I’m going to start a new series called, somewhat unremarkably, Positivity.
There’s a lot of negativity in this world, and if we each take a little bit of time out of our day to appreciate the amazing things happening on this planet and to give out some good vibes in return, things will change.
First (retroactively) in this series is my post on Jonathan Goodwin, next up is David Blume, and his book Alcohol Can Be A Gas!. For alcohol here, read ethanol.
I caught David Blume on Coast to Coast AM, a show famous (or infamous) for Art Bell’s exploration of the supernatural and unexplained. I’ve been a fan for a long time, but rarely listened for the last few years (the show is on late at night, with many commercial interruptions). Recently, my imagination needed a workout (shows you what not writing will do) and I subscribed to StreamLink. All that has changed.
David Blume is a long-time practitioner of Permaculture and the hour and a half he spent on George Noory’s July 17th show has possibly changed my life, but certainly changed my thinking. Radically.
This hit me out of nowhere—and listening to George during the show it hit him just as powerfully. This morning I went to David Blume’s site and his book is sold out almost everywhere. Of course my first thought was “wow, instead of having people wait for 3-4 weeks for the new printing to arrive they should be using POD”. But my second was “Good for them!” He’s clearly struck a nerve.
David’s spiel is this: Alcohol was the original fuel for cars. The Model A and Model T ran on alcohol. Later they became “flex-fuel” vehicles because city-dwellers ran on gasoline (interesting story in itself), while country-folk stuck to their roots of locally produced alcohol (there were actually controls in the car to properly control the carburetor’s mix on the fly). Prohibition wasn’t about drinking alcohol, it was about destroying the possibility of alcohol as fuel, funded by a $4 million “gift” from John D. Rockefeller. This made gasoline the fuel of a nation, and the scourge of the planet. The story goes on…
I must admit, George Monbiot, one of my favorite environmental journalists for at least the last 10 years, had been one of the first to decry ethanol for the simple reason that it’s taking food from people’s mouths. Many have since followed, and I’ve read since in the Financial Times and elsewhere that this is a fact—the rise in demand for food crops to use as fuel has indeed raised commodity prices and literally taken food from people’s mouths.
That, to me, isn’t cool. The solution is consuming less energy. But for many people, especially here in the midwest, is that really feasible?
But this is where David Blume shines—firstly, by each producing our own alcohol (or by doing it community-wide), we’re not interfering in world markets (except by decreasing our consumption of oil). Second, and more importantly, there are much, much better crops than corn for fuel—including Mesquite pods, which grow in the Sonoran desert and only require harvesting (mesquite pods, pressed, also produce the incredibly healthy Peruvian elixir algarrobina). Many of these crops aren’t food. So there’s no conflict.
Alcohol produces very little pollution, is much safer than gasoline to be around (imagine drinking gasoline instead of vodka and you get the idea), and burns more cleanly leading to longer engine life.
There must be a downside here, but I’m not seeing it. It revives farming and community, lowers dependence on oil, all while dramatically lowering air pollution and carbon offset.
David’s book not only shows how to produce alcohol as fuel (David likes to use left-over doughnuts—not only are they high in sugar, but the vegetable oil they’re fried in can be skimmed off the top and burned to power the distiller!) but shows how to legally obtain a license for a distiller (to manufacture for fuel, not consumption), the tax incentives for producing your own fuel as well as converting your car to alcohol (there are lots), and much more. Naturally, I haven’t read it but will very soon.
David’s permaculture.com site has some media clips, or you can pay the $6.95 for a month of coast-to-coast to download the .mp3. It’s well worth it for that show alone.
Here’s to positivity!
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