Alternative fuels are today’s buzzwords. In the past 12 months we have seen the price of crude per barrel go over $100, literally doubling. What about next year? We must find an alternative, and soon.
The impetus propelling us towards alternative fuels is then price. As cost of gasoline goes up we look to see what else we can use. Gasohol is one of these, but it is not a new form of fuel. In 1985, its use was put forward in Thailand, so gasohol is about 30 years old. Wrong! I date gasohol back to 1960.
Gasoline was still very cheap, so why would anyone look to inventing the gasoline/alcohol mixture, which would become known as ‘gasohol’? Surprise, surprise, the impetus was still cost, despite the cheapness and availability of gasoline. There were those who could not afford it. I was one.
In 1960, I was the proverbial starving medical student. I had an 11 year old car (an Austin A40) and lived in a cheap flat. My car represented two years of celibacy as women cost money (they did then as they still do now). Money supply was minute.
I was forced to attend biochemistry classes once a week, and it was in the bichem laboratory that I saw these huge carboys filled with crude petroleum and crude alcohol. In my impecunious state, I suddenly saw salvation. It was one of those ‘Eureka!’ moments, that would later change the entire history of the world. If I could get my car to run on a mixture of crude petroleum and crude alcohol, I had a free source of ‘petrol’ every Thursday.
The plan was hatched. Every Thursday I would park as close to the front door of the biochemistry lab as I could, and would remember my white lab coat. The pockets were large enough to carry one 500 ml flask in each, and it was a simple trip down the stairs and empty the flasks into the waiting car.
Now those with a modicum of biochemical knowledge will know there is a problem with water being released when you mix the two and you have to have a drying tower. I did not have access to dehydration drying columns, but I did have access to 100 percent ether, which I knew could absorb the water. The final mixture that was laboriously dispensed and poured into my fuel tank had a 50:50 mixture of petroleum and alcohol with one liter of ether in every five liters of mixture. Thursday afternoons were very busy, filling 500 ml flasks, trotting down the stairs and keeping a record of how many flasks of each I had appropriated. My car ran, it could go one complete week on the biochem lab mixture, and I had, without knowing it at the time, invented ‘Gasohol 50’.
