Posted by: blueram85 | November 11, 2007

Alcohol can be a Gas – initial impressions and comments

I mentioned last week that I took a ride to the US to pick up my copy of Alcohol can be a Gas by David Blume along with a couple other books on Stirling Engines.  I had also ordered a copy of a promotional DVD by David Blume that he made to promote funding for his book.  I think it was the best short trip I have taken in quite a while.  It ended up costing me much less in duty and taxes (even with gas) than having it sent across the border by any shipping company.  Also, I got to catch up on family news with my brother, so a win/win situation for everyone.

 

I took the lazy way to initiate myself into the books contents, I sat and watched the video of David Blume the night after I returned.  I would not say its quality and special effects are on par with “An Inconvenient Truth” featuring Al Gore – film that is designed to effectively make people uncomfortable in their thoughts on Global Warming (not Bush’s callous belittling of the problem by calling it Climate Change).  There are no forklifts to the sky, just a simple introduction and then a cozy seminar given to a group of people about the history of Alcohol and the ways it has been suppressed.  This is certainly not the history lesson I ever was taught when I was fidgeting in my seat at school.

 

 

The book is separated into Six distinct books, and author Blume chooses to begin his tome with the history of Alcohol, he claims it to be the second oldest profession in the world….he doesn’t mention what he believes is the first and I have no intention to go there. 

 

A DVD to educate you on the way you have been misled and lied to!

 

The history lesson on the DVD basically covers the first book of his manuscript, it covers the ways Alcohol and the public has been manhandled by Big Oil – or Megaoilron as he disdainfully defines it.   

 

The video is a disturbing listing of the ways that the use of alcohol (and our personal democratic beliefs) has been eroded simply because MegaOilRon needs to manipulate and use each and every one of us as a deputized agent to dispose of the toxic wastes they produce. I am sure they sit back in their big leather chairs and giggle in their board rooms at the way they have addicted us to their brand of energy and now force us to be their planet killers.  They don’t have to go to any expense to eliminate the toxic wastes they produce, no, they profit handsomely from it, and we are the unwitting accomplices in their drive to kill our planet and our democratic rights as individuals right along with it – They are industry and thus they feel they are the chosen few to topple democracy and make the world into a place where Energy reigns supreme, don’t get me started on the conspiracy to create a one world government with the financial elite deciding what is best for them and destroying public liberty as a desired result. 

 

Be very clear on this: Every time you start your car or burn gas in any application (I include myself here, as being just as guilty), you are being forced to pay more and more for the gas, and have become the unwitting dupe graciously allowed to use your vehicle to dispose of the toxins that are the leftover mess from distilling oil for all the other products that come from a barrel of oil, and profits that makes.  Gas is not a primary product, it is not even the same formulation each time you pump it into your tank, it changes as the various ratios of toxins left over varies day to day, and even hour to hour. 

 

Gasoline is the substance that, in the early part of last century, Rockefeller had left over when he created the fuel for street lamps and other lighting for the cities.  Before they could find a use for it, they simply flushed it into the local rivers.  Henry Ford believed that alcohol was the best fuel, and every Model T was a dual fuel machine – able to run on both alcohol and gas, depending on what was available.  Rural farms all had a still to produce their fuel for the farm, and the city had Rockefeller’s and his industrial compatriots’ gas.  

 

If you believe David Blume – and I do, the Prohibition movement succeeded not as a temperance movement, but as a way for Rockefeller and the Oil industry to destroy the farm still and the independent energy production capacity of the individual.  Rockefeller is said to have provided the Temperance leagues with enough money to buy an all male Congress supported and put in by a drinking electorate, somewhere about 4 or so million dollars at the time – How else would a Congress supported by an all male electorate do something so stupid and self-destructive?

