What would you say if I told you that the Bolsted Act was set up by Rockafeller oil company to make its gasoline and diesel fuel the only option for your car and truck? Thats right cars untill the early 1900’s we’re run on alcohol which most any one with a still at there home could make. Alcohol burns clean and when run in cars dose not make your oil black which means that your engine and your oil lasts 4 times as long. How would you like to plant a crop in you garden that you could fuel your car with and never have to go to a gas station again?
You’re going to need a lot of crops and a REALLY big still, Rich. How will your neighbors feel about the distillery you’ll have to build in your back yard?
Jeez, where have you been for the past few years? Bio-fuels were all the rage for a while!
The trouble is that to grow enough fuel to run an average car for an average number of miles your garden would have to be many, many acres and you would need a lot of modern agricultural implements. The main reason why gas and diesel are used today is that they are very cheap to extract-- far cheaper than the plant-based fuels that ran some 19th century cars. Only now, with the easy-to-get oil becoming scarce are plant-based fuels starting to catch up, but they’re still not quite there.
Hey Rich, have you heard about running your car on water? There have been lots of posts about it recently, and if there’s a green future for the automobile, that’s bound to be it. Alcohol, schmalcohol. Convert your jalopy to run on H2O and be at the vanguard of the automotive revolution. Use the power of hydrogen to run your car on water. Just do a Google search, you’ll see, and if you read the ads you’ll also see that it’s guaranteed to work! How can you possibly go wrong?
If I remember correctly, you start by modifying a welding torch. The rest is a piece of cake.
Are you going to post a new post for every additional thought on the subject? Ever hear of E85? Or 10% ethanol additive to regular fuel? And, you do realize that ethanol has a lower energy density than gasoline? That means your mileage will decrease. Any, you will need one hell of an operation to continuously process ethanol. And, you’ll spend far more processing crops for ethanol than you’ll get back in energy equivalent per gallon of ethanol.
The Volstead Act, commonly referred to as Prohibition, was passed in 1919. It was an anti-drinking measure and Rockefeller Oil had nothing to do with its passage. The 21st amendment was ratified in 1935 and made the Volstead Act unconstitutional. Rich, what’s your point?
It’s kind of funny how “King Coal” couldn’t keep the railroads from switching from steam locomotives to far more efficient diesel locomotives, yet the only reason that alcohol, electric, whatever, can’t dethrone “Big Oil” is because of an alleged government conspiracy.
Have you ever considered the possibility that alternative power sources just haven’t yet become practical alternatives to petroleum?
When the alternatives really get better than petroleum, we will switch to it en-mass and oil companies will no more be able to prevent it than big radio was able to stop television.
Jeez, where have you been for the past few years?
More importantly, when are you going back? You posts have a distinct flavor of paranoid schizophrenia.
O.k. while it is true that the OP is pretty simplistic, and the OP’er has had a flurry of enthusiasm about issues like this, I actually don’t think it is nearly as bad as the - even worse in its simplicity - “the market and technological progress” drive history story. Our history is full of outright manipulation of markets and technologies - NOT by some “government conspiracy” - but in the interests of large corporations.
Now, please don’t go off the other end and assume that I am now saying it is all just some corporate conspiracy - since that’s how these discussions often go. It is much more complicated than that.
Stories that have techno “progress” and market demand as the engine of history can only really be told by people who haven’t spent much time with their sleeves rolled up in actual history. Simplistic stories that take the whole picture to be about this or that corporate manipulation are ones that have often come from having little snapshots of some of the uglier aspects of history - and then go on to simplistic overgeneralizations.
How would you like to plant a crop in you garden that you could fuel your car with and never have to go to a gas station again?
You are going to need a very big garden as well as fertilizer (also uses fuel) a tractor (which also uses fuel) a processing plant, (also uses fuel) and lots of money for food since all the good land will be making fuel and there will be little left for fuel. Even today when you go shopping you are paying more for your hamburger and cornflakes because of the amount of such fuel being produced right now. BTW the cost of that fuel is not less than oil based, even at the current high cost of oil.
which history book did you find in the attic?
i would say you are reinventing history.
hot topic… look up “sufferage movement” in that history book. you will find some novel info there too.
I admire your pioneering spirit Rich! Way to go! I’m the kind of acorn who actually would try something like this . . . but I agree with the other posters who believe that the concept, although attractive . . . is difficult to implement. So that shouldn’t deter the pioneering spirit . . . maybe people should start thinking like you. I’m not a chemist . . . nor am I an engineer . . . but I am somewhat forward thinking and believe that thinking like this encourages others to look forward into the process. There’s a really interesting article in the June 2008 Road & Track about Biofuels, page 95 called “Just Puffin’ Corn?” Biofuels: The Real Deal. I encourage you to read it . . . it addresses your concept and more. Rocketman
richcrisler
Wow!
One more delusional, rambling post, filled with misinformation and poor English usage. It just doesn’t get much better than this!
Thanks for entertaining us.
Not true every farmer in the US had a still in the early 1900’s and the fueled the cars and tractors even people who might of happened by and ran out of fuel.
Yes great idea I have been in contact with a man from Viatnam that has been running his car for the last 30 years on it.
THis is not the case and this is a proven fact.
I’m looking at facts that have come to light and facts that are found in David Blumes book.
Have you ever herd of (the freedom of information act)?
The facts can be had and not on the 10 O’clock news.
Do you want to know the truth or the (head lies) for the nightly news.
One of the best crops per acer is cat tails and they can grow in a sespool and clean the water and then be harvested and made into fuel.
Thanks!
You know it’s a funny thing about that little yellow spec on top of chicken sht,. it’s chicken Sht too.
Rich, we can make alcohol from switchgrass and other normally unused cellulose. It’s just that you can’t do that since it requires very sophisticated and expensive technology just now being developed.
Making ethanol from corn and other crops requires a large farm and a lot of oil product inputs such as gasoline, diesel, fertilizer, elcetricity, etc. As others point out, you need about 8-9 units of enegry input to produce 10 units of ethanol. Bush subsidizes this process to look green and get farm votes, so farmers can get rid of their over-production. Without a subsidy, you will go broke and end up not too green after all.
Why not book a holiday to Brazil, and observe one of the few places in the world where ethanol (from sugar cane) makes both economic and environmental sense.
As mentioned, buy the smallest E85 car GM sells, and gas up with the higherst E content you can find. That will be the extent of your ability to be green, other than riding a bicycle!!
You are not going to be able to reinvent the wheel no matter what junk science you find on the internet!