Herald American article from 1977:

Boston Herald American, Monday, April 25, 1977

Energy Saving Invention being Suppressed by Snafu
by

Scott Burns

While the Carter administration promotes its plan to turn a mountain of new taxes into a molehill of energy savings, the real solution to the energy crisis - new technology - may be languishing at our beloved Energy Research and Development Administration.

Testifying before the Senate Sub-Committee on Energy Research and Development on April 4, Vincent Carman, inventor of the Inertial Storage Transmission, recounted a mind-boggling tale of resistance and delay at ERDA, the agency charged with solving the energy crisis.

Here, in brief, is what he said :

"Over six months ago, the National Bureau of Standards completed an extensive evaluation of a revolutionary automobile transmission that they reported could reduce our nation's oil imports by 50 percent. This system can reduce vehicular air pollution in our cities by 75 percent.

This OPERATIONAL SYSTEM was publicly demonstrated 18 months ago. The system is simple, uses OFF-THE-SHELF, commercially available components.

In the two years that ERDA has been aware of the system they have given the concept no serious attention."

It now appears they are attempting to suppress it.

Unlike Dr. Ilok's solution to the energy crisis (reported here April 17-20), Carman's invention EXISTS, has been publicly demonstrated, and requires NO research and development investment from ERDA.

Carman merely wants ERDA to get OUT OF THE WAY and make it possible for him to install his invention on some U.S. Post Office trucks so that he might further demonstrate its utility and potential for energy savings.

But ERDA won't get out of the way. Instead, Carman says they have suppressed the National Bureau of Standards evaluation of his invention, refusing to release it to other agencies.

They've done this because the NBS report recommends Carman's invention for funding, a singular achievement since only 22 of some 4300 submissions have enjoyed positive recommendation from NBS.

ERDA's own, one-and-a-half page report, issued later, rejects the invention, saying that it is too expensive, won't achieve the savings the inventor had DEMONSTRATED AND DOCUMENTED, and won't be accepted by the automobile industry.

ERDA is circulating its own report and has not, to date, released the NBS report, damaging both Carman's credibility and his ability to attract the interest of other government agencies or private industry.

What is the IST System?

Carman's Inertial Storage Transmission works by storing oil under high pressure.





This means that all the power output from an engine can be used so that in city driving where car engines idle much of the time, a car could run USING the STORED POWER of its engine and the engine's power WOULD NEVER BE LOST IN WASTEFUL IDLING. (stored in the form of compressed oil)

As a consequence, the engine could be OFF 80 PERCENT OF THE TIME, REDUCING POLLUTION by 75 PERCENT and FUEL CONSUMPTION by 50 PERCENT!

Estimates indicate the IST could save some 35 BILLION GALLONS A YEAR, cutting our imported oil IN HALF.

Carman didn't hear from ERDA for six months after NBS's positive report was issued and then only after ERDA was pressured by Mark Hatfield and Congressman Robert Duncan. Clearly, ERDA would like the matter to quietly disappear.

Now let's consider the quality of the two reports :

ERDA's negative report was produced in 42 days BY ONE INDIVIDUAL WITHOUT BENEFIT OF ANY PHYSICAL TESTING.

The uncirculated NBS report was based on 10 months of work and contributions from a variety of sources, many of them here in Massachusetts.

The Department of Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, contributed to the evaluation as did the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Massachusetts, the Boston Police Department, the MBTA and Yellow Cab Corporation.

Nonetheless, ERDA continues to circulate its own report rather than the NBS report.

One possible reason is that ERDA is committed to another technology, the flywheel energy storage system. To date, they have spent some $200,000 on a feasibility study of such systems. The study determined it would take three years and 4.5 million to get a prototype on the road, something Carman ACHIEVED IN LESS THAN A YEAR WITH $4000.

The Department of Transportation also has an interest in flywheel systems and has spent five years and $300,000 trying to convert a Ford Pinto into a flywheel storage car. Together, the two agencies have a contract to supply flywheel vehicles to the city of New York. (Birds of a feather?)

Meanwhile, the Postal Service also reports it has contracts for flywheel vehicles and therefore can't put up funds for demonstration of the IST system.

ERDA, in other words, has neatly closed out a competing technology because the agency is in a position to exercise MONOPOLISTIC CONTROL over the flow of both money and ideas in new energy technologies.

In an eloquent close to his testimony before the Senate sub-committee, Carman said ;

"The energy problem has a solution and it is quite probable that a large part of that solution can come from the little guy.

Two men in an upstairs room gave us the telephone, and a couple of bicycle mechanics brought aviation to the world. It is sometimes said that the day of the individual inventor is over.

In the last few years, while the greatest scientific organizations in both the United States and Russia struggled with the problem of generating electric power from fusion, a young man in California in his own lab produced the first major breakthrough."

Now that we've seen Carter's energy plan, we know that Carter has chosen taxation, not technology, as the means of "solving" the energy crisis.

The money we all start paying in federal gasoline taxes will soon help ERDA expand its research efforts, - WHILE IT IGNORES SOLUTIONS.