 

So is the call for ethanol as a fuel a new one….not at all, it is just a try to return to the way things were before the Rockefellers and their banking buddies all got together and made a successful try to eliminate competition to a product that they controlled and made enormous profit from…at the expense of the common farmer and workers.  If there is a price difference between two competing products that do the same job, we should have that possibility available. 

 

The rest of Book One goes through the economics of Alcohol as a fuel, and it really is not something that big oil and business wants.  The biggest myth is that if you grow crops for fuel, the world will lose its food – they break it down between food or fuel, Blume makes the argument in a sane and reasoned manner, that we get both with alcohol, as all that is removed is the liquid solar energy, the food that is left as a by-product makes cattle and other livestock bigger, healthier and more nutritious.

 

Big businesses don’t care that the planet is being ruined, and America and Canada’s farmlands raped and destroyed, they want to sell genetically modified seeds and the fertilizer that is required to grow them.  Monsanto is making huge profits, it has been a pick on Cramer’s Mad Money for the simple reason that corn farmers need their seed and fertilizers to grow a crop year in and year out.

 

Blume has an alternative that big business does not want to hear, it is called permaculture – The International Institute of Ecological Agriculture:

 

http://www.permaculture.com

Permaculture is the synergistic growth of multiple crops and different rotations that will nullify the need for modified crops and produce natural fertilizers and actually improve the soil over time not destroy it.  He makes the claim he fed 250 people on two acres of land with his methods.  He says critics claim that is impossible. 

 

The DVD and the Book one go through the ways that this can be done and then points to the country that has done it – Brazil.  They of course had a lot of incentive, they were poor and needed to get their economy on track, they have done it by moving over to use of alcohol as the main fuel, unfortunately overseen by the petroleum industry, but they re doing it, not by cutting down the Amazon, but rather using the Permaculture techniques identified by David Blume in his book, not as a result of his teachings, but by moving back to a closer culture with the natural scheme of things. 

 

You may have noted recently in the news that Brazil has begun fighting the tariffs on the export of alcohol to other countries, US being a main one in this.  They have enough fuel in alcohol to export it, and the entire economy is almost exclusively alcohol driven, the cars all run on alcohol and their car industry must produce alcohol engines for their cars – a thing the industry said could not be done, but was accomplished within 6 months when they were faced with no other option.

 

I urge everyone to go out there and get this book, or at least somehow take a look at the DVD – it is as powerful as Who Killed the Electric Car and An Inconvenient Truth, I won’t tell you the presentation is as flashy, it is only a seminar, but the information is some of the most powerful presented.  No wonder the gas companies forced PBS to kill his original series on Alcohol as a fuel.  It could be looked upon as an instructional manual on self-sufficient farming and energy production in the even of total disaster – or a way to thumb your noses at big oil and their plans on world domination trough the subjugation of democratic principles for their profit and power.

 

I am deep into the Book Two, which is a listing of how to make the actual mash precursor to alcohol, I will give greater details of my thoughts on that in a later comment on the book.  For more details on both the viability of alcohol instead of gas and the ways in which we can work with the planet to grow our fuel and food simultaneously visit the website mentioned above:

 

http://www.permaculture.com

 

I don’t say this is the end all and final testament on getting away from oil, but it is certainly a good start at finding new ways to find Energy with-out Oil. 


Responses

  1. […] read more here […]

  2. Anyone who believes that alcohol is the answer to anything needs to have their head examined.
    Anyone gullible enough to believe the 1204 lies in “Who Killed the Electric Car?” should be forced to own and drive an EV-1 , named last week by Times auto analysts as one of the 50 worst cars ever built.

  3. I must be starting to find topics of interest. This past one generated three comments almost immediately, a record for this short lived blog!

    I believe someone naive enough to believe in the status quo and who is not looking for valid alternatives needs to re-assess their position. As the speech in “The American Presdent” at the end of the film where Michael Douglas finally responds to the allegations of his opponent on his suitability to be president states, Democracy takes a lot of work, and those who will not tolerate the ideas and beliefs of others and do not vigorously support their right to offering their opinions does not deserve either the rights, responsibiities or the obligations of freedom.

