22,435,391 members doing good!
about our ads
share your passions, stories, inspirations, and more
ENERGY CRISIS: Ford And Diesel Never Intended Cars To Use Gasoline
Jun 11, 2006

ENERGY CRISIS: Ford And Diesel Never Intended Cars To Use Gasoline



  • By
    ,

When Henry Ford told a New York Times reporter that ethyl alcohol was "the fuel of the future" in 1925, he was expressing an opinion that was widely shared in the automotive industry. "The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit like that sumach out by the road, or from apples, weeds, sawdust -- almost anything," he said. "There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years."

Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the car itself was constructed from hemp. On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, 'grown from the soil,' had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel; (source: Popular Mechanics, 1941).

Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, designed it to run on vegetable and seed oils like hemp; he actually ran the thing on peanut oil for the 1900 World's Fair. Henry Ford used hemp to not only construct cars but also fuel them.

As an alternative to methanol, hemp has at least one glowing report: the plant produces up to four times more cellulose per acre than trees. And a hemp crop grows a little quicker than a forest.

As for an alternative to petroleum...
  • Hemp grows like mad from border to border in America; so shortages are unlikely. And, unlike petrol, unless we run out of soil, hemp is renewable.
  • Growing and harvesting the stuff has much less environmental impact than procuring oil.
  • Hemp fuel is biodegradable; so oil spills become fertilizer not eco-catastrophes.
  • Hemp fuel does not contribute to sulfur dioxide air poisoning.
  • Other noxious emissions like carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons are radically slashed by using "biodiesel.
  • Hemp fuel is nontoxic and only a mild skin irritant; anybody who's ever cleaned out an old carburetor with gasoline can confirm the same is not true for petrol.
  • Growing hemp for fuel would be a tremendous boon for American farmers and the agricultural industry.


Fuel of the Future

Ford recognized the utility of the hemp plant. He constructed a car of resin stiffened hemp fiber, and even ran the car on ethanol made from hemp. Ford knew that hemp could produce vast economic resources if widely cultivated.

Ford's optimistic appraisal of cellulose and crop based ethyl alcohol fuel can be read in several ways. First, it can be seen as an oblique jab at a competitor. General Motors had come to considerable grief that summer of 1925 over another octane boosting fuel called tetra-ethyl lead, and government officials had been quietly in touch with Ford engineers about alternatives to leaded gasoline additives. Secondly, by 1925 the American farms that Ford loved were facing an economic crisis that would later intensify with the depression. Although the causes of the crisis were complex, one possible solution was seen in creating new markets for farm products. With Ford's financial and political backing, the idea of opening up industrial markets for farmers would be translated into a broad movement for scientific research in agriculture that would be labelled "Farm Chemurgy." 2

Why Henry's plans were delayed for more than a half century:

Ethanol has been known as a fuel for many decades. Indeed, when Henry Ford designed the Model T, it was his expectation that ethanol, made from renewable biological materials, would be a major automobile fuel. However, gasoline emerged as the dominant transportation fuel in the early twentieth century because of the ease of operation of gasoline engines with the materials then available for engine construction, a growing supply of cheaper petroleum from oil field discoveries, and intense lobbying by petroleum companies for the federal government to maintain steep alcohol taxes. Many bills proposing a National energy program that made use of Americas vast agricultural resources (for fuel production) were killed by smear campaigns launched by vested petroleum interests. One noteworthy claim put forth by petrol companies was that the U.S. government's plans "robbed taxpayers to make farmers rich".
(3) | () | | send green star | flag as inappropriate
Visibility: Everyone
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted: Jun 11, 2006 6:29am

 
 
 
Content and comments expressed here are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates.

Author

pElAgUS hellot
female , single
Tamarindo, Costa Rica
Shares by Type:
All (1001) | Blog (255) | Alert (445) | Poll (4) | Recipe (12) | Photo (11) | Tribute (59) | Message (215)

Showing shares tagged with: intended [show all]
ads keep care2 free
SHARES FROM PELAGUS'S NETWORK
May
25
(0 comments  |  discussions )
I have always been a strong proponent of a future united, federal Europe - a single European country, as a more progressive, liberal counterpoint towards the current U.S. hegemony and towards the upcoming powers of China, India and Russia. And I feel...
May
18
(0 comments  |  discussions )
The sun in the North is a temporary guestWho brings with him much warmth and light when he comesFor a few precious months every year he keepsUs company through night and day He makes the trees green, he makes flowers bloomHe makes the birds sing, and ...
May
14
(0 comments  |  discussions )
Ashley is our middle cat and only female.At 11:48 a.m. Thursday, 9 May 2013 in a valiant battle against agressive lung cancer, Ashley died at home.
May
9
(0 comments  |  discussions )
The largest genocide in human history happened where? Most people would answer Germany, and the Jewish Holocaust. Actually though, the largest genocide happened in the USA, with the native American Indians, with estimates of 19 million to 100 millio...
May
8
(0 comments  |  discussions )
(0 comments  |  discussions )
Official Nuclear Radiation Study; Tokyo University Hayno, R.S., et al (2013) Internal Radiocesium Contamination of Adults and Children 7 to 20 Months After the Fukushima NPP Accident as Measured by Extensive Whole-Body-Counter Surveys, Proc. Jpn....
May
6
(0 comments  |  discussions )
Toxic radiation accumulates in water supplies after nuclear accidents. Radiation bioconcentrates in fish that live in fresh water and salt water. Runoff of fresh water from land which has been contaminated ends up contaminating oceans, and salt wate...
(0 comments  |  discussions )
66 Atomic Bombs were exploded on the Bikini Island Atolls. Hundreds of islanders were removed from the islands, but not from harms way. One hydrogen bomb exploded near the islands, and the children played with the dust from the bomb, as it fel...
May
5
(0 comments  |  discussions )
"Under our current law, a suspected terrorist on the FBI's No-Fly List can't board an airplane -- but they can still legally purchase guns and explosives. This loophole, known as the “Terror Gap,” is ...
(0 comments  |  0 discussions )
Germany added more solar panels in one month, than the US did in ONE YEAR. Nearly 1/3 of Germany power output is handled by bottoms up solar energy during the middle of the day. The transition to a 100% renewable energy nation is in process. T...

Copyright © 2013 Care2.com, inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved