The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-05-23
-Dietz on Science
ALCOHOL GAS
SEEN NO AID
FOR FARMERS
Oil RefinerS viii Upset
Apple Cart, View
of Chemist.
BY DAVID DIETZ,
Scripps- Howard Science Editor

If congress seeks to aid the farm
er by voting to make the blending
Of alcohol with gasoline compulsory,
the oil rehners may upset the apple
cart-or would it be the oil cart in
this case-by entering the manufac-
ture of alcohol That is the opinion
Of DR.. Gustav Eglof, World-famous
research OIL chemist.
Alcohol can be made from petro-
leum cheaper than it can be made
from corn, DR.. Eglof told members
of leading chemical societies at the
Chemists Club in New York
Refinery gases, now burned as
fuel. could be converted into 1000
100000 gallons of alcohol a year if
there was a market for it, he said.
Enormous volumes Of oil are
available which could be cracked
into unsaturated hydrocarbons and
converted into alcohol in direct
competition with alcohol from ag-
ricultural products he continued.
Cracking Unit Perfected
From 2OO.00O000 barrels of oil
can be produced more than 1000
100000 gallons Of alcohol, which is
more than can be derived from all
of the $500 100000 bushels Of corn
grown yearly in the United States.
DR.. EglOf, who is director Of re-
search for the Universal Oil Pro
ducts Co. of Chicago, has designed
and operated cracking units for
more than fifteen years. He holds
more than $50 patents affecting the
processing of petroleum oil, coal,
shaIe oils, and hydrocarbons in gem
eral.
The cracking process is the one
by which the heavier constituents
of petroleum are broken up or
Cracked" thus turning them into
the lighter hydrocarbons which
constitute gasoline. The process has
greatly increased the gasoline sup
ply of the world
Predicts Shorter Mileage
DR.. Eglon says that the subject
of a gasoline alcohol blend has been
considered many times by oil manu-
facturers but rejected as impracti-
cal. Alcohol, he says, shows high
cost and poor performance by COM
parison with gasoline.
Even if gasoline and alcohol
could be manufactured and sold at
the same price, the motorist will not
long buy alcohol if permitted to
act according to his own inclina-
ton he says.
"He would get nearly 7 per cent
fewer miles per gallon with alcohol
and there would be many other
operating disadvantages.
This was proved shortly after
the war when two major oil COM
panies, marketing in wide territories,
put on sale an alcohol-gasoline
blend motor fuel
The purpose Of this was to find a
market for large stocks of alcohol
which remained unused at the end
of wartime activities. The motor
lists made so many complaints about
this fuel that 1t was shortly With
drawn from the market"
Possibility Of an oil shortage in
the United States is discounted by
DR.. Egloff, who believes that the
petroleum supply is good for
another 100 years. In addition, he
says that it is impossible to estimate
the number or extent of oil pools
not yet discovered.
IN the last twenty years he
continues, chemists have shown
how to increase the yield of gasoline
from crude oil more than 300 per
cent as we'll as how to improve its
quality greatly.
BY the use Of the cracking proc
ess it is estimated that over 3O00,-
O0C 600 barrels of crude oil have been
conserved in the last six years
alone"