THE FUTURE OF ALCOHOL.

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13488, 19 May 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE FUTURE OF ALCOHOL.

King Alcohol is not to be put out of business by prohibition. The more he is prevented from taking the motivepower from the musclee of imbibers, the more he will transfer his attention to putting it into mechanical motors. He will have to be denatured, of course, and greatly cheapened; but all this is more than nossible. A contributer vo The Rural New Yorker points out that the increasing demand for gas-fuel and quick-heat and the desire to make waste into value have combined with the requirements of the munitions-makers to turn the attention of chemists to denatured or industrial alcohol. He goes

"As a gas-fuel, alcohol is not as good \ as gasoline in theory, it is already onesixth burned up, but, mixed with air, it can he more compressed before it explodes from the heat of compression, and this tends to equalise them. As a quick heater, alcohol has no equal; it is safe and odorless. In its most recent solidified form it is also cheap since there is no loss when not burining. "The munitions-makers use alcohol and its derivatives, ether and acetone, and their demands have forced the price rather high. This condition will not last, and meanwhile the prohibition of alcohol as a drink—or 'food,' if you wish: it is going to be prohibited anyhow —makes available a number of going concerns which can as well produce denatured alcohol.

be solved, if he is willing to pay the price, but the price will surprise Mr Ford. There is an idea that farmers were misled in respect to cheap alcohol, but the only trouble was that the lawwas 2u years ahead of its time. Any farmer who has or can buy the waste, and has the outfit and the knowledge, can make denatured alcohol. Lot; ot them have the waste, cheap and efficient outfits will come on demand, but the skill to manage a few hundred billion yeast-cells so as to make them work atji profit is rather more than is required to make a profit out of 5<J cows. Mat it is not unattainable.

"Another waste which is getting a lot of attention is the waste liquors" from the wood-pulp industry. They grind up a lot of wood in these milk- every day, and a S ood halt of it goes into solution, and this solution is fermentable but getting veast-c-ells to live and work in this sulfite waste is no easy matter. There are those who claim they are doing it. however, and others are taking any sort of waste wood and cooking it with acid till they get a lermentable liquid. But thev have their troubles also. Materials which are i-tarchy or .sugary in their natural state are, after all, the best food for the yeast-cell and these are wasted everv year by the ton. When we have learned, by Mr Ford's help or otherwise, t0 use these, there will be cheap fuel for all the motors. But like pasteurizing milk while any one can make alcohol it will be most cheaply made at centrai co-operat.ve plants and their establishment will probably be the ultimate solution of the problem involved in the production of industrial-alcohol "