Running on Booze

At his inauguration, and all along the campaign trail, our3) Increase the bore of the carburetor's main
new President said that the United States mustintake-valve -- or decrease the bore of the
become "energy self-sufficient". That means no morefuel-injection nozzles -- by 30-35%.
reliance on foreign oil, so that certain foreign4) Add a pre-heater to the fuel line.
governments can't blackmail us by threatening toSince American racing-cars often run on alcohol, it
withhold fuel.shouldn't be hard to find a good racetrack mechanic
The single most common use of oil in the US iswho can do the conversion in a week or less.
powering vehicles. If we have a replacement forBesides, Ford and Chevrolet and GM already have
gasoline, we can tell all the oil barons in the world tomodels of cars and small trucks on the market that
kiss off and die. And yes, we do have such aare designed to run on what they call "flex-fuel":
replacement! In fact, we've had it for decades.gasoline, ethanol, or any combination thereof. It's odd
No, it's not the hybrid or electric car. Hybrids use lessthat these flex-fuel vehicles haven't been advertized
gasoline, but they still use some. The main problemsmore widely.
with electric cars are that there's a heavyAll you find about fuel ethanol in the news media are
environmental and financial cost for manufacturing thecriticisms, none of them very solid. The most common
batteries, and that electricity has to come fromcomplaint is that ethanol can only be made out of
somewhere. Hydroelectric and wind sources forfood-crops, grain or fruit, which would cut into our food
electricity are being pushed to the limit right now, solarsupply. This is totally false. Only edible -- that is,
electric conversion is nowhere near efficient, coaldrinkable or "food grade" -- ethanol needs to be made
burning causes air-pollution problems, and nobody likesfrom food. Fuel-grade ethanol, which doesn't need to
nuclear power.be of drinking quality, can be made from cellulose.
We can't run the country's cars on electricity. Sorry.That's vegetable trash: cornstalks, straw, lawn
The solution is alcohol: fuel-grade ethanol, to be precise.trimmings, weeds, sawdust, etc. And there's plenty of it
It's cheap, safe, and more abundant than most peopleavailable, cheap! Search "cellulosic ethanol producers"
know. We could convert all our existingon the Internet, and you'll find no less than three new
internal-combustion-engine cars to fuel-grade ethanol incompanies in the US that are making industrial volumes
a single week, just by following four simple steps:of fuel-ethanol from vegetable trash.
1) Replace the engine seals with "exotic-fuel seals",Obviously, somebody is buying all that fuel-ethanol.
available from supply houses like Warshawski's andThat fact hasn't been advertised either. One might
Checker.suspect political motives.
2) Set the engine compression at 9 to 1.