Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the CAR
ITSELF WAS CONSTRUCTED FROM HEMP! On his large estate, Ford was
photographed among his hemp fields. The car, 'grown from the soil,' had
hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than
steel; Popular Mechanics, 1941.
http://www.illuminati-news.com/marijuana-conspiracy.htm
Rudolf Diesel,
the inventor of the diesel engine, designed it to run on vegetable and
seed oils like hemp; he actually ran the thing on peanut oil for the
1900 World's Fair. Henry Ford used hemp to not only construct cars but
also fuel them.
As an alternative to methanol, hemp has at least one glowing re****t: the
plant produces up to four times more cellulose per acre than trees. And
a hemp crop grows a little quicker than a forest. As for an alternative
to petroleum...
Hemp grows like mad from border to border in America; so shortages are
unlikely. And, unlike petrol, unless we run out of soil, hemp is
renewable.
Growing and harvesting the stuff has much less environmental impact than
procuring oil.
Hemp fuel is biodegradable; so oil spills become fertilizer not
eco-catastrophes.
Hemp fuel does not contribute to sulfur dioxide air poisoning. Other
noxious emissions like carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons are radically
slashed by using "biodiesel.
Hemp fuel is nontoxic and only a mild skin irritant; anybody who,s ever
cleaned out an old carburetor with gasoline can confirm the same is not
true for petrol.
Growing hemp for fuel would be a tremendous boon for American farmers
and the agricultural industry, as opposed to people like, say, the Bush
family.
And that,s why hemp might not go anywhere as a fuel alternative. Oil
interests are big and donate likewise to politicians, and selling a man
on an idea that will cost him more than he,ll benefit requires an
amazingly skilled orator -- or a gun. Unfortunately, unless you,re the
federal government, gunpoint conversions are usually illegal. Ergo, PR
is about the best bet right now.
There are many people working hard on this front, including the Hemp Car
and its intrepid crew. Currently ginning up for a trans-America
evangelism tour, the Hemp Car plans to spread the good word of hemp-fuel
viability at stops in both the U.S. and Canada. For whatever good it
will do, they should make sure to stop by Wa****ngton, D.C., and have a
word with President George W. Bush. The current oil crisis and our
nation,s dependency on sometimes-persnickety foreign sources might find
the new chief executive with an open mind to fuel sources other than
Texas tea -- regardless of his oily bank accounts. And, while salvaging
his dad's legacy is not Goal 1 for Dubya, it might also help him look
more forward thinking in terms of energy policy and the environment.
Of course, hemp fuel may never take off. It might dry up like all those
hemp crops left unattended after the feds banned their cultivation in
the 1930s. One way or the other, Bush should consider freeing up the
market to innovate with alternative fuels like hemp oil -- it couldn,t
hurt, and it stands the chance to help. In so doing, he,ll end his term
with a far better moniker than the "environmental president." For, if
other policy decisions he makes go in a similar direction, we can
perhaps call him the "free-market president."
http://www.rockhawk.com/gasoline_and_hemp.htm
Fuel of the Future
When Henry Ford told a New York Times re****ter that ethyl alcohol was
"the fuel of the future" in 1925, he was expressing an opinion that was
widely shared in the automotive industry. "The fuel of the future is
going to come from fruit like that sumach out by the road, or from
apples, weeds, sawdust -- almost anything," he said. "There is fuel in
every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There's enough
alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the
machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years." Ford
recognized the utility of the hemp plant. He constructed a car of resin
stiffened hemp fiber, and even ran the car on ethanol made from hemp.
Ford knew that hemp could produce vast economic resources if widely
cultivated.
Ford's optimistic appraisal of cellulose and crop based ethyl alcohol
fuel can be read in several ways. First, it can be seen as an oblique
jab at a competitor. General Motors had come to considerable grief that
summer of 1925 over another octane boosting fuel called tetra-ethyl
lead, and government officials had been quietly in touch with Ford
engineers about alternatives to leaded gasoline additives. Secondly, by
1925 the American farms that Ford loved were facing an economic crisis
that would later intensify with the depression. Although the causes of
the crisis were complex, one possible solution was seen in creating new
markets for farm products. With Ford's financial and political backing,
the idea of opening up industrial markets for farmers would be
translated into a broad movement for scientific research in agriculture
that would be labelled "Farm Chemurgy." 2
Why Henry's plans were delayed for more than a half century: Ethanol has
been known as a fuel for many decades. Indeed, when Henry Ford designed
the Model T, it was his expectation that ethanol, made from renewable
biological materials, would be a major automobile fuel. However,
gasoline emerged as the dominant trans****tation fuel in the early
twentieth century because of the ease of operation of gasoline engines
with the materials then available for engine construction, a growing
supply of cheaper petroleum from oil field discoveries, and intense
lobbying by petroleum companies for the federal government to maintain
steep alcohol taxes. Many bills proposing a National energy program that
made use of Americas vast agricultural resources (for fuel production)
were killed by smear campaigns launched by vested petroleum interests.
One noteworthy claim put forth by petrol companies was that the U.S.
government's plans "robbed taxpayers to make farmers rich".
http://www.hempcar.org/ford.shtml
http://www.rense.com/general67/FORD.H
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