Alcohol Fuel Powers this Experimental Truck
(Page 6 of 8)
September/October 1979
The Mother Earth News editors
According to Alan, the Minnesota still produces 160- to 180-proof alcohol at a rate of up to 28 gallons per hour. "We could get a purer product, but we don't need it. Our equipment runs fine on 160-proof fuel, so it would be senseless to use extra energy trying to make the ethanol any stronger. As it is, we've got a very favorable balance: Our product is worth a lot more—both economically and in terms of energy consum—than what we use to produce it."
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The Gopher Staters are also in the process of designing several additional systems that will make their alcohol production plant—and their farm as a whole—more efficient. The still's waste heatand carbon dioxide from the fermentation process—will soon be used to supply a greenhouse, and AI plans to start construction on a methane digester next year . . . which will, of course, utilize cow manure to produce enough of the flammable gas to "fire" the still. (Other sources of heat—including corncobs, waste oil, and used tires—are also being considered, since the Zeithamers claim these fuels can be burned without causing pollution . . . by using a water injection system.) The farm family is using the alcohol plant's DDGS (Distiller's Dried Grains and Solubles) by-products as cattle feed, too, and they're even saving water by recycling the liquid through the distilling system rather than starting fresh on each alcohol "run".
The Zeithamers see no future problems with their alcohol production (especially since the plant will pay for itself in less than four years). Meanwhile, the younger Zeithamer is also looking into the potential of potatoes as a raw material, has been experimenting with an abnormally hardy strain of yeast (which can function in a 16% alcohol mash solution), and is researching various other methods of isolating alcohol from the mash (either by using a freezing process or by adding some form of potash).
Those answers might still be a few years down the road, but it seems that the Zeithamers are doing just fine—on their own—right now!
What do you do after you've converted your truck into an alcohol-powered vehicle? You take 'er for a spin, of course!
MOTHER GOES "ON THE ROAD" FOR ALCOHOL FUEL!
As many of you already know (due to the media coverage that this magazine's alcohol experiments have received in the past few months), MOTHER wasn't content to merely [1] be instrumental in bringing the fact that farm-produced ethanol could be used as a fuel to the attention of a great many people, [2] design, build, and make the plans available for an efficient backyard still that can be set up for less than $300, [3] tell folks how to apply to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms for a license to distill fuel alcohol, [4] influence the government to propose less stringent regulations and reduced "red tape" for backyard ethanol production, and [5] convert a pickup truck into a gasoline/alcohol "dual fuel" vehicle for less than $25!
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