The first known continuously operating still was built in France in the late 1800s. Otto, the man generally credited with invention of the spark-ignited internal combustion engine, ran his first engine on ethanol. Almost all subsequent early experimentation in self-propelled vehicles used engines fueled with ethanol. Henry Ford originally presumed it would be the fuel for all of his vehicles and continued experimentation with it well into the 1930s. Louisiana defines gasohol to mean a fuel that contains not more than ninety percent gasoline and at least ten percent ethanol.
Ethanol is ethyl alcohol.
The law has been interpreted to mean that 100 percent of the feedstocks must be from Louisiana farmers. Ethanol is one of a series of chemicals called oxygenates which have begun to be added to gasoline as octane enhancers as lead has been phased out. These chemicals are called oxygenates because they have oxygen in their molecular makeup. Ethanol is the only one made from agricultural products such as grain or sugarcane molasses. Only ethanol fermented from agricultural products receives a subsidy from Louisiana or the federal government.