    Mr. Beuchert, I will fight for your right to express your opinion as loudly as you wish, but hopefully you will also respect those who are out there trying to evaluate and act on alternatives that the sheeple of the world are unwilling to listen to. A little reasoned argument and constructive debate is more than welcome, but this blog is not for namecalling or other insults. Back your statements with facts or at least references.

    I am so glad the response was so reasoned and full of added information to the discussion. In my opinion, Alcohol seems to be a valid alternative to global Warming for a lot of reasons, from the sources I have, it would not even necessarily have to use the actual food supply of the US or Canada to provide adequate supplies of fuel for the continent. In addition, in conjuntion with different management of growing areas the process could easily improve our food’s nutritional value and reduce the amount of fertilizer and deadly pesticides required to create it. It is quite possible that it could even reenervate the soil that crops are grown on, instead of destroying it with monolithic crops.

    It would certainly seem that Brazil has not found the experience to be useless. That is a real world example of a functioning alcohol economy that has gone so far as to need to begin to export it as a fuel. Unfortunately I do not see an alternative or reasoned arguement to the contrary by Mr. Beuchert. Where are your sources for the statements you made. I would gladly read them and make my own conclusins on their validity. I guarantee I would bring the findings to the readers of the blog – both pro and con.

    As far as the electric car is concerned, I agree, I also wish I could have been forced to own an EV-1. I would have loved being part of those pioneering days where the bugs and could have been eliminated. As far as I can determine given a fair shake, the advantages of electrical power would have forced the focus of the manufacturer onto rational less technical alternatives for motive power, not the fuel cell. Given time and un restrained experimentation the electric car, or a derivative could have been derailed the concentration of the public away from the the oil companies’ darlings, the Hummer and SUV vehicles. Politics and half hearted (if that energetic) participation by GM and the other car companies conscientiously ensured the project would die as quiclkly as possible could be a pretty good explanation for your source’s poor listing of the car – it never had a chance.

    It would seem that an awful lot of other owners who had the car would agree it was an outstanding vehicle. How can I, or for that matter, you know for sure. I only wish the actual link to this “Times Auto Analysts List” was provided so that I could have done further research on the claim. It would have been interesting to see what the other cars were in that list.

    I loved the look of the vehicle and the concept. With such a statement, isn’t it a bit ironic that there simply aren’t any of them left to own or operate. It would have been interesting to see how they aged and how their maintenance and upkeep costs measured up with the gas powered vehicles of their generation. How can you or I ever hope to develop an honest opinion of what they really were like? That freedom to decide was permanently crushed and eliminated by the car companies – not only the EV-1, but all electric cars of the period. Maybe, by accident, they made them too good and didn’t want them to catch on. Unilaterally crushing operating vehicles would ensure that no-one could ever really know.

    Funny though, that crushing defeat didn’t seem to stop the idea from coming back with much more power and consumer appeal nowadays. I still want an electric car more than ever before. It is all part of my decision to produce my blog to try to find an individual way – from an individual homeowner’s perspective – to develop a system to find alternatives for Energy with-out Oil for myself and as many others as possible.

    So, yes, if you feel the “punishment” of forcing me to have to own and operate an EV-1 would have shown me up amd made me sorry, more power to you. Remember, one man’s poison can be another’s ambrosia. But since that alternative is not available for anyone to use, I will continue to look for an effective alternative to eliminate oil and gas from my life and help others find a way to think through and to do it as well. Every little bit helps and the more people who begin to wake from their oil induced stupor and who try to do even a little toward that goal, the more MegaOilron will quake in its oily footprints.

