The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-10-29
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORM ATION
Blu REAU
FREDERIC J. HAGEIN. Diroesse.
wAshingtsa. .. c.
THE FUTURE OF ALCOHOL.
washing&en. .. C.

who imagineS that prohibition has ma
terially diminished the importance of
alcohol in sadly mistaken. Alcohol
has an immense industrial future. If
you want to get rich, start an alcohol
| still. Provided you are making indus
trial alcohol, which is not potable, the
law will not interfere with you.
Within a comparatively short time,
alcohol will be running all of our au-
.tomobilss and tractors. 1t will be used
| to produce heat and light in practi6 al
ly all situations where kerosene and
| other petroleum derivatives are now
used.
In a recent Haskin lie ter it was ex-
| planned that we would soon have to
go direct to the sun for our heat in
order to make power. because the sup
ply of heat stored up in coal is stead
| liz diminishing and becoming harder
to reach. We must therefore tap the
sun, which is the permanent source
| of heat. 1t was explained how this
sun heat can be converted into either
steam or electricity. 1t will then light
our homes, run our factories and pull
our street cars wherever this work
cannot be done by water power. But
| it will not, of course, run our jitneys
land our motorcycles.
| The petroleum upon which we de-
pend for transportation is diminishing
in amount even more rapidly than
| coal. Gasoline is becoming more and
more expensive and scarce The gov
eminent experts say that we will sure
! iy be out of gas in few years unless
great new deposits of petroleum are
discovered.
! Therefore we must now discover a
I permanent source of motor fuel to
! take the place of the temporary one
upon which we have been drawing,
and to supplement the sun as a per
/ ma nf
| seem to agree that alcohol will fur
nish this permanent source of motor
\ fuel. Government experts have been
| studying both the production of alco-
| hol and its use as fuel in motors. Re
! ports on both cases will soon be avail
able.
| Alcohol will furnish a permanent
supply of motor fuel because it can
| be made out of vegetation, and vegeta-
| ton can be produced on the earth in
definitely. 1t now costs more to pro
duce alcohol than it does to produce
gasoline, but gasoline is becoming
more expensive all the time, while the
cheap and large scale production of
alcohol, in this country especially, is
just beginning
Alcohol abs already begun to re-
place gasoline abroad. In France a
| fifty-fifty mixture of alcohol and ben
zol is in common use as a motor fuel,
and some mixtures of so per cent al
cohol and 20 per cent benzol are used.
In this country alcohol has been tried
as a motor fuel both in automobiles
and in tractors. You can use alcohol
! in an ordinary automobile designed to
use gasoline, but you will not get very
good results. In a motor designed for
| the use of alcohol. it will give just as
much work. gallon for gallon, as gas
oline. 1t has not so high fuel value
as gasoline but there is less waste
about it. An alcohol engine is more
efficient than a gasoline engine. 1t is
| also cleaner.
| AS you may know, here are two
kinds of alcohol, ethyl alcohol and
methyI or wood alcohol. Ethyl alco-
| hol is the kind we use to drink in
the old days. Methyl alcohol is the
kind that some misguided persons
drink these days, causing blindness in
some cases and sudden death in
others.
Ethyl alcohol is also the kind that
will be used as motor fuel. Do not
infer from this, however. that you will
have always a few gallons of cheer
ing beverage in the gas tank when
alcohol comes into general use as fuel.
In order to be made drinka BILE, ethyl
alcohol must be rectified, which con-
sists in distilling it in a special way,
so as to eliminate fusil oils and other
impurities. Most of this industrial al
cohol will presumably contain some of
these impurities and therefore be un-
fit to drink.
But this is not certain, for alcohol
must be distilled to a high point be-
fore it can be used as fuel Fermen-
tation produces a mixture of alcohol
and water in which alcohol is only 1 s
per cent. That is, it produces a
''thirty-two> proof alcohol. Now al
cohol must be at least 100 proof, or
not more than SO per cent water. be-
fore it will serve as fuel. And to dis
till it to that point heat must be used.
This use of heat to produce fuel, is,
of course, a process which to GER
tain extent defeats its own end. But
the bureau of chemistry has also
found that the water can be separated
from alcohol by freezing, because
water freezing at higher temperature
than alcohol. 1t seems probable that
this freezing method will ultimately
replace distillation as method of
raising the proof of fuel alcohol. The
freezing process will leave in all the
impurities and so insure that no one
can drink the stuff.
To the layman who is used to pay
ing a steep price for alcohol in any
form, it seems improbable that this
substance should be made cheap
enough to burn in a motor. But the
materials from which alcohol is made
are easy to produce and very abUn-
| dant in nature.
Alcohol is made from sugar. Sugar
is made from starch. And either sugar
or starch occur in practically all forms
of vegetation. 1t is possible to make
alcohol out of every weed and tree
| that grows. OF course, it is practi-
cable to use only certain forms of vege-
tation for making alcohol. Our pres
sent largest and cheapest source of
industrial alcohol is ''black strap.
which is sugary residue that is left
when all the crystalline sugar has
| been extracted from sugar cane.
But in addition to this source, al
! cohol has been made in commercial
quantities from sawdust and mill
waste, from the sap of palm trees.
from the Mexican Agave. from Gull
apples and potatoes. from sorghum,
| sI1s ga heats nd RI