Word: steams
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Senior Andy Jamison's book. The Steam Powered Automobile, is an examination of the problems of pollution caused by automobiles. More importantly, however, it provides a viable alternative to the chief cause of air pollution-the internal combustion engine...
JAMISON traces the history of the steam-powered vehicles and says that the reason we are not driving them now is not because they are inefficient. He argues that only through superior business practices, accidents of history, personality factors, and a general lack of knowledge about pollution did the gasoline engine men, led by Henry Ford, came to dominate the automotive industry...
...Steam cars are at least as efficient as gasoline engines, Jamison says. And, because steam cars burn their fuel more completely than gasoline engines, they are virtually pollution-free...
...economic hurdles faced by the steam people, however are nearly insurmountable. Detroit hangs on tenaciously to its monopoly on the automobile, and because of the nature of the American economy it is difficult for anyone to compete. Jamison documents the competitive attempts of modern steam car builders from the backyard "kooks" who build cars in their homes as hobbies to the efforts of William P. Lear, a self-made multimillionaire who has taken on steam car production as a personal crusade...
Even a financier of Lear's resources and ability has found it difficult to compete with Detroit. Only government backing can provide steam cars with the boost they need to replace the 90 million gasoline engines now on the road...