    Notice, however, that my posting made no real comment on the right or wrong of Who Killed the Electric Car – it simply suggested that you watch and listen to the DVD by David Blume – it would get the populace just as angry as with the Electric Car and An Inconvenient Truth, without the high budgets required. It might start to wake up even more sheeple and turn them into active citizens to clean up their environment. I would hope it would begin to shake them out of the apathy that “gasoline as the only fuel they have ever known” has let them fall into. Even more scary for MegaOilron, what would really have happened if they had not been able to stuff the PBS series by David Blume in the 80’s on Alcohol onto a shelf, which did have a budget and post production facilities??????

  4. very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
    Idetrorce

  5. well done, brother

  6. To Blueram85:

    If you want to own an electric car, have your standard car converted to electricity by a California company, EMC.

    This was featured on the science channel mid April, 2008

  7. I just watched 2 lectures Saturday Sept. 20th 2008 with David at ‘The Pennsylvania Renewable Energy & Sustainable Living Festival’. The guy is dead on I’ll tell ya! I work for ‘Conoco Phillips’ Big Oil to you folks. I know what peak oil is, it’s here now and what’s left will only get more expensive to drill. It’s Monday Sept. 22nd 2008, the ‘Dow’ just dropped 370 points, oil surged for a one day record to 130 the last time I checked, and we have a majority of the population, sheep as we know them just willing to keep paying the freight. Wake up America!!!. Dave Blume has good ideas when worked with other energy sources. Alcohol is not the end all here, It will be a combination of wind/solar/transportion energy to keep global economies running. Blume was sold out out of books at this event, but he was shipping one to me today. I can comment further after reading the book. I can’t agree on all the negitive on big oil because he doesn’t know enough about my world. A new drilling rig for the deep offshore costs 600 million at this point and takes 2 to 3 years plus to build. If we can get the deliveries from our vendors. Globally, metals are at a premium. T. Boon Pickens is right in the sense ‘We Can’t Drill Our Way Out Of This’. Every drilling rig in the world is working. Guess what, there are out of date, old riggs, cobbeled together make it work drilling going on right now 24/7. Per OSHA, the most dangerous job in the USA today is a roughneck on a rig. Close to 100 workers dead this year. Look it up. In a transition to other fuel resources we do need to keep crude going in the pipeline. I’m a green guy, and we need to drill ANWAR asap. What has been presented to the American public is a farce. It’s on a flat plane on the north slope of Alaska, not that far from the existing North Slope reserves. We need a pipeline to existing North Slope Facilities and that inferstructure is in place. Google Earth to see where it’s at. Zone in see it’s nothing like certain groups would have us belive, No mountains, no waterfalls, just flat land.
    I’ve rambled enough. Dave Blume has some great idea’s. Get his book! Catch a lecture if you can, I now don’t need a 50 caliber and a goat in the future. Goats stink! LOL. Kurt

  8. […] to Alcohol Can Be A Gas! | Permaculture & Alcohol Can Be A Gas Try this review of his book. Alcohol can be a Gas ? initial impressions and comments Energy with-out Oil Weblog Or listen to his 2 part podcasts (or watch the videos) here Peak Moment: Alcohol Can Be a Gas, […]

  9. Mr Bloom i would like to find out more. please send info to me.

  10. alcohol as fuel can only be useful for all.

  11. The choice is pretty simple the oil mongers blood suckers basically low life old fat cats need to do some or alot of scrutinizing change there filthy oil habit with fields of plants such as hemp Jerusalem crop forget corn it’s dirty like oil we have enough land people engenuety they could still save the world and make wealth:)

  12. Just an update. If anyone really wants to know how an EV-1 drives, handles, and takes modifications just ask anyone at Western Washington University’s VRi (Vehicle Research Institute) Program. They were the only university team to make it to the finals in the Progressive X-Prize with their Viking car. GM donated the car minus the engine. But as resourceful as they are they were able to acquire a working unit and now have an excellent car. So unless you have physically sat and rode in one, I am sorry, please don’t post your uninformed comments. It makes as much sense as a monkey explaining particle physics.


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