Upul Kulasinghe

Kulasinghe inventions to the rescue of fuel crisis

Tue, 2007-09-25 02:41

By Quintus Perera - Asian Tribune

Colombo, 25 September, (Asiantribune.com): Dr A N S Kulasinghe, a scientist par excellence who invented the Pre-stressed Concrete technology his name is also synonymous with alternate energy sources.Upul Kulasinghe

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka failed to optimize the great potential this intellectual had for the benefit of the country and he died recently as an unsung hero, as it happened to many other such intellectuals in this country which could be attributed to the political skullduggery.

Today there are only talkers, but no workers; specially in the political arena and in the case of oil crisis the politicians are there only to jack-up the prices when oil prices go up in the world market.

It all happened when the first great oil crisis occurred in the 1970s where unlike today, the government strived to take remedial measures and one such measure was to cut down the six day work schedule practiced in the country, to five days, in a bid to reduce that day’s traveling to conserve fuel.

Dr Kulasinghe determined to help the country in its hour of need to find alternate sources of energy, the ‘concrete man’ turned into a man trying to find alternate sources of energy. He tried on wood-gasification, experimented on using water and coconut oil as fuel on motor vehicles, Dendro power generation system and various other experiments, some of which have been practiced elsewhere in the world.

But very few or nobody took much notice of the valiant attempts of this single man. Meanwhile Dr Kulasinghe obtained worldwide patent for many of his inventions. Before his death, Dr Kulasinghe got his son Upul E Kulasinghe to pledge that Upul Kulasinghe would continue all the work initiated by his father.

Though the outside would has thought that Dr Kulasinghe was idle and dormant on his energy saving experiments and projects, father and son Kulasinghe duo has been for more than 20 years unobserved and silently, experimented on energy saving technology, and now the son is in possession of a unique technology FS 77 Fuel Saver, that is patented world over and extensive trials have now been made on the technology. Kulasingha's power generator

Meanwhile Kulasinghe is finalizing the agreements with the BOI to launch the project in Sri Lanka. As a prelude to the launch, trials are conducted on the roads in Colombo with vehicles fitted with the FS 77.

The FS 77 Fuel Saver, though sophisticated is a small unit fixed to the engine and instead of the fuel going straight to the engine for combustion, small quantities of fuel (either petrel or diesel) is released to the fuel saver unit and inside the unit the fuel is converted into gas and the gas would then go to the engine for combustion.

The FS 77 technology tested in the UK and has proved extremely successful and the UK Company which tested the versatility of FS 77 immediately approached Kulasinghe to buy the technology.

The test runs have proved that a maximum of 48 percent fuel saving could be obtained by fixing FS 77 and working on a minimum average of 35 percent fuel saving, at this moment of great fuel crisis the FS 77 would be considered as something coming from Heaven.

The most important feature of this FS 77 technology is that it could be used for any engine that works on internal combustion and a rough estimate of fuel saving for Sri Lanka per annum, if this technology is deployed would be around US $ 350 million. If this technology is picked up by other countries, Sri Lanka would be richer by that amount while fuel saving in the world would be immense.

Upul Kulasinghe had his studies at Royal College and moved to UK for his engineering degree and obtained his engineering degree from the Glasgow University. He also has obtained another engineering degree from the UK Open University.

He was to return to Sri Lanka in 1971 but due the escalation of insurrection he was advised to stay back in the UK for another few years. While in the UK Kulasinghe joined the National Engineering Laboratory in Scotland and moved to off-shore Oil industry in the UK until he returned to Sri Lanka in 1979.

Upul Kulasinghe said “Since 1981 my father and I were grappling with the FS 77 technology that we invented to take off the ground but we had to test, re-test experiment and to be successful through serious trial and error, it took more than 25 years”. He said “But the long and arduous journey to success is worthwhile and I am happy that I am able to release this technology first in my Motherland”.

He said that if this technology is picked up by the other parts of the world, it would be a ‘shot in the arm’ for the present oil crisis.

He said that the method is using ‘organic catalyst’ that obviously improves the performance of fuel and the efficiency saves fuel. The system not only saves 35 percent of fuel on any engine that uses FS 77, but also would be a great beneficiary to the environment as then all those vehicle which use FS 77 Fuel Saver, the emissions would be as of a gas engine, though the machines use fuel (petrel or diesel). Unlike LPG Gas converted vehicles, FS 77 Fuel Saver technology users need not carry a ‘bomb’ – the gas cylinder in the vehicle.

