http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id36.html
Anyone trying this at home? Make your own gas? Is it practical? Given George’s speech last night, what incentives are (should) be introduced for individuals to do this, or for small companies to produce machines that allow people to do this on their own?
It just seems like a real waste to pour perfectly good ethanol into a car.
My Uncle Ralph would turn over in his grave.
Isn’t making alcohol without a license illegal in the US? Or is there a “for human consumption” clause that comes into effect?
AFAIK home manufacture of ethyl alcohol is illegal. The revenuers will git ya.
according to this guy, its not difficult to be legal. And, 200 proof ethanol ISNT for human consumption. Fuel only.
http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id10.html
I’ve often wondered if it were practical and efficent if you use your home furnace, which would be running anyway, to distill the alcohol, making the distilation basically free.
Of course, heat that is “cheap as free” can come from woodgas…a woodgas cookstove for example.
They never got Uncle Ralph.
I was unde the impression that it is night impossible to actually keep 200 proof (100%) alcohol because it evaporates so readily. Wouldn’t it be more like 190 proof?
Its imposible to distill ethanol past 190 proof. 200 proof ethanol comes from other chemical processes such as azeotroping off the water with benzene. The reason 200 proof alcohol is not for human consumption, is that it has contaminants such as benzene. 200 proof alcohol will pick up water on standing though I don’t know if it will significantly change the concentration. I don’t think 200 proof alcohol evaporates any faster than 190 proof.
That is correct, I understand you need to dehydrate* the ethanol past 180 proof to get it pure enough to use for fuel in flex fuel vehicles. Again the question is, is anyone (or is anyone aware of someone) creating ethanol for fuel either as a supplement or main fuel source, and is there government incentives to do so, particularly given George Bush’s speech about the US “addiction to mid east oil”?
From http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id36.html :
In the midwest, it is very hard to find a gas station that doesn’t have ethanol blended gas available at the pump. Ethanol does already recieve large subsidies. Here is the Great Cecil’s take on it.
…and in any case, don’t most manufacturers of for-sale ethanol “denature” it with methanol to avoid being taxed/regulated as potable alcohol makers? Would denaturing ethanol with methanol (around 1% or so) after you make it still run you into problems with the law, and would the denatured alcohol still be able to run in ethanol-ready engines?
Neither of your links seem to work which is unfortunate because I’m interested in that molecular sieve.
this might work:
Aside from the legal issues:
From kitchen scraps you will have to run a neighborhood garbage for the game to be worth the chase. Then add the complexities of a fractionation column to get to 200 proof.
Well, of course you can brew beer or make wine, both of which make low concentrations of ethyl alcohol legally. Not that you can then go and pour your beer in the gas tank. I believe the legal problems come in distillation. Plus, fermentation results in lots of other alcohols. You’d have to do a lot of careful distilling to get me to drink your bathtub vodka.