NPR AUDIO ‘TALK OF THE NATION” ALTERNATIVE BIOFUEL
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THE BOOK!
A LITTLE HISTORY
In 1983, David Blume wrote and hosted a 10-part how-to television series called Alcohol as Fuel for KQED, the San Francisco PBS affiliate. He also wrote the definitive how-to book on ethanol, Alcohol Can Be A Gas!, which was going to be sold on the air.
The book was at the printer preparing to go to press, and the first airing of the television series in San Francisco was underway, to be followed by release to 140 PBS stations nationwide. Big Oil got wind of the project and convinced KQED to halt the printing and cancel the release of the series to the rest of PBS.
Although there were lawsuits, KQED’s oil-funded lawyers crushed Blume, and the series ended up locked in KQED’s vault, while the rights to the book went back to Blume. The book sat on the shelf for the past 20 years.
Beginning in 2003, Dave Blume set about updating the book in a big way. He raised money from individuals (not institutions or corporations) to fund his research into the current state of the art in alcohol fuels. He traveled extensively in both the US and Brazil, collecting and documenting innovations and the success of Brazil’s alcohol fuel program. Four years of full-time work with a team of researchers has resulted in a completely new and greatly expanded version of the book.
THE NEW BOOK
Alcohol Can Be a Gas! (subtitled Fueling an Ethanol Revolution for the 21st Century) is an information-dense, highly readable, profusely illustrated manual, covering every aspect of alcohol fuel from history through crops, hands-on fuel production, and vehicle conversion. It’s the first comprehensive book on small- to farm-scale alcohol production and use written in over 90 years.
Internally divided into six books, the single volume contains 640 8.5″ x 11” pages, with more than 500 illustrations, charts, and photos. It sports a 700-word glossary and a full index. It retains the original 1983 foreword by R. Buckminster Fuller. Alcohol Can Be A Gas! is a complete toolbox for farmers, green entrepreneurs, and activists to wrest control of our energy system from the Oilygarchy and put it back in the hands of the public.
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