Im am more than half way through reading David Blumes book on permaculture and making alcohol yourself to fuel vehicles or power generators.
1. Gasoline is not made, it's all the toxic waste left over from refining what is realy wanted. Cars are the refiners method of dumping thier toxic waste and is a very highly protected process.People get killed for interfering with it.
2.Oil companies have done everything they can to make alcohol look bad. Everything that is said bad about alchol is false but true of gasoline.
3.Alcohol is cheaper, burns cooler, burns cleaner,burns quicker,has higher octane,has more horse power than gasoline.
4.Most cars can use E-85 with no modifications
5.Fuel injected cars can be converted by changing the pressure regulator for higher pressure.
6.Oil used to be of higher quality so no octane additives were needed. Octane used to be 104 now its 87. Benzene,Toulene and Xylene are now octane boosters at as much as 25 percent of the fuel. In the past lead and mtbe were used to boost octane. Alcohol can boost octane at just 6% but oil companies block that use.
7.For the average person it seems not practical to make your own alchol and is better to just buy it. If you live on a farm and can recylce the by-products to animals or crops makes it much more cost effective.
8.Untill the free plans become available from the guy in Arizona running his V8 pickup on just water, I am going to start using e-85 or better. Luckily there's an E-85 station in this area.
9.the book is 600 pages and extreemly detailed. I cant even begin to cover it all. Very detailed on making your fuel and optimizing cars to run it.
10.At one time Brazil was running all thier cars on alcohol and not importing any oil, we can do the same thing.

A funny story related to reading this book. I was in a public place reading the book and a guy walked by who read the title. He said by the way I just read the title of your book and wanted to know what its about? I knew as soon as he said that what his thoughts were. He said do have a map to every single bar in town? Shockingly low level of existance!

Thanks for posting this; I remember talking to an inventor I know about this and I sort of dismissed it as being unfeasible. Guess I'll take a second look

actually, quite accurate on everything, except it doesn't mention that using E-85 or any alcohol based fuel, or even small amounts of hydrogen like some people like to do, destroys your engine unless its lined with a special high heat/impact resistant ceramic coating, and perfectly balanced... its a very good and efficient fuel if longevity of your vehicle doesnt matter to you, it would be rather cheap though for them to add that ceramic coating in the manufacturing process, and then everything would be fine, we could use almost any fuel in our vehicles with minor modifications... and no real loss of longevity.

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Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

curator
just one of the many myths the oil companies have created to make alcohol look bad. Alcohol does not destroy engines or any parts of them. Racing methanol may but we are talking about ethonal here.No ceramic coating is ever needed with alcohol as e-85 to full proof. Like I said the oil companies hate interference with their toxic waste dumping system. If alcohol takes over they will have all this toxic waste and no where to put it.

Back2eden, I have actually done this with my friends though, with many vehicles, and many different alternative fuels and technology, even tried the pogue (I think I spelled that wrong) carburetor, and HOD systems (they work, but god do they trash your engine), Racing methanol would definitely destroy a normal engine, its fine in an engine made for it (I have actually driven a mini dragster that runs on it, as well as a few slower vehicles) ethanol does damage a normal engine more than straight fossil fuel does, and also breaks down the seals in the engine rather fast, manufacturing it to handle e-85 and just about anything else would be cheap and easy.

That is the last Im going to post on the damage it does to an engine, you let me know when you run a car with it and brand new gaskets/seals in the engine, and then take apart that engine 10k miles later and tell me those seals look fine...one fell apart as soon as we took it out!

the REAL scam is E-85 itself and all that corn and crap used to make it when much better alternatives exist, such as... [www.scientificamerican.com]

one thing they dont mention in here, is the fact that switchgrass reportedly produces sugar alcohols all on its own, so although its more "work" to break it down, its actually less in the long run cause it skips a whole step in the refining process that corn needs to become fuel, or so Ive read, sounds right, but im not 100% sure on that one as its been years since i researched it, and I dont remember if I found any corroboration for that statement or not.

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Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

People ignore what curator says and get the truth on alcohol by reading the book.

Ha-ha, I'll read the book and listen to what Curator, one of the brightest of people, has to say about it!