Innovation…needed…

As I sit here this Sunday afternoon and work on the company’s finances, what was the major expense this month…gas. Yes, my business takes me on the road all over the Southeast. With rising gas prices brings higher overhead. Yes…many businesses pass off the cost of traveling to their clients. But bottomline…someone is paying.

As I ride from place to place, watch television…companies are touting their hybrid technology. But here is the bottom-line on hybrid technology…it is still oil dependent. Yes, they require some natural resource like gasoline to power the propulsion of the vehicles.

Ever since the creation of the modern vehicle, we have used some sort of gasoline or oil dependent resource to combust and create propulsion. If we want to rid ourselves of oil dependency and truly create vehicles that use a sustainable resource for propulsion, we must get rid of the internal combustion engine. Yes…

As long as we are creating “hybrid” cars, we are still using yesterday’s technology to provide propulsion. That means those that are trying to innovate with the idea of using water (H2O) in an internal combustion engine, we are still using yesterday’s technology to provide propulsion and a natural resource that many argue will one day be just as scarce as crude oil.

Many automotive engineers are creating engines that use electric compulsion. Where do we get our electricity? How much of the electric grid is producing electricity that is not compromising a natural resource. Is the earthquake and tsunami in Japan teaching us anything when it comes to creating electricity from nuclear energy?

We must start from scratch. We must be able to throw away what we know and think beyond the conventions we have been using for the last two hundred years. Where are those who are willing to innovate…those entrepreneurs that have nothing to loose, and create the next wave of technology. Who are the Francois Isaac de Rivaz’s of tomorrow?

Our story of the last two centuries has been written, who will write the story for tomorrow? We need you, oil dependency is driving business of today into the dark ages…un-sustainable. Small businesses of America need you.