This is not a new idea, and my local library has a book that claims to explain “how to make your own motor fuel at home.” It’s perhaps not a coincidence that it was assigned a place on the library shelf between two other books entitled “Fireworks.”
I recently read an article about a much higher tech approach that’s about to hit the market, and promises the ability to safely produce your own ethanol from sugar, not corn, for about a dollar a gallon. It doesn’t use table sugar, but cheaper surplus supplies, including inedible sugar from Mexico.
This approach obviously isn’t for everyone, and I don’t have first-hand information about the company or the process. The concept is at least intriguing, and if you’re interested, you can read about it here.
I wish the company success with their venture, because this is an example of the kind of innovative thinking that can help solve our current energy crisis. I’m certainly not making light of potentially promising technology, but this is a subject which also lends itself to a little fun.
In addition to using sugar for the raw material, this device allows businesses such as restaurants and bars to turn discarded alcoholic beverages into ethanol, and burn it rather than gasoline in vehicles. I guess this puts a new twist on the old line about “one for the road”!
If a portable, efficient and affordable device to rapidly convert processed sugar into ethanol for fuel could be developed, it might prove to be a mixed blessing. Perhaps a conversation like this would take place someday in campgrounds around the country:
(Mom to kids) “No, I’ve already told you – no s’mores again around the campfire tonight. You had some last night, and we need the rest of the marshmallows and chocolate bars to make enough gas to get back home tomorrow!”
Happy travels.
Jim Burnett
Life – it’s an adventure…. Find something to smile about today!