Arizona republican., 1919-10-29
THE FUTURE OF ALCOHOL

order to make power, because the | supply of heat stored up in coal Is | steadily diminishing and becoming l harder to reach. We must therefore 1 tap the sun, which is the permanent 1 source of heat It was explained how this sun heat can be converted into l either steam or electricity. It will then light our homes, run our fac tories. and pull our street cars, where ever this work cannot be done by water power. But it win not, of course run our jitneys and our motorcycles.
 The petroleum upon which we de- pend for transportation is diminish ing in amount ever more rapidly than coal. Gasoline is becoming more and more expensive and scarce. The gov ernment experts say that we will surely be out of gas in few years unless great new deposits of petro- leum are discovered.
 Therefore we must now discover a 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 permanent source of power. Sciertists seem to agree that alcohol will furnish this permanent source of motor fuel. Gov ernment experts have been studying both the production of alcohol and it's uses as fuel in motors. Reports on both cases will soon be available.
 Alcohol will furnish a permanent supply of motor fued because it can be made out of vegetation, and vegeta- tion can be produced on the earth in- definitely. It 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 has already begun to re, place gasoline abroad. Tn France a fifty-flfty mixture of alcohol and ben | zol. is in common use as a motor fuel and some mixtures of eighty per cent alcohol and twenty per cent benzol are used. In this country alcohol has been tried as motor fuel both in autobo. tiles and in tractors. You can use al- cohol in an ordinary automobile de- signed to use gasoline, but you will i:ot get very good results. In motor designed for the use of alcohol, it will give just as much work, gallon <or gallon, as gasoline. It has not as hign a fuel value as gasoline, but there !sless waste about it. An alcohol en- zine is more efficient than q gasolias engine. It is also cleaner.
 As you may know. there are two kinds of alcohol, ethyl alcohol and methyl Cor wood) alcohol. Ethyl d. cohol is the kind we use to drink in the old days. Methyl alcohol is the kind that some misguided persons Grink these days, causing blindness in some cases and sudden death in others.
 | Ethyl alcohol is also the kind that will be used as a motor fuel. Do not infer from this, however. that you will lave always a few gallons of cheering beverage in the gas tank when a. cohol comes into general use as fuel. In order to be made drinkable, 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 alcohol wil presumably contain some of these impurities and there be unfit ito drink
 But this is not certain, for alcohol must be distilled to a high point be. l fore it can be used as fuel. Fermenta. ton produces a mixture of alcohol and water in which alcohol is only six teen per cent. That is, it produces 'thirty-two proof alcohol. Now all cohol must be at least 100 proof. or not more than fifty per cent water, be- fore it will serve as fuel. And to dis