Alcohol Can Be A Gas
March 13, 2010 by Robby · Leave a Comment
Hey everyone,
A life changing book, even for people who have already been exposed to permaculture.
Praise for the Book
“Humanity has used up roughly half of the world’s oil and topsoil. Just in time, David Blume has given us Alcohol Can Be A Gas! It’s a practical road map for supplying all of our energy needs without drilling, strip-mining, and/or depleting the soil. In fact, following Blume’s model, soil fertility would actually increase worldwide; energy production would be not only sustainable, but democratic-and highly profitable on the small scale. This is a brilliant visionary work. And, with Mr. Blume’s witty personality, reading it is certainly a gas.”
-Larry Korn, soil scientist, translator, and editor of The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming
“As intersections of the food-energy-climate matrix form in Iowa cornfields, Amazonian rain forests, and Canadian gene-splicing labs, and as end-game battles for their control pit theocratic flat-worlders against biologists, climatologists, and tree-huggers over the very survival of life on Earth, David Blume emerges like a wizard on a misty pinnacle, backlit by the full moon, revealing a gemstone in his extended palm.”
-Albert Bates, author of the Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing Times
“The overarching importance of this delightful book is that it demonstrates how beside the point is the current pseudo-debate about the net energy from corn ethanol. As Blume demonstrates, fuel alcohol must be an important component of our solar-based future. It can be made from a huge variety of feedstocks, including sugar beets and cane, nuts, mesquite, Jerusalem artichokes, algae, even coffee-bean pulp; there is no real scarcity of land to grow fuel. There is a scarcity of independent, original thinking, and Blume’s book provides plenty of it, along with ample doses of amazing, startling, and sometimes scary information-ecological, technological, and political-economic. This is a vast, detailed compendium drawn from decades of experience by an alert, smart, and skeptical hands-on thinker. Blume has given us his biofuels bible, and we can learn from him and survive quite nicely-or follow what he calls MegaOilron into oblivion.”
-Ernest Callenbach, author of Ecotopia, Ecotopia Emerging, and Ecology: a Pocket Guide
“Brilliant! This book should be on the reading list of every American!!”
-Thom Hartmann, New York Times bestselling author and nationally syndicated host of The Thom Hartmann Program on Air America
“Dave Blume has written the definitive opus on alcohol as a fuel. From the 30,000-foot view to the most minute technical detail, Alcohol Can be a Gas! makes a strong case for the practical, ecological, political, and economic sense in converting to ethanol. It’s heartening to see the world’s original alcohol pioneer stay abreast of the times with a book that has the promise to knock some sense into our insidious fossil-fueled economy. This book is much needed in this era of Peak Oil and fast-accelerating climate change.”
-John Schaeffer, President and founder of Real Goods, and executive director of the Institute for Solar Living
“What a tour de force! This is the most comprehensive and authoritative guide through all the controversy about ethanol as transportation fuel, showing it as a clear winner in the quest for solutions to our environmental and geopolitical problems. Engagingly written, full of important and amazing information and resources, this book meets every challenge to the vision for a clean, democratic path to a prosperous future for all.”
-Joe Jordan Ph.D., atmospheric researcher, NASA/Ames research center,
Seti Institute, and Cabrillo College
“Finally, an alcohol book for the layman and backyard enthusiast. In our culture’s collective, industrialized love affair with mega-everything, Blume cuts across the government-subsidized factories with ecologically practical models. Here is a viable energy system that can be embedded in a region, linking rural producers to urban users of energy and food. Self-reliance and resiliency follow community-based alcohol production, and we all owe a debt of gratitude to Blume for codifying his life’s passion in what is a veritable compendium of information.”
-Joel Salatin, farmer, and author of You Can Farm and Everything I Want to do is Illegal
“Ethanol champion David Blume has completed his opus, Alcohol Can Be a Gas! It is a great read. The history of petroleum, history of alcohol, technical coverage of production process, vehicle development (conversion), and feedstocks-it’s all in the text, complete with charts and pictures. David’s wit, wisdom, and hardcore experience illuminate this biofuel’s potential. We have eagerly awaited this publication and will use it in our Sustainable Transportation and Biofuels courses.”
-Dr. Jack Martin, Appropriate Technology Program, Appalachian State University;
vice-chair of Renewable Fuels and Transportation Dvision, American Solar Energy Society
