Sir
James Dyson today criticised the UK government for its lack of support
for entrepreneurs and engineers, accusing ministers of being more
interested in bailing out banks than fostering companies that could
create money and high-tech jobs.
The entrepreneur behind the
bagless vacuum cleaner said ministers should be backing large projects
that could help tackle environmental problems and also encourage young
people to take up engineering.
Dyson
made the comments at the launch of his latest innovation, an electric
motor that spins faster than a jet engine, which will be used in the
latest models of Dyson's handheld vacumn cleaners. During the launch,
he pointed out that the motor had been developed by his engineers over
a decade without any public funds.
"[The government] supports
banks, they don't support wealth-creators," he said. "Instead of giving
money to the bankers, give it to engineers, give it to science in
universities, encourage children in schools to take up science and
engineering and not become bankers and lawyers. It's a matter of
refocusing ourselves on people and institutions that can solve our
environmental problems and our wealth and trading problems in the
process."
Ignoring engineering sends out wrong message to bright
young people, he said. "Instead of using their hands and brains to
solve real problems, they're lured by the media or the city. The irony
is that engineers are said to be among the most content when it comes
to job satisfaction."
Many of the world's environmental problems
- and in the process the global economy - could be fixed by engineers,
said Dyson. "This really is a time to back our engineers, fund them and
set them the challenges."
He said the government should think
big, backing large scale engineering projects. "Look at the French rail
network and its nuclear power programme. They work, they're impressive
and as a consequence the French revere engineers, unlike Brits. Instead
of just throwing money at bankers, government should be looking at our
long-term future."
Dyson's newest vacuum cleaner discards the
standard electric motor, which has remained essentially unchanged since
it was invented by the physicist Michael Faraday more than 150 years
ago. "The advantages of our high-speed motor is that it's a third of
the size of the conventional brushed motor it replaces, a third of the
weight and it's twice as efficient. It can produce twice the power or
it can run twice as long for a given amount of battery."
Modern
electric motors use carbon brushes inside their mechanism but these can
cause friction, meaning the motor wastes electricity. Dyson's
computer-controlled V2 motor dispenses with the brushes and uses
powerful magnets made from neodymium, a rare earth metal, to create far
more movement with the same power input. At top speed, it can spin at
more than 106,000 revolutions per minute, three times faster than a
conventional motor, and 10 times faster than a jet engine. "The
advantage of speed is that you can make it smaller and use less
materials and it's more efficient."
An earlier version of the V2
motor has been on sale in handheld vacuum cleaners in Japan for four
years and a larger version is used in Dyson's Airblade hand dryers.
Dyson
said it was an exciting time to be an engineer or a scientist. "In the
past it was about making things faster or bigger or making something in
a more dramatic fashion. Now is the time to solve the very difficult
[environmental] problems but I know we can do it. The technology is
there and scientists are there with the means to do it and the
government should realise this."
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