The Alcohol-Gasohol Fuel Solution

Image Gallery [1] Ethyl alcohol (stored in the opaque container) is introduced into the engine's fuel system by a vacuum-controlled valve (foreground) which allows the fluid to be drawn through a tube (at the container's top) and then ... STAFF PHOTOS

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You might (if you haven't read this issue's "Plowboy Interview" yet) be surprised to hear that there are over 8-1/2 billion gallons of potential automotive fuel in the United States today that aren't even being used, or to hear that this fuel is [1] relatively non-polluting, [2] totally renewable (unlike petroleum resources), [3] fairly economical to manufacture — even on a small scale — and [4] presently being allowed to rot away or, at best, being used in a shamefully inefficient manner.

Sounds crazy, right? Wrong, for as the Mother Earth News research staff recently discovered, there is a fuel that's not only abundant (in its undistilled form) throughout the U.S. and many other arable parts of the world, but also lives up to every one of these claims, and that fuel is alcohol.

You see, it just so happens that the stuff most people think of as the "main ingredient" of an intoxicating beverage is the selfsame substance that could just about eliminate our current fuel shortage, either as an additive to present gasoline supplies or as a possible replacement for gasoline altogether!

What it boils down to is this: The internal-combustion engine as we know it today (and that includes automobile, truck, tractor and bus powerplants) doesn't have to run on gasoline. In fact, prior to the second World War (when gasoline prices were more nearly comparable to those of other fuels), some automotive and agricultural equipment manufacturers even offered the consumer a choice of carburetors, which allowed the buyer to use fuels other than gas if he or she so desired. In other words, it wasn't at all uncommon for a farmer to power his John Deere with ethanol (grain alcohol) distilled from his own spoiled crops.

Unfortunately for us little folks, the technology and necessities of the war made it possible for gasoline to be produced in greater volume (and at a lower cost) than other forms of fuel, hence the American public was cleverly "weaned" on gasoline and soon forgot that other fuel alternatives even existed!

Forgot, that is, until the harsh reality of the gasoline shortage of 1974 drove home the fact that we were (and still are) pitifully dependent on foreign petroleum sources, and at that point alcohol fuel again entered the scheme of things.

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