In fact Kulasinghe has fixed FS 77 into several vehicles and now they are running smoothly. He also runs a power plant fitted with FS 77 obtaining maximum fuel efficiency.

In the conversion process, a certain heat has to be maintained and to stabilize the head in the unit, certain electronics are inserted

The FS 77 Fuel Saver unit is very small and it could be easily fixed to motor vehicle engines and cost wise, the cost of installation of FS 77 would be similar to that of converting fuel vehicles to gas.

Some of the major projects that Dr Kulasinghe has started, almost finalized and obtained international patents, are to be implemented by Upul Kulasinghe, while of course the concrete and low cost housing business is being continued in their estate at Batagama, Ja-Ela.

Out of these projects, another very important and urgent project is on garbage, another favourite area of Dr Kulasinghe. Upul Kulasinghe is having a novel project to solve the garbage menace in his sleeves and immediately after his launch on FS 77 he would get on with his solution on garbage.

Sri Lanka has been enmeshed in disastrous political drudgery, which compelled to ignore most important economic and national issues. There are so many highly talented innovative minded Sri Lankan intellectuals, working in other parts of the world, but the situation of the country today, discourages them to come to Sri Lanka and work for their ‘Motherland’

Even with all these difficulties some of our own intellectuals and entrepreneurs have come to Sri Lanka and have started their own establishments. They are doing very well and some of these entrepreneurs have caused the imports on the products that they specialize to be stopped and also have started exporting.

Most of them who ventured to serve their ‘Motherland’ leaving lucrative position in abroad have complained that various state agencies have been the stumbling block in starting their enterprises. Some of them have pointedly indicated that there were instances of expecting bribes and commissions to allow permission to commence such enterprises.

Dr A N S Kulasinghe is a classic example of this bureaucratic lethargy, political bungling and the ignorance of the great contributions these innovative talents could make to the country. It is true that some of his findings and innovations took roots not only in Sri Lanka but throughout the world. But his talents and great innovations that have won many international accolades would have been put to use that would have benefited the country overall.

The country has to accept that Dr A N S Kulasinghe was not only a great scientist but also a great visionary as he was able to obtain a solemn pledge from his son Upul Kulasinghe to carry his flame throughout the country and throughout the world.

- Asian Tribune -

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COMMENT:

A Great Hero. Yes, there

Submitted by ravana on Tue, 2007-09-25 06:36.

A Great Hero.
Yes, there many more other "Yodhayas" throughout the World, prevented from operating in Sri Lanka due to two reasons:
1)Corrupt Beaurocracy
2)Worker with little initiative or innate incentive

The former will require an uncorrupt Government in power to clear.
Both will require grass roots level education and action by people. Who will do the latter? Certainly not the Beghoff foundation.

A Non Government Organisation operating from Sri Lanka is required to seek investors among expatriates to help enterpreneurs such as Dr. Kulasingha and the Micro corporation.

In addition to these think small (distributed) projects, think-big projects should be sponsored by the GOSL itself. An example would be utilising the parabolic mirror (solar) technology developed in the US (Arizona dessert) which is used to heat water to produce steam which drives turbines. There is plenty of sea water around Sri Lanka to establish such huge plants without causing Green House problems. In one stroke you would produce salt, fresh water and electricity. In addition electricity could be used to split water into Oxygen and Hydrogen (electrolysis) and to store them in liquified form. These could be used as rocket fuel and exported to India and Hydrogen may be used in Hydrogen Cars under development. Further GOSL should sponsor a subsidy scheme to bring the Australian solar panel technology to Sri Lanka and to encourage every roof to have a solar panel in order to contribute to households and the National Grid. The difficulty posed by advocates of Nuclear energy (and against solar and wind) is that Solar cannot operate at night. I seem to recall high school level knowledge about things called fly wheels which store energy intended for the electricity grid. Furthermore, partnership between Solar and wind would ensure round the clock energy supply.

If you are to pay some attention to that great old man Sir Arthur C Clarke then just south of Sri Lanka is an Ocean Chasm which provides a huge thermal differential representing the potential to produce energy.

hambanthota would be the ideal location to commence such think-big projects. Such projects require a great deal of investment but will reap great benefits when the oil runs out in ten years. They should be commenced hand in hand with innovations such Dr. Kulasinghe's so that Sri Lanka and the World can reap the benefits. Surely, expatriate investors would be willing to invest in a trustworthy "trust" which could help innovators as well as establish think-big industries?