People Brew Own Gas To Beat Pump Prices

Is that the guy that an apple dropped on his head, thereby proving gravity exists. I'm not to well educated in that field of science, but it sounds like him. Whats he got to do with the price of gas Rick.

George

"man lights match looking for gas leak"




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I like my truck too much to try this one!

May as well have a Meth lab next door. The risk of explosion and other health risks is probably about the same.

Caktus, I just can't see comparing it to a meth lab. Ethanol burns reasonably well, light off a jigger of Barcardi 151 rum or Everclear (pure grain alcohol, sold in many package stores). Nice flame, but not an explosion.
The by-products of meth are quite toxic, but left over mash is not. BTW, the spent mash from places like Jack Daniels is sold. When you evaporate the water the left over solids are called DDGS (Distiller's Dried Grain Solubles) and are sold for animal feed. It's snapped up. Hogs love it, and they gain weight much faster than they would with an equal amount of raw grain.

Ethanol cannot be manufatured until grain alcohol is manufatured. Un-licensed and non-OSHA approved manufacture of grain alcohol is not legal. Although grain alcohol and Ethanol while exposed to oxygen are not [highly] combatable, during manufacture are not exposed to oxygen and are highly combustible. An to think, this could be occurring right next door to your own family.

I have a feeling the more prevalent home manufacture of Ethanol becomes the more prevalent legal matters will become.

BTW, while the article in an earlier post mentioned the cost of this Ethanol would be 75 cent per gallon on ABC evening news a manufacturer of these stills said the cost would be $1.74 or $2.74 a gallon. And that the price of the still is over $1400.

You lost me a bit. Those stills that were just on the news produce ethanol. In the example shown the mash used mostly grain, hense grain alcohol. Moonshine is ethanol. The stills at Jack Daniels produce ethanol from a grain mash at about 190 proof which is aged and watered down when bottled. You can make ethanol from other things rather than grains, take rum, or that wild little Central American number made fron raw sugar cane juice "Tic-Tak".

There's an easy way to separate water and alcohol. Several years ago I discovered how easy it could be, while at the same time most methods were advocating moving a water/alcohol mix through grits or another starch substance. Starch won't absorb alcohol, but will water, leaving the alcohol to filter out.

Another method in any cold climate, is freezing the solution till the water ices up and then drain the alcohol off. In such a system on a farm the fermentation process could be done late fall and product stored till nature's own temps would allow separation by freezing.

The one I thought best if not wanting the alcohol for drinking but for use as a fuel was of my own creation. You can test it out for yourself also. You use salt to separate the water from the alcohol. Salt won't dissolve in alcohol, but it will in water. When the salt is dissolved until a near saturated solution is obtained, the water and alcohol separate.

You can home test this in a test tube by pouring some home rubbing alcohol (isopropyl) into the tube, normally at 70% or 140 proof strength. Put a few drops of darker food coloring in the mix, this coloring will separate out with the water showing the demarkation easily between them. Add salt and swirl or shake a covered tube, you may add too much and have some remain as crystals in the tube, but no worry. The salt will combine with the water in solution making it heavier than the alcohol and separate out just like oil and water do. If you check the measurements on the tube you will discover that 30% is the water part and 70% is the alcohol part. The two parts can then be easily separated either by burette or siphoning off the alcohol.

In a factory situation where two businesses are combined the resulting brine can be used in food processing or for creating chlorine gas and caustic soda. One also could instead simply evaporate the water, recapturing the salt to be used over and over again in the same process.

If you want to quickly separate water from alcohol, then salt or similar substance that can efficiently bind with water molecules will do it, but table salt (sodium chloride)works extremely well.

Didn't know it could be done so easily. Wish I knew how to remove the [alcohol] while it's in the tank.

Trust me, caktus, the output of a well-run still, from a back-woods moonshine one to a fancy one like at George Dickel does not contain a lot of water. It usually runs at about 180-190 proof.
I'm familiar with powering a vehicle with alcohol, I worked on a Public TV program where a guy converted a normal car to run on pure alcohol. He ran arround the field a bit, and then converted it back. This was about 25 years ago. BTW, the same station also did a program about making and running a moonshine still. The "Revenoors" watched and after the footage was done they dynamited the still. Great ending. The still made "Christmas whisky" (very, very high quality/proof), in the opinion of those who tasted it (the government agents allowed it.).

Can't say from experience, but understand that unless the alcohol is refined to nearly 100% (I think 99.5 or 199 proof) purity it will not efficiently operate a standard combustion engine.

And in any case the alcohol will still absorb moister polluting the fuel system. And while an ethanol\gasoline mixture will increase mpg compared to the more widely used methanol\gasoline mixture the addition of ethanol to gasoline still reduces mpg compared to pure gasoline. In light of these matters as well as the fact that still we must purchase at higher prices and burn more fuel to travel the same distance still I have to believe we would be better off burning pure gasoline, at least until we can produce, distribute and use alternative fuels with more efficiency.

http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id36.html or would like to learn, you can ferment any starchy or sugary foods or waste products into a mash that you can distill into 190 proof alcohol..........

The real big change, however, is that over 2 million cars/year in the USA are now factory ready for E85. So, you may already be driving an E85 car and not know it. .....

Now, in 2004, over 30% of the gasoline sold in the USA contains ethanol. (But only 2% of the total amount of gasoline we use is alcohol). .........

ETOH (ethanol) also has an O2 molecule, so it partially supplies its own Oxygen for more efficient engine combustion). ........

It was really due to Brazil's major switch to ethanol back in the early 1980s that required Ford, GM, VW and Fiat to start making cars that would run on 180 proof, wet alcohol........

I suggest you just wait until you have exactly one half a tank of gasoline in your car, then fill up the rest of the way with the denatured 200 proof you made. This is because it may take a full tank of fuel for the car?s computer to fully adjust to the new fuel mix. In the summer you can measure and blend your fuel so you have exactly 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, but in the winter, I suggest that you do not run greater than 50% ethanol so that you don?t have any problems starting your engine on cold mornings.


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Seems to me that even if MPG of E85 was less than pure gas, as long as the ehtanol wa enough cheaper than gas, the cost would go down. And I may be mistaken, but doesn't alcohol burn with less troublesome polluntants than gasoline?

It's not the only answer, but it does seem to be one (at least temporarily if not pernamently) way to reduce oil comsumption as gasoline. That leaves more oil for all the other products we make out of it doesn't it?


Roger

click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

The process which requires special enzymes inserted into the brew as it is processed through a series of stages as enumerated on the linked page for a modern still is a bit "busy" for the home brewing person. Typically starch in grains were broke down by introducing malt. Malt is normally considered barley, but really any grass grain that has started to sprout and begun the process of converting it's own seed starch stored into sugar which it can use. Malt is made by sprouting these grains to that point and then drying at a temperature that won't decay the enzyme but will kill off the sprouting grass. This is introduced into a starchy mash and the enzymes breakdown the starch into fermentable sugars, which in turn are converted to alcohol by the yeast.

...then we'll know that many folks there have revisited their heritage.

I tend to think they would make some good gas too.

George

and crank up his old Ford to make runs again if the price is right.

Can it be long before Chevy makes a car with 2 tanks and a catchy model name like " the Thunder Road" (grin)?

It works in diesel engines because the diesel engine was originally designed to run on peanut oil, among other things.

Mark