PETROL SUBSTITUTES.

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 17, 19 July 1918, Page 11

PETROL SUBSTITUTES.

Several of the JBritish motor journals have expressed the opinion that the only way to ensure anything like peace and plenty for the motorist within a reasonable time after the coming of peace is t>y means of that much-debated liquid, alcohol. It is stated that, so far as present indications go, it is. the.only fuel that will ever be permajieritly available in unlimited quantities for the Kingdom, and, if it must come, surely the sooner the better. It is considered that petrol will be extremely scarce for many months after the war, and that it is rather annoying that there is an almost unlimited supply of fuel held lip entirely by antiquated Government restrictions on its sate—restrictions, by the way> in no way nonnested with its use by motorists as such. After the war there is no doubt that France will adopt a mixture of alcohol and benzole as the national motor fuel, particularly for commercial vehicles, agricultural tractors, etc. Alcohol as a motor fuel is no stranger to Frenchmen, and would have been adopted years ago but for the lack of a settled policy to prevent speculation and.violent fluctuations ill piices. Before the' .war there were no vehicles running, entirely oil alcohol; but for two years the Paris General Ommbnr. Company used a 60 per cent, mixture of benzole And alcohol, and only, abandoned it for benzole owing to the steady rise in the price of alcohol. It is the intention, of tlve French Govfernment to secure a monopoly of alcohol, and to encourage its use industrially, while putting », high tax on its ihunia.il consumption. The project comprises the placing at the disposal of motorists a quantity of 22 millions of gallons of alcohol per year, together with the fixation of -prices, for periods of flva .years; the State would cover itself against loss by means of special taxes on all alcohol used for human consumption. It is estimated that the requirements of the firstyear after the war will be 132 millions of gallons, thiis the supply of alcohol alone will not be sufficient to meet the wants of French motorists; whose needs before the war called for the importation of upwards of 60 millions of gallons of motor spirit annually. There appears to be ho doubt with regard to tlie provision of 22 millions of gallons of alcohol annually, for in addition to the supply from beets, synthetic alcohol can be produced by calcium carMde factories erected in large numbers in the Alpine districts of France jsinco the outbreak'of war.