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Diesel engines can be made to run on a variety of mixtures, one of the most interesting being waste cooking oil from fast food restaurants. These can be strained of major impurities and a cheap additive mixed in, and they seem to run just fine in diesel engines. Alcohol burns very well in internal combustion engines and is used in racing applications around the world. BTU of alcohol vs gasoline is low, but it does burn clean and efficiently, allowing very high compression ratios to be used. You can't simply go out and plant some corn and begin distilling your own fuel for your car. Distilling anything that can be consumed by humans is strictly governed by ATF rules and you can't even get a permit to distill liquid spirits for your own consumption any more (you once could distill your own liquor, up to a specified maximum, as long as it was for your own consumption and you didn't sell any of it). Several USA automakers are producing vehicles that are equipped to run on various blends of alcohol and gasoline. More are coming to market and this will be a fairly standard thing within the next two years. Don't get too excited - when we reach the point where we can purchase pure alcohol fuel (Everclear?) it will be treated with chemicals to make it unfit for human consumption. Bummer.
Preston
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