What you need to know about making ethanol fuel

Ethanol fuel is a plant-derived fuel that can be mixed with gasoline or used only for use in almost any internal combustion engine. This means that cars, trucks, boats, and even lawn mowers can use ethanol as a fuel source. Ethanol has several advantages over gasoline, the two predominant advantages being that it is a renewable energy source and dramatically reduces pollutants.

Making ethanol fuel is not a difficult task, and almost anyone can legally do theirs. Ethanol fuel is made using a distillation process that works to ferment plant matter. Corn, sugar cane, and potatoes are just some of the ideal candidates for making ethanol fuel. Ethanol fuel can also be made from the remnants of these plant materials.

One fact that most people don't know is that the first cars that were introduced didn't run on gasoline, but on alcohol. This was also true for farm tractors and large industrial-size engines. Gasoline was not used until it became more widely available and the cost of producing denatured ethanol increased.

Ethanol alcohol burns so cleanly that it can be used in closed rooms to burn lanterns or stoves and will not leave toxic or odorous vapors. It has been used as a fuel source for more than a century. It is derived from plants, and the by-product of burning is the release of carbon dioxide, which plants need to breathe. This is opposed to gasoline which produces carbon monoxide when burned, which is deadly to most life forms on Earth. Ethanol also has a much higher octane rating than gasoline, which provides better performance when used in automobiles.

More and more people have chosen to start making their own ethanol fuel to power their private vehicles. An acre of corn is estimated to produce enough ethanol fuel to power a low-mileage vehicle per gallon for approximately five thousand miles. This gives many individuals, not all of them farmers, many incentives to make their own ethanol fuel. Some use it as fuel on its own, while others use it to stretch the gasoline they use by mixing it with their gasoline.