Ever seen a drug peddlar discourage drug abusers from using and even offer them alternatives so that they'd not abuse it so much?
Insinuating?
Well, heard of something called Shell Eco Marathon?
It is a "friendly" challenge to bring young scientists and students around the world together to share their knowledge and compete in designing an Eco-Friendly car that can achieve the most miles per gallon.
From an "Everything's a Conspiracy!" perspective, I'd say this is a way for big oil producing companies to find out who or what may produce a potential technology that might ruin their corporate future and probably destroy it before even it takes shape.
Surely, the promise of fame and fortune is enticing enough for Singapore to send a team from its creme ala creme from "NUS". The team is aptly named "Kent Ridge Urban Concept Eco-Car" or KRUCE for short.
Media attention from the few major news channels and papers such as ChannelNewsAsia and Straits Times had published KRUCE's launch and its entry for the Shell Eco-Marathon Europe in Germany
CNA : NUS students launch first Singapore-designed eco car
ST : 1st S'pore-made eco-car
Shell Press Release : National University of Singapore and NUS-Eco1 at Shell Eco-marathon
Perhaps we fail to remember, how much of the GDP of this small little dot in South East Asia depends on oil related technology. eg Oil refineries, construction of oil rigs, drilling equipment etc.
And did you know the number of by-products that are produced from the refining of crude oil? Most of our plastics that we use on a daily basis are from these by-products. Even the pharmaceutical industries are dependent on by-products of oil refining. Not to mention that some of these pharmaceutical giants have set up base and plants in Singapore due to the oil refining facilities here.
So though this little dot on the map doesn't have any oil underneath it, it owns the world's largest rig manufacturer, Keppel Corp. It is also the country in South East Asia that refines the most barrels of oil per day.
For a business so lucrative and even more addictive than drugs... are we really looking into how to discourage the use of petrol , now that our nation's economy seriously depends on it? Or are we simply insinuating that weaning ourselves off petrol will never happen?
Today is 27 April 2009
Time now is 23:42 hrs
I am going for a run at ECP to burn off calories that is accumulated because I drive more often now and hardly take walks or